big jim

Well if nothing else Hattons are honest in their 2nd hand listings!

It all starts for me (and @Marcus 37 ) tonight, I’m getting passed out on kings Norton to reddish and I’m passing him out on Aston to Lichfield on the MPV circuit on its first night out in anger spraying Sunday I’ve got the class 66 circuit, last time I looked 66731 ‘Tom Moore’ was on the shakedown runs so I’m hoping it’s been swapped out otherwise it’s going to get filthy very quickly!

My accurascale order history looks rather strange, KUA nuclear wagons followed by a pack of chaldrons! interesting little wagon, never heard of them until today to be honest but I can picture them nicely running behind my Peckett or NCB loco on the preserved part of my layout (if I ever finish it)

ah well the thing is with ERTMS/ECTS you don’t need windscreens apparently as the train will tell you where to brake and speed up on the screen so you don’t need to sign a route in the traditional way by actually knowing where you are, one of the original ‘benefits’ of ertms was supposedly that as it’s a universal system no matter what train or country you were in you could drive an ertms fitted train, effectively you could get on a train in Scotland and work it through to Spain under the same signalling, I think Saltley men did something similar in the 70s and 80s so nothing new there really! corneleuslundies point about keeping the driver focused is why the Cambrian 97s are double manned, you spend so much time looking down at the DMI screen that they have a 2nd man to help observe all the crossings on the line, not needed in the 158s TFW use as the screen is in relative eyeline with the drivers window whereas the 97 has it low down so you have to physically move your neck to look down and away from the windscreen to monitor the in cab screen A lot of units now have limited visibility especially to the sides, 196s for example, small side window and unable to stand up and lean out of the cab door window to observe your train in a platform, it’s all on monitors in the cab nothing beats a 165 for side visibility in a station, nice big cab door drop light window, you can stand in the cab door and operate doors from there as well as being able to drive from there stood up too

Just a couple from last night Dangerous Brian getting ready to ride to the station! Running round in Bescot And back in crewe this morning 47828 on the Buxton spa express same job tonight

no s**t Sherlock, wonder why?

Just one from last night, crewe to small Heath same job tonight but via the cannock chase line with a run round in Bescot and Tyseley!

Just 3 from this morning from a very wet Oxford, did a ballast from Ruislip to hinksey and home, no hire car, no taxi showed up and the train delayed by 40 minutes between Oxford and home so we’ll over my day and put me in a bad mood! 66731 after running round in hinksey Oxford station small Heath ballast tonight

Decided to have a ride on the bike today as it was a nice morning and I’m not in work until later on took the bike on the roof rack to do the old leek and manifold railway from Waterhouses to hulme end, just over 8 miles each way on the old trackbed of the 2”6’ narrow gauge line that run up the manifold valley serving farms and small communities, it was built for dairy traffic but also carried passengers, a link to Wikipedia is below to see a bit more about the line https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leek_and_Manifold_Valley_Light_Railway the ride is absolutely brilliant, tarmac all the way, some a bit rough in places but nothing really bad, the ride starts at the old interchange station at Waterhouse’s where the narrow gauge line was alongside the main line you then cross the main road and head off up the valley The trackbed looks like a road but this is for cycles and pedestrians only Lots and lots of bridges crossing over the meandering river, the river however was completely dry today! It then narrowed and the line twisted and curved along the valley bed Lots of Rocky outcrops to be seen en route And then through Swainsley tunnel, after this the trackbed is shared by a road for a short while which looks to have replaced the old road with a weak bridge Into the shaded valley, the trackbed sightly higher than the river on a ledge The platform on the right is the old milk churn loading platform for Ecton creameries which was off to the right behind me And the end of the line at hulme end, the old station building now used as toilets and a small visitor exhibition which has a static 009 model of the station and surrounding area The tea rooms built to look like the old carriage shed that used to stand at that location, inside 2 of the roof joists/legs are the original ones used in the new construction Nice lemon meringue pie too! And heading back the other way to Waterhouses, just after leaving Hulme end before the valley starts to close in An old crossing The tunnel again lots of sweeping curves Thor’s cave above the river And back to Waterhouses, no more pics there though Some fantastic video of the line on YouTube can be seen here i then set off for home but decided to stop at rudyard lake and do a circular ride around there, there is a miniature railway that runs for a short distance alongside the lake along the old trackbed of the line from north rode jn to uttoxeter via leek they had a loco in steam today on the hourly service It’s an impressive set up with the whole station area signalled properly with colour lights etc The line runs unfenced alongside the footpath After that ends it’s cycle/footpath only to the end of the lake I then went back up the other side of the lake Past the abandoned cliffe park hall, apparently it used to be a youth hostel that has now been left derelict for whatever reason Then it was back down the hill to the dam end of the lake which was very low on water The train was making its way back as I came back along the old trackbed And back at the station by that time the steam loco had come off and a diesel had taken over for the last train of the day The line even has automatic 1/2 barriers! And that was that for the day, in later tonight Sudbury to Hinksey possession train

I’m just gutted that thanks to the selfish panic buying fuel idiots I didn’t have the fuel to make it over this morning, I managed to get some just after dinner time in leek (I decided to put the bike on the roof rack and do a localish ride instead) I considered driving over but decided against it as thought a lot of the bargains will have gone by the time I’d have got there at about 14:30 had I made it as planned earlier in the day I was going to combine it with a ride into Leicester on the bike from quorn then get the train back to Loughborough and ride back to quorn again oh well, maybe next time

whoops! I’ve just been going on weight watchers showing egg as being a zero point food, I think a lot of that fat/carbs is probably the bread anyway, May as well have a McDonald’s double sausage muffin if that’s the case saying that being out on my bike today has burned off 1300 calories with another ride to do to the station later

I did consider going to the Bachmann sales event in quorn today but quite simply didn’t have the fuel in the car to get there so I went out witg the bike on the roof to ride the leek and manifold railway, fuel light came on just past Stoke which would have just got me home but on the way back I’ve managed to get £20 of diesel in the car at leek without issue, no queue, could have been selfish and filled it up but £20 will last me a couple of weeks now! Lack of fuel I can live with but what’s upsetting me is the lack of breakfast omelette in every branch of Greggs I’ve been into this last week!

Sorry for the lack of updates this week, quite simply, couldn’t be bothered! same job every night in the dark, same loco, same stopping places, not worth any pics really, the only one of note was this colas 56 in crewe that I saw while getting my bike from the messroom anyway on to today, something new(ish), I’ve refreshed Birch Coppice and today worked a train out of there for the first time since Fastline days with a 56 up front! todays loco was 66773 ‘pride of GBRF’ with its pride flags and rainbow decals, quite apt as it was also Birmingham pride today and I took it through the outskirts of the city first time I’ve driven that particular loco in this guise panorama viewed from Kingsbury shunt frame box worked that through to rugby taxi back to bescot for a ballast towards coleshill as the driver didn’t sign to there Coleshill After that it was back to bescot for another ballast, this time to nuneaton where fellow rmwebber @Erixtar1992 took over to take it to a possession south of rugby, no pics as it was dark by then back in tomorrow, possession train from Sudbury on the chilterns to hinksey then a few days of small heath and East Midlands gateway on Saturday, then the RHTT starts in anger!

I had a feeling it was first responder just after I posted the question but wasn’t sure about the C bit just cycled past the nearest petrol station to me on the way home from the station and there was a queue of about 10-15 cars waiting out in the main road cars waiting to go in for fuel, earlier today I really thought it was all just a one day panic and over reaction after the taxi I was in got fuel in rugby with virtually no wait but after seeing that at just before midnight tonight I really despair that This won’t be the last of the madness we see for a while! Thank god I’ve got a good shift pattern that I can use the bike all next week

What’s a cfr?

I’m ina taxi from rugby to bescot at the moment and the driver stopped at the Tesco for fuel, only about a 5 minute wait in the queue, no more than a normal Saturday afternoon really hopefully i can get some diesel when I get back to crewe later as I’m in the red and I want to go out to leek with the bike on the roof rack tomorrow to do the leek and manifold trail! whatever happens next week (as it has been the last 3 months) I can use the bike every day for work anyway

same here on the bike! we now have problems in work as hire car companies can’t supply vehicles for this weekends diagrams, I can use the train in and out every day anyway but the middle of my job tomorrow involves a couple of taxis now as there is no hire car, which I can see being a problem as drivers may not be wanting to take on either medium distance (rugby to bescot) or short distances fares (coleshill to birch coppice) to conserve fuel! It’s going to be a long chaotic weekend I recon

You and your yellows!

By the sounds of it you may as well have just bought a used class 50 in any livery for probably 1/2 the price of what you paid for the GB livery one and repainted it!

That’s a shame, I don’t want to have to download and run another app just to use that function or indeed have strava running all the time while out and about on the bike as that’s really just where my ride data is uploaded to rather than being a sat nav as I prefer to use Komoot if I do use the nav function

@37114 just been looking at that ‘angi’ fall detector, can’t work out if you need to have the ‘specialised’ app or the likes of strava running for it to detect the fall, I don’t normally have an app running while riding on routes I know such as home to the station or wolves to bescot so unless it can work independently linked to the phone it would be no good most of the time for me my Apple Watch doesn’t do fall detection either, it’s series 4 and above and mine is a series 3

the Komoot app has a function called beacon which is similar, I’ve not properly looked at how it works but I put my wife’s number in and if something happens It alerts her, not checked if it’s automatic though, I’ll have a look at it later now you have given me the heads up as something to think about The latest Apple Watch does it too but I don’t think my series 3 does

Hank loves his boxes too!

Not much to report for weigh in day, only about 1/2lb lost but I was a bit lax with my points last week using up my ‘spare’ weekly points (points you can dip into if you use your daily quota) I only normally use maybe 5 a week extra but last week I used the full 40 extra! as for the bike, just shy of 1100 miles now and I’ve completed a strava challenge to cover 300 miles in September, since the 1st I’ve covered 305 miles with 10 days to go got some more lights from the Amazon warehouse, this time £6 a pair and they are really good, little so attach to the forks which in turn shine on not only the road but the reflective spokes to increase visibility, they also have a light sensor so as well as being able to leave them on you can have them come on when light levels drop which I didn’t realise they did until I started riding along, handy for the tunnels on the Birmingham canals! no excuse not to see me while out and about now! ive put one of the spare tail lights on my helmet too Ask in readyness for winter ive bought thermal snood, balaclava and gloves as this morning it was beginning to get quite cold riding home this week has been a pain for exercise with the shift I’m on, I’m only getting 5 mile a day in riding and in the day I’m asleep so I’m not able to get any walking or running in, hopefully make up for it Friday when I’m off with a run and a bike ride somewhere, my job Saturday I’m considering maybe riding from hams hall to birch coppice and putting the bike in the loco again