big jim

It’s my Birthday today, off to see the Lego movie at midday then a Pizza Hut with the family DJing tonight in stoke on Trent too, a few quid toward getting the cooper back on the road

check this pic out from “the Woodhead route” twitter feed What’s the first car? I’m thinking a Datsun of some sort (click on the picture to see the whole thing)

Crikey that’s a good price, once payday comes I think I’ll be ordering a tpe set As for the Caledonian, it’s got to be a train of at least 10 of those!

Here is the first of the class 66701 in original livery next to ex Europorte livery 66752, you can clearly see the difference in orange applied to both

That’s a very short driver, can only just just see the top of his hard hat

Slightly off topic, spotted this in an antiques barn in Pembroke earlier, a BR (M) clocking in machine, any idea where it would have been used? £695 if anyone is interested

I was lucky, mine was registered about 3 weeks before the tax laws changed so it’s only £330 as opposed to £550 had it been registered afterwards!

Sorry to quote myself but funny how things turn out, I make a comment about the new lynemouth biomass wagons back at the back end of 2017 and less than 12 months later I was up there training GBRf drivers on class 60s pulling the same wagons!

It seem solid, I’ve never really looked properly but the times it’s been on ramps for brakes or mot etc I’ve had a quick Reccie and it seems solid, certainly nothing ever been pointed out on the MOT one thing to watch is the CVT gearbox on them if you get an abused/hookie one they will go around 90-100k miles, I bought mine at 180k miles with the paperwork confirming the car had a new box at 90k under warranty, I believe they were replaced by a better unit which should see the car out

I put 75L in it on Saturday, and my wife went crewe to Middlesbrough and back then I got as far as Llandrindod wells today before refilling it with 65L of fuel which at 415 miles averaged out at 29.5 MPG which is not too bad!

I do like a good MG Z series, I’ve had a ZR and ZS, Both 1.8 with the usual oil leak from the head gasket but ran well and both sold for a profit (the ZS was LPG converted too) The guy I bought the mini convertible off deals with cheap cars (sub £500), when I bought the mini i was very tempted by a rover 45 he had sat on his drive, 1999 model, 2 owners, metallic gold (but if an old mans colour) but absolutely immaculate, not a spot of rust, iirc only about 80k miles on it (4000 a year average), could have got it for £350 but decided on the mini

Ours is an ex Vodafone fleet car! similarly I bought mine ‘on the run out’, only paid £2000 for it at a time they were going for around £3500-4000 as the seller claimed it needed work for the MOT, I bit the bullet and come MOT time it needed nothing more than a set of rear pads at £18, the next year was a major spend at £500 for brakes all round and a new exhaust, and last year was a new cat at £180, oh and new rear brakes this week at £70, other than that it soldiers on, uses a bit of oil but as long as I keep on top of it it’s not an issue my wife can easily get 30-35 mpg out of it but I can guarantee that when we head to Tenby in it tomorrow via the heart of wales I won’t get anywhere near that!

Stayed near the excel last night where the london classic car show was held last week, this morning there were a few cars being loaded onto transporters including this one, post 1990 escort cosworth by your local clubs definition that wouldn’t be allowed in! Typically I asked the little un if he wanted to go and see the cars yesterday afternoon and he said he just wanted to relax in the room, (ie Nick my iPad to play games) then this morning he says ‘we should have gone and seen the cars yesterday they look cool I liked the look of this too

The crossing at wem is a notoriously bad one, even more so now it’s an obstacle detector one rather than controlled by a local box coming from the shrewsbury direction you see the protecting signals as far back as yorton as you come off the straight after the station, which is a fair few miles back, a green at the 2nd signal in view means the barriers are down and it can take a good 5 minutes to reach the crossing from first observing it with a slow moving freight!

That was me, just wait til it’s MOTd and I can finally take it out and about, there will be some wet patches and skid marks if it still produces 170bhp!

I wish I had pictures of my old ‘proper’ mini’s I had back in the early 90’s first one I had was a £150 beige 1000 (GED707V) that ended up BRG with a bored out 1340 mg metro turbo engine, gas flowed cooper head and LCB exhaust, twin 28/36 Webber’s off a cortina and pipercross filter, went like a rocket to 60mph then that was yer lot, that one snapped it’s camshaft iirc 2nd one I had was a £275 fully deseamed clubman in maroon with 4 huge cibie super oscars up front on a rally bracket, 2 on top pointing forward and 2 below pointing out, certainly lit the road up when you put full beam on that was traded for what now again would be considered a classic, a 1986 lada Niva Cossack 4x4, built like a tank that was!

Had a phone call last night “can I work a ballast down the Cambrian for Colas”, unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your point of view) I was otherwise engaged today taking the youngest to london for a couple of days After a ride down on a pendolino we got the tube to Greenwich and had a ride on the emirates cable car over the Thames then caught the docklands for a couple of stops to the hotel near the excel, not been on the docklands for years (at least the late 80s)

my wife’s car could be considered by some to be a ‘modern classic’ she has a Nissan Murano 3.5 V6 (same engine as a Nissan 350Z), only 1400 were sold in the uk and there are only 850ish left so a pretty rare car really https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/vehicle/nissan_murano_cvt its a 2005, so again 14 years old, 215000 miles on the clock, running well with no signs of giving up the ghost quite yet, we have owned it for 3 years (this week as it happens) after I bought it cheap and said ‘if I get a year out of it I’ll be happy’, it keep going and going, even getting rear ended by a fiat 500 wasn’t going to stop it! that wrote the 500 off and all we needed was a new bumper!

To be honest I thought we had a ‘currently driving’ thread but I can’t find it. Similar to the Rover above My first car was a 1979 Vauxhall chevette, bought in 1991, 12 years old and already a classic (well ok rusting away if nothing else!)

The blue One is 16 years old and the red one is 14, that’s pretty old!

Bonnet stripes on the Cooper S, that’s good for another 10bhp right?

Yeah, that’s the number of that wagon Only one from today, had to walk from Leicester station to humberstone road, passed the depot en route, certainly nice in this day and age to see a depot with a nice variety of stock sat on it including 33, 37, 47, 50, 56, 57, 58 the rescue mission to and from mountsorrel was successfull, wagon dropped off and the train away on time towards Eastleigh and thats it for a week, forgot I was annual leave next week and I’m off to london on Sunday with the youngest to the avengers experience at the excel so no doubt I’ll get some pics of the trip down with virgin and some of the docklands etc then Tuesday we’re off to saunderfoot and Tenby for a few days away so probably no train pics down there!

Yeah passed that at clay cross, it was following an ex scotrail 158 which was a bit surreal, certainly a good excuse to run what you want on your model railway!

And I blew the knackered horn (sounded like a steam loco!)

Few days worth of pics, same job again but out of Doncaster, first stop thyborough Leicester same job next day but went to the station to see my dad who was out spotting waiting at decoy My train for the day Running round in leicester unusual ballast wagon on a train next to us Into mountsorrel to wait to be loaded and off we went towards Birmingham only to be stopped at Leicester to be told we had set off the ‘gotcha’ wheel impact detector meaning we had a possible wheelflat, sure enough got told which axle and which side, walked back and spotted it, after a while got permission to proceed at 30mph (all the way to Eastleigh!) which we knew wasn’t going to happen so after another half hour it was decided to return to mountsorrel but again we knew we wouldn’t be able to get in as all lines were occupied in there so we went back to humberstone road and screwed the train down there quite if it’s in one piece when I get back later I don’t know as it’s named ‘derby county’ the plan later is to return return to mountsorrel, knock out the knackered wagon then set off booked time with one wagon less