7mm Yorky D's LT - Wagonery tales from the Met.

[oldravendale]

This is a wonderful anecdote and reminds me when my dad and myself visited Neasden Depot open day in the 1980's. Chalked on the mess room door at Wembley Park was 'MET MEN ONLY'. The old loyalties persisted.

In the late '60s/early'70s I worked in Kingsway (nearest station Holborn). There were, from time to time, tube strikes, but the Met never went out.

I guess it was like the regionalised railways, now all gone......

Brian

 

[76043]

Refurbished Met A stock had a small Met crest/coat of arms on them, right up to withdrawal. Not sure about the new S Stock, will take a look today.

What has gone is the 9 LT sports grounds, that were part of the offering to staff. I think only Osterly Park remains, but am likely to be wrong on this.

Every garage had one or two full sized slate bed snooker tables, my Dad would travel round various garages in tournaments. He recently told me an inspector once took his bus off the road early so he could go to match! Shocking, but then again in those days the frequency was often five minutes or less at peak hours.

In the 1930s LT was seen as a great employer that looked after its staff, free uniforms, good pension etc. This was the reason my Grandfather got a job on the buses and later at Lillie Bridge, along with two other relatives!

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Refurbished Met A stock had a small Met crest/coat of arms on them, right up to withdrawal. Not sure about the new S Stock, will take a look today.

I don't think it has - would be a nice touch for the S8 stock but I would suspect the District would have some thing to say if there were.

 

[76043]

Yep, no Met crest on the S stock.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

I've spent most of the day processing signs for the yet to be built 7mm LT layout...

.....Rawlinson End (an unbuilt station in the New Works programme )

They are printed on glossy photopaper as the LT signs were enamel.

Most of them are from photographs recently taken at the LT museum in Acton and a few others I had purloined earlier from other sources.



Close up of some of the smaller signs including destination boards for the MET/LT locos. The notice to the left of the LTE Danger Live Rails is a Metropolitan and Great Central Joint Committee car park notice which was at Pinner.

And the larger signs....
The Goods and Coal Depot sign was at Edgware - a bit odd when Edgware was on the Northern Line - was a link from the GN or Midland lines?
The cut UNDERGROUND and LONDON TRANSPORT roundels are those which wrap around a flag pole. The UNDERGROUND variant is still seen on stations and the LONDON TRANSPORT variant were seen adorning their bus garages.
London Road is a SR station sign in the LT collection.
Of the Rawlinson End name boards the one with white background is the later style whilst the cut one the the earlier style. The smaller ones are usually seen on tunnel walls.
And finally the large UNDERGROUND in the bottom left will be used for the side of the station entrance awning. The station name will appear on the front of the awning.


And there's still some more signs to sift through....

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

And some more....

Today I've mostly been playing about with the station name for the entrance awning and after printing it's definitely going to be one of the variants which includes METROPOLITAN LINE .

And printing off some bus stop flags (bus & coach and bus compulsory) and some timetables for the panels. The flags were developed from an original bus & coach stop flag I acquired from Garston Garage (GR) many years ago.



This includes some Bus Request and Green Line compulsory and request coach stops. I haven't made up any mixed request and compulsory flags yet.... The 1969 underground map is for the station entrance as is the poster.

I suppose I should really get some base boards to make a start on the layout.... - or not quite yet .

 

[simond]

I’m rather looking forward to it...

 

[Paul Cambridge]

As someone born in SE London and whose maternal grandfather was a driver at Catford Garage, this is interesting stuff. Can’t wait to see the layout take shape.

 

[oldravendale]

I'm an exceptionally fortunate chap. Dave kindly gave me a Bus Stop some years ago (I think as a "suggestion" that I should build a London Transport layout - sadly never started). It's a miniature work of art and treasured.

Brian

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Today has seen these two items made up and painted.

They are from Radley Models, painted with acrylics with signs stuck on. Not brilliant as I tried to thin the paper but it does not work with these flags as they have brackets for the route number E plates. The thickness of the photo paper can be seen and I shall look at re-printing these onto white decal film. However, the paper thickness is not obvious for a flag without E plates.

The one on the left is an older style post with a darker concrete and later style flag. It should really have one of the older flags with the bronze frame which I may make up.



I sourced online and reduced the timetables and 'Green Rovers' advertisement for the panel which requires a thin sheet of 'glass' to finish.

 

[76043]

I have my Dad's treasured Green Line 721 e-plate, I've always fancied a mixed bus/coach flag to stick it on, but they seem to go for a lot on ebay. My Dad missed the last ever 721 as it was my Mum's birthday, but lots of the staff rode on the last bus and took down all the e-plates on the route both ways and distributed them to the staff. By this time in 1977 it was London Country and Romford Green Line closed the following day.

Will your layout feature a Dapol LT pannier on engineers trains?
Tony

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

I've always fancied a mixed bus/coach flag to stick it on,

Fortunately this is what I do have and some E plates for routes 301 and 706.

Will your layout feature a Dapol LT pannier on engineers trains?

Yes, L94 in a suitably weathered state.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Dave kindly gave me a Bus Stop some years ago

I'd completely forgotten about this.

as a "suggestion" that I should build a London Transport layout - sadly never started

How about some destination boards as an inducement

 

[Dan Randall]

I picked up a bus/coach flag several years ago....







Does anyone know what the numbers underneath signify?


Regards

Dan

 

[Paul Cambridge]

Possibly the flag’s serial number? Large organisations do that to keep track of their assets.

 

[Dodger]

Asset number .?

 

[oldravendale]

If I only had another 50 years I'd reconsider doing Rickmansworth........

B

 

[mickoo]

Australian bus services

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

This time I've been making some initial items in readiness for dismantling the red Hachette RT prior to repainting Lincoln green and detailing it into TG (Tring Garage) RT 4751 (OLD 538). I used to see her pounding up and down the Tring Road in Aylesbury on route 301 during the early 1970's. but I will be backdating the model to 1968/9 under LONDON TRANSPORT ownership.

I resized some 4mm decals and applied these temporarily to check the sizes. I also found and resized the BOAC and Visionhire adverstisements. I have some others for the front and rear upper deck panels and the lower rear panel.

In addition I printed up the number plates and also have the correct size LONDON TRANSPORT fleet name and RT4751 prepared for a clear decal sheet.

The decals which will present the greatest difficulty will be the ownership details, unladen weight and speed limit as these are white letters.

...... and of course there's the moquette to produce as a decal .





It was then I noticed the incorrect numeral 1 on the destination blinds so I made up some new ones on t'PC using the correct font ready for printing on white decal sheet. Displayed here they are vastly overscale but when printed they'll be ok.

 

[oldravendale]

Super stuff - great attention to detail.

As I've lived pretty much on the route of the 301 for my adult life I should remember - but where was Tring bus garage? I remember Hemel Hempstead very well but have entirely lost sight of where Tring was. I've looked on line and found photos, but they still don't show me the location.

Brian