TheSignalEngineer

Clactons in various liveries used to appear on a working from Manchester to Birmingham in the late afternoon at that time IIRC.

Most courier firms have minimum sizes that will go through their automatic sorting systems without getting eaten.

The rules are different now, but physical fitness was very useful when the signalman forgot where you were working and put a 47 with 10 loaded TEAs through you at 3am

I'll raise you to Loco+exSR Van C (Guard's periscopes on roof and centre single door)+exLMS BG+Mk1 BG+GUV+GUV+Mk1 BG+exGW Fruit D+exLNER Long CCT+exLNER Thompson matchboard BG+Mk1 BSK (B4 bogies)+exSR PMV

There's a nice shot in TI about mid 1960 taken July 1959 I think. It shows D6301 piloting 5028 on the Cornishman at Newton Abbot. The first coach is a maroon Thompson followed IIRC by a choc/cream Mk1.

I paid less than a fiver for the one that my grandchildren use on the shunting plank. It's got all four buffers and the lining is complete. In that condition at Cartmel it would probably be advertised at £100+.

Korean War - no, wrong emblem. Vietnam War?

Another offering from Cumbria's finest. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LIMA-MODEL-No-1653-BR-No-D2785-0-4-0-DS-DIESEL-SHUNTER-/271162604759?pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item3f228cfcd7 "in original good condition" my @£$&.

It would be nice to see it in the north (wishful thinking), but Devon or Cornwall would be a good cover for a holiday.

No, it was a small family firm called A J Follows &Sons. The dairy was at 293 Harborne Lane, on the boundary of Harborne and Selly Oak. The building at the entrance is now the shop selling triathlon kit. When they delivered to us they had milk from 4 farms in the Woodgate Valley/Frankley areas. There were also cows on the site in Vincent Drive where the new hospital stands.

An ancestor of OSS? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wardie-Master-Models-Horse-Cart-/281164101105?pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item4176afb5f1

Sounds like Yodel. We had a parcel of books delivered yesterday. Left in the back garden. Good job the bookseller is sealing everything in plastic since our previous complaint.

All relisted at the same price including the upside down Class 31. Sounds like he is following in the footsteps of our usual favourites.

Where we lived in Birmingham our milk was delivered by horse OSS and cart until about 1957. During the last winter it operated it was the only vehicle to get on and off the estate for 3 days after a heavy snowfall. At the Christmas when he retired the milkman had a drink at so many houses that he was almost unable to stand after doing our road at the end of the round. He pulled himself onto the cart, let off the brake and shook the reins whereupon the horse OSS took him the 2 miles back to the dairy. Edit - terminology changed from Harborne to Black Country.

Hi Jason We were talking about bathroom waste hoppers at the show earlier today and when I was Googling around Bacup looking at the originals of your buildings I found this at co-ordinates 53°42'05.55" N 2°11'51.67" W. It's on Central View showing the back of the houses on Industrial Street. Shows both the hopper to drainpipe and stink pole variations. I suspect bathrooms were added at different times and Building Regs had changed in between times. Looks like you can do whichever you like and be right. Eric

He's got another pair finishing tomorrow and two more pairs next weekend.

Looks about the condition of a Superquick model I lurking on a shelf in my garage. Must have been there about 5 years. Will have been pulped by the recyclers now.

Coal sticking to vertical surfaces? Must have a high tar content.

Given the situation in 1918 a like-for-like swap would have been most probable. This would have meant no alterations to the rodding outside. Regarding Mike's comment, if the previous frame was a Twist, I have seen conditions added to these but as a separate tappet tray. Levers had to be arranged to take account of what the locking could be made to do on old non-tappet frames.

Off-topic, but the EMU driver at Monmore Green was Driver W A West of Coventry. At the Stechford crash two years earlier Driver West was at the controls of a Down EMU standing in the station when the accident happened, the derailed train stopping about 50 yards in front of him. Whilst checking some details of the Stechford accident I found a press cutting of an earlier accident where a DMU was hit there by a Holyhead-London freight. The name of the DMU driver was given as W West.

The Princes End branch was used for Sunday diversions during the electrification work at Wolverhampton. One particular train was the 10.25am DMU 2H67 from Birmingham to Stoke-on-Trent and Manchester which ran via Tipton, Wednesbury, Walsall and Rugeley. Jan Ford describes a journey on it here http://janfordsworld.blogspot.co.uk/2007/06/sunday-stroll-to-stafford.html. Then of course, as I mentioned some time ago, there was Spam 79 on a CrankEx in 1964.

The Signal gang at Oswestry had some kind of pre grouping Southern coach as a Mess Van in the mid 1960s. It turned up at Saltley for one job around 1967. Not sure of the type as I couldn't afford much film in those days, and haven't managed to find a published picture of it.

I was at Tipton one day around 1967 when a 304 was wrongly routed towards Princes End, shuddering to a halt as it ran out of wires.