I am most grateful to all the readers who took the trouble to respond to my previous blog entry, 'Is anybody reading any of this?'. Thank you all......I have some answers to the questions you posed (Further down the page, indicated by a sub-heading).

To readers who have not previously stumbled upon this blog, I would suggest that you read the comments to the aforementioned previous entry, in order to make sense of the rest of this missive!

Some general questions now. Anyone who has not been following me before, were you attracted to read this by the blog entry heading or the general blog heading? I am beginning to think that the forum layout, which puts the entry heading on the Forum front page, will attract readers to blogs by virtue of the blogs having eye-catching titles to the individual entries. All well and good for budding authors of headlines, but I didn't think that the forum was about that.

To all readers - do you think that the best way for me to get feedback is to ask direct questions?

Does anyone have a comment to make on the concept of the above question?

(Note that I have tried to appeal both to folk who like a simple answer to a closed question and to folk who like to respond with a discussion to an open question)

I was pleased to see that several comments indicated that the commenters have similar opinions to me regarding the accessibility of a blog to commenters compared to the old threads.

4REP

OK, now I'll get on with the 4REP stuff.

First of all, several commenters responded on the shoebeams.

Russ (4630), Mike (Meld) have both picked up on the double shoe on the 4REP beam. There is a good detailed picture on page 79 of 'First Generation Southern EMUs' by Kevin Robertson. But there is a further issue with the beams I bought. Mike's comment from further back mentioned:

P 358 Shoebeams & Support brackets & dampers for B4/B5 sideframes (white metal) (pr) 1.75

P 358a Shoebeams & Support brackets & dampers for B4/B5 sideframes (white metal) (4 Car Set) 4.50

I would draw your attention to the prices. It would look as if P358a would have sufficient beams for my 4REP

(let's not worry about the shoes for the moment) so that is what I bought. But (there's always a 'but') it contains four beams, while the 4REP needs 8 (1 per bogie for each DMSO). Looking at the other contemporary Southern electrics, four is sufficient. So here is a tip for the builders of 4VEPs, 4CIGs etc - buy two packs of P358 and save yourself a pound.

Now, Natalie had a question regarding the buffet coach. I had to look up the source of what I built! The sides in the kit, as far as I can tell, allows the modeller to make either type of 4REP. The windows (and seating) in the source carriages were rebuilt to suit the 4REP requirement. The kitchen areas inside were the places where the detail lies.

Page 66 of 'The Southern Electric Story' by Michael H.C. Baker has the 4REP Buffet interior from an ex diag 24 Restaurant, and page 105 of 'Slam Doors on the Southern' by Michael Welch has the 4REP Buffer interior from an ex diag 23 Restaurant Unclassified. I chose to build mine as the latter, simply because the picture is in colour and thus I had the interior decor available. Without that picture I would have done all the curtains orange. (That reminds me, I still haven't done the curtains).

PaulN, my 3H is a DC kits model. I envy you for having a SP version to make. I was though going to scratchbuild one, so the DC Kits version is still much easier than the route I was going to take at first!

Oakaleigh Doke, there are loads of pictures showing virtually all of the build earlier in the blog. Of course I realise that it is not necessarily obvious that they are there; but I've already had my whinge regarding the blog format so I'll leave it.

That's enough from me for now, and I must say thank you all for reading this.

Dave