big jim

one from last night, more on the proper camera when i get home mossend yard before traction conducting a train to haymarket and back to glasgow via kilwinning on the ayr line! then today it was a drive over to doncaster ready for tomorrows job to bristol, stopped at the eden valley railway at warcop en route, never been before, an interesting little site, lots of southern units in the middle of cumbria wasnt something i was expecting! nice thumper unit then i stopped at locomotion in shilton i do like this! and onwards to doncaster

im actually going to watch that, need a class 60 to repaint into colas colours and its not a bad price at the mo (missed one on buy/sell earlier in the week for £70 unfortunatly)

some from today, 68s to the seaside, i was acting as the rider/tech rider go between as i dont sign 68s derby and away to saltburn back to darlington newcastle heaton loads more pics on the proper camera that i'll upload whenever i get home, training tomorrow up in newcastle!

hmmm, thought i was going to have a nice quick run to heaton later, RTT tells me otherwise http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/U35551/2016/07/30/advanced yet another seaside destination, this time saltburn!

Mirror Mirror on the wall by jim scott, on Flickr

and it won't be me on it, i'm off to heaton on the 68s early in the morning

thankfully in the words of ade edmonson in "nevilles island"....... "im not an outdoors person, i have a duvet, its 30tog" its a good power pack though 8000mAh for £8

bought a rechargable power pack in the sale at asda earlier, made by Ozark trail outdoor equipment however.......

latest additions to the fleet courtesy of ebay first up 12 assorted 4 wheel wagons, MFA, coalfish etc as it happens i bought this lot off fellow forum member shanks522, looks like a nice rake of wagons behind the 70 (with my existing 4 wagons added) then a Bachmann 150 in FNW livery, nice £40 bargain, this will probably ultimatly become the network rail TRU in yellow, i havent desided whether to use this one of my london midland one, the reason being i've driven the real thing many times when i worked for FNW so it has a bit of personal interest for me

some from this evening before i go to sleep longsight depot with 37608 and into stockport and away it went, and off i went to birmingham international to conduct one over to aston and back

some from last night, back to a Fujifilm camera, much prefer it and off to preston, as we were early he put us out of the way in the old RES sidings at the back of the station, never been in there before and away to carnforth where we got off and it continued to neville hill the clock and thats yer lot for now

been taking photos with the finepic camera tonight, like meeting up with an old friend again, lovely!! finally going home today for a few hours so i'll upload the pics sometime during the day, been a long week so far, 2 days in and around blackpool and im done in, ready for my own bed now

long lonely nights, not seeing your family.... a colas based layout seems very apt (having not been home since saturday myself!) chin up fella

had a day off in blackpool today so had a look round the shops, went into cash convertors and picked up a Fujifilm hp30 exr camera, the next model up from the one i traded for a sony 6 months ago and regretted from day 1, i will lose a bit of 'technology' over the sony, its 16mp as opposed to 20mp and 30x optical zoom compared to 50x but i will hopefully regain a lot of functionality again such as an easier 'manual' shooting set up for night time shots and not having a preview after every picture i take which were my 2 biggest bugbears with the sony it also looks to have quite a few more shooting functions than my previous hp28 exr, this one can shoot in RAW format too got a few night jobs coming up so i'll try and get some shots on them jobs, next week is a good varied week, derby, newcastle, glasgow and maybe exeter! watch this space!

some from this morning before i go to sleep for the morning carnforth to blackpool with 37421 and DBSO, terrible weather all the way preston and stabled in blackpool this evenings job, the same in reverse!

If only I could find a way to justifiably use the road again I would, ita not exactly in the way from anywhere to anywhere!

Another nice bargain over the weekend, 3 lots from the same seller, a mixture of Hornby and Bachmann modern era 4 wheel wagons, MEA, MFA, coalfish etc, 12 of them for £65, definatly pleased with that

Popped into gresty bridge earlier for an hour, not really one for photos today but managed a few

back to the dbso..... donor parts vehicle one of the lighted versions of the coach, not a donor for the lights but the chassis with pickups i decided in the end to just swap the bogie as i'd detailed the DBSO chassis already the reason i wanted pickups is so i can fit this lighting unit courtesy of jason edmunds used a lais dcc function only decoder and with the lighting unit added fibre optic light guides melted the ends over with a lighter testing it.... headlight and markers headlight only taillights markers and taillights and all lit and back on the chassis, i need to re-align them on the 2nd mans side though hopefully get it finished later in the week

Way ahead of you!!

It was up for £50 BIN or best offer, I'd have give £50 anyway but thought I'd go in with a cheeky £40 and it was accepted It was listed at 23:00 at night and accepted at 07:00 so unless you work nights and can access eBay it slipped under your radar!

couple of good buys this week a Bachmann 150/1 in fnw livery for £40 (which will most likely become the network rail 950 unit with a ph designs conversion kit Bachmann NRM ltd ed support coach for £30 buy it now (only £5 more than the original release in 2007) quite hard to get hold of now and at £30 it wasnt staying there even if it just ends up back on ebay at some point (i already have one!) best bargain, non railway related, a set of 4 yokohama tyres for my suv, 7mm tread, almost as new for £175, they retail at £100 each but the bloke had taken them off his car and replaced them with winter tyres then subsequently sold the car, he was moving house, needed them gone so took my cheeky offer, bought them at 1am and collected them at 7am the same day from a villiage 15 miles north of skipton "en route" to work in carlisle (yes, i know!) the best part was the journey from him to carlisle which involved taking country roads right over the top of the yorkshire dales to hawes then back to garsdale, down ais gill, over the top of mallerstang past kirkby stephen and over to tebay, what a great road!

my trainee is looking forward to it, he's never been to blackpool before and wants to go up the tower etc, i have a merlin pass so can do it for free and get him 1/2 price tickets so thats what were going to do, also the tower dungeon which is a right laugh he also wants to do the trams so we'll give that a go we may have to change the colas hard hat logo for a kiss me quick hat though

no, not me, (dont sign over to york) long weekend for me then a carnforth to blackpool and return over a couple of days next week

i'll give em a ring tomorrow, as luck would have it im on a lodge turn in blackpool next week!