big jim

Last Saturday there was disruption at belper with someone threatening to jump off a bridge and everything was being diverted via the Erewash and Toton, saw northern, east mids and XC services passing through Toton while I was waiting to depart with an engineers train towards alfreton

Sorry to go slightly off topic but I highlighted the situation with the toll bridge a while back in this thread as I had no knowledge of the toll payment method until I happened to have the tv on in the background and north west tonight was on explaining the situation, I even sent a group email to everyone in work with a link to the Mersey toll website as we seem to be getting more work in the Liverpool area and very few people were aware of it, my main concern was as we have pool vans that are registered to a leasing company how are we supposed to pay in advance if we are coming away from Liverpool with a van you may have only picked up 20 minutes previous therefore not knowing the Reg number until you collect it from site, then should I go on line to pay the toll afterwards would it let me pay it if the car isn’t registered to me? These are questions I had that I couldn’t find answers for on the Mersey gateway website And as a pool van driver should i inadvertently get a penalty notice where does the fine go to, the leasing company or my employer who then have to find who was in the van etc allnof which takes time and the fine racks up? I’ve advised my drivers that should they need to drive into Liverpool from the south or north wales etc to go (M56), M6, M62 and in that way, it’s longer but a lot less hassle I don’t consider myself ‘local’ to the bridge even though it’s only about 20 mile form me but as crewe is one of those is it in the north west, is it the midlands places we tend to get central TV, ITV midlands, signal 1 radio which never ran any promos about the bridge toll whereas the likes of the north west TV and radio city, wire FM did, I believe there has been local uproar about the whole handling of the situation with ‘halton’ residents having issues getting vehicles registered for free use of the bridge or getting penalty notices on registered cars

I’ve been diverted quite a bit recently on various jobs, thankfully as I work a lot of yellow trains my route knowledge is very comprehensive and I have some ‘exotic’ diversionary routes up my sleeve which keep up to date as I work them regularly As for being wrong routed, thankfully I’ve never ended up on a line i shouldn’t be on but it has happened a few times where I’ve been routed toward them but I’ve stopped before the junction, it happened the other week while being route conducted and my conductor gave me enough warning to come to a stop, just as well as I passed the flashing yellow signal at 125mph!

There's been some thug called Carl going round breaking in to people's houses near me for months, but the police couldn't catch him. The weirdest thing about it all is he was breaking into people's houses just to ruin their washing machines by putting bricks in to them & turning them on!!!!! Really weird if you ask me... Anyway, he was caught and extradited from the country.. So glad he’s been caught after all, washing machines live longer with Carl gone There, is that less offensive? On a similar vain Just found out My mate Gavin died from indigestion last week, I can’t believe gav is gone

yeah, thats what ive had happen

Can anyone see the pics above? I’m just showing links to the pics

Yeah, photobucket back to its best!!

hmmm, you can tell photobucket has gone back to its old 'modus operendum' as its gone very very clunky slow again, no issues when i was about the only user left, all that lovely bandwidth now its taking an age to upload and disply pictures hope its a short term problem

Couple of things that made me laugh earlier, first up an email with building material recommendations from amazon, I’ve asked the plasterer who is doing the work on the garage if he would find the moulding useful and he says he could work with a pair of those Then in Aldi this made me laugh, Neil diamond mash Sweeeeeede carrot mash.....bum.......bum........bum, mealtimes never tasted so good....

I never gave it thought that there were 2 stone trains! Anyway some from last night, diverted logs from Kidderminster to chirk and back to Walsall Chiltern 168 My train arriving in And all the way back to Walsall this morning And a vid from ‘sharpo’ passing through old Hill https://youtu.be/p7E4N4aBGl8

I think we’re gettig mixed up with stone trains, the one in the station is the moreton on lugg to southall DB job, mine was the neath abbey wharf train

im a young pup to the railway, only started in 2001 as a guard in chester for first north western, moving on to driving in 2002, passing out in 2003, by then under arriva trains wales, next up DRS for a short while, then fastline for 2 years until it folded, chiltern for just over 3 years and currently with colas where ive been for just over 5 years it feels like ive been on the railway 5 minutes but its not until you write it sown like above you realise is 17 years which has flown by, lots of ups and downs, losing my job twice in that time being the downs but plenty of ups, i now instuct, assess have a massive route and traction card and have a number of drivers under my care as a 'principal driver' admittedly i have been thinking about a change of employer recently as im not liking the way certain things are going or handled at my current company and have been offered an interview at another company but deep down i feel that as long as im left alone to do my job as professionally as i can then ill happily stick with colas for the forseeable future, i mean there arent many places you can be driving a HST one day then doing a rail drop the day after with a class 56, class 37s on ballasts on the heart of wales, sign the cambrian coast etc, next week for example i have 5 days of class 60 over the s+c which ive managed to work around 1/2 term holidays at the caravan thanks to helpful roster clarks who will help you out if you do the same for them, but you just never know quite whats round the corner!

i think its neath abbey wharf, its a sporadic flow as sometimes it goes to washwood heath of course there is major engineering work arounf newport which may affect the routing, tonight for example ive got the baglan logs which normally comes via heareford but im getting on at kidderminster and going via galton jn, soho, perry barr, wolverhampton, stafford and crewe!

Eat healthy?

Last night was the stone train from hereford to derby (where it went onward to Leeds) Hereford My train arriving And away to derby, left hereford an hour late but got to shrewsbury on time by not stopping in wooferton only to find the late running timber train being put out in front of me at abbey forgate which knocked me for another 10 mins which I’d made back by Wolverhampton Derby Timber train tonight but I’m hoping it’s cancelled

Same here, sold it on eBay about 3 months back on the strength of an announcement saying ‘the Colas 70 will be delivered next month’ and it went for a lot more than the Bachmann release will be selling for!

Personally I’m not that interested in the how’s and why they are late, they are on the way ive got one ordered from my local shop, ill collect it when I get a call to say it’s arrived I have been looking forward to getting this loco though, I was the first person to drive the real one off the docks in liverpool so it has personal Interest for me

Yeah, I can see a Sarah Siddons coming my way for some reason, £74 is a steal

They could try, I won’t be up! Anyway some from this morning, same job as the night before but we made it to llandridnod this time Basford hall last night And back this morning, bit gutted as I should have been on a job out of Toton which had a DB 60 on it! As it needed to get back to Toton and the 37s I had needed to get back to derby they we lashed them together for the trip over 97s still there too!

Hmmm, wonder if they will refund me the difference in the £59 subscription I paid 4 months back to keep all my 3rd party links alive?

Some from last night before I go to bed! Change of plan, should have been down the cambrian but ended up on the heart of wales line Crewe Basford Hall, Both trains getting set to go 37421 and 37254 on mine Interesting sunset over ‘poppy’ And away to the heart of wales, did something I’ve never done before, a ballast drop under TW1 which basically means there is no possession and the train runs under normal working arrangements, I have the token as normal which obviously prevents other movements in that section Knighton We dropped in a few places, finishing on llangynllo bank and heading back from there, Knighton again on the return Craven arms And back into Basford hall, locos stabled with the 97s 90050 looking worse for wear Which appears to have been joined by 86251 in the last few days And that’s that, should be back down the HOW tonight, or possibly a train out of Toton

Another quick job, Hatton beilhack snowplough, fitting working headlights Dapol tail light from the freightliner hopper wagons, drilled out the ‘lens’ I know headlights are larger but I have plenty of these to hand! Tiny led Attached to the rear of the lamp with glue ‘n’ glaze with another blob added to the front as a new lens Front of the plough pulls off easily Next job strip down 2 wheels, only one side is insulated which makes the job so easy DCC concepts pick up springs Over the axle Gauge checked And back in the clips Making sure the opposite end is the other way round so opposite wheels are insulated at each end of the plough Length of pcb stuck to the underside of the chassis with the pick up wire from the axle/wheels soldered to it Back to the plough, headlights glued in place Wires run down the rear I then spliced the wires together so only a single wire for each side ran back from the plough to the body, then reattached the plough Soldered those to the pcb and hey presto! Going to give the lamps a coat of primer and black paint before redoing them white as the led also shines out of the back of the lamp as well as the front May well even add a decoder to it at some point, next up is the flashing tail lamp fitted one

Cracking models.... Fitted lights to one of them already, took about 30 mins to do See my workbench thread

Some from last night, rail drop just north of Toton, had to run up to Alfreton to run round though then wait for the possession to be granted at trowell Toton 66779 66779 and Colas 60 60087 Ready to leave the north yard Then after the run round at the possession entry point just under the M1 bridge Cambrian tomorrow