The Bigbee Line

I wonder if Adolf had a train set.... That would have been fun..... At least there would have been no debate about P4 etc. It would have been ".....nice train Mein Fuhrer......."

In the 90's I was at Crewe for a meeting at the traincrew depot. Whilst attending a call of nature I saw some scrawling that showed a healthy interdepot rivalry existed "Flush twice, it's a long way to Saltley"

You can tell that your getting old, when after a week away, all the post was various items of hospital correspondence for SWMBO and myself. In a couple of weeks time we have appointments on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Monday's feeling left out......

The vans coupled on the 24" curve easily, Not on the 18", I can live with that as the 18" is only really a test. My next mini project is a test track with some reverse curves with and without transitions (a bit of straight between them)

Money where my mouth is time... Still waiting to move house, but found a box with a few bits in... Take two Bachmann BR Fruit vans and some Kadee #5 couplers. The first attempt was to fix the box under the headstock. I was able to use the Bachmann bracket to clamp the Kadee Box into position. I used the #242 coupler box that snaps together http://www.kadee.com/htmbord/page242.htm The results were promising, They would couple easily on a 24" radius curve and would run on 18" radius curves. The gap between vehicles was much improved over the hook and bar coupler. So far so good. The only thing I didn't like was the slightly droopy coupler head. I experimented with a small strip at the front of the coupler box under the shank. It was difficult to get it tight enough to stop the droop, but at the same time keep the easy action for uncoupling. I then had a brain wave (steady on now). I glued the same strip to the top of the box at the rear. Then when glued under the headstock the coupler box slopes up slightly towards the buffers. The coupler head sits nice and square, plus the side to side action is unimpaired. See the coupler box stuck directly to the underframe with a slightly droopy head Now with the rear of the box packed slightly to slope the box, note the nice square coupler head This is the view from above when on a Roco 888mm radius curve The tilting of the coupler box also sets the trip pin just clear of the rail heads, as per kadee specifications.

More private shunt locomotives from the archive. An evening visit to Snailwell revealed 2 shunters: Another visit to Croft had this loco busy shunting:

More Longbridge shunt locos added to my flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/55938574@N03/10089399263/ Unable to upload to RM Web gallery at the moment.

Some pictures from Longbridge 1996 1997, more on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/55938574@N03/10087325745/ There will be more to follow, enjoy....

In 1977 we lived in Acklington, Northumberland. The local Opencast Coal Mine was run by Derek Crouch. It was in use at the Acklington site when we arrived. During 1977 it was moved to Butterwell. To get there it 'walked'. As the route crossed the ECML, there was an 'engineers possession' and a small P Way crane lifted some track panels. Big Geordie walked across and the track was re-instated. I took a couple of snaps, now on Flickr; http://www.flickr.com/photos/55938574@N03/9841474433/in/set-72157635696792364

Personally I am currently a 'brick counter' my method to sketch out plans for brick built structures. Works well, except for when the image quality is not quite good enough to see the actual bricks. An observation is that we often model based on historic photographs. How typical are these? The majority are of loco only, then it's the more interesting ones at that. My biggest frustration is the movie clip where it gets cut just as the loco goes out of view, just when I was waiting to see the wagons or coaches..... I am always on the lookout for interesting things in the background of shots.

It's not rivet counting, it's things that don't look right. It's not OO v EM v P4 it's how it looks, for example if you have an eye level shelf layout you can't see the gauge... To me a true 'rivet counter' is the worse type of modelling snob. Nothing wrong with being a snob, it's what you do with it. As mentioned in previous posts there are layouts that look fine in magazine articles, in real life the running is a disaster. One of the best running layouts I ever saw was in some guys dining room. it ran round the room and had covers so when SWMBO was about it was covered up. It had been years in the making, using fibre based track. Southern based there were numerous kit and scratch built Southern locos. The flangeless drivers had a disc of metal sheet behind giving the effect of flanges. The overall effect and running however was superb, all trains were well formed and ran at speeds that emulated the real thing. Shunting was carried out with gusto. I'm sure the worst river counter would have had a field day. Nothing wrong with some constructive comment, just have a thought for the feelings of the person who has toiled over the model.

Plus the sound, the noise they make when disturbed is something else. I went to Kemp Town with Dad before I was at School. Probably to buy coal. All I can remember is the smell of creosote and coal on a hot summers day. The 'Royal Sussex' brings back lots of memories, It's a real maze inside now... Excellent model.

Good morning, The system is what has 'run' the country for the past few hundred years, not sure for who's benefit though. I have had a particularly long and painful battle with HMRC. Who failed to take note of my P11Ds over several years and failed to take enough tax. As I was PAYE and paying a large proportion of my earnings I had not realised, So the demanding letter out of the blue was a shock. I spent a year in the process of getting clarification and appeal, to no avail. One of the most annoying phrases they use in correspondence is 'You will remember.....' Well sorry when in full time employment and being an unpaid carer at the same time I don't have time to check their work. I opted for payments over several years without interest. That meant a call to the department that dealt with and organised such matters. I gave the details, bank information etc to allow this to happen. The lady finished by saying 'are you happy about this' she could not understand when I said definitely not.......... The moral is - If your a big boy in the system they can choose to let you off as it's embarrassing to them if we knew what mistakes they made. If your small fry they just screw you.

This is the other side of ZB ADB779026 at Dover Town in the 1980's. The other side of the same wagon was previously posted. Quite a chunky looking beast. Good for 75mph, on plain bearings, WOW.

Images like this are always useful. Never waste an opportunity. I did a similar thing last weekend when passing Brundall. You never know when things will change. More please. Shame you didn't visit Waddon Marsh in the 1960's

I've only got a few shots of a van and BSK in Dover Town. IIRC occasionally some of the van trains ended up at Dover Town Yard on a Sunday and then ran as one train to London Bridge. On more than one occasion the shunters forgot to undo both ETH connectors and one would get ripped off. I will try and find them today.

If you enter the tunnel from Dover Priory the first refuge on the leaf leads to the room. IIRC there was one firing slit and a chimney of some sort up through the roof. Shakespeare Tunnel had galleries between the two single bore tunnels. In line with these were galleries that lead off towards the cliff face. Owing to the poor state of the cliff face I chose not to venture into these. Between Shakespeare and Abbotscliffe Tunnels there were 'chalk fences' alarmed to warn of cliff falls. They put the signals back to danger and the line had to be examined before the signals could be reset. All part of the fun of being a Supervisor at Dover.

I was in the library yesterday looking through books for pictures of wagons. in a 1963 shot at Three Bridges there were 4 low wagons in the sidings conveying new tractors in red paint. For some reason the wheels are fitted but no tyres. Any idea why no tyres fitted?

Correct, due to a number of factors, including the point mechanism being a bit weak and some keys were missing from the area where the switch and closure rails connected. The long wheelbase of the wagon didn't help.

IIRC This was to allow a turntable to fit next to the main line, very historic. There are other small rooms that were shelters for staff during WW2, remember the area was shelled by the germans on a regular basis. They has watchers to see when the guns fired, then run for the shelter,

Some pictures from the vault: A Cargowaggon van having a door secured. Some pictures of a transfesa van that has just switched the points during a test shunt Finally some random shots of ballast

Many thanks for the excellent pictures, especially under the headstocks. Couldn't ask for more. Need to get my finger out now...

Some of the sidings (only a very small part) were sat straight on the brick paving from the old loco. I think part ot seven road.

Nice models, I do like decent wagons. It's surprising what you can do to rejuvenate a bashed up item from the scrap box. You probably said in an earlier post, but where did you get the tractors? Again, thanks for sharing.

Yes, they look like the Multifrets. Here are a couple of shots of some going on to the NPC. Some wagons were not fit to run back on their own wheels. Date 24 March 1993. The Tiphokk wagons were 'the' three wagons for this traffic, Copper/Lead Dross from Avonmouth. I think it was only dangerous on sea, not dangerous by rail. If it got we, the gunge that ran out was the problem. It had been previously conveyed in high sided SNCB open wagons, again these were sheeted. I'll try and find a picture. The three wagons reverted to ordinary traffic, but still had some of the sheet gear in place for a number of years.