big jim

Some from today, crewe to Ditton and back to Leicester Crewe with 701007 being hauled to Ditton ditton And back into Leicester LIP, my loco for tomorrow alongside as I say, 56 to Warrington to move some 777 units around

Small Heath job yesterday started with the driver I was relieving saying he’s been asked to rescue a failed freightliner that was blocking the mainline from landor st, I got to small Heath station just as he was moving off to rescue it, he is a new driver, only been out for about a month so I left him to it to get a bit of experience in! northbound freightliner passing by the closed new st bound platforms after protecting his train the driver waited at his protection point with a red flag the rescue loco then ran over his detonators and headed toward the stricken trains and coupled up it then dragged it forward to small Heath where it was detached and ran into Tyseley to head back to small Heath but not before a GBRf 47 passed on the goods loop heading to Eastleigh I’ll be seeing more of this loco later today! back in small Heath I thought I go for an arty shot of a class 70 through the signal gantry then low and behold another one went in the opposite direction! being unloaded Being as we had lost 2 hours unloading time rescuing the freightliner I was asked to stay on to get the train unloaded which I agreed to as it was only going to bescot, or so I thought, turned out it was actually going to crewe gresty lane! Normally I’d be happy to be working a train there as it’s only a couple of miles from home but I’d driven my car to bescot so that’s now stuck there until the weekend to add to the problems the train was so late that it was going to head toward a possession at penkridge which would have scuppered it going north but thankfully I sign all round Birmingham and the Midlands so I left bordesley and went via new st to soho, over to Perry Barr through bescot, over to Walsall and over the chase line to rugeley and onward to Stafford and crewe, I finally got there 90 mins late (but 2 1/2 hours later than I thought I was due to get to bescot!) in after rest today now but thankfully my train has been rescheduled to run 3 hours later than planned so it’s not off crewe until about 15:30 so it all works out nicely but it may make tomorrow’s job late as a knock on effect!

i got it on line, I can’t remember the company but it came painted with the Zimmer frame, some money from it went to charity too, it was only about £10 if that

I’ll have to give them a call, no separate decoder in the parcel but the box does say DCC rather than DCC ready EDIT: apparently they send the decoder out in a separate consignment!

I was just ringing Bachmann to chase it up when he door went so I cut the call off after a couple of rings and it was the parcel arriving! One quick question, I ordered it with a DCC chip, is it prefitted to the loco? on display now with my mini (very tall!) Sir Tom

willows way have a paypal donation page http://paypal.me/willowsway678 ive already raised £25!

ive heard a lot about keto diets, im quite happy carrying on doing what i am which is just weight watchers. i have cut down on bread, potatoes, cheese, chocolate etc, i used to get through a loaf of warburtons a day after toast for breakfast, cheese sandwiches, bread and butter with dinner etc, ill now have one slice a day if that, ive switched to wraps or thins chocolate wise ive gone from maybe 4 or 5 full size chocolate bars a day to one or two sugar free low calorie bars, crisps have gone replaced by things like lentil or pea crisps, similarly tea and biscuits used to be half a dozen bourbons now its one sugar free cookie to dunk daily mc donalds are a no no, i can still have them but mainly the chicken stuff rather than beef burgers, i still have greggs egg bap breakfasts most days, they fill me up nicely and egg is a ‘free food’ the only points are on the bread roll its been fairly easy so far, i do get cravings now and again for things like chippy chips or chocolate but have managed to resist falling off the wagon too often

I made a pact with a driver at Holyhead that once I got below a certain weight I’d climb a mountain with her, well that’s escalated and it looks like I’ll be doing it in aid of willows way cat rescue in Cheshire, I’ve got about 2 Stone more to lose before I said I’d give it a go so I’ve got to get some serious walking practice in now! anyway back to last nights job, shrewsbury to derby with a Stone train caught the train from crewe 4S47 with DB 90s up front DC Rail 60 in the bay TFW 158 175 323 in Tommy’s lane And my train to shrewsbury, a pair of 153s, wouldn’t fancy them all the way to Cardiff! Looks quite like a 155 unit in that pic Into shrewsbury, wmt 170s including one in freshly painted EMR livery! Units on the stabling point A quick vid of the somersault signal at the end of platform 7 I then took the train to derby Today I went over to Lincoln to collect some items I bought from the classifieds before work, thank you Tim’s trains, pleasure to meet you, the items will be well looked after! anyway I decided to drive back a different way as I was heading to bescot rather than home and I stumbled upon RAF waddington, more to the post its resident vulcan I know nothing about planes but these are E-3D sentry that I saw from the viewing park (which makes a mean egg butty!) one then taxied to the runway And away it went It was then over to bescot for a Stone train back to crewe waiting for the road at Stafford and off at basford hall Walked back to my car to get the steps in for the day, LSL blue Pullman HST on shed, never noticed it has a name until today Colas 56 and DRS 57 And that was that! small Heath to bescot tomorrow evening

I think I’m going to have to chase mine up again tomorrow!

I spoke to the collectors club earlier, there has been some sort of confusion and despite payment going out last Monday for some reason it’s not been dispatched, I’m waiting for them to get back to me about it as they don’t know what has happened but hopefully it should be sorted and be with me soon

The IR lamps are linked to the forward facing cameras that go through to the SGT (structure gauging train) coach which records the view from the front (or rear if being hauled) the idea is that if the data that the lasers pick up show something out of gauge they can go back and review the footage to see what the item was, a lot of the time it’s overhanging trees and vegetation they use IR as the SGT can only run at night while recording so they need good picture quality and we can’t be blinding other trains or people with a huge array of auxiliary lights one quick pic as a slight aside, I’ve made reference to losing weight, I went shopping earlier and filled a bag with the equivalent of my current weight loss then picked it up and it was quite shocking as to how much timber I’m not carrying about any more, I’ve lost just over 2 Stone (13kg) which is roughly what’s shown in the 2nd pic! made me feel quite good when I actually felt the loss in real terms, the 4xl jumper is hanging off me now too!

Scary thing is the type of people who do that actually run our country https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/moment-david-cameron-became-a-victim-of-crime-6903226.html%3famp He had chained up his bike inPortobello Road, less than a mile from his home, as he went into a supermarket to buy salad for dinner. However, when he returned five minutes later, the bike was gone. Mr Cameron had chained it to a 2ft bollard, allowing thieves to lift both the bicycle and the lock clear.

T-cut barely touched it as it was so bad, the kit has different grades of abrasive pads in the drill that you start with the roughest and work you way down to the finest to remove the previous grades scratches and finally you put polishing paste on (which is the same colour and consistency as T-cut!) and wipe it off it’s the circular abrasive action with the pads which makes all the difference the only thing I have read is you really need to put some sort of UV protection on them afterwards to stop them misting again in the long term but the way I go through cars I’m not too bothered about that

Restored the headlights today with a 3M headlight restorer kit, they have come out really well Before, lots of scratches and yellowing you basically use a drill and sand the lenses down with 3 very fine abrasive discs getting finer then apply a polishing compound which gets rid of the fine scratches and dirt on the lens ive also changed the grille to black and added OEM spotlights as well as blacking out the chrome on the lower grille

I’ve not had a fedex delivery this week, I’ll chase it up on Monday with Bachmann

To Anyone who has received their Tom moore, how long after ordering/paying have they arrived and which parcel delivery company was used?

I didn’t go via Melton Mowbray, We went Grantham to Nottingham

Some from last night hither green to chiselhurst to change ends then it was a circular tour around london to get to the ECML from Camden and away to peterborough And off to derby and into the rtc and home

lightweight!

I think hotel life has driven me mad this week, just been enjoying a live zoom gig by the comedian Boothby Graffoe and he has a song called Hartlepool which is about hanging a monkey and all the regular zoom goers have stuffed monkeys on the screen, of course I couldn’t get one to hand so I had to improvise with a paper cup, menu, coke bottle lids and ketchup for ‘glue’! I have of course left it staring at the door to creep the cleaners out in the morning!

I made the same comment last night to the driver, I’ve got a good route card, basically from Carlisle to london Marylebone but it pails into insignificance compared to what he knows around london and the south east, I don’t think there was anywhere this last week he said “I don’t sign down there” remember Tonbridge depot also work the weed killers and SITT throughout the year over a lot of the lines so they can keep knowledge up on that job I certainly wouldn’t want to be a new driver coming into the job now based in the south east, ok they won’t have as much knowledge as an older hand ex BR driver but there is still a lot to learn especially if the job goes wrong and you need to divert off route around some obscure loop line!

that’s an ex FGW motorail vehicle, the bottom of the sides (used to) drop down to form a ramp to allow the cars to board

My conductor is the same one I’ve had all week he’s based in Tonbridge but is an ex BR southern region second man and juice jockey so has immense london route knowledge

Some of mine from last night, a few spotters and fotters about including @adb968008who came over to Victoria to see the train as can be seen above Hither Green I made reference to the fact that now I’ve lost weight I can get through the fan end door of a class 37 again which i couldn’t without greasing myself up 2 months ago, for those who’ve never seen a 37 inside, this is the space I have to go down on prep and this is the door to the fan end of the loco, I’m crouching down and as you can see it’s a lot narrower than me, the door the other end of the fan room is narrower due to the angle of the outer wall, it’s only about 12” wide so you can imagine whichever way I went in it was a squeeze when I was 2 Stone heavier back in February and I couldn’t get out the other end! prepping the loco Ready to roll Orpington and away to victoria All the way to Littlehampton recording from sutton And over to bognor Retro 313 back round to eastbourne and away to Orpington again this morning and into hither green to stable Heading home tonight via the ECML to derby small Heath ballast next week for a few days and a couple of days of class 47 work shunting 777 units around

he’s on it now!