PhilJ W

Goodnight all.

In fact that would be an excellent subject for R-T-R, many were sold off due to electrification in the early 1900's. Originally they had no cabs and many were withdrawn in that condition and sold on. Several companies purchased these locomotives including the Mersey Railway and the Cambrian some of which ended up with the GWR. Almost identical locomotives were also acquired by the Metropolitan District Railway and finished in their olive green livery.

As has been mentioned there is now a slip road/underpass taking traffic from the A13 to the A130, taking you straight onto a smallish roundabout connecting to the A127. This is the cause of the traffic hold ups that I warned Jock about as traffic going south on the A130 has to turn right at this roundabout. Now in the evening rush most traffic towards Southend uses the A13 and then diverts here to the A127 so that at the roundabout traffic from the A130 has to wait for a gap in the traffic from the A13, which during the evening rush is not very often. Essex County Council is very fond of putting traffic lights on roundabouts so why not on this one? The worst hold ups on the A13 occur when something goes wrong at the Dartford crossing. On the approach to the M25 there is 3 lanes, the inside one being marked out for traffic going across the river. If there is a problem the queue in this lane can be as long as a mile or more. The cockwombles don't want to queue up instead drive to the front of the queue and try to force their way in and in doing so obstruct the other two lanes. A bit overcast here in Estuary-Land at the moment but according to the weather forecast it should brighten up later, keeping fingers etc. crossed. Hope everything goes well for your grandson Jock, I'll be thinking of him as will other ER's.

The scrap could have fallen off the lorry and damaged the road surface as it did so, probably gouged a chunk out of the road. There was a rather spectacular picture of a lorry fire on Facebook this morning, the lorry was laden with straw that was ignited by a spark from the exhaust.

I know from bitter experience what it can be like on the A13. Problem is there is no alternative routes, the only other road is the A127 and in the event can be even worse. This is why I advised Jock to avoid the bottom end of the A130 during the evening rush.

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Just made a pot of tea and as I took the milk from the fridge I realised that today's pint was still sitting on the doorstep! this was despite my going out and coming in today. Fortunately because of the weather today it didn't suffer any ill effects, if it had been warmer I would have had a pint of yoghurt.

Happy birthday Mick, sorry I forgot to say so earlier.

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Pouring down this morning but only half an hour later the sun was shining, bit overcast now but still dry. Best wishes Jock and I hope all goes well with your grandson. Been following the news about the politicking going on at the moment who knows where it will end.

It has probably been found impracticable and/or impossible to remove it without considerable expense. There was a similar removal of an old tube train recently that necessitated removing the cars from their bogies, moving them by crane onto accommodation bogies and transferring them to lorries to be taken away for scrap. This could probably be justified by the scrap value of the largely aluminium tube train, but a single four wheel vehicle with a largely wooden body has very little scrap value and even a preservationist would baulk at the cost of hiring a crane to remove it.

Yes Pete, it is illegal to carry passengers in a trailer unless it is fitted out specifically for carrying passengers which caravans are not. There are dispensations for parade vehicles but these are quite restrictive.

I entered the item number and it no longer exists.

It was a bit 'sticky/slow' a few days ago but that was on Firefox, it was OK on Google Chrome.

It was there in about 1999-2000 when I took a charter trip from Shenfield.

Getting back on topic. I have removed 'Locomotion' from the backing card and on the back it makes it quite clear that the driving wheels are 4' in diameter. I then measured the wheels of the model and they are 14 mm in diameter so the scale is HO.

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Yesterday I managed to find an example of the GBL 'Locomotion', not a bad little model but to HO scale rather than the 00 scale of the rest of the range. It looks as if the 'Indian summer' is over now but it was good while. Commiserations and congratulations where necessary, be back later.

Goodnight all.

I managed to find one in one of the local Asda stores. It really looks tiny compared to the rest of the range. I have checked it against some 1/76 scale drawings of the prototype and it appears to be about HO scale, I will have to remove it from the packaging to measure it properly.

Thanks for that, only the centre axle on my 0-6-0 is driven which of course puts a lot of strain on the cranks, not helped by the said wheels not actually being in contact with the track, this was why I purchased it quite cheaply.

Morning all from a damp and dull Estuary-Land. According to the forecast it will be sunny later on so I will be not venturing out before lunchtime.

I have a motorised Knightwing 0-6-0 version. Its a none-runner at the moment as the plastic outside cranks are split, resulting in the (etched) crank rods going out of alignment. Looking at the illustrations it looks as if the Hornby cranks can be used. I hope that they will become available as spares with or without wheels and axles.

On the normal GBL base it looks as if its running on a pair of girders.

Evening all from Estuary-Land. I'm finding few problems with Windows 10 but then it was installed on a new computer and I've been told that its where an upgrade has been made from 7, 8 or 8.1 that problems occur. The mention of chemical formulas reminded me of this ditty:- Poor Tommy Dodd is dead and gone, poor Tommy Dodds no More. What he thought was H2O was H2SO4.

GROAN!

Morning all from Estuary-Land. It looks as if Jock has missed my advice on travelling to Basildon Hospital so I'll PM him to make sure, the bottom end of the A130 can be horrendous during the evening rush on Fridays in particular. Of to watch 'Blitz Cities' now, fascinating. Have a good POETS day all.

We didn't cause any bangs in our science lessons at school but I do remember one incident where the teacher managed to spill mercury on his desk. It settled in globules so all he did was push the globules back into a test tube with his fingers. We all seemed to survive the experience anyway. Goodnight all.