big jim

Nice! im finding its nice to be of an age to be able to do stuff to cars that I’ve always fancied doing and be able to afford to do it and more importantly be able to insure the modifications!

Probably get shot down for this but.....by god that’s ugly! edit: typically the car I’m quoting is at the bottom of the last page

Are you having a Mid life crisis? like me with the cooper!

Some from last night, bear with me in this one, a complicated route to remember! traction conducted a driver on the 37 and DBSO as he doesn’t sign them, shared the driving though as it was a long night started out in hither green Loco for the night, 37057 Bo peep jn, st Leonard’s into hastings changed ends and away to eastbourne 171 unit and away to Brighton, stopped in lewes to let a unit past, stunning looking station Into brighton From Brighton back to lewes and down to Newhaven and seaford then back to lewes and up to wivelsfield and that was it for pics but we then went back to lewes, Eastbourne again, Hastings, tonbridge and back to hither green! back on it tonight, not properly looked at the job but we do london Victoria and Bognor Regis at some point!

I’m saying nothing!

Been looking at a superchip bluefin for the cooper, stage 1 gives it 8bhp extra which is neither here nor there really however stage 2 will give it 40bhp more but that’s designed for cars with updated supercharger pulleys and larger intercooler, as my car is about to hit the magic 100k miles where they recommend a supercharger oil service I may well get the pulley changed over for a 17% variant while the local performance mini specialists have the charger off, they charge £375 for the service which being as its a complete front of the car off job is a good price as they do them day in day out so have it done in 5 hours, to swap the pulley only adds £30 to the labour cost as it’s a lot easier to do while the supercharger is off the car, I can get a pulley and belt for £95 myself that they are happy to fit, I can get a used bluefin handset off eBay for £30 and they will “reblow” it for £160 which is a considerable saving over the £250 for a brand new handset/chip IF I do all that it should push out the best part of 220-230bhp which is John cooper works territory However before all that i’ve Got to replace the front top struts and rear brake callipers, they are in stock at home but just trying to find the time to get it in to be done, oh and taking the lowering springs off the convertible and returning it to standard is another job too thankfully the murano only cost me £65 to put right for the MOT the joys of running modern classics

I absolutely love Nissan cubes! My wife said said she wouldn’t be seen dead in one though

Only one from last night, should have been a rail delivery train returning to Scunthorpe but it was just light loco from Landor st to Sheffield via Leicester, looking at real time trains it seems to have disappeared after hexthorpe jn so I suspect it went straight to Roberts road or Doncaster decoy rather than going to Scunthorpe for nothing 66782 this time

Never thought of a depot like coleham, I can visualise a perfect place for it to go as well

2 from last night, rugby to crewe, 66714 again and into crewe landor st to Sheffield tonight

Good thing is everything is loose so I could potentially just bin the whole idea and start again! First up the ramp, using smaller buildings the steps up and not as bad got a prebuilt Metcalfe church off eBay last week which I think will look good on the mound at the back of the town, again just placed roughly the gate will Ben higher up the mound when I build it with a war memorial at street level, the buildings I’ve placed don’t look too bad to be honest! as for the castle idea, that can go the other side of the ‘river’ on the small corner board, even thought of having it like Conwy and have the tracks going through the walls! im going to swap the narrow ‘bridge’ plank for a full width board (under the bingo etc) finishing about 2-3 inches back from the edge of the lower board all round so the town had a longer/wider footprint and the bridge is shorter Back wall again, the right hand board will Be ever so slightly lower than the left so when the track comes over the bridge there will be a slight embankment before it drops to baseboard level where there will be points to cross into a couple of goods loops on either side of the main lines Oil terminal in the corner where I was going to put a quarry Metal sleepers represent the mainline and wooden sleepers are goods loops, the board nearest the camera will be narrowed to allow the low level ‘heritage line’ to run in front, possibly with a passing loop so I can only really get a couple of sidings in on that side should I decide to My only concern now is lack of operational interest, admittedly I’m just happy watching trains go round and round with minimum of fuss but I’m thinking I need some sort of mainline stabling point/depot/fuel point somewhere on the layout too but on the same hand I don’t want to overpower the layout with tracks everywhere as there are quite a lot on the long non window side already

Couple from last night, bescot to portobello jn on a ballast drop, 3 miles direct but had to go via perry Barr and soho, run round in Wolverhampton and back south to site ready to leave bescot And run round in Wolverhampton in later with a rail delivery train returning from rugby to crewe Basford hall, not a bad little job really

That’s the fella, only managed a couple of trips over it in the end and gonna be a while before I get to do it again I recon as I’m busy next week possession in Wolverhampton tonight, one back from rugby tomorrow night, Sheffield Monday night then 3 days in london working out of hither green exploring the south coast!

It Wouldn’t be issues with 68s and sleeper coaches, they don’t use them on the sleeper trains, most likely a 92 on it i did hear there were some sort of brakes issues last week though that meant part of a complete rake of sleepers had to go to longsight for wheel turning

As a slight aside these are visible from the derby to Birmingham line between Wilnecote and Tamworth stations https://goo.gl/maps/DdfvYrVtfBmevq867

Just one pic before I go to sleep, 66713 in rugby on the car train, it’s a long old thing, 2500ft long

Just 3 from yesterday/this morning warrington bank quay, nice long train for a change, 18 wagons worth Run round in bicester at 04:30 wagons deposited and waiting for the relief driver to take it onward light engine i believe next week is the final week of MOD trains to and from bicester before the flow switches to another depot should be road learning Peterborough again tonight but been asked to work a car train in the wcml instead, first one I’ve worked!

The XJ220 is still one of my favourite cars ever since I saw the jaguar press car (J999JAG) driving down the road outside Mold in north wales back in about 1993 i got Top Gear magazine the following month (possibly even the first issue ever) which had a free poster of the car the photo of which was taken outside sychdyn hall which was about a mile from where I saw it

Road learning Leicester to Peterborough this week between jobs, had a first run out over it on an intermodal service to get the basics in, I have done a few trips over it with Colas being conducted in the past, seems like a straight forward route, lots of crossings though, absolute block signalling and even a single lower quadrant signal on the wrong side of the track! Peterborough anglia 170 And back to nuneaton to get my train back to crewe later in the evening, a new to West Midlands trains class 172 in use on the new nuneaton to Leamington spa service Quite fancy getting March or Ely too at some point, maybe even Felixstowe

And there it was, gone! the final wall from the old crewe north shed is now demolished to make way for Lidl and B+M, without it there you can now see crewe powerbox from the main road for the first time

Just one from last night, a nice cheap modelable train!

I’m not going to pretend I know what I’m talking about but my 1979 Austin mini had twin Webber’s on, 28/36 off a cortina I believe with a pipercross foam filter, they were sequential, when the 2nd choke opened it was like a turbo! the engine in it at the time was an MG metro engine bored out to 1340cc, gas flowed cooper head and LCB manifold and straight through exhaust, it went like stink to 60 but that was about it, the bottom end went on it after a couple of months of thrashing it everywhere!