PhilJ W

Goodnight all.

Afternoon from Estuary-Land. I once had a colleague who hailed from Pudsey, Yorkshire who was still wearing his late father's suits, trousers, jackets and other clothes 25 years after his father had died. The problem was that his father had been short and stout but he was six feet tall and thin as a rake. I don't like carrots but any surplus would be welcome at our local donkey sanctuary.

Morning all from Estuary-Land. I woke up about four this morning and before going back to sleep I decided to go downstairs and see if there was any sign of the cause of the slime trails. And lo and behold there was a slug in the middle of the carpet. I now have to report that the slug is no more, passed, deceased or gone to slug heaven. Actually its been flushed, wrapped in loo paper so unless it was the Houdini of the slug world it couldn't escape. Congratulations and commiserations where neccessary, be back later.

Goodnight all.

Who said that a Yorkshireman was a Scotsman without the generousity.

I left the computer switched on.

I don't have a dog fortunately. I did once step on a mouse, in my bare feet. I was in the loo having a pee when it ran across one of my feet, I stepped back in surprise and my other foot stepped on the mouse. And no it didn't affect my aim. When I took a holiday in Barbados the hotel was a series of bungalows within a tropical garden. The slugs were attracted to the cooler (air conditioned) bungalows at night and you soon got used to looking first before you jumped out of bed. The slugs looked the same as the British ones except they were huge, many of them over a foot long.

The 142 on bogies was something I considered but with only three bogies and articulated.

Not so good if it turns out to be a snail, they seem to like my front path and its quite common to have something crunch underfoot when coming home after dark.

I had a long update about ten days ago. A notice had come up about it giving the option of choosing a time for the update so I opted for '1 am tomorrow' expecting it to update overnight. I opened up my computer just before nine the following morning assuming the update had taken place. At nine o'clock the update started taking well over an hour to complete. Apparently the times were those in California at Microsofts HQ (Pacific summer time?) not BST which is eight hours ahead.

Morning all from Estuary-Land. It appears I have a similar problem as ChrisF, only the perpetrator is a bit slower. I come down this morning to find a slime trail on the living room carpet which must mean that there is a slug or snail in the house. Problem is finding it as the trail appears and disappears in the middle of the carpet. The only way to catch it is to find it in the open, at least it won't disappear as quickly as a mouse. I can only assume that I accidently bought it into the house on my shoes or it sneaked in during the recent building work. Thats it for now, be back later.

Goodnight all.

Theres nothing on the Vintage Carriages Trust site.

Whose going to be the first to build a working model of this:- http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/fictional/fictional.htm

Its possible that it belongs to the NRM who will probably put it in to store.

My dad was a controller at Kings Cross in the mid 60's. That was after all EN long distance coach services and tours were transfered to Tilling Coaches. The Bristol/ECW RELL coaches of EN only received a new fleetname and fleet number plate. I obtained one of those original fleet number plates at a LOTS sale a few years later, number 408 which much to my surprise was the number chosen by EFE for their replica of the Eastern National RELL coach.

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. I haven't been lazing in bed this morning, just that lurking on RMweb this morning seems to have taken longer than usual. I have decided that the new layout will be a shunting layout based on a quay, I've even chosen a name, 'Lochan Quay' (lock and key geddit?), I hope that is original enough, I have made up such names before only to find someone had beaten me to it.

EN had their own workshops at Prittlewell and Chelmsford and were much better endowed with such than many other Tilling group companies. Chelmsford was always Eastern National but Prittlewell came with Westcliffe-on-Sea. Chelmsford carried on servicing the bus fleet and Prittlewell the coach fleet which was also garaged there. The nationalised bus companies despite their being nationalised were allowed a great deal of freedom at operating level and in choice of rolling stock, not just the Bristol/ECW combination.

There was something similar on E-bay a few months ago. How about a Cl43 with a pantograph to make it an Electro-Diesel?

I thought that the 'A' stood for Autocar, an operator connected to but not part of the LGOC in much the same way as Tillings. The single letter codes IIRC were only former LGOC garages, the two letter codes were applied to garages taken over from independants and other operators that were absorbed into London Transport in 1933 plus any subsequent new builds. Incidently RE mentioned above was said to stand for Romford Express being a Greenline garage (Taken over from Edward Hillman). The RD code was allocated to Hornchurch garage as it was the only 'red' garage in the area until North Street (NS) was opened in the 1950's.

Goodnight all.

There was a similar locomotive operated on the Bowaters paper mill railway at Sittingbourne. IIRC it is now on the Welshpool and llanfair.

That would perhaps work better as a triple articulated with four wheel bogies (Bo-Bo-Bo-Bo) and just two pantographs on the centre section.

Some of the trailers were passed onto London Transport supplies department and used for uniform distribution, ironically they were hauled by some of the 4RF4's converted to mobile uniform stores. IIRC some also went to East Kent at Dover for use by the shuttle buses carrying foot passengers to and from the cross channel ferries. That 65 mph was with the trailers, without the trailers they were good for 75mph. I followed an RCL going empty back to its depot from Brentwood down Brook Street hill late one night, my car speedo was recording 78 mph at it was pulling away from me. Another bit of information about the RMA luggage trailers. The luggage was checked in and passed through customs in the central London terminal and then loaded into the trailers which were sealed by customs. At the airport the trailers were unhitched and taken to the aircraft behind a tractor. On incoming flights the luggage was loaded straight onto the trailer which was sealed by customs and only opened at the central London air terminal were customs and immigration processing took place. IIRC there was an incident where there was an explosion on one of the trailers en route to Heathrow, a bomb timed to go off when the plane was airborne but the flight was delayed.

Later classified 'RMA'. They were fitted with the larger AV690 engine and a higher rear axle ratio. The only other Routemasters so fitted was the RCL class.