Monday Variety

Glorious Gronk 2

This company has taken a rather tatty and unloved class 08 ...

... and removed everything under the bonnet! Actually the bonnet itself has gone as well.

What is left has been cleaned down and protected by coats of heavy duty paint.

In the space go the batteries ...

... and a new drive train.

The original 08 is a diesel electric shunter, so it appears that the electric motors that turn the wheels are retained in the 08e.

It is all computer driven ...

... and miles away from the greasy growl in the cab of a Gronk!

Create a new lower height bonnet and you are ready for a launch.

Of course it has to have a leaf green livery to emphasise the environmental credentials of the rebuild.

News breaks more recently of the  first 08e to be sold for real.

Whilst the steady eddy of the 08 is no longer the normal sight in every goods yard (there ain't  no "every" goods yards nowadays) it would be good to see more of these delights.

You wonder who will be the first to market a OO model of the 08e

Puzzle Picture

This is a clue!

It was professor Eric Laithwaite ...

... who introduced the linear electric motor to the World, which, combined with vehicles floating on a magneti field gave us "Maglev" trains.

 

As it so often the case (see tilting trains) the UK failed to develop the idea. 

This is the best and only Maglev train to enter commercial service at Birmingham Airport. 

It was replaced with a more conventional string hauled system!

But others from far away have funded the development - and this is the latest result.

Seen above on its test track, it is now ready for public use, the technicians claim.

It goes quite quickly.

The plan is for Japan Railways ...

... to build a brand new Maglev line ...

... linking Tokyo with Osaka.

The road distance is just a smidge under 500km.

Trains currently do this trip in a little over two hours, so nippy in the extreme. In theory the new trains will take less than an hour! 

In the UK, that would be like London to Carlisle in just one hour.

Yikes.

How does it work.

It is levitated up and down ...

... guided side to side ...

 

... and propelled along ...

... all by magnets!

The principle of all three is simple (Yeah, right!!) with alternate north and south poles attracting and repelling in sequence.

That's  how fbb understands it - but what does he know? Not a lot and most he learned from Eric Laithwaite's Royal Institution Christmas lectures.

But that was nearly 60 years ago and, possibly, things have moved on a bit in the meantime!

The puzzle Picture is a bogie from the Japan train. And it doesn't  make understanding it any easier. It seems to have wheel, presumably for low speed manoeuvering. 

What they need is an 08e shunter!

More Model Railway Madness

Look at this, guv!

Sorry, that should read ...

Look at this GUV.

A GUV is railway parlance for a General Utility Van and the above were in use for the Rail Express Parcels service, now long gone.

But you can buy a model for you very own little railway. This one is OO gauge and by Bachmann.

The price is relatively cheap by today's  standards,

But what about this one?

It is by Heljan and is twice the price and more.

Shock Horror!!

But, dear reader, it is to O gauge and nearly four times the size by volume.

The mind boggles!

Tomorrow (provisionally) more mind boggling stuff from Cornwall.

  Next Kernow madness blog : Tues 20 Jan 

Sunday Variety

Hornby Class 66 Fastline 

Above we have a Bachmann model, pre-owned at £129 set against a Hornby version with electronic (DCC) control and sound (wot no smoke?) also pre owned, also £129. These are "pre-owned" from Rails of Sheffield. 

Below two more offers from Rails.

The same model, new, from Accorascale at £179 or with DCC and sound at £279. 

Other retailers are available!

Above is Bachmann at £145.

Confused dot com?

There is no doubt that the Accurascale is the most accurate (there's  a clue in the name) and most detailed version with Bachmann coming second. Hornby's Class 66 is definitely third but it us still a very good model.

But the "Puzzle Picture" version is a special offer from Rails ...

... as an orange dyed David Dickinson might say ...

... cheap as chips. Just £60. That is about half the price of a signalling tank engine in today's market.

Most of our readers would find it difficult to tell the difference between the models UNLESS they had all three side by side.

White Rose Weird Results

It's a shopping paradise, inni?

It opened in 1997 and is adjacent to a large business park; both places involving lots of people and lots of car parks. The White Rose "area" should have been an ideal location for a railway station on the line between Leeds and Huddersfield.

Work started on the station in 2022.

Work was abruptly stopped in 2024 due to management incompetence due to "an alarming cost overrun".

One of the best ways to reduce road congestion is to use rail. So, ideally, a station should be in place before the area develops. This happened with many stations on the London Underground and has again happened with Meridian Water.

But, nearly 30 years after White Rose opened, it still doesn't  have its railway.

But, whisper it quietly, something is about to happen.

White Rose may yet get its station!

Better late than never, as the saying goes!

Glorious Gronk?

For those unfamiliar with trainspotting patois, a Gronk is a class 08 diesel shunter once familiar in their hundreds all over the British Rail network. Sort of 'invented' by pre-nationalisation LMS, they have been painted black ...

... green ...

... numbered in the "D" series ...

... and been turned our in an amazing variety of post BR liveries. But those that have not been actively preserved tended to look like this.

08 308 was in a very sad state at Wolsingham on the heritage Weardale Railway.

Oddly, the Weiardale Railway does not seem keen to publish pictures of its pathetic peeled paint Gronk!

But something has happened.

It is shiny and green.

More to follow.

Puzzle Picture

What am I and how fast can I go?

Cranbrook By The Sea?

Stagecoach in Exeter runs buses to the rapidly expanding "overspill" town of Cranbrook.

There it is on the old A30, now B3174 just north of Exeter Airport. 

It's new station is top left in the above shot and more development now continues top right.

But it is not near the sea!

A local East Devon news hack doesn't  know that!

Never mind, it's  all on line!

So fbb checked. The timetable change was on 4th January. Early morning journeys run 7 days a week from about 0430. Journeys after midnight run hourly only on Saturday night i.e. Sunday very early!

Above is the timetable at the end of Saturday and the start of Sunday.

What the report should have said is that "On Saturday nights from 10th Jan, buses will run hourly through until Sunday Mornng".

Variety continues tomorrow.

  Next Variety blog ; Mon 19th Jan