TheSignalEngineer

not listed on Accurascale site now.

A train with 1st class and a guard? I'll have a pint of whatever you were drinking.

The old railway was generally a friendly place. I was made welcome in loco and pway cabins in most places back in the last millennium. One occasion I was doing a preliminary survey for cabling a pole route from Bloxwich to Rugeley. We had walked the first block section to Essington Wood, intending to reach Cannock to get bus back to Walsall. The colliery trip was shunting in the sidings there. As we passed the driver asked how far we were going and offered us a ride to Hednesford. He slowed down to walking pace whenever I wanted to look at potential problems. At Hednesford he took us to the cabin for a brew. One of the other drivers said he was taking a train to Lea Hall colliery at Rugeley after lunch, did we want a ride? We checked or escape route and found we could get to Trent Valley for a convenient train to Stafford, food and an express home. The offer was gratefully accepted and we completed three days work in one.

I'm not sure that it was dimensionally accurate. The doors on one side are the wrong way round IIRC and the door lines are raised. In y view the best starting points are 1) A Hornby BT with Comet end for P3 to Diagram 1856 Nos 24410 - 24429 For this one remove the duckets and fill the spigot holes behind them. File off the detail from the brake end, cut an aperture for the driver's windows. Fit the Comet end and detailing. You would need to check the roof vents as some lots of the LMS suburbans had torpedo vents and some had shell vents. I don't know if Hornby git the right variations for their numbers. 2) Airfix/Dapol BTL plus the body from either a BTL or CL for a donor compartment, for a P2 BT or Pull-Push conversion. Cut out the lavatory section. Cut one compartment section from the donor body and test fit in place of the lavatory, ensuring that the correct compartment spacing is maintained. Cut out the window between the innermost compartment and double doors, making the guard's compartment shorter to get the correct overall body length. Reposition roof vents as necessary. This will give you a a body for Diagram 1735 BT as seen in one of my posts on the previous page. To make this into the Pull-Push conversion, file off the detail from the brake end, drill out and file to size the driver's windows and add detailing. I used a broken CD case as a source for the driving cab glazing. Detailing was done with whitemetal pipes, RCH jumpers and horn, etched wiper and lamp irons plus some bits of Evergreen strip over the windows.

It could also depend on the technique of the operator. Some put a lot in at the start of the wagon which then got flattened by the bottom of the hood. That ensured that you got plenty in but you had to cut of at the right spot because you didn't want two tons to go between the wagons. That stopped the job while it was shovelled out by hand.

The duckets on the Hornby BT are separately applied. IIRC they are only held on by two spigots glued into the coach side, so just two holes to fill for the early P3 Diagram 1856 type. These were 24410 to 24429. There was another thread on LMS Pull-Push coaches about 3 years ago where I posted this picture. See https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/145574-ex-lms-pushpull-conversion-questions/&do=findComment&comment=3595607

LMS built 170 CL and 273 BTL 57ft coaches between 1926 and 1930.The Airfix / Dapol ones only cover the last 25 of each type. The earlier ones were in Period 1 panelled style. There were also a few 54ft coaches built for the LT&S line. This was my 6 compartment BT made from Airfix donors. I also made a 9 compartment Third. They did get around a lot in later years, even being photographed at Bath Green Park. We used to get them at New Street particularly on stopping trains from Stoke and Stafford, and even Manchester, up to the coming of DMUs. There is a picture showing an Airfix type CL with Period 1 Panelled Composite and BTL on a train from Rugeley there in 1958.

Ballast in the depot area would most likely be ash or clinker. Plenty available at no cost to the company.

Side lamps have two faces, White to front and Red to rear except where there are two adjacent lines on the same direction. In such an area the guard would remove the red filter from the side adjacect to the additional line in the same direction. In this picture the train has just come along the Up Goods line adjacent to the Up Mai. The lamp to the right is white and the left is red. When it moves out onto the two-track section the guard will put the red filter back into the right hand lamp. This one shows the lamp position from the front of the train Photos C E Steele I don't know what colour the lamp cases were in the north but these white ones were less common in our area than black cases.

A cold morning in the Dark Peak, although mainly sunny. Yesterday's bike ride was coincidentally (not really) timed to arrive at a bridge over the shiny strips of steel just before a Kettle-Ex was due to pass underneath. In brilliant sunshine as well, so no complaints about waiting around in the cold, although Anne did manage to feel the full effect of a 3-cylinder exhaust on a climb as it emerged from under the bridge . After lunch a quick trip up to Woodhead has been deemed to be in order, while my plan for tomorrow includes the Delph Donkey and Micklehurst Loop. Going back to the ancestry, the London connection has always intrigued me. Looks like a few moves to and fro with a split between the siblings as to venue in the 1870s. One of the sisters who I met c1962 had a bit of a history. She had a Dining Rooms establishment near Tower Bridge in the 1920s. Her first husband was a bit of a wide boy, the marriage register showing an alias rather than his correct name which had also been added. My Mon had met him in the early 1930s and said that he had gangster connections. When grandad was out of work they came up to bring some food and clothing and he stayed in the road keeping an eye on their posh car. He also bought sweets and cakes for all of the local street urchins. She dumped him not long after and from the proceeds of the spilt bought a cafe near London Bridge station. She was always flush for cash and when she came to visit us travelled 1st class on the Birmingham Pullman and insisted on paying to get around everywhere by taxi.

Found a few of those. Never did discover the identity of the girl referred to by one old relative as 'The Half Sister' was but I have a good idea who the father was.

Don't forget the side lamps as it is unfitted. Also looks as if it has lost a lamp iron at the other end.

It would depend on the route and engine power. All lines had a train length quoted in SLU (standard length unit) which was 21 feet. This did not normally include the loco and I think it was two brake vans. Train weights were based on the nature of the line in the way of maximum gradients and minimum curvature. Heaton Lodge will probably be in a (North) Eastern Region book somewhere.

It has been suggested to me that one of the names may have a Norman French origin, There are several subtle variations over time probably partly due to the way things were written down by the parish priest, and in this case it probably wouldn't have been advisable to have what appeared to be French Catholic origins around 1745, when the name seems to have started to settle down to its present version

An unusual name occurs in both sides of my family, most people carrying it track back to one place. I have gone back six generations before them on pretty firm documentary evidence but so far haven't found a link. On my researches I did however find who spent the family fortune my great aunt said once existed. Due to the way money was passed on in those days it didn't come our way being a few children down a big family. The one who inherited the farm got into the silk trade and his son by his late 30s was shown as a retired silk merchant living on the south coast. They actually owned a large mill in Staffordshire which still stands, now being a mixed use business and residential property. His unmarried sister lived with his family and by the time he died quite young they had moved to a large house in Hampstead. It appears she had expensive tastes in entertainment, had spent most of the money and was living in a flat in Maida Vale by the time she died. It seems that even though people move around the world is quite small. two hundred years ago a direct ancestor on Dad's side lived about three miles from an ancestor of Anne's Mom. When we decided to get married we introduced our parents to each other. It turned out that my Mom knew Anne's Mom as a child when they lived in adjacent courtyards of inner-city Birmingham. The terraces in which they lived actually joined on to each other at the corner. Mom had known Anne's grandparents and great grandmother in the 1930s. A few years ago Anne's sister turned up with an old bible which had some notes on a sheet of paper stuck inside the cover. When I added the names to my files I found that one of my ancestors was married at the same church in Worcestershire as one of Anne's relatives in the 1850s.

All good wishes to Kelly. Hope they can do the work soon. Anne broke her arm playing tennis some years ago. It was the same one she broke and had plated after falling into the canal as a child. She did it on a Thursday and they decided getting out various bits of ironmongery that had been left in before was going to be difficult. To get a clear run at it the surgeon decided that the best time to do it was in the evening. He assembled a team for Saturday night which was a good job because it took him three hours to clear it out and re-pin it. For the intervening 48 hours she was completely spaced out on medication. A second op to get rid of the new pins after 12 months and the arm was better than before.

I got interested in family trees when my sister and I had a long chat one day with a great aunt. She was born in 1897 and was approaching 90 at the time. She told us a lot of stuff about our Dad's family, as a girl she had known her grandfather who was born in 1830. She came up with close on 100 names which were recorded on a roll of wallpaper with all of the links put in. Later when records were being put on the internet I checked them out and found that except for two first names she was spot on. When I later started to look further the Staffordshire branch was of particular interest. It turned out that originally the name was only found in a small area on the edge of the Moorlands. Suddenly it appears in a large number in North America, as well as scattered around England to a certain extent. It seems that they got on the wrong side in 1745. Bonnie Prince Charlie is reputed to have stayed at a house belonging to them during his abortive attempt to reach London and his army camped on the family lands. One farm in the area has been occupied by a branch of the family since 1645. In the early days of DNA surveys samples from around 200 people of the name or descended from it located all around the world were taken and all but two matched. other branches on that side have links to Cheshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire and Somerset. Of Mom's grandparents one branch came from Worcestershire with the name appearing in legal documents from the area back to the 1300s. Another branch bears a Yorkshire name but I can't find any link to the county yet. I keep drawing a blank as it seems to have got London connections as well, and a marriage linked to the Welsh Marches One I can trace Birmingham connections back to the Civil War with possible Irish connections and the fourth again links back to the Staffordshire / Derbyshire borders. Given all of that I'm a bit of a mongrel, but have never had any problems at blending in with the local population wherever I have worked or lived.

'Cos he skittled you when you only needed 130 to win at Headingley.

Made that one as a cut'n'shut using two Airfix/Dapol suburbans as donors.

Dirving up to A1 for the first time, (well, beyond York anyway) when our son lived in Newcastle I don't think we passed a sign that didn't point to 'The North'. According to the Government I live in the East Midlands. We are North of Sheffield and Liverpool and West of Bournemouth. I think some realignment of Local Government on the basis of economic influence zones is required.

And reportedly the most radioactive part of the UK is the beach at Carbis Bay.

Similar situation in the West of Ireland. Our son was working there when his employer deciid to pull out because of the financial situation. He decided to set up himself with his girl friend who is in the same trade. After getting the company established they bought a reposessed old cottage wth a 2 acre field attached for 50K euros less the estimated cost of fixing the septic tank.

Tessie's put it up 5p yesterday. As for the Esso station I don't look at the sign as I go past now. Will check it out when I go to the tonsorial technician next door shortly.

I went to a coalface 700m at Coventry on a visit. I was glad I had joined the railway. Even so our car nearly got clobbered by a 15xx Pannier Tank as we drove across the yard in the dark.

My dentist some years ago, now retired as she was not much younger than me, was a tennis club friend of ours. She was excellent at her craft, doing a fantastic repair which included making a natural bridge when i lost a front tooth which had previously been damaged in an accident. It was rather a tricky job as she could only see what she was doing by working over the top of my head to glue the old tooth in place. She needed to keep my head perfectly still with her head bent down over mine. only enjoyable dental treatment I have ever had.