big jim

Some from yesterday, nuneaton to bescot 172 in nuneaton 66770 Bescot and this morning in shrewsbury We went off to coton hill to run round and then back to Washwood heath to discharge the stone at Cemex and then home couple of days off now, then a meeting on Friday in london

is the upside down Fanta bottle an integral part of the layout?

A bit more mocking up this evening.... I had the idea last week to put a set of crossovers on the back wall where the figure of 8 is on the same level, doing that means I can run trains just on the lower level if I want, I can then play shunting on the high level Round to the station side, thought I’d try an island platform this time and move the run round loop for the heritage line (read on for further changes to that idea) Track placed on the high level, mainline, shunt neck, crossovers to the mill branch line and oil terminal 2 double slips to allow traffic in and out in all directions and to and from the branch! Motivation pics, 37099 passing through the station with the UTU and SGT train, pair of DRS 37s on a snow plough test run and the loadhaul 121 on the heritage line I Then looked at changing the run round loop, changed it into a release road with a link to the main line Enough room for 2 coaches and loco in the neck, I can then move a different loco from the siding/shed into the station and set the coaches back if I replace one of the plain crossovers in the set up in the first lot of pics above With a single slip I can have trains depart the heritage line and cross over to the correct line when they reach it And on to the Narrow gauge line over the mainline and into the mill The Main line branch line will end at the mill next to the narrow gauge line, the narrow gauge line which will have a run round loop

Rail drop in banbury last night with 66720 again bescot run round in a dark and wet banbury Set back into banbury platform and home I went! short(ish) week coming up, couple of cement trains and a trip to head office on Friday

oooh, that’s the first suggestion that’s made me go “maybe...... just maybe” let’s hope your right as I’d be more than up for that

Those Sound like 2 possible names for TPE class 68s

Good show as usual, deadman’s lane 2 deep every time I passed by, excellent trade support as always came away with a pair of flangeway snowploughs in NR livery (shame they only do one number though!) and a few bits for the layout no car park issues, firm ground in the grass so no one bogged down that I could see

Hold on to your hats, I’m on my way!!

I’ll also add this for those reluctant to get the test done, whatever your opinion of Ricky gervais is, love or hate him this is 5 minutes of TV that gets straight to the point with the superb Karl Pilkington getting an unannounced prostate examination, yes it’s set up for TV but it gets the message across that 10 seconds of uncomfort can save your life (and some superb one liners from Karl!) https://dai.ly/x2yy0aa

I’ve put the link below in my ‘down by the tracks thread’ but not everyone reads it so I’ll repost here as it’s highly appropriate https://www.gbrfcharityrailtours.co.uk/news GBRf are running a 4 day charity railtour later in 2020 raising money for their new chosen charity prostrate cancer UK, you can read the reasons behind it in the link Of course, I’ve volunteered and hope to get to do something over the course of the tour

Loco swap last night and a bit of chaos! met the train in crewe, was supposed to be Manchester but to save a drive I arranged to get on at basford hall DRS 68s with a single PFA with an unusual load my train with 66774 this time And off to Manchester I went only to get stuck outside Trafford park for 90 minutes due to a track circuit failure caused by the freightliner service in front of me, it actually caused all the passenger services to be cancelled or diverted too! despite being late the train left only 20 mins late from Manchester and I was back on time in nuneaton back on it tonight, last night of it this week then a possession on Saturday night

Here is another load for the DRS wagons, not a clue what this is all about, never seen this type of container before but it does have radioactive symbols on so it’s ‘live’

Very much so! some from last night landor st trafford park nuneaton same again tonight but only from crewe

I think the same, maybe they would just replace it with something more substantial on the existing pillars saying that if you do street view and ‘drive’ below it the deck is well supported and the sides are quite thick

As a slight aside the former Dee marsh to mickle Trafford line as a new bridge over the A494 near queensferry which replaced the former road over rail bridge near ‘drome corner’ at the entrance to the RAF camp the old bridge was a 4 lane dual carriageway but was practically a hump back bridge with no visibility beyond it until you were at the top of it, add to that a set of traffic lights a mile or so up the road at shotwick and it being the main road out of north wales in the summer there was always incidents there with cars coming over the bridge at 60+ mph to find stationary traffic the other side so it was decided to remove the bridge and widen the road etc as the former trackbed is now a cycle path they needed to put a bridge in over the new road layout road however the bridge they had to put in needed to be strong enough to carry a railway again should the line ever reopen (as is I believe the case with sustrains cycle paths) hence why the new bridge is such a substantial feature (and is quite a nice welcome into wales too) Dragon Bridge Deeside CH5 2LT https://goo.gl/maps/VnYXY1Vwrt8R9LXR8

coz it’s always raining in Manchester so it gets a wash every day

it’s all about sustainability these days!

My dad’s police car when we lived in Llwyngwril was his own MGB-GT! I seem to remember his ‘official issue’ vehicle was a mini van (this was between 1979 and 1982)

Just a few from last night, loco swap from 66777 to 66720 in its celeb cartoon livery scary to think that the girl who designed the livery for the competition is now 16 years old! there was a competition in the last GBRF staff magazine asking for kids to design a new livery, I gave mine the templates but they couldn’t be bothered doing anything as it didn’t involve staring at a screen so I gave up asking same again tonight but only to trafford park

As soon as info becomes available then I’ll post up in here im of course going to volunteer to help crew it, I’ve got my class 1 loco hauled ticket and a nice varied route card with some ‘unusual’ places on it as well as a good traction card so here’s hoping I get something (if anyone from GBRf planning is reading this a nice trip to Aberystwyth with a 97 would be nice or a trundle down the heart of wales!)

Yep, it’s not the easiest to assist something that fails between shrewsbury and Gobowen, I had to do it a few years back when a freightliner 66 came to a stand just past leaton crossing heading north, I had to go from chick to shrewsbury, back to the train at leaton then drag it bang road back to shrewsbury, Leaton crossing under local control etc, as the 66 was still running I dragged the train into the platform at shrewsbury, isolated the class 60 (which was now on the rear, and got the 66 driver to draw the whole lot forward into coton hill, there must have been something seriously wrong with the 66 as it couldn’t even drag the train into the yard so I had to deisolate the 60 and push the whole lot in From the rear, the 60 not even breaking into a sweat! then after all that lot to get back to chirk you had to go past chirk all the way To Wrexham to change ends and come back again, I remember telling control it was going to take the best part of 4 hours from leaving chirk to getting back and they didn’t believe me, they said it should be doable in an hour and half, sure enough just after 4 hours after leaving I got back!

Hot news...... GBRf will be running it’s monster 4 day charity rail tour again this year raising money to fight prostate cancer a launch video has been put on line and further details will be released over the next few weeks as things are finalised https://www.gbrfcharityrailtours.co.uk/news

it used to be you weren’t allowed into the engine room of a 66 for 45 minutes after the engine had shut down and the ‘crankcase pressure sensor’ message came up on the emdec, that rule I believe has been dropped now

Some of my dads old pics I uploaded to photobucket many years back, not took any notice of the cars before but they fit in this thread nicely crewe depot mid you look closely in this pic the 37 had just derailed on the points, the lead bogie is in the dirt!