Miles and chains and sleepless nights

When I told my Mum on Friday night that I had travelled 1081 miles and 68 chains on the West Coast Main Line (WCML) in the last 24 hours, her response was “Do they still use chains? How splendid.” And it is when you think about it. You can tell people a chain is the length of a cricket pitch which may help visualisation but unless you know the length of a cricket pitch in some other unit it doesn’t really help. And what about the number of chains in a mile. Educated railway professionals know the answers to these things (including the cricket bit), but I’m guessing not so many others do these days. Sadly, the use of miles and chains is slowly being replaced with km as the new signalling system, ETCS, is rolled out though it will be many years before we totally lose the chains. Some lines destined not to have ETCS may only go to km when they become inconvenient imperial islands in the middle of metric, though I doubt that issue will concern my working life.

The point of the 1000 mile epic was to compare the ride qualities of various different types of rolling stock. I’m not going to go into the details here but it is something that I hope will shape a new train fleet, and also shape how I write train procurement specifications going forward as I am seeing a hole in the cheese that needs filling. The logistical problem I had was that the day I had available to do this work was Friday but I needed to be in London on the Thursday. The testing I needed to do was from Edinburgh travelling to Lancaster. And back. Twice. Which meant I needed to be in Edinburgh in the morning before a train from York could get me there. So that left me with two options on the Thursday night – either take an Azuma on the ECML, wave as the train passed my home in York, arrive 4 hours later in Edinburgh at 2200-2300 and get a hotel, or hang around in London until past 2200 and get the sleeper. I opted for the latter. The reason behind my decision was that the last time I travelled on the sleeper, as a way to get to another site for ride testing, was in 2018 and it was the old Mk3 stock, and I wanted to see what the new Mk5 stock is like.

The map shows my epic travels. Purple is Thursday ECML from York to London. Red is Thursday night / Friday morning sleeper from London to Edinburgh. Green is the testing on the WCML Edinburgh to Lancaster (and back, twice – did I mention that before). And pink is my journey home on an Azuma on Saturday.

Both ECML journeys I seatfrogged into first class. If you’ve never done that it is worth a punt. Basically you bid eBay style on a first class seat. For the operator it is a definite bonus as it releases standard class seats which can be in short supply and means they get some money for otherwise carrying fresh air in first class. York to London I paid £10 upgrade, and Edinburgh to York was £5 upgrade – and LNER still offers a decent first class catering option at weekends unlike all the other operators.

So come just after 2230 on Thursday I found myself on the northbound Lowlander sleeper although it doesn’t actually leave until 2350 (2345 public timetable). It comprises two parts – the Glasgow, and Edinburgh portions. At Carstairs, the train pulls into the platform, and the front vehicles head for Glasgow, while the rear vehicles reverse to go round the lesser used side of the triangle to Edinburgh.

To try to record my thoughts on the journey I did a couple of videos – one before the journey, and one after. I was in a Club Duo, or to put it more basically, a bunk for two with an en-suite. It is one of the features of the new trains is that many (not all) of the accommodation is en-suite. As a colleague said to me “it’s a train full of bogs”.

The morning after, I was not in the happiest of moods. Worse sleeps I’ve had were when I had chicken pox as an adult, and nights I’ve had in hospital. Better sleeps I have had would include every other sleep I’ve ever had, including the ones with a new born baby in a cot next to my side of the bed.

The video is here, and if you can cope with a bit more after you’ve watched that, here are some more thoughts.

• The ride is awful. Did I say that already. Rattles and bangs. The coach seemed to spend more time on the bump stops of the suspension that not.
• The best bit of sleep I got was the 15 minutes when it stopped at Preston.
• The breakfast was nice but I forgot to ask for no beans.
• I originally sat in one of the lateral facing seats in the Club Car but I found it so uncomfortable I asked to move to one of the swivel seats. The buffet staff member seemed surprised about that but as a tall person the seats are a) too low which encourages you to slouch but they are also b) far too hard to slouch in. I got back-ache within 2 minutes of sitting down. The last seats to do that to me were the ones on the Cl.700s (the ironing boards). The double contoured cushion base looks nice but because it is rock hard, when you sit on it you can feel the double bumps and it is really uncomfortable. The swivel chairs aren’t much more comfortable as they have been designed with slim hipped people in mind and if you’re not the wings of the seat back dig into your back and means you can’t sit far enough back in the seat to be anything else than a perch seat. Fortunately after a while your back goes numb so you don’t feel it. Definitely better than the upright seats but similar to being asked to choose whether to swim in a 1 deg or 2 deg temperature sea.
• The crew seemed to think it was OK to have a personal conversation in the Club car at a really high volume when everyone was having breakfast – I suppose it distracted us from the rattles but it isn’t a good look.

• I don’t have specific photos of it, but the control boxes in the bunks for the lighting and sockets don’t seem very well thought out, especially as the one with the master controls is on the bottom bunk and they are not repeated on the top bunk. And the location of the them mean you are intended to sleep with your head near the corridor while I prefer to have my head near the window.
• There are lights to help you when you are using the sink. Because they are either side of the window they have been termed “window lights”. The lights aren’t there to light the window though. It would be much better if they were labelled “sink lights” or something that described their function rather than their position.
• The bunk is too short unless you are under six foot.
• The “sides” of the top bunk to stop you falling out would snap if you tried to pull yourself up on them. I am told that they aren’t even rated strong enough to stop someone falling out – so you do have to wonder what they are there for.
• And yes, just to finish, let’s remind ourselves that the reason the top bunk was uncomfortable was because there was a ladder under the mattress. Honestly.

So to summarise, would I go on a sleeper again. Of course. I love travelling by trains and I love going to sleep in one place and waking up in the next.

• Continental Europe – definitely.
• Cornish Riviera – absolutely, that service uses Mk3s.
• Caledonian sleeper – no, never again.

Next time I’ll get the Azuma.

Where has all the time gone?

Well Happy New 2024. I was listening to a podcast the other day which was discussing 1994 being 30 years ago. As that is one of the significant years in my life (GCSEs if you must know), that revelation was a bit of a painful reality. At least the music was good.

This is the first of two posts to see in the new year. It seems mad that it has been 7 months since I last posted. It is true that modelling has taken a significant back seat of late but still…!

I have had to have a strategic look at my modelling activities over the last few months due to both time and health. I have one of those hidden disabilities. My eyesight is pretty rubbish. Most of the time it doesn’t effect me and I’ve just developed strategies to work round it. However it does mean that if I spend a long day at the computer on my day job, I am not going to do any intricate work on a model in the evening.

With that in mind I intend to ease off on the rolling stock kit building and rely more on tweaking existing stock and concentrate more on scenic modelling where I get some real enjoyment. When I say “ease off” I have got a whole heap of Fourdees carriages to do so it may be some time…! I was also musing the other day that my dad, who had a softer skills job, liked to dive into his workshop and do solid engineering to relax, whereas I find I do enough of the problem solving at work (most of the time) and it’s the softer creative skills I like to exercise in my spare time.

Just to demonstrate I have done some stuff in the last five months, here are my Bachmann Ladies converted to 1970s oil firing (pre waste oil – the tanks change depending on the era modelled), a day out at Gilling with my friend who has a Manor, modelling the Forest of Boland Light Railway as a pizza layout to go round the Christmas tree, complete with gnomes (including Hal o’ the Hob and guards with crossbows, wagons full of gold (iron pyrites), and the Boland Belle made using a Fleischmann loco with GWR Dukedog cab sides, a white metal Langley double Fairlie dome, and a spare NG chimney), a trip to Knaresborough, and my latest modelling on the bench which is a Rail Model GWR station which Andy Pearce has kindly modified so it can be built as an island platform building with two canopies. It is a bit of an epic build so I will do a post about the whole thing later (when I’ve finished it!)

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Jarrow

Last weekend I went to Jarrow model railway exhibition with Nigel, Will, and Paul with Tan y Bwlch. We took our families too and stayed at the Bowes Incline Hotel, a great spot. The steak was so good on the Friday night that Paul and I had to have it again on the Saturday.

The exhibition was excellent having been organised by fellow 009ist and TLC of Wales lover, Adam. So there having been a hiatus in comms, here’s some pics including recently outshopped oil fired Prince, weathered Britomart, yet to be weathered purple moose vans, along with the old favourite 1961 Merddin Emrys. All have been recently fitted with the Tramfabriek chopper couplings which just look so good.

And here’s the dream team in a rare picture

Going travelling

It’s a new one for me this weekend as I get to play with Devil’s Bridge, the 009 layout of the Vale of Rheidol Railway built by Eddie and Rachael Field now owned by Nigel Smith. It is being displayed as part of the Statfold Barn model railway exhibition.

Some time ago I built a model of one of the VoR locos in BR blue. In my usual last minute rush I have “finished” the remainder of the train ready to create a diversion from the “monotony” of 1920s GWR locos and carriages.

The passenger carriage is a Dundas VoR carriage overlaid with a set of etched sides which are from memory from Worsley Works which I liberated from a friend.

The van is the Dundas van but skinned with plasticard to create the smooth sides as in the rebuilt form.

Neither are my best work but together they create an effect…

Double whammy

It seems rather nice to do a blog post that I can share on both the model railway groups I’m in on social media – GWR and 009 modelling.

As if I didn’t have enough going on with two Mini-mes, full time wfh and therefore chief domestic god (or domestic fox as autocorrect wants me to have it – I quite like that), I have been campaigning for some time to have a dog on the premises. Having grown up with there always being one in the house, it seemed right to correct the omission; however a 3 month old puppy isn’t exactly relaxing. He is now settling into being in my office / railway room (and much like a baby, he’ll sleep wherever he reaches when he runs out of clockwork spring).

This particular sleep gave me enough time to start the transporter wagon. As previously discussed it is on the chassis of a Beetle prize cattle wagon I cut the buffer beams off the ends of the van body, with room to spare, then having stuck them on, the floor, filed them down to size, the picture showing the LHS done and the RHS yet to do.

Having donated some 009 track into the cause, I stripped the rails from the sleepers (keeping them for later) and cut four pieces. A dry run with some Peco slate waggons showed the rail needed to be right on the edge of the floor section- this was fine because I need to add extra baulks to the outer edge later.

The inner rails were then stuck with reduced gauge. This stops the waggons taking an early exit in a rough shunt. A similar trick is used on the pit roads in 2 and 3 roads in the Old Erecting Shop at Boston Lodge so anything you put on the pit stays where it is.

Clearly a lot still to do with planking and lots of details to add (including getting some buffers since Peco-Parkside forgot to put some in the kit but a good start before puppy’s recharge put a stop to that particular fun.

Beetles. Bloaters, and Macaws

Well I type this having had the luxury of some time recently to get Viking’s paint job on the go. I’ve gone for Aldershot and District Dark Green from Phoenix and it replicates the early dark green that Viking carried very well. Lots to do yet but you get the idea.

I have also been looking into transporter wagons. The GWR had wagons to carry six 2′ gauge slate waggons over the Ffestiniog branch after it was converted from 2′. The first waggon appears in a lot of photos but was later replaced with Macaw A wagons. Two pictures of these appear in Chris Jones’ book Tren Bach Y Llan, The Little Train to Llan Ffestiniog in Appendix 10 which is dedicated to these wagons written by Adrian Gray.

There was a time when you could get a Macaw A kit but sadly they are now like rocking horse poo. However, the Macaw As had 16ft wheelbase and that is the same as the Beetle prize cattle wagon and they are available from Parkside so there is a handy solution for a start point to scratch build on top of.

While I was at it I also got a Bloater fish wagon which can be loaded at the quayside from the fishing boats that will be tied up alongside.

It is a while since I’ve done some plastic kit building so I am looking forward to it, though having recently spent an afternoon in hospital while someone poked inside my right eye while I was awake to correct a long standing problem I’ve had, faffing about with a scalpel is probably best avoided for the next week or so.

The loss of a legend

We’ve lost another great. Adrian Shooter was one of the legends of our industry. He was someone to get things done and do them well. Chiltern Railway is a testament to his understanding of creating a great product while retaining the best of the heritage – Birmingham Moor Street being, in my view, one of his crowing glories.

Birmingham Moor Street Station
(C) Stephen McKay shared under creative commons

Although I was aware of Adrian in my railway career, it wasn’t until 2005 that I met him when he brought his DHR locomotive 19B / 778 to the Ffestiniog Railway. Although it had been overhauled, the big ends ran hot, and when a few of us decided to rectify the problem one morning before anyone else arrived, we discovered the connecting rods were twisted and bent so with the big end unattached and the little end tightened up, the big end was 1/4″ out from where it should be in two planes and the end was twisted out of parallel with the little end. A judicious application of heat delivered the required rectification and a quick slap of red paint covered the evidence. The team then finished by having a photo taken on the loco in the traditional DHR crew positions.

Later that weekend I had the opportunity to fire the loco on a photo charter. It had teething problems as it was effectively still running in from overhaul and unfortunately the coal supply was awful and I took over a heavily clinkered fire that got worse fairly rapidly and killed off the charter after a trip to Minffordd and a couple of runs across The Cob.

DHR778 at Minffordd in May 2005
(C) AHEMSLTD~commonswiki shared under creative commons

Adrian innovated all the way through his career and Vivarail was another example of this. A piece of work I did for the DfT suggested that D-stock could be used on the Island Line which of course has now been achieved with Vivarail’s Cl.484s. Sadly, although the company itself has not been successful, some of the later developments, most notably the fast charging system really does have a bright future if someone is willing to take it on and run with it.

Adrian liked to be in charge and make his own choices and he did that when he travelled to Switzerland to make his final decision yesterday. Many others will write many better words than me about Adrian, but to me he stands with the likes of Allan Garraway, Richard Hardy, and Gerrard Fiennes. A true railwayman.

Adrian with DHR778 at his Beeches Light Railway
(C) Oxford Mail

A quick hour

Modelling time seems a bit thin on the ground at the moment although I did get a good trip to Warley (but smaller and quieter than usual but that just meant it was easier to get round, and the Hooky bitter was very nice).

The weekend before Warley t’missus went to see t’sister in law in Athens so while the MiniMes were playing I got a bit of time in.

First job was reassembly of my Star. It is virtually complete though I think I’ll need to commission some transfers for the “Star Class” markings on the centre splashers.

Of course it was only when I reassembled it did I realise I hadn’t painted the cylinders to get rid of the lining. Add that to the snagging list.

Next on the desk is a model of Viking, the Isle of Man diesel locomotive. It’s a bit big for 009 really but this 3D print has been designed to fit the Kato chassis and having always had a soft spot for Viking it felt rude not to given the chance.

My introduction to Viking, and my delve into all things Isle of Man was when I went on a couple of stag dos over there which involved 5 days of using public transport to get about (and hiring an OB bus). I also did a trip with some friends when the Lady of Man was going to be retired from service to have one last trip on her. On one of those stag dos we were all instructed to find t-shirts (the sort with random logos) that had the numbers of the Isle of Man locos. I pulled a blinder and found a green t-shirt with “17” on it in the local TKMaxx.

So the model is underway with detail being added. I shall divert from the original and add other details (such as the big headlamp like the DHR diesel carries). I am also going to outshop it in the darker green it had when first introduced to service. Fortunately my trip to Warley coincided with that decision so I made a quick visit to Phoenix Paints while I was there. I’ll take a better picture for the next post – the miracle of a sunny day washed out this photo a bit.

Still here

Not been writing much for a while because there has not been much to write about being too busy being husband/dad/full time engineer.

I did get my WW2 water tank tender finished.

I have been also doing some idle messing in a different scale. I have been gifted a 45mm Wilesco kit loco built by a family friend who is disposing of some of his things. The shape of the loco isn’t totally to my taste if I’m honest but I think it has potential.

It also has some idiosyncrasies. The exhaust steam goes into a condenser that then drips the collected water onto the track.

However in good news I gave it a test run the other day and although it had some leaking glands it generally was fine and free running though a little wet – I have read several sources that suggest they are better with a new burner.

Having spent time looking through various sources for something I could turn this into, I am going to see if I can make it look something like a Cyprus Govt Railways 2-6-0 (for 009 modellers that’s the Roxey Troodos model).

It’s always amazing how a small change can make a big difference. My idle musing led me to acquire a Roundhouse Russell done cover and it already looks a bit better.

If I can make the steam pipes look like they are sand pipes then I think it is a suitable disguise.

Apart from that, I have also been upside down and seen various trains, went to a the big model plane show at Elvington and watched the Lancaster fly past, have been proving gravity still works for downhill running on the Ffestiniog, and went to look at the “loony nations” at Blackpool.

29 months of dodging

Well it was inevitable I suppose. After 29 months, and three vaccines, I finally caught the plague. After spending Tuesday wondering if I was dying and wondering even more how I was going to finish my work in the week available, I did a test that evening and got the dreaded two lines. Followed by t’missus the next morning, and the MiniMes 24 hours later. So a plague house we are.

Also being totally unable to concentrate to anywhere near the level possible to work, I then spent Tues night / Wed morning tefloning my work onto others.

Within about 48 hours I started to feel like a human being again but I have the exhaustion that everyone talks about. I have to plan trips upstairs from down or down from up as I need a break between transits.

One thing I have found helps is distracting myself. So I have smashed a few KenKens (think Killer Sudoko) and have also managed ten mins here and there sorting models. One of which has got to stage of going to paint shops – the Cambrian Jones Class 15 Goods No. 864. This is the one I have written about before that I think almost certainly retained its GWR livery until the end of life in the early 50s.

I also caught up with Facebook having taken a break from it for a couple of months – very therapeutic. On browsing on my return I saw a picture on the Cambrian Railways Central Wales Division page run by Andrew Dyke of an ex-TVR O4 0-6-2T at Moat Lane which research by me (another distraction) suggests may have been en route to Worcester. Being such a lover of the weird, wonderful, and out of place, I’m now wondering if I can justify such a visitor at Penlowry.

And finally, Browsers Bookshop in Porthmadog (worth a visit if you’re going to Port) contacted me knowing I had a model of their shop on my layout asking if I could send them some pics of it to use in an upcoming promo they’re doing. So happy to oblige I got the mountain railway stock out to provide a more interesting background and put Idris in his cave.