Halvarras

The 'LGW' peaked-roofed grain wagons having lasted well into the (Scottish) diesel era I would really like Dapol to re-issue 4F-018-025 but using the lime wagon moulding instead of the salt wagon this time (still not perfect but closer, with roof hatches and no handrails) - and paint the bl**dy thing brown not bright red this time 🥴! Unfortunately it appears that there is (was) only one source of transfers - guess who? 🙄

The Class 142 'Skippers' were active in the South West from September 1985 until October 1987 - the good condition of this unit and the vegetation on the right looking like it's just coming into leaf suggests Spring 1986?

What an oddball! Love the prominent 'DIESEL LOCO' painted on the cab side, presumably to avoid confusion, cos it certainly looks confused! A great find - and I thought fireless locos looked a bit odd........the endless variety of wagon movers to have existed over the past century or so never ceases to amaze!

Leave your coat where it is Keith, many thanks for a quick walk down Memory Lane, some familiar names there I'd almost forgotten about! I once had a collection of Minic Ships, including if memory serves the liner Canberra, NS Savannah and HMS Devonshire (?) which had a helicopter on the back with tiny revolving 4-bladed rotor, a pair of tugs, various bits of quay and breakwater and the all-important plastic 'sea mat' to assemble it all on. Somewhere at home I still have a surviving price list dated April 1962 (I turned 9 that month!) with my purchases marked on it, it surfaces from time to time but I can never remember where it is. Most if not all of them were bought in a small shop called Barham's in Falmouth. I was very surprised to see them back on sale again in a model shop in Brixham about 10 years ago but wasn't tempted to get back into them - that ship sailed long, long ago 🤭!

Southern Railway No 49S (BR DS49) looked very much like a garden shed mounted on a coach bogie powered by a Dorman engine. It was apparently constructed at Exmouth Junction wagon depot in 1939 and worked at Exmouth Junction and Broad Clyst, ending its days at Yeovil via a spell at Folkestone in 1950 and scrapped in early 1960. I was oblivious to its existence until the publication of 'Modern Locomotives Illustrated' No 222 on Departmental Locomotives (Dec 2016 - Jan 2017) in which a photo appears, and marvelled at its curved corrugated iron roof, four pairs of hinged side doors and all-round high-level windows. I've tried in vain to find a photo I could provide a link to. Despite its ramshackle appearance it's sobering to think that this contraption existed for two full decades, the same as the Deltics and around a year longer than the WR hydraulic era. Its scrapping deprived some chickens of a sturdy coop 🤭!

OK, just checked - my older model is a Mainline body on an early Bachmann split-chassis (after the original failed) but this later chassis was designed to fit the Mainline body without tooling changes to the latter, so should have very similar overall dimensions to the old chassis. The main part of the earlier chassis fits neatly between the inner bonnet sides of the new body, but the fit at both ends doesn't really work, especially the cab end where there are irreconcilable differences. The body securing screws on the new body are 80mm apart but 86mm on the old chassis where they are right behind the bufferbeams. Most things can be made to fit with enough brute force and ignorance (😬) but since the Mainline bodyshell is a decent model your first choice is the right one - find a Mainline body, or an original Bachmann equivalent (31-350 - 3) if the price is right, as you can be sure it'll fit with a minimum of fuss. Another consideration is that a Mainline non-runner should provide you with a source of spare parts for your own chassis too.

Off the top of my head no, and the later/current Bachmann model was new from the ground up so probably not a straight fit. I have both so I'll check. Back later......

Take a look at the Bachmann Spares website - blue 03160 complete with cast frame/buffers for £25 looks like a steal. Depends what you want to do with it though - the extra detail on this version might get in the way compared to the Mainline model, perhaps that's why you'd prefer the latter? Quite a few Mainline models about, but most of those on their original chassis won't be runners by now, which should keep prices low (but £25 low?) Like the Warship a very good model for its time, let down by its mechanism - mine purchased in April 1983 had the middle axle fall apart before I got to use it.

Noooooooo, not 'City of Truro'?! There was me thinking it led an uneventful life! This remarkable survivor - it was withdrawn 4/3/04 with nothing more serious than dragging brakes until resurrected by Colas 4/4/07, for an anticipated further 6 years' service (now 16 and counting) - still retains both former headcode panel recesses but this must have been a close shave for No 2 end, and this side also by the looks of it. I think it acquired the orange warning stripe in 1987 and was outshopped in unbranded Mainline livery around autumn 1988, presumably following repair to damage it sustained in this incident (which should help date this view) but shorn of the nameplates it had carried since 8/6/65. It became 'Atlantic College', 'Resplendent' (as 47749) and 'Demelza' before reacquiring its original name in 2016. As a former Truro area resident who can scarcely believe the original D1660 is still alive and kicking, I say long may its charmed existence continue!

I would imagine it looked something like this then (my photo, dated 25/7/75):

I wholly agree, I am however somewhat biased as I was born in Redruth just over 70 years ago (😬) and lived down here until I was 19. I moved away in 1972 until retirement in early 2019, although lots of return visits in between, especially after 1993 as my mother, having left Cornwall in 1975 (my father had sadly passed away in 1969), had moved back to St Austell by then, always reminded me of the wonderful place I'd been privileged to have been brought up in. I made it back here in January 2020, just in time to be locked down in our new home in Par.......could have been much worse then I suppose. Most of the people we pass while walking say hello, even their dogs seem laid-back, although I wish the locals could refrain from using their car horns to attract the attention of mates they see walking along the pavement! When our daughter slipped over on an icy pavement last winter people dashed over to help her up, some even appearing from their front doors. Occasionally during my formative years I'd find myself walking the coastal path, usually a youth club outing, looking out over the sea. 60 years later I'm doing it again and it's just as magical. I agree with your more recent post too, availability of jobs is less of an issue than affordable accommodation. But I remain hopeful for the future nonetheless.....

Flying Scotsman with WR semaphores at Par last Sunday 30th April 2023: These pictures were taken after 60103 had become the first locomotive to be turned on St Blazey's newly-restored turntable.

I'll just drop this in here and run.......🤪

Missed that, but it was only last week. At least that means Devonians had a chance to jet-wash the winter grime off their patio paving, which is more than I've been permitted to do. If it has to wait another year its fetching shade of beige will probably become permanently discoloured. I have a 'Spray & Leave' product which may help but......er......it requires decent rainfall to wash it off once it's done its thing.........well, it is what it is.

You'd be missing out on great beaches, the Eden Project, award-winning pasties and fish & chips (there doesn't seem to be any other kind 🤔), cream teas (with the cream on top where it belongs of course), Tribute/Korev/Doom Bar/Proper Job/Rattler, clotted cream and star-gazey pie (see above).........on second thoughts scrub the last one (I'm with @Steamport Southport on that 🤢!) And more pasties, can never have too many pasties..... We also have such fantastic weather that Cornwall appears to be the only part of the UK still under last August's drought order (hosepipe ban). Yes seriously!

Constant flexing along the border with Devon must mean two large bridges in the Saltash area are in imminent danger of collapsing into the Tamar then😮! Regarding opening up a proper gap, the boats would have an easier job if the top of the Tamar were excavated out to the north coast, creating a sort of Cornish version of Anglesey........

Anbrico AC Cars whitemetal railbus kit - just missed it, early 1980s IIRC. Never mind, got a Heljan now, happy days!

How'd you guess?! (4 years ago)

For Class 47, by my reckoning, 6 years - from 1649 around Feb 1969 until 1724 Feb 1975 (interesting case this last one, as according to my notebook for the period I saw it renumbered to 47133 then back to 1724 again before becoming 47549 in Feb 75!) Despite bodyside numbers and single central logo being the standard pre-TOPS blue livery for Class 47 during this period TTBOMK there has never been an RTR release in this condition in any scale - Lima did D1957 in original early blue (cabside logos/bodyside numbers), Bachmann have done D1547 and 1662 in later early blue (cabside numbers/bodyside logos) and Heljan likewise with 1932. By way of comparison the green TOPS period, represented by 20141, 25043, 47256 and now 40039 (only green TOPS '03', '08' '24' & '37' to go now then! 😉) also lasted 6 years, from Feb 74 until 20141 went blue in May 1980 with 08934 lasting slightly longer.

Mine would have to be HS4000 'Kestrel' - I was living in the far South West when it was active, too far away from its ER stamping ground and by the time I had the means to get there it had departed for Russia (I remember seeing it reported in the railway mags at the time and being disappointed at the news). I still sort of regret not buying the Heljan model when prices were reasonable, because it was such an impressive-looking beast, but I had no need for It then and I still don't (I don't need a 'Deltic' either but I've got a Bachmann model........but it only cost me sixty-eight quid and I've renumbered it to 55003 'Meld' which I photographed on its Paddington to Cardiff run in October 1975 - that just scraped within my self-imposed justification requirements, something 'Kestrel' was never going to achieve!)

Good to know. So, contrary to most of the comments on here regarding ordering from Ultrascale, orders can turn up within one month instead of eight! Perhaps all those thousands of Mainline Warships out there with gear trouble mean it's worth running off a batch of drive years from time to time and keeping these in stock. After all it's still an excellent model.............when it's standing still anyway 🤭!

But how long did it take to get hold of them?!😉

I assume you mean Swindon-built Class 42? For sure this fleet, which had the highest profile of the three Warship classes, is deserving of a modern upgrade to match the Class 43 and of course the chassis already exists although the gearing was not exactly optimal and, nice though the inclusion of engine detail visible through the engine room windows may be, the Maybachs probably looked a bit different..... In this day and age a new Class 42 Warship model would have to include the disc headcode variant, although these thirteen differed from the rest in several ways other than the ends (and D866-70 shared their train heating boiler vent arrangement) so I fear that, unlike the Class 43s which were all near-identical, the Class 42 tooling suite would be quite extensive and thus expensive. But who knows - it seems everything else is getting upgraded these days and a class of named Type 4s currently represented by an out-of-production basic tooling which can trace its origins back over four decades looks increasingly like an open goal. IMHO anyway 😊.

Does that mean we could have had a diesel version of the EM2 electric?........(note to self: shut up H, yer making yerself look stoopid🤪!)

& all with 'flowerpot' exhausts this time. For once. Please!