Yes, pretty much. A lot of the places they go wouldn't get anything else loco hauled, so there isn't the infrastructure to get the loco back at the right end of the train.

The bridge is quite impressive as well. Never actually been underneath it before

I'm off this week and saw this was running so thought I might as well go and have a look, as it's not a train I've photographed before.
Snoop Dogg's least favourite train, 3Q00, the Envu weed killing set, passing Blea Moor this afternoon, with GBRf 66781 & 66792.

And it's arrived. Really lovely record, and nice to have a physical copy.

being a transit scheduler sometimes im like damn who tf made the schedule for this bus and then I remember it was me

The timekeeping hasn't been great, with my half hour in Preston until the train back becoming 5 minutes.
I stayed on the train and deployed my reserve lunch, a meal that is both nutritious and Easter themed

This wouldn't normally be here. 1Z43 from Carlisle to Preston via the S&C

Normally to go from Glasgow to Preston you'd go straight down the West Coast, a journey of about 2½ hours. Today that's shut, so I'm going via Dumfries and the Settle & Carlisle, taking about 5½ hours.

The start of today's rather convoluted and ultimately pointless journey

I can just about remember what a train is

The internet is a dangerous place, I keep finding new music I like, and then I wonder where all my money went after importing said music.

(The Helen Love and They Go Boom albums were easier to find over there. Don't take this as an arbitrage opportunity and buy them to go on discogs)

I've just found that this had just had a rerelease, which is it's first time on vinyl.

It's been an expensive month for me.
stoned-to-death.bandcamp.com/album/swirl

It's not good for my finances having both of these announced at once
I'll be at both

Set times for tonight!
8pm The Cords
8.45pm The Orchids
9.45pm Heavenly
🦋💖🦋💖🦋💖🦋💖🦋

First gig of the year
I've been to gigs with worse lineups
Heavenly, the Orchids, and the Cords at the mono

It is. Admittedly I'm not quite sure if I quite get it, but it's quite interesting to hear something that's quite different from Tallulah Gosh, Heavenly et al

The five genres of music, NDW, indiepop, anything in English that isn't indiepop, anything in Japanese, and odd stuff that doesn't fit into the other categories.

I'd sort them alphabetically if I didn't have loads of Japanese stuff, or at least that's my excuse.

I don't have that many really, but I've also finally got around to at least partially sorting my singles. At least sorting by incredibly vague genres now is better than everything just being thrown on the shelf as the were before.

Some more German records that arrived today.
Some decent pop songs came out of Germany in the 80s, and conveniently, as is usually the case with forgotten mass market pop, the singles are also really cheap.

The best piece of Austrian music just arrived (Sorry Mozart)

Ba Ba Banküberfall by EAV
open.spotify.com/track/1LAdc8...

Tonight's listening
I'd like to say there's some common thread between these singles, but I can't think of anything, beyond that they're songs I think are alright.

Tonight's listening, 3 pop songs of the Neue Deutsche Welle.
One of them is definitely the best song I've heard to use a calculator as instrument (although now I think of it Two Divided by Zero and Pocket Calculator both also use calculators, so I'm not so sure)

Tomix's new containers go quite nicely with my 90s rake

The problem with modelling container trains is you either have too many wagons or too many containers. There will never be an equilibrium, there's always something more to buy.
They do look nice though.

#modeltrains

The corresponding rake of coaches for this were made at the same time, but they're quite hard to find.
I remembered I'd bought JR Hokkaido's barbeque car though, and I reckon that's American enough to do.

Also in late 80s trains, we have the American Train, which calls itself American despite being electrified, and probably unable to haul profitable quantities of coal.

Believe this was basically used on a buy more American stuff tour, as they were concerned about trade deficits.
#modeltrains

There's a really interesting story behind these. In the late 80s the Japanese economy got a bit out of hand, and with all the money floating around, a TV station decided to run a CIWL rake from Paris, through the USSR, and then on a boat from Hong Kong to Japan.

I'm adding smuggler to my CV, given they won't sell these outside of Japan.
Had to use the proxies I usually use to get second hand stuff.
(I get why, I suspect licensing the Orient Express name globally is more trouble than it's worth)

The badge still survives on my jacket

Today's listening
A Million Zillion Miles by Annie & The Aeroplanes, a lovely janglepop record that got stuck in my head whilst listening to the C88 comp
There's a box of news ones of these being sold on Discogs if you want one
open.spotify.com/track/5lRR9c...

It'd would be lovely if there were a better way of getting an electric unit from Manchester to Doncaster
ROG move next Saturday, I think this'll be a 397, but usual caviat that it might not run.
(Also not one I've worked on, beyond platforming Waverley)
realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr: