TheSignalEngineer

I remember doing temporary bonding up of 30 foot panels in the late 1960s. They were used partly because of crane capacity I believe. The following week the rails would be tipped out as CWR was installed. Regarding 45 foot lengths, I covered jobs on secondary lines where the ends were cut off existing worn rails and they were then re-drilled on site. I seem to remember it was 15 inches off each end, with the minimum remaining length being 45 feet. At the end of the day's work a closure rail would be put in.

Beardy's Island?

Birmingham men worked a roster pattern in those days designed to maintain route and traction knowledge and often worked 50s to Bristol and Reading so a 50 to Manchester on Paddington was no problem.There are several pictures around in that era of 50s north of Birmingham on Manchester trains.

The National Rail website shows calling points and times. Doing a search for Plymouth to Preston for a chosen date/time you get this page then click on details to get this Click on show calling points to get this

Birmingham - Manchesters are alternately from the Reading direction or from Bristol and beyond, usually Paignton, but the vague nature of Sunday timetabling doesn't help matters.

If it's a Manchester train I would look at changing at Wolverhampton or Stafford if possible.

Whilst reading this afternoon I spotted a picture of a Glasgow & South Western BTK at New St in the mid 1950s.

But of the 18(?) different 8750 type numbers used so far only about six are DCC ready. Conversely most of the retooled 57xx numbers are DCC ready, only about the first three or four issues didn't have a socket.

What they got for a wagon would hardly cover the cost of the paperwork to sell it unless it was by the hundred. And earlier, although I don't remember this one personally as most of the track was removed when I was three years old. http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/mrsbr1187.htm I do remember lots of old wagons on the canal branch at Lifford which was the original route of the Birmingham West Suburban line around 1960 and the old carriage sidings at Saltley being full of box vans in 1967. When the TOPS system census was done on the Birmingham Division in the 1970s about 1100 wagons were found dumped in various locations. It led to the closure of the Norton Junction Yard, a.k.a Bescot Down Empties Sidings, as there were no spare wagons left to dump there. .

You have a PM Eric

There was a list of Bachmann items up to about 2011 on the website but I don't know if it is still on the re-vamped site. I have a PDF copy saved somewhere. Otherwise it is the Pat Hammond book. Basically IIRC it goes ex-Mainline 5700 from 1991 was split chassis. (31-xxx cat. nos.) ex-Mainline 5700 from 1996 "Improved" chassis (31-xxxA / 31-903 cat. nos.?) Bachmann 8750 from 1999 new chassis Bachmann 5700 from 2005 new 8750 chassis Bachmann 5700/8750 from 2007 releases DCC chassis. I think that all issues carried either a different number or different livery if the number was repeated.

The signalmen at Banbury South were convinced that there were never as many wagons came out of the scrap yard as were shunted in.

I remember pictures of the bottom of a large space ship from a film or TV series which clearly showed part of the underframe from an Airfix tank wagon kit.

Don't know if it's to do with the same thing but 9 Rgt. RLC have gone to Norway to operate a railhead for a NATO exercise https://twitter.com/9RegimentRLC/status/1047102548983853056

It was so much easier in my day. When we were told to reduce the stock holding of the stores, that which was deemed surplus was written off and supposedly binned. Anything we thought was of future use was loaded into our 12T box vans and labelled to another depot with a siding. They held the wagons for us until the coast was clear then labelled them back. We ran a barter system between ourselves to keep the job running when there were failures of archaic equipment supposedly no longer available and exchanging surplus equipment from new works jobs. It even extended to the contractors and London Underground.

The GWR didn't colour track circuits on its signal box diagrams. In the 1930s through to early BR days popular colours seemed to be passenger running lines light grey, sidings and crossovers signalled for shunt moves only were light blue and (IIRC) goods running lines were sometimes light tan. Track circuited lines were black, the demarcation between them being a white space. A caveat to this is that I have seen a WR diagram with the sidings in light tan and running lines in light blue, another with passenger lines grey, goods lines light blue, sidings light tan and track circuits denoted by a line down the middle of the track, and another with goods lines in light tan and sidings in light blue.

Good news. I have not visited the shop in person but have but have used via the Kitlady route a few times. Always had good service.

My T9 was a poor runner out of the box so I decided to clean the backs of the wheels. The problem was not only dirt on the back of the tyres but the pickups themselves were badly adjusted and losing contact with the wheels on some curves.

Other than Dapol the only CK available for LMS pre-WW2 would be the Bachmann 57ft panelled one. These were built c1925 and later until BR maroon days. Get either Bachmann or Replica Railways, the latter being regularly available on a well known auction site. Earlier models had plastic wheels and the gangways on Replica ones are prone to breaking up, but can be replaced with Comet ones. Other alternatives are to use Comet sides on RTR donors.

Three replies to go completely off-topic. Is this a record even for RMweb?

Things looked to be going well at the Gala on Saturday. Stations absolutely heaving and all trains seemed to be running more or less to time.

This is the bit of track you were talking about. Wolverhampton Low Level (pjs,0832) My version by geoff7918, on Flickr

Found it. This is an extract of the sheet for 141-142 MP. The point ends all have chainage shown Eric

I think I may still have a line diagram as it was in the mid 1960s marked up with the proposed alterations after LMR electrification.

Following on from my earlier post, those on the Harborne Branch c1959/60 had Belpaire fireboxes. 58271 had the original cab others had the later one. Walsall/Bescot's 58283 was unusual as it had a Deeley style cab but with round spectacles.