The sheer number of different trains operating on Banbury Connections can make train identification problematic. In this month's post, I've photographed a couple of unusual workings spotted across the past few months.

The first is an ex-GWR King hauling two parcels vans from Chester at Shrewsbury. These vans were part of the London-Aberystwyth parcels train and supposed to be detached at Birmingham Snow Hill. This train is readily confused with the London-Birkenhead parcels.

The second photograph shows a BR Standard 3MT tank locomotive on the Birmingham Snow Hill - Chester General cross country service. This train is normally pulled by medium power tender locomotives such as Granges, Halls and Counties but was accidentally run through to Birkenhead Woodside. This was due to confusion with the Chester-Birkenhead local service which is also comprised of four maroon carriages. 

The big news for this month was the birth of James Day; the third generation of Banbury Connections operator. 
Below are a few pictures of James in the model railway room.

This month I've included an interesting view of Sheffield Victoria's northern throat taken from the train room wall whilst doing some repair work. It is nice seeing all the catenary coming into the station with the adjoining electrified sidings. Unfortunately, some of the Tri-ang masts have been giving us some grief as they tend to move which causes the pantograph to get caught. This will likely result in the construction of some brass masts on the section between Sheffield and Manchester. 

An article describing construction of Banbury Connection's new train shed at London Marylebone appeared in the Railway Modeller this month (February 2023 edition).

Banbury Connections has run a milk train from Aberystwyth to Birkenhead for several years now. The train leave Aberystwyth with two milk marketing board tankers and a Mk1 full brake and picks up three insulated milk vans from the siding at Machynlleth. These insulated milk vans were one of the last pieces of rolling stock to evade our quest to remove all pre-nationalisation liveries from the layout! Two of the vans were original Triang versions (which needed replacement ladders) whilst one was a fairly modern (probably about 15 years old now) Hornby reproduction in maroon LMS livery rather than the original white livery.

Following inspiration from a van which has been repainted in Hattons second hand department, the decision was made to repaint all three milk vans in British Railways Maroon and renumber them all with correct numbers and markings. 

A photograph of our efforts is reproduced below. The wagons are now comparatively quite boring in prototypical early 1960's livery with a touch of weathering!

For Christmas, we brushed the dust off our old Bachmann Big Hauler set and put it around the Christmas Tree. Being American, Katie appears to be particularly fond of it! 
The locomotive is amazing considering it was very cheap, is about 20 years old now despite receiving limited running opportunities and is fitted with radio control and sound.

I've attached a photograph and short video of the 'Big Hauler' in action.

Rail operations on Banbury Connections continue to tick along. A couple of locomotives needed repair over the last month or so and the point between the loops and Wellington has been causing trouble. In the latter case, we have exchanged the Triang lever solenoid point swtich to a Marklin one which is working much better. 

I've attached a few photographs from recent travels in Melbourne, which hosts the world's largest tram network, and Adelaide, which has recently electrified the northern line to Gawler.  

At today's special Sunday operating session, an original Hornby APT was spotted rounding the curve into Banbury. We presume it was using battery power given the absence of catenary!

Following the recent rebuild of Sheffield Loco to make space for two electrified sidings, a second major track rearrangement has been undertaken. This has made way for three diesel storage roads in the diesel depot, up from two, and the addition of a third electrified siding. 

An increase in capacity creates space for the new Class 31 (rebuilt from a mazrot chassis but a story for another time), and other locomotives allocated to the recently introduced Gosport to Sheffield parcels service.
It also allows the addition of another electric locomotive on the Woodhead Line to Manchester.

A picture of the new track arrangement is below. The new Class 31 is in the centre road of the diesel shed and the Heljan EM2 is in the short electrified siding. 

A new brick wall has been erected between the Chester General brick siding and control panel to protect any rolling stock in the siding from being accidentally knocked onto the ground.

Following derailments by locomotives reversing into the horse siding at Banbury, the facing point on the Western DOWN main has been removed and replaced with a point on the Great Central UP main. This has resulted in much improved reliability. Pictures of the operation are below:

I recently completed repainting a 5 carriage HST in Grand Central's second livery.

Following the acquisition of a pair of cheap GNER power cars from our local hobby store, 5 Lima Mk3s were acquired to create a Grand Central rake. Decals were obtained from Railtec Transfers. The decals were fairly difficult to apply, given their length, but the end result was excellent.

Unfortunately, my Humbrol Clear varnish decided to dry with a white glaze. This was rather disappointing and required the carriages to be carefully repainted in gloss black to hide the effects.

With this rectified, I finally thought we had an operable train. However, the Lima Mk3s I had, had their wheels changed which created excess axle play. This caused the train to derail. I have temporarily rectified this with bogies from another Lima XPT rake.

​Pictures of the train are below.

To improve railway reliability, the three way point at Machynlleth lower level was recently replaced with two conventional points.

Given that the station's electrical wiring partially went through the three way point, we were somewhat perplexed as to why nothing would operate immediately following the rebuild. This was rectified by attaching new power leads to the track in question and disconnecting the original leads from the point motor.

I attach a picture of the new arrangement below. The three way was replaced by the two points in the top right.

Owing to the previous shortage of electric locomotive storage at Sheffield, delays to the UP Manchester to London could create an operational lock up at Sheffield Victoria when the DOWN train had already reached Sheffield. What would happen is that the electric loco on the UP train wasn't able to run around to the other end as the track was blocked by the DOWN train.

The new siding has enabled the addition of another electric locomotive, thereby rectifying this problem.

The picture below shows two EM2s side by side at Sheffield Victoria. The original siding is on the left whilst the new one is on the right. Addition of the new siding required modifications to the station's overhead in a number of places.