big jim

I didn’t get it unfortunately ive got a go pro mount on the bottom of the headlight bracket and I’ve got a cheap generic Amazon go pro that I may mount on the front for town driving!

Got knocked off my bike earlier in town on a roundabout, I was going straight on (2nd exit) a car stopped at the entry ahead of me (1st exit to the left) then decided to pull out in about 20ft in front of me, had to do an avoiding manoeuvre but my front wheel hit his front wing/wheel and by the time he saw me he’d come to a stop with me level with his window which was 1/2 open and he had a right go at me! i suppose it was because I was blending in with my surroundings with the clothes I was wearing and was a bit inconspicuous to other road users (it was daylight btw) He didn’t stop either just drove off, I’ve got an slightly buckled wheel now though!

Final night of the trafford park job 37099 in crewe Blue pullman HST powercar 37099 then came back and through the centre road and off toward Manchester, not sure if it was a road learner on the job itself We got held in Piccadilly for a while so I grabbed a photo And then back to crewe at 07:00 this morning, colas 56078 waiting to head off to Stoke with a spoil train That’s me until Saturday now, RHTT job with the 66s

defiantly not. No clips or collars on them

It’s the front headrests that won’t come out, the backs were fine as per the diagram

Nope the rods were solid in the seat, the headrest bit moved up and down but that was it

I had a Vauxhall mokka as a hire car the other week, a mid sized SUV type car, I had to collect a full length intergrated fridge freezer in it, great I thought, plenty of room as it certainly wouldn’t have gone in the mini, first I pushed the front seat right forward and it wouldn’t fit at the back by about 3 inches, not a problem, tip the seat back to its fully reclined position, slide the fridge over the seat and done, the seat then didn’t recline fully vertically by design so it caught in the headrest as I tried to push it over, simple, take the headrest off to slide it over the front seat without, at that point I discovered the headrest is a permanent feature, not removable in any way shape or form so I ended up having to drive back home with the fridge sticking out if the back and the tailgate bungee strapped down! a big(ish) car but useless for transporting anything of any significant size

Weigh in day and as suspected the week of hotel food and not much cycling has resulted in a 1.5lb gain, 2nd consecutive week of weight gain, not as much as I thought it would be but I really need to get back into the swing of things food and exercise wise this week, I’m now 17.4 Stone ive suddenly started to eat a lot more white bread again than I did a couple of months ago, before it was maybe a slice a day of wholemeal as toast with say scrambled egg and then have wraps etc for dinner but I’ve now jumped to 4 slices of white toast for breakfast and no egg, I really need to get back out of that habit as that is what makes me feel bloated, at least 2 slices and a couple of eggs scrambled filled me up nicely and I didn’t feel bloated, it’s been a strange week as I‘be used all my weight watchers points for the day every day and also gone into and over my spare weekly points which I’ve never done before, almost like I’m boredom eating the wrong things, i just need to have a bit more discipline to stay within the points and get back to making my own food again im off to the caravan on Sunday for 4 days so I’ll be getting lots of walking in up there as well as a few runs I recon, I’ll also try and get a few swims in too, unfortunately I won’t be able to get the bike there this time round due to the Touareg not having a bike carrier or is be out and about on that too So am I disappointed by the weight gain, yes a little bit but It wasn’t unexpected as I know I’ve been very lax with eating and exercise through no fault of my own, if I smash it this week and lose a bit it will be the motivation I need to get below the 17 Stone mark

Just a couple again, trafford park job again run round in manchester 172 unit in nuneaton last night of it tonight

Tell me about it, off to cumbria myself on Saturday to the caravan after work and absolutely dread hitting junction 30 to 33 at the wrong time!

Won another BDA off eBay so will us the 2nd broken 3D print box on that one now I can then slowly build up a rake of them if I spot any other BDA wagons going cheap anywhere i thought I’d dropped a ball with it as after I won it I noticed it had handbrake wheels on the bogies rather than linkage as per the first wagon but having looked on Flickr it seems the real things have a mix of linkage and bogie mounted handbrakes, looking forward to doing a few of these over time, just need to get some track wired up to actually run trains now though!

So it’s always been a nightmare that junction looking at the line of cars coming from the M61 direction. similar viewpoint today, the M61 slip road now runs to the right of the trees and joins the opposite side of the bridge the photo was taken from

HSTs on water jetters, now I like that idea, don’t think it would clean much at 125mph though! Thing is using things other than 66s would involve new wiring on the wagons (unless it was a blue star or AAR fitted multi working loco) otherwise you would have to isolate the rear loco every time you change ends if it’s not in multi, class 37s for example on the RHTT (or infrastructure trains) if the through wagon blue star connection isn’t working the rear loco has to be manned as it doesn’t have any automatic fire protection and the driver wouldn’t know if it were to catch fire, it also has to have a key left in and be left in neutral, only minor things but the train is suddenly double manned (even if only by a shunter) but costs are doubled and time, which is tight on these circuits, is also added every time you change ends there is also the issue of training drivers, I had a week last month doing MPVs, that’s took me out of the ‘productive’ pool for a week while there were jobs uncovered I could do, using the likes of HST powercars would mean drivers would have to learn them, not many freight company drivers have experience of anything other than 66s yet alone a former dedicated passenger loco so it would be another time consuming issue, there was a rumour last week (and I stress very much a rumour from an over enthusiastic employee, ie not happening!) that we at GB we’re going to hire in 37s for the RHTT to free up 66s, sounds fantastic I hear you say, only issue being there are only 2 of us who sign all the Midlands part of the 3J02 RHTT circuit AND class 37s and only 2 who sign both 37s and the southern half of the circuit so that would require the other drivers being trained or the same 4 drivers glued to the RHTT for 3 months (there is only me and one other who could instruct and assess on them but again it takes us out of the productive pool while we do it) Long gone are the days of ‘any old loco’ on trains like these as delays on them are very costly, cancellations more so, we had an issue last week with a jetter and had to return to shed 3 times in the night, we couldn’t just abandon the train at the first issue, we sat there while it was attempted to be repaired and had to going out until it got to a point where my day was up and we had to abandon the circuit and get back to base As you can see it’s not quite as cut and dried as just putting a different loco the front on unfortunately, lots of things to factor in, training, traction and route knowledge, infrastructure etc still wouldn’t say no to a HST on it though, to be honest if I could have a class 69 conversion I’d have a go with a pair of those on it (if we had more than a pair available!)

Thought I’d better show willing and get a piccie from last nights job for you all, one of those can’t be bothered with pictures nights! 66715 in nuneaton on the trafford park to Southampton job on the again tonight and tomorrow too

I must admit when I initially had the fault I had to undo one of the cable ties that attached the loom to the frame to pull apart the electrical connection between the loom and motor and they seemed very tight and I wondered if the cable had been crimped but Halfords say it’s the motor so we’ll have to wait and see when I get the replacement fitted!

Only one from last night, possession train from aynho jn to bescot, then a bit of a break and another one from landor st to bescot 66758 on the first trip

A ghost in the permit to travel machine kings Sutton station this evening a BR/NSE permit to travel machine, there is also one at lapworth apparently

I think my front wheel bearing might have slightly gone on the diesel mini! Unfortunately the Touareg is also off the road, failed it’s MOT with a broken spring, track rod ems and has a slow puncture so it’s down to the red mini for a bit which my wife may have to use to go to the caravan on Friday if the Touareg doesn’t come back in time! and to top that off my electric bike is knackered too with at least a 2 week wait for parts

Shockingly bad week for exercise this week, no running, walking was up a bit and only 20 mile on the bike as it is knackered, managed 9 mile on it before it broke and the other 11 have been on my mums old RooDog bike that was given to Dominic Halfords suspect the motor has overspun on my bike as even after changing the cassette back to the original one it’s still throwing up error 2 and 42 codes so it needs a new rear wheel/motor assembly which is going to take at least 2 weeks to arrive so thankfully I’ve got the other bike to use (as also the Touareg and now the white mini are off the road with no MOT and wheel bearing problems respectively) The ‘new’ bike is a bit strange to ride after 1300 mile on mine, it’s smaller, narrower handlebars, smaller wheels, not as many gears and most annoyingly no speedo or battery % meter, just a set of 4 lights, this early in I don’t know quite how much power each light represents so I’m carrying the charger and topping it up as and when I can hopefully I can get a few miles in next week but I’m only needing to go to the station a few times, otherwise it’s back to running to get myself back on track

May as well update their thread I suppose rather than putting pics in my layout one not done anything major really, sold most of the IM stuff in this thread now apart from the DBSO and UTU coach only thing I’ve done recently apart from some point carrying wagons was a quick conversion of a BDA wagon to a ‘Lobster’ wagon using 3D printed parts off eBay, actually a fellow GBRf driver it was just a simple job of removing the bogies and underframe details which are in a single moulded panel, remove the cross member stantions and glueing they box to the wagon and painting it It unfortunately arrived snapped in half but I’ve managed to use it anyway, I’ll add a load to it so it’s not noticeable thanks to some advice from jack on here I got some VW Mars red to spray the box and wagon which is as close to DB schenker red as possible from a rattle can I recon, the beauty of this conversion is I didn’t have to mess about repainting and masking off underframe details and only had to mask the buffer shanks and refit the buffer heads once finished, my kind of modelling, minimum effort! really pleased with the result, a mere 30 minute work really just need some decals for it and done, got another box here so will have to find me a cheap BDA to do another one here it is with my lightly weathered Bachmann 66175

Tidied up around the bridge area earlier in readyness to try and do a bit more over the next few weeks and months picked up a used faller bridge from footplate models in Kidderminster yesterday for a few quid to see how it looked at the rear of the layout behind the ‘ironbridge’ However Once it was in place I thought it looked a bit too overkill with the other 2 bridges so took it back off I then remembered I had 4 laser cut bridges which are low profile, i put two of them side by side and they sit nicely behind the ironbridge and they don’t overshadow it or the Stone bridge I think when I get round to it I’ll go the low profile bridge route

You were most likely taking to my trainee last night, I always let them speak to the signallers, some get a bit nervous but they have to do it at some point!

Last night of it yesterday Here we go again Oh look, Coventry! Rugeley New st, got off the unit for some grub last night Last night we got to Lichfield high level as there was no possession on And back to base 66030 passing by with a steel train, must have been banked up the lickey as it waited there while the banking loco passed it heading back to bescot night off tonight then taking a train off a possession in banbury tomorrow afternoon

Just 3 from last night Birmingham international coventry last night of it tonight, not on it next week, got trafford park, hopefully assessing and passing out a driver on the route and the class 66 RHTT at the end of the week