Downendian

Not the South of France, but I'm reading it now. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41421-020-0156-0 neil

Thanks for the heads up Kevin, Just ordered.

I've just noticed that on the first day cover image I posted earlier, the class 47 is two tone green with full yellow ends, but with an edited BR arrow applied! Not a combination ever seen as far as I know. Obviously an attempt to show the "modern" railway of 1972.

Re first day cover, there's one on eBay now, where I purchased the same several years ago. The blurb does mention the first Parkway station, which maybe as discussed a PR stunt as it was not necessarily the first.

The captain and myself have been in correspondence over these photos, they've appeared (or will appear) in one of Tim's books. These were taken in 1972 just after opening, note the BR flag at half mast, presumably coinciding with the death of the Duke of Windsor in May that year. I did believe there was much hype at the time about Bristol Parkway being the first of this type of station. I have a first day cover somewhere, must dig it out. The BR strategy of course was to compete with the recently opened M4. its my local station, very much changed from the early 1970s when I was there spotting, complete with wonderful hydraulics thundering through routinely. I recall meeting one of my friends dad there, who'd travelled back from London on the South Wales Pullman with reverse blue grey livery. Many happy memories of the old rudimentary station building, the station now is one of the 1970s railway success stories, along with the HSTs . It is now heavily used, and is complete with a multi storey car park that roughly occupies the site where all these lovely period cars are parked. Note the empty car parking on the site of the lifted Stoke Gifford yard. The scene is very different today, even the wonderful Brunellian brick overbridge in the distance has been demolished and replaced with a concrete eyesore as part of the GWML electrification scheme. I know I'm a bit of a dinosaur, but I really can't get used to all the OHLE that dominates the local rail sites I grew up with back in the day.

One I simply could not resist. I'll have to suffer flak from the missus but it will take centrepiece sat alongside my diesel mpd. I don't think it was the same beast that languished most of the time outside Bristol Bath road, but for my purposes sufficient to jar those happy memories at the end of platform 11.

Well and another whilst I'm at it. i was rather lucky to pick this one up. Described as a "1950s diesel" not obviously a hens teeth pic of a D6XX. The blemish in the neg is a shame but undoubtedly put some off. I was the only bidder and picked it up for £5.99. Anyone know where this is? Unfortunately loco not identified either.

I'm still picking up the occasional hydraulic slide, but my modelling mojo has somewhat diminished due to my carp angling passion, which is all consuming. I'm now on the committee of a local angling club, and hopefully have been successful with a grant bid to carry out dam modifications to our largest lake. I'm writing the second stage proposal now. The almost failure of the Whaley bridge dam earlier this year has had a big impact on angling clubs who own a significant number of dammed lakes, anyhow I digress. One to be going on with, D7007 at Severn tunnel junction undated, but will be early 1970s, of course my copyright. One of three Hymeks to carry the blue small yellow panel livery with blue window surrounds (D7004 later modified to white and D7051 were the others). Another unidentified blue small yellow panel mek with white surrounds is behind. Those were the days. Neil

Hi Stovepipe its certainly not D7041, it was BFYE. Here's one of my collection of D7041 taken at Cardiff it's not D7051 either as there are photos of it scrapped at Swindon with blue window surrounds. Could it be D7040/6/7 ? Swindon or a scrapyard spotter have rather unhelpfully removed the last two alloy numbers!

I'm still gradually building my 10 foot wb clay liner rakes from Hornby 5 plank opens, Parkside BR dia 1/039 1/044 (PC02A) and Cambrian C107 D1375/D178 5 plank opens which featured in the prototype trains I'm modelling. This was the 6M53/6V53 (or slight variations on this code) st Blazey-Stoke on Trent. Roller bearings can be obtained to fit these wagons from Wizard models. As always, Paul Bartlett's site was used for reference to identify the wagons utilised in the 1970s. I'm not sure if we referred to it as "the clayliner" then, normally just "what was the Western on the China clays?" i sold my previous Kernow limited edition flat tarp OOV/OCVs as these wagons were not generally used on the above train in question. As others have mentioned the flat tarp is rather crude, being far too thick. Some 9' wb tipplers did make it into the clay liner rakes with flat tarps however, I've got a photo of one at Bristol Parkway where the train routinely waited in either the up or down passing loops. So the Kernow/Bachmann models have prototype provenance, but certainly the vast majority of most rakes were not 9' wheel base wagons, as previous posters mention. I'm still amazed that no one has made a RTR 1/039 or D1375 5 plank wagon. The system was awash with them right until the 1970s/early 1980s.

Wow, only just caught up with this due to my fishing exploits over the last few weeks. I'll have to start saving, the Port Talbot - Llanwern trains were a huge memory from my mid 1970s spotting days. Having just returned from a foray to Radyr from Cardiff central and making our way through the subway to the normal spotting location, one of these trains passed through. It's the closest thing I've experienced to a major earthquake in my life. The class 37s used on these trains had specially strengthened couplings will need to look up which ones. Well done Accurascale, one on my wish list I thought would never materialise.

Not really wanting to start a separate thread with lots of speculation , but in the last day or so my preorder for Bachmann Mark 2f TSOs has been processed and dispatched. So i am assuming the Hattons dispute with Bachmann has ended. neil

Well if I were buying a brand new sealed beam peak it would be Heljan. The tooling is correct, nose doors (as Greg mentioned earlier) and flush plated bodyside steps (former roof filler access steps) are correct. I assume they will have reworked the roof for 45/1 as the boiler vents were plated over following the conversion. Several photos of sealed beam peaks show the variation in 'flushness" of the bodyside steps, the plating being visible on many machines. Bachmann have merely used the existing tooling for this, and added the flush end. The final released models may differ. Heljan of course do not offer the split and centre headcodes carried by over half the class from introduction to the start of the flush end programme in 1975/6. Neil

Anyone removed the headcode box surround yet to replace the headcodes? Just had a quick look and it does not readily prise off with a fingernail. Hope to look at my two back end of next week. neil

Good news and bad news stories. Today the Swifts made a welcome return to this part of Bristol. Last week on my fishing exploits I was delighted to see a mother great tit feeding caterpillars to her newly fledged offspring who was perched on my unhooking mat. This was later to turn to horror when me and my friend noticed a fledgling great tit had taken its first flight across the lake and didn't make it. It was fluttering and splashing little more than 30 feet away. Despite our best efforts with our landing nets, the poor little fellow expired before we could reach him. Neil

Nice little table from another forum BR mainline loco diagrams, 1969 Drg DE/2004/1 (1969) D5900 [class 23] No.1 end has roof fan Drg DE/1004/1 (1969) D8500 [class 17/1] No.1 end has cab with more side windows Drg DE/1002/1 (1969) D8200 [class 15] No.1 end has the long hood (bonnet) Drg DE/1001/1 (1971) D8000 [class 20] No.1 end has the long hood (bonnet) Drg DH/2100/3 (1969) D6300 [class 22] 'A' end has the engine Drg DE/2000/1 (1969) D5015 [class 24/1] No.1 end has roof fan Drg DE/2000/6 (1969) no photo [class 25] No.1 end has roof fan Drg DE/2001/1 (1969) D5300 [class 26/1] No.1 end has roof fan Drg DE/2001/3 (1969) no photo [class 27] No.1 end has roof fan Drg DE/2005/3 (1969) D6100 [class 29] No.1 end has roof fan Drg DE/2002/6 (1969) D5500 [class 31 1&2] No.1 end has roof fan Drg DE/2002/7 (1969) D5531 [class 31 1&2] No.1 end has roof fan Drg DE/3002/1 (1969) D6540 [class 33/1] No.1 end has roof fan Drg DH/3100/1 (1969) D7000 [class 35] 'B' end has roof fan {differs from usual scheme} Drg DE/3003/1 (1969) D6700 [class 37] No.1 end has roof fan Drg DE/4002/1 (1969) D279 [class 40] No.1 end has roof fan Drg DE/4001/2 (1969) D1 [class 45] No.1 end has roof fan Drg DE/4001/3 (1969) no photo [class 46] No.1 end has roof fan Drg DE/4001/6 (1969) no photo [class 44] No.1 end has roof fan Drg DE/4003/2 (1969) D1504 [class 47] No.1 end has two roof fans Drg DE/4003/11 (1969) no photo [class 48] No.1 end has two roof fans Drg DE/4004/1 (1969) D535 [class 50] No.1 end has roof fan Drg DE/4005/1 (1971) no photo [class 53] No.1 end has small lower grill between large grills Drg DH/4101/2 (1969) D800 [class 42] Drg shows 'A' & 'B' ends but not enough detail Drg DH/4101/4 (1969) no photo [class 43] Drg shows 'A' & 'B' ends but not enough detail Drg DH/4102/1 (1969) D1000 [class 52] 'B' end has AWS shoe apparatus & extra opening in skirt Drg DE/5001/1 (1969) D9001 [class 55] Drg shows No.1 & No.2 ends but not enough detail Neil

Just ordered the mega bass speakers from Road & Rails based on Richard's excellent video for my TTS valenta chip. I'm going to run it as twin power cars having picked up a spare power bogie several years ago. Has anyone tried this? How is the chip configured to do so? I will need twin power cars as a full length formation stalls on my helix. neil

Hi Mark, As Phil says the provided headcodes do the model no justice whatsoever. Unfortunately a common theme with recent Dapol and Heljan diesels. Correct font and size headcodes make a huge difference. Replace them with 3.8mm precision labels (should be to scale 4.0mm but they don't fit behind the glazing). I attach the decal to a piece of clear acetate suitably whittled down to fit using Glue n glaze. Wipers, handrails and glazing now all fitted by the way. neil

The DJM CADs for the Kernow D600 appeared in November 2014 so invalid if B&D boys IP friend is correct. neil

I would presume that DJ has filed a patent as well as the CADs around September 2018. The claims of the patent, if it exists, will show DJM's intent. Fair enough if it's to prevent the Chinese factory from using DJM driven tools to commercialise, but from the initial announcement it sounds much broader protection. It maybe worth looking out for any filed patents with UKPO, I'll take a look. It should be in the public domain when it goes to PCT twelve months after filing. Many filed patents are rejected due to lack of inventive step by UKPO . I doubt there is anything inventive here, prototype vehicle or drawing > laser scanning> CAD/CAM> tooling > model production is prior art, and not patentable. Getting the patent accepted is the first hurdle to overcome. We are at least a year from this, (if indeed it has been filed as stated above). Even when it's accepted, it then soon becomes very expensive as it may need worldwide protection, paying fees to each country/region. It of course can be challenged at any point after being in the public domain. That's when the pounds and euros need to be in the bank account. cold light of personal experience here. Neil

Having only just caught up with this, I think this is the worst development in model railways in my living memory. Having filed patents and served as an expert witness in a patent infringement court case, the only winners in IP disputes are those with the deepest pockets. I'm saddened by this announcement and IP filings and hope that it doesn't have further repercussions in the hobby. If that transpires it will cost us all.

Slightly concerned , although I have a big backlog of Cambrian kits to build, I noticed yesterday that quite a few items are marked out of stock on the website. This includes what I'm building as rakes, Catfish and Herring ballast hoppers.

Yes indeed that class 37 footage certainly has a class 25 soundtrack Neil

This video may not show outside Facebook, but some excellent class 22 sounds at around 10 minutes in. Very nice they sounded too, not dissimilar to Hymeks in my opinion. neil