66 type things
 

I am not into modern image, much less imported crap BUT I know a few folk here are! I saw a VERY shiney class 66 at Tonbridge Yard today, which using my ancient spotting skills not used since about 1984, was 66 471 (or maybe 374!), in a gawdy livery I don't recognise but it was veyr shiney and even had white rimmed buffers.

SO was it a new one fresh off the boat, or just some old tat slapped over with a broom and cheap paint??

;) :) :D

Just thought this maybe better in the deseasel and leccy bit if a MOD wants to move it...................

Hmmm, I just happen to have a copy of Rail in front of me, and according to their 66 feature, the highest 66/4 is 434 belonging to DRS, and the highest 66/3 is 305 belonging to Fastline.

Yep, that sounds like the GBRf, (they have some strange livery variations for their customers) since they're doing most of the work out Tonbridge yard nowadays. Was there any pink in the colour scheme ? It's a strange requirement of the First Group.

And let this be a lesson to you - next time take yer camera and binoculars !!! ;)

HTH,
Foggy

Your wish is my command ;)

I might tomorrow when I go back! I think the colour was essentially some green splashed with god-knows-what, but not pink. It could have been any combo of those numbers, so take yer pick!:p

Funny thing the Class 66, I keep missing them.

When I'm just walking up the steps of a station or just got onto a train or just put my camera away a 66 will pop up out of nowhere, it's happened to me about 6 times this month alone. = /

Either way they're not my cup of tea, I had a feeling they had a Canadian influence before I even knew it as fact based entirely on appearence, which is fine I suppose. I guess they're growing on me. I just perfer older stuff, British loco's, with proper British engineering and British pride and all that jazz, rather than a flat-pack Shed from Canada that arrives in a box covered in polystyrine.

I might pop down there tomorrow for a gawp myself, you've got me curious now.

I agree that they look bland and shedlike, but you can't knock their engineering. They p*** on the reliability of home built locos.

And the next generation of ugly but super efficient loco is already in the pipeline. Freightliner has placed an order for the 'Genesis' loco, which will be a hybrid - both diesel and electric, with dynamic braking. It's rumoured to have external walkways, a bit like a 58.

Then when they're in service perhaps people will look back and say, "I miss those old 66s, they looked alot better than this modern stuff." :)

Agreed, but if you ask me, you can have the most technically sound machine ever conceved, but if you've not put any passion and soul and character into that machine then there's no magic to me, it's just a machine.

I can't explain this, it's something that isn't tangible but it's there with some locos and it's not with others. I can't say it any more than that. I reckon the steam guys will sort of understand where I am coming from, and how the classic deisel generation is now ironically sharing some of those feelings? :D

I reckon every generation has difficulty letting their generation of loco go though, no doubt people growing up seeing the 66 around will no doubt find them to the best thing ever and whatever is coming next as you say to be the bland and boring thing.

but if you've not put any passion and soul and character into that machine then there's no magic to me, it's just a machine.

Yes it is just a machine, A machine that is there for one purpose and that is ti make money. the FOCs don't give a stuff about the character of a loco they care about the reliability cause a loco in the maint shed aint earning its keep.

Les

I fully understand what you're saying. I was being flippant about the 66s. They look like c**p, and they always will do. But as Les says, it's just there as part of a business - there's no profit in aesthetics.