Hi all,
I'm not sure whether to post this here or uk.railway so apologies if you think this should have gone there.
for me, a gap in years spent interested in railway modelling coincided with a similar gap in my life of observing the prototype, and there's a couple of things that happened while i was gone that i wouldn't mind a bit of clarification on if anyone can help.
okay first one. Graham Farish have recently released a model of a Class 50 in LMS livery, which IMO looks 'orrible! When did this happen to the prototype? Is it a preserved livery, or one from it's BR working days?
one of the things that re-started my interest in railways was driving between bristol and bath, glancing over at the railway that runs mostly parallel with the road, and spotting a purple deltic! this was quite a shock at the time, although i've since gone on to read up a little bit on Porterbrook etc. Anyway's, when did the deltic get it's purple livery, and did they buy the loco directly from BR? how did the press react when it emerged in its new livery?
the other thing was, i used to love travelling to Cardiff and watching the triple headed class 37 ore trains bombing through the platforms (the noise!) approx what year did these stop?
oh, one more thing although perhaps too localised.. when last into modelling BR Blue, my layout was based on the engineering works at Ashton Gate in bristol, and i made up a tunnel inspection train based on wagons and coaches that were stabled there in (just a guess)
1977-81.. the works aren't rail served any longer (although i'm not too sure if they're actually closed or not) so i'm wondering if any of that stock survived, and if it did, where would it most likely be stabled nowadays? it was a right ramshackle bunch of stuff. six wheel milk tankers, roof inspection wagons based on old cattle wagons etc. I assume it's long gone, but would like to know for sure if anyone can help.many thanks in advance for all or part of the above,
mutley