No modelling whatsoever for almost a week, due to a heavyweight cold followed by extreme hayfever. It's hard to ballast track when sneezing continually blows the ballast away!
I've passed some of the time by catching up with my scanning backlog, including this mighty Class 50 biding it's time in the centre road at Birmingham New Street 16 years ago. My second favourite loco of all time (surpassed only by the slightly mightier Westerns) these were regulars at New Street and most days could be relied upon to produce one of these centre road shots. I seem to have remarkably few photos, nevertheless. I suppose familiarity bred contempt.
Unsuprisingly I've dug this negative out because of the various pre-production photos of the Hornby Class 50 that have been doing the rounds in recent weeks. As long as Hornby correct the serious errors in the front end before it's release, I should be buying quite of few of these. I might even move the layout's theoretical location in order to accomodate them if they're good enough.
You never think you'll miss them until they're gone. Imagine it's a boiling hot day and you're stuck in one of these just outside New Street for 15 minutes while the chap in the power box shows his holiday snaps around. As always the heating is jammed on maximum and you've managed to pick the seat over the engine for that little bit of extra warmth - good call. With no breeze to speak of, opening the windows just alters the pitch of the annoying rattle, and the guy sitting next to you obviously thinks anti-perspirant is something that happens to other people.
Ah! Nostalgia!. But where are the ready-to-run models of these critical pieces of equipment?