Thunderer Under A Cloud

The latest locomotive to be added to our fleet although, admittedly, not one that will be used very often, is the Lima Class 50 50008 'Thunderer', which I acquired at a recent Model Railway Exhibition.

This particular model was produced in 1992 and was limited to just 550 thus making it one of the rarer Lima Class 50s.

It came boxed and with its original Numbered Certificate and, as you can see, she is Nº 340.

The loco has also been DCC-fitted (although not by me) with an address of 508 although, in typical Class 50 fashion, not long after we had started running and testing her on the layout, she failed! It seems that one of the wires had been poorly soldered and needs to be resoldered - and made slightly thinner too!

Below are some photos that I took of her showing both sides, both ends, the roof and the underside.

As the photos clearly show, she is in a really nice condition, for her age, and once the wiring is repaired, she will be up and running once again - although, unlike the Hornby Class 50s that we have, I doubt she will ever be fitted with sound.

Until then, here are a few photos of her on the layout beginning with a shot of her pausing at Carswater at the head of a rake of Royal Train empty coaching stock.

Finally, a couple of photographs of her in the service depot, awaiting repairs in the company of 50007 'Sir Edward Elgar'.

As a footnote I must say that, unlike the prototype Class 50s and, indeed our newly-acquired 'Thunderer', the other three Class 50s that we have in our fleet are amongst the best locos that we have in terms of reliability and sure-footedness and we regularly use them for all manner of duties.

Coming Back To Life

With the layout fairly moribund during December and January we thought that it was high-time to start running some trains again and, for me, to post some photos on the blog. 

So, with this in mind, here are some pictures taken during a recent running session, featuring trains at Gunnmere Junction, Sueston and the Ballast Yard.

First we see a Class 45 at the head of some oil tankers at Gunnmere while, in the background, is a Baby Deltic with a rake of green liveried coaches.

Next we see 50020 Revenge waiting to depart Sueston, while 37057 'Viking' arrives with a train from the north.

Now for a few photos taken at the Ballast Yard and we begin by peeking over the closed crossing gate at the entrance to the yard. The signal is at red so, obviously, no trains are due to arrive.

Moving inside the yard we see a Class 03 shunting some currently empty seacow hopper wagons.

Finally, a couple of photos looking from the other end of the yard and we can see that one of the seacows is already full of ballast. Judging by the amount of hoppers here there is some serious ballasting work due to be carried out!

The ballast yard is almost complete now, in terms of trackwork and buildings, but it does still need to be populated with workers and final detailing.
For those of you interested, the buildings here are the 'Mine Top Buildings' by Nightwing International, Catalogue Nº: PM 113 while the blue portakabin 'office' is by Hornby.
The Seacow hopper wagons are also by Hornby while the large Yeoman Ore Tippler, in the background, is by Lima.

The Steam Team

Just to prove that the Lakeland Railway is not a completely steam-free zone, here I present a sequence of photographs taken of the three steam locomotives currently fitted with sound files and which make very occasional forays onto the layout.

The first two photos feature Hornby's highly detailed model of the Rebuilt West Country Class 4-6-2 locomotive 'Wincanton', which is a recent acquisition. Originally she had Hornby's factory-fitted sound files but we have had those changed to Olivias sound, with firebox glow, working head lamps and an engine crew also fitted.

Here she is seen crossing Niggly Bottom viaduct at the head of the Pines Express.

Next up is the Bachmann model of an S&D 7F 2-8-0, Nº 88 (53808) in S&D Prussian Blue. She has a generic Howes sound file fitted plus non-working headlamps but no loco crew, as yet.

In this photograph, the 7F is hauling a rake of Dapol Limited Edition wagons that we have collected during recent months.

Finally, we see a Bachmann 4MT Nº 80120 in heavily weathered condition in charge of a train of coal wagons. This image was actually captured from a video so is not quite as crisp as the other photographs. 

She is also fitted with an Olivias sound decoder and, like Wincanton, has working head lamps and an engine crew fitted.

Branch Line Backdrop

We now have a backdrop behind the branch line that runs from Gunnmere Junction to Anchwood.

It rises above, as it runs parallel to, the main line to Davemore and was previously backed by a blue wall.

Now, though, it has a photographic backdrop, as can be seen in the photographs below.

A Class 42 heads an express for Sueston past a Class 37
heading north with a long train of ventilated vans.
Meanwhile, a Class 121 is held at signals on the branch line.

The same trains viewed from the other direction.

The 121 now leaves the branch line and heads
into Gunnmere Junction.

While the 37 is now seen having arrived at Davemoor.

Re Joyce at Midsomer Norton

It was a special 'Sentinel and Vintage Vehicles Weekend' at Midsomer Norton South this weekend (8 and 9 July) so we went along on the Saturday to see how things had progressed since our last visit which, ashamedly, was some time ago now.

Well, I can tell you the progress has been amazing with the line almost reaching the start of the infilled cutting leading to Chilcompton tunnel and, indeed, from August 7th to 11th they are hold a Track Bash Week to try and lay the rest of the track in one go.

Once the filled in cutting has been reached a platform will be constructed and locos will then be able to run around their trains - fantastic! 
Thereafter the cutting will obviously need to be cleared of its in-filling, something that will doubtless take a lot of time and money to achieve.
However, after that ... well, who knows?!?!

The station itself also looks terrific with some modifications having been made to the ticket office / shop in order to allow for an expansion of the sales area. They now sell a wide variety of books, models, toys and DVDs etc.

The former stable block at the station now houses an S&D museum and it is full of many fascinating S&D related artifacts. You can quite easily spend an hour or so in there perusing the many and varied items that are on display.
It is indeed to be highly recommended, as is the buffet coach and its adjacent seating area where you can partake of some delicious refreshments whilst watching the trains.

Sentinel steam locomotive, Joyce, was on train duty this weekend and, in the car park, there was a display of various Sentinel and other vintage road vehicles - as shown in the photographs below.

The view across Silver Street upon our arrival -
with one steam waggon already in situ ...

... but soon to be joined by a second ...

... and with a third in the background!

The seating area adjacent to the buffet coach
with the museum building in the background.

Joyce gets ready to depart with her two coach train.

The view across Midsomer Norton from the train.

The end of the line ... for now!

Looking back towards the station

Resident diesel shunter D1120. This is an English Electric
0-6-0 Diesel-hydraulic Locomotive, Type DH648A-60.
It was built in 1966.

Class 08 D4095 with a mixed train at Platform 2.

Joyce gets ready to depart with the next train
in the half-hourly service ...

.. and giving it all she's got up the 1 in 47!

Fire bucket notice beneath the signal box.

Inside the fully restored and immaculately-kept signal box.

The signalman's view looking towards Chilcompton.

Properly lettered fire buckets on Platform 1.

A steam car has now arrived in the car park as we are
about to depart. I know very little about steam cars
but is this a Stanley?

Wow! Where's the clutch?

A final view of the station - with the newly-arrived
steam car attracting many admirers.

A Good Goods Shed

Here we see two trains crossing at High Bridge, on the branch line from Gunnmere Junction to Anch Wood.

A Class 25 waits to depart for Gunnmere, having brought in a train from Anch Wood, while a Class 31 has just arrived from Gunnmere and is ready to continue its journey to the end of the line.

Below these two trains can be seen the main line between Gunnmere Junction and Davemoor.

We now switch our attention to Gunnmere Junction itself where we see, in the photos above, quite a bit of activity centred around the goods shed. 

This is a model of the Shillingstone Goods Shed by Bachmann Branchline, Catalogue Nº 44-170, and it is a particularly fine building with some great detail. 

It is ideal for this station since it, almost, matches the look of the rest of the buildings here - these being a mix of Hornby and Bachmann.

In the four scenes above we see a rake of wagons being shunted into the shed by a Class 03 while a Class 15 stands in one of the adjacent sidings. 

Meanwhile the Class 25, previously seen at High Bridge, is now standing at Platform 4, having just arrived with its train.

Top Drawers

Despite the fact that our layout is quite large, we have no fiddle yard in which to store our ever-growing amount of rolling stock.

Initially, we stored everything in custom-made boxes but these began to fill an increasing amount of shelf space and it took too long to unbox a rake of coaches or wagons and, then, put them away again at the end of a running session. This would also mean that we would end up with a mountain of empty boxes cluttering up the place!

So, while the locos are all, still, kept in individual boxes, the coaches and wagons are now stored in sets of drawers that we purchased from Lidl - yes, Lidl would you believe, for around £11.00 each.

Each set contains five drawers and we have eight sets of drawers for our coaches and the eight for the goods wagons. 

Each drawer has its own label, identifying what it contains, and we have colour-coded these labels, LMS maroon for the coaches and Southern Railway green for the goods wagons.

Some of the sets of drawers that contain the coaches

And two that contain wagons

Currently the coaches lay on their side on soft tissue, with each drawer able to hold four coaches in this way. 

However, the goods wagons are different in that they tend to roll about in the drawers, even on tissue. So, to prevent this, we decided to fit each drawer with customized foamboard dividers, as per the photographs below:

Two drawers of Hornby Seacow Hopper Wagons
with the ballast loads kept separate to one side.

Two drawers of various coal-filled mineral wagons.

A drawer of Yeoman hoppers and a drawer with empty mineral wagons

Finally, two drawers containing bogie bolsters with assorted loads.

All of this does make life so much easier because, when we wish to run a train of, say, mineral wagons, all we need to do is take out the relevant drawer and, then, it is simply a matter of removing the required number of wagons. 

Similarly, putting them away again at the end of the session is equally straightforward.

Nice!