TheSignalEngineer

It is 157.4798thou or 4mm (approximately 5.4%) too long. The BR diagram shows 18'6" over headstocks and the Bachmann version scales off at 19'6".

One was photographed on the Halesowen Branch on what appears to be an Engineers train on Sunday 4th September 1955 http://www.photobydjnorton.com/RailwayPictures/58143AppHunningtonViaductKM.jpg Any advances on that date?

Sounds like a Baldrick moment. Our cunning plan is we haven't got a plan, that way nobody will know what we are doing and can't say it's our fault when it goes wrong.

Not always a bad thing. I was displaced on one occasion and my promotion prospects in that particular line took a step backwards. Rather than stagnate I took a sideways move to a job which would give me some different experience. Due to promotional opportunities opening up and another reorganisation, within less than three years I ended up back with my old office but two steps higher than when I left.

Prototype for everything corner?

Warning - Political Content Ahead (but purely for historical context.) One thing we have to face is that railways have been a political football since the 1830s. William Ewart Gladstone, as President of The Board of Trade, introduced the 1844 Railway Act. This was the first attempt at 'nationalisation' and imposed many Government controls on what railway companies could and couldn't do. The main reason that the railways were not nationalised following this Act was the 'free enterprise' culture in the mid-Victorian period prevented it. Had not the issue of Ireland intervened Gladstone would probably had another bite at the railway companies when he became Prime Minister in 1868. For those interested in the politico-economic argument surrounding the issues of State control of the railways this academic paper has some interesting observations on the history of it from an economist's viewpoint http://www.socsci.ulst.ac.uk/econpolitics/profiles/mf.bailey/bailey_1844.pdf The writer's final point sums up a lot of the comments made on here "Ultimately, it seems that the main lasting value of the debate surrounding the 1844 Act is as an example of how ideas reoccur in economics."

Re-orgs,re-orgs. In my 30 years service before privatisation I can remember being affected by about 15, of which at least two were still-born and three others were overtaken by the following one. In the late 1970s/ early 1980s there was a team based at Euston House whose sole function was to think up re-organisations. It didn't matter who or where as long as there was a re-org going on somewhere. i think it was to keep the Unions occupied so they didn't have time to cause trouble elsewhere.

I fear that we will end up in the same state as our water system. As I drive around I am delayed at three or four different places every week by United Utilities digging up the road to fix water problems. Most are caused by years of neglect and under investment in keeping the system up to scratch just to please bean counters and shareholders. Doing that may be acceptable to the water industry but I hate to think of the consequences of applying the same principles to railway tracks or signalling. We have already seen it to an extent with incidents such as Lamington Viaduct, those will just be the tip of the iceberg - lucky escapes - until we get another Clapham or Hatfield, then they will all be running around trying to shift the blame to the poor s*d on the ground

They had the Railway Clearing House to apportion various dues under running powers and cross boundary traffic. IIRC it took about 12 years after Nationalisation to sort out all of the bills.

Latest order arrived quickly and better price than big boys. Top service.

No, that one was to do with the politics of the Grand Junction, London & Birmingham and Birmingham & Oxford Junction. Captain Huish, the Chairman of the Grand Junction, wanted an amalgamation with the L&B to give a direct route from London to Manchester and Liverpool. Possibly to force the issue he courted the B&OJR, part of the GWR camp, with promises of through services from Paddington to Manchester. This persuded the L&B to join with the Grand Junction and Liverpool & Manchester to form the LNWR. Huish insisted that the B&OJR Duddeston Viaduct was still built even though he had no intention of letting Paddington have access to his empire.

The idea is not that far fetched. The remnants of the real Hope Street lie just to the south of Birmingham city centre about half a mile from what could have become the GCR route from Marylebone to Moor Street. The Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway had its eyes on reaching Birmingham when the original North Warwickshire line proposal was approved in 1894. The MS&L purchased a large shareholding in the permanently financially broke E&WJR in 1893. Its idea was to promote doubling of the E&WJR from Stratford-upon-Avon to a new junction with the MS&L London Extension near Woodford Halse, thus giving a route from London to Birmingham which was 10 miles shorter than the GWR via Oxford. The plan faltered when the GCR, as the MS&L had then become, did a deal with the GWR over access to London. The GWR stepped in and took over the North Warwickshire project in 1900. By the time construction started the independent route from Hall Green to Moor Street via Sparkbrook had been abandoned in favour of joining the GWR line at Tyseley.

May be just samples as there is a big fingerprint in the back of DoDo's cab.

Looks a nice model. I think I can justify 42968 with a 5A plate as I am doing West Midlands c1960.

I still see the older stock with plastic wheels on a well-known auction site as well as at shows and even some in shops. I have not had plastic wheels in any of the later packaging and many of the earlier packs still around have a label about metal wheels.

From Parkside Dundas website home page (My italics and underline)

It's their way of encouraging modelling. You buy it then get out the scalpel, file and plasticard to put it how it should be before a respray.

There were a few ficticious names on at least one DMU blind in BR days. When WMPTE were trying to decide on what services to re-introduce or extend I remember one set running around with 'Woodgate Valley' on the blind. I don't know whether they realised Dowery Dell viaduct had gone over 10 years earlier or if they were going to come via Halesowen.

Andy's photo shows up much better than the earlier one. I've also seen a video of Warley in another thread where the shades look totally different when taken from another angle, although still slightly yellow-ish on the Custard. Perhaps the match between the lighting and the colour balance of the camera was a bit out?

If they had been rejected all the more reason not to display them. As far as asking is concerned it's a bit difficult when you are 100+ miles away. Then you have to rely on what gets posted.

If I were them I wouldn't even have put the BR one in the display case. I certainly won't be pre-ordering and unless it is drastically improved I won't be buying either.

The pictures in the OP show them in the open position except for the one to the extreme left in the first one. I am about to start doing some myself so took some pictures of them on the Midland Dining Car at the NRM recently. This is in the closed position.

No thanks, I've got four which may need re-homing already.

And before the days of riding in the back cab there would be a standard BR Vac-fitted Brake Van just to keep the guard warm.

The familiarity factor can have a large bearing on SPAD and similar incidents. When i did a road commute I regularly drove the same roads at the same time every day. By Friday I would get to the state where I had no idea where on the M1 I actually was. To overcome this I worked out four routes of similar length and drove at least one variation during each week, sometimes depending on roadworks, incidents etc. I found that by doing this I was also more awake when I got to work than using the same routine every day. I remember that before sectorisation most New Street drivers used to work cyclic rosters which took them on different routes and traction. Over a period of about two months they would cover most of the relief points and loco types on services passing through. It must have been much better than driving the same type of train on a captive service for a TOC or tram operator.