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As mentioned in the last entry, it really was decision time as to take a saw to Grime Street or build New Grime Street, well decision made 'New Grime Street' is underway. This is going to be a rework of the original GS, perhaps using some of the buildings, but then again seeing as I have loads of assorted buildings either underway or on order, perhaps not! What it will have is junction at the right hand end with a view to any future expansion, probably along the lines of a previously abandoned route. It will also feature moving road vehicles, I've always been fascinated by the Faller system and the all singing and dancing derrivatives (way beyond my luddite capabilities!) So I was quite happy when a start set turned up from Germany today, ordered on Monday so full marks to DHL, I thought I'd try a truck first so an LKW MAN set was ordered, I'd no idea what I was going to do with it so whilst sat here tonight looking at various die casts on the internet I remembered I'd bought a Base toys Thornycroft flatbed, half an hour later we had this Pretty easy remove cab, fit Base toy cab base to Faller chassis, cab is a push fit onto the cab base so it's removeable for painting etc, so far so good, the wheelbase of the Thorneycroft is pretty similar to the MAN, but some of the rear overhang will be removed, I think it'll end up as either a flatbed with a sheeted load to hide the battery (which is huge) or less likely a Luton/Pantechnion type. Flushed with sucess I'm of to scour German Ebay for a bus chassis, I fany a Leeds City Transport PD2 or Regent 3............ More on New Grime Street soon............Oh and the original Grime Street, well it may become Grime Street West and be relocated to Gods own county, I've a few Manchester (plus SHMD, Ashton and Oldham) trams that may get a home..........

With a substantially complete locomotive now on the workbench we now reach the point where I usually stall on the build and Linda has been no exception. I have several excuses (and excuses they are), but the main two being demands on my time from elsewhere and a pause whilst I evaluated some Microtrains couplers for their suitability. For ‘evaluated’ read ‘tried to get the infernal bloody things to work’ as the two bogies that I bought didn’t seem to want to uncouple with any of the magnets that I tried. Ah well, I’ve got a little more time available now and some of the actual Microtrains magnets rather than random others, so I might continue the experiments. Possibly with a hammer, if the frustration continues… As I mentioned in Linda’s previous instalment, the replacement backhead arrived promptly and was thinned out to fit over the flywheel and soldered in place – I really can’t fault Parkside Dundas’ service one bit! With this fitted my attention turned to adding the detail – which, in my opinion, can mean the difference between a good model that’s got all of the right bits in the right places, and one that actually looks like a miniature version of the real thing – to date, I’ve not managed the latter on anything that I’ve built so far, but I live in hope. I reckon that the parts provided for the cab fittings would be perfectly adequate to represent the loco in as-built condition (i.e. coal fired and not vacuum fitted) and would probably do for Blanche with her smaller cab opening from 1970 onwards, but I seem to have become something of a perfectionist – even though I probably don’t have the skills to be – so I decided to try to make the best representation that I could from bits of scrap plasticard and brass (I might be in a southern exile, but I’ve still got northern blood!) The backhead, made up as per the instructions, can be seen below: With a few photos discovered on Flickr that showed a good amount of the cab detail from a couple of angles, I made a start – not on the cab though, because the sheer volume of pipework and valves is rather daunting, especially compared with what’s provided in the kit. Simpler things were in order first; so the handrails and vac pipe that runs along the tank from cab to smokebox were araldited in place with the pipe requiring a chunk to be taken out of the sandbox. True to form I, of course, took a chunk out in the wrong place to start with which necessitated the judicious use of a spot of filler to hide… hopefully it’ll look okay once it’s painted! A fine piece of rod was also used to replace the rather chunky whitemetal protrusions atop the sandboxes and the linkage that runs between them – part of the operating gear for them, I presume. Eventually, I couldn’t put it off any longer (God only knows I tried) and had to make a start on the cab fittings. Despite the multitude of photos, I still couldn’t quite work out in my head where everything went or, indeed, what connected to what! A couple of sketches were in order, and I managed to produce a passable representation of a vacuum ejector and the mass of pipework on the opposite side of the cab. Passable if you’re moving past it at about 40mph, anyway. The safety valve assembly on the firebox was drilled to take some of the remaining assemblies, and some very rough valve wheels were made up by cutting some squares from 10thou plasticard and rounding them off. The results (along with the cabsides and steps fixed in place and a little excess araldite) can be seen below: Subsequent to this photo, I also got around to adding the small table to the left of the firebox – I’ll have to get around to making a 4mm scale oil can and mug of tea to go with it! The next step was the injector pipework and the mere thought of attempting this put me off for some time once again – I’d apply for membership of the Procrastinator’s Society but I never seem to get around to doing it – so instead, I soldered up some cylinder drains – I’ve not got around to fitting these yet as I found them so insanely fiddly that the injector pipework seemed like it would be a breeze in comparison. How wrong could I be! Close-up photos of the pipework were singularly lacking and many of the available shots showed the pipework wreathed in steam. Very atmospheric but not, unfortunately, much cop for using as a template. After a trip to the FR on the ‘Back to Blaenau’ weekend, I found Blanche sat in the spare platform at Blaenau Ffestiniog, having recreated the buffer stop delivery that came into the station alongside BR’s inaugural train back in 1982. Clearly not an opportunity to be missed, I started snapping away like the tourist that I was and despite the funny looks, came back with some decent photos of the injector pipework. A comparison with the available photos of Linda in her current form showed that the pipework seemed near enough identical, and so I had a working diagram at last – or at least the next best thing. I never got a chance to take similar photos of Linda herself as the only time that I saw her was taking on water at Porthmadog… some decent photos of the backhead, lubricator, cylinder drains and whistle mounts were forthcoming though! The first port of call was to add the tankside steps on both sides, as this would give me a datum point to work to as well as a sneaky place to which I could attach the pipes if necessary. Bit-by-bit, the pipes were built up and test fitted individually and tailored to fit the location, and a thinner bit of brass rod added to represent the control lever. It’s not perfect, but I reckon that a bit of paint (and possibly a coat of superglue to thicken the central part) will hide a multitude of sins. The current state of affairs is shown below, including the new table on the firebox. In an ideal world, I'd have made the pipework removable to make painting that much easier, but it's too late now. Also, having seen the regulator handle in the Brian Madge Alice-class Hunslet kit, I may have to replace the rod with something more accurate: Next steps are to attach the cylinder drains and sort the whistle mount… and try to get the lubricator made. I’ve attempted the latter twice so far, and if it’s sturdy enough to survive it looks nothing like the real thing, and if it looks like the real thing it disintegrates if I look at it askance. Ah well, time to stop procrastinating and get on with it (yeah, right!). Lesson for today? Plan ahead, as I reckon that that pipework is going to be a sod to paint...

Good Evening, I haven't done a Blog Post for some time however I felt like this was a good time to do one. Welcome to my mini-review of the Ixion O Gauge 16" Hudswell Clarke model. I decided to keep things very simple and limit it to three pictures. Now I have followed the Ixion Website for quite some time now and the photos on there were absolutely fantastic; however opening the box and seeing the product in the flesh was truly amazing. The packaging from Ixion is exquisite - both functional in terms of how it performs its function and has an adequate level of information on the box to be able to see at a glance what the product is - plus the overall red colour scheme is different to other manufacturers. The box lid is red and has a technical drawing of the locomotive on the outside plus all the information labelled on it. The box is in two pieces so sliding the red lid off reveals a white tray containing the locomotive securely packaged between a sandwich of moulded polystyrene - which is easy to extract the locomotive from and very sufficient to hold it in place during transit. I noted no movements whilst picking the box up, turning it upside down etc so top marks for well thought out, and not overly excessive packaging. The Locomotive itself; as I said before I have done research on the prototype and been an ardent follower of the progress on the Ixion website - however none of this prepared me for opening the box and seeing the real locomotive inside - its a stunner! Weighing in at nearly 600g its much heavier then my other O Gauge Locomotive I have however I think from what I have seen of its performance the weight is an asset most certainly. Please ignore the odd pinky buffer beams - that was my camera not processing the red in the direct light properly. The model is straight out of the box; as shown on the Ixion Website it comes with etched brass Makers Plates, Number Plates & Nameplates I haven't fitted any of those yet this is the virgin out-of-the-box RTR engine and in all honesty I think its a beauty. Originally I had planned to get the green version, being a devotee of the Southern however after seeing the Livery photos the Maroon stood out as the 'must have' colour scheme. Also included in the box is a nice set of fire irons, coal shovels a bucket etc for personalising your locomotive. there is also some very nice cab detail including representations of the pressure gauges, regulator & reverser as well as a handbrake handle etc. As can be seen the locomotive is set up for Right-Hand Drive and the cab feels very light & airy and just crying out for a crew to be fitted. There is no moulded coal in the bunker however the bunker is about half an inch deep and a quarter of an inch wide so there is plenty of room for adding such a detail. There has been some complaints over the running characteristics of the locomotive - however my example was tested prior to dispatch and although I was quite hesitant I was exceedingly pleased and relieved to see that it ran perfectly, first time out of the box with no issues. Especially important considering the only controller I had to hand was a Graham Farish N Gauge Power Box which produced some lovely slow speed running. The engine is wired for all-wheel pickup, between that and the flywheel I was unable to make the locomotive stall on my Peco Points at all, furthermore on its slowest speed the engine took just over 15 minutes to traverse a yard of track - such performance I have only seen before on 00 Gauge DCC Locomotives. All in all I believe this is a fantastic locomotive; Ixion has ticked all the boxes I feel for this release. And although considered 'pricey' for a ready-to-run locomotive I feel its justified. For example a DCC Sound Locomotive in 00 Gauge would be a similar price - and generally speaking although an O Gauge Kit could be obtained & completed for a marginally more modest sum - it would be highly unlikely for that to happen in my book. Over all a fantastic engine, great price-point, seems reliable from my testing and I feel I would recommend anyone thinking of looking into O Gauge to look at this locomotive as a great little shunter. Now if you'll excuse me - I am off to finish planning that Branch-Line Terminus in O Gauge.

Haha I'm back. I havnt had the time or opportunity lately to be posting on here, partially because of holiday through the finer parts of birmingham on a canal boat, and partly the furious activity in the workshop! Right, having few issues with upload, since the new servers max file size is down to just 2mb, and most of my pics were around the 3mb mark! so sorry if the text isnt fully illustrated! Im scratching my head actually what has gone on in the time since the post. We had another very enjoyable trip to greystones, catch up with friends, good turn out and a good weekend with the social side in the evening was very enjoyable. On the pannier front, visibly not a huge amount appears to have changed however a lare amount of work, cleaning reassembling painting etc has gone in, the largest part in the running boards. Originally the running plates had a series of very large over scale rivets in it as per the orignal design. the detailer in me decided these would not do and so hatched on the plan to drill them out, file them flush and replace them with scale 1/16th ones. At the same time i would double the numeber up, and make it look far more realistic. of course, with this in mind you look at phots and realise theres more and more stuff, until you end up putting them all in. of course all the flat side of the runing plate there are more rivets, and bolt heads. so, in they went. And after teaching myself how to and how not to rivet, and about 180 rivets and 30 10BA bolts later, i'm sorta happy! The last few days and tomorrow have/will be spent cleaning these running plates and prepping for priming. the difficult bit is to paint them finally. The top surfaces are black, but most thing facng out wards is maroon, except some steps, which will be very tricky to mask and get sharp crisp lines on, even before we line i in straw, including a lovely arc over the splashers! Other things include a new set of springs to seat the valves in the chest when no steam is passing them. this means they remain seated when stationary and you can get a nice slow start to the engne when pulling away. The bearing on the big end at the crank axle has been modified, it wa rubbing excessively, The vast majority of parts below the running plates have been cleaned and painted. For an engine that hasnt done 200 yards its was filthy thick with dried oils. But everything is now painted. A new mushroom non return valve has been made for the lubricator. this was giving troule whn we last steamed it, steam was blowing back into the lubricator and condensing, no oil was getting to the cylinders and they we squeaking, running dry. The loco is now back on its springs, this has allowed us to finally set valve gear and the balancing of the valves, though we have found that the loco doesnt achieve full forward or reverse as going by the gear rack, a problem we have yet to sort. it'll probably mean making new gear lever racks or changing th reach rod, it may be a little unbalanced as is. Also brake gear has beeen painted and mostly fitted. i'm retaining the fairly crude looking arems for the moment, just get the engine rnning first, they can and will be changed for some nice cast items at a later date, when i order the kit for the new cab i may get some proper GW pattern brake arms. But for the moment, now that the valve chest is sealed down, and the cover soon will be, i can replace the drain cock lever arm, and get the brake gear back together. attention is turning above the running plates. as seen last time, toolboxes are painted, as are now both the tank supports, now that i have some high temperature black paint. The smokebox was cleaned up, though that will not be painted until the tanks are done. these require extensive work, the original design uses horrific great rectangular fillers which need to be replaced by nice round ones, though we are having trouble tracing sufficiently good drawings, if anyone can help with a 57xx water tank filler i would appreciate it! other minor jobs have gone on, i attempted an air test to prove the valaves worked, they do, but the loco was too stiff to turn over on the pitiful air supply! I'm contemplating a new blower ring, a combined blast pipe and blower arrangement, the current is a little basic i feel. I also have friend doing a nearly identical build who is helping along the way, thanks to john if he reads this, him and his mate simon are detailing theirs, doing a few thiongs i'd like to, including a correct profile chimney with the slotted cap, something i'll do pretty soon, when i work out a way of holding the chimney in a chuck! On other news, We made a visit to Harrow and wembley society of model engineers with a few other members of GL5. We were welcomed with open arms and a warm reception, thanks guys. It was also a great opportunity for the first run of the complete set of the coaches! They've been done for a while now, but building the trailer took plenty of time, so that we can move them safely. But anyway, i hope you agree, my dads done a fantastic job on these... Well that wraps it up really. A trip to gilling for the august mainline rally is for this weekend, the coaches will hopefully be out once again, weather permitting, hopefully get a few turns in, a holiday meant we were late for booking in so have no offical duties over the three days, but there no doubt will be plenty of failures to cover! And finally, GL5 now has a group on Facebook! we formed a group to have a little chat about things, so if you're interested in what we do, just click join group, have a look at our photos, no member ship required, though drop me (Mark Harding a message about it before hand, mention rmweb) and i'll let you in. Any GL5 members reading i hope to see you this weekend at gilling, anyone just coming along,your perfectly welcome to come and watch, its always good fun, please say hello, make yourself know, i'll most likely be on my electric most the day, but please say hello! Cheers Mark

yes that is a rather dramatic title! - my ninth scenario sees us back on the WCML but in winter with rather bad weather. its been snowing hard in the area and many turbostar units are struggling, luckily Scotrail have been able to borrow some plough equipped 37's and virgin coach stock to cover some journeys. even stars fall Vehicle: EWS class 37 + 4 virgin MK3 Route: WCML Add On Packs Used: WCML, Settle - Carsile, class 170 starting at Larkhall you are driving all stops two Glasgow central, along the way you will pass little traffic - a couple of turbostars and another 37 on relief work. when you get to newton (and the main line) you are held up by a passing HST but not for long, you get going again and at cambuslang you find out a point on the fast line has failed so it a diversion down the slow lines from here. again traffic is light only a few HST's and a 158 before you pull into Glasgow Central. my next scenario? i dunno i feel like a bit of shunting on another note steam workshop arrives on the 20TH of september so i can upload everything for people to download yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is the chassis sprung or compensated and exactly how pricey was it?

Busy on the curved end today. There were a lot of problems with this at ExpoEM, so I've been paying close attention to levels. New track has been built. Also, there may be an extension to the backscene.

At the cupar show a couple of weeks ago i too the oppertunity of getting some snaps of my latest completed project. i took these snaps early on the sunday morning before the show opened, and in natural light. as the sun was filtering nicely through the corn exchange windows. the first shot is of the loco preparing to depart glendevon. coming under the road bridge before passing the brewery. and then coming into the platform before coming to a halt to pick up the few passengers. departing for thornton jctn. passing the brewey siding. and rounding the curve towards the occupation brigde.

Thanks Adam, sorry about the delay in thanking you too! Looks like not much of the pipe can be seen. That photo comes from an interesting set, great that things like that were captured. Simon

I was very pleased to receive the award at expoEM for "most authentically operated model railway" - the Reverend Peter Denny Memorial Cup, presented by his son Crispin Denny (of automatic Crispin fame) and judged by Bob Essery. However, it seems that some people seem to think that correct operation implies trains arriving within seconds. Even gaps between District line trains in the rush hour seems to exceed some people's attention span. In my book, correct operation means adhering to what the prototype would have done. So on Clutton there is a lever frame, with interlocking, bell systems with virtual tokens being released, signals that work, the role of signalman and driver split - the list goes on. Plus when there are no trains, there is something to see on the layout. I did some timings at the show, it takes a full minute to get from the staging roads at the back to the station at the front, and a full minute to get from there back to the staging roads. That could mean nearly two minutes between trains. I know that my layout is not to everyone's taste, but so be it. You can't please all the people all the time.

Following on from my completion of the Highland 0-6-0's my attention turned to a pair of engines that became a trademark of much of the Highland section in its latter days of steam- A Pickersgill 4-4-0 and a Macintosh 0-6-0, both of which proved very useful additions to the motive power department and which stayed till dieselisation.Once again, these are venerable white metal kits from Nucast and DJH respectively, and have been unavailable for some time now, but were part of my strategic reserve of models for the area in case R-T-R versions weren't released Well, it has proved a wise move and I am working through them methodically now. The double build of the previous two proved quite practical, so I decided to build these side by side as well, which seems to work for me- any hiccups with one can be puzzled over whilst attending to the other, rather than packing the problem away as was often the case before. It dawned on me that this burst of activity is the first time I have built WM kits for nearly forty years and most of them are of the same vintage, with many of the attendant quirks that characterised these releases, but different standards and expectations were the order of the day then. One great step forward though for me has been to finally master white metal soldering, and most of the construction of these two has been this way, and very enjoyable it has been too.... To the models- the 4-4-0 had been started before and packed away at least twice, wheras the 0-6-0 was a straight build from the untouched kit. A look at the boiler and footplate casting as it came- at least it is a fairly solid base to work from- the HR footplate was very flimsy and twisted at the slightest provocation. As before, R-T-R chassis were used, a T9 for the bogie and a Bachmann pannier for the 0-6-0. The T9 was almost an exact fit but the other is a bit of a compromise, and involved hefty carving away from the splashers and footplate to get the coupling rods to revolve freely. Fortunately the thickness of the castings and the generous clearance allowances for the coarser original Romfords made this possible. The pannier drivers are also a bit underscale as well, but to the eye on the layout it passes as acceptable. The 0-6-0 body ready for motor fitting- a small amount of filing and trimming back of the firebox area was needed, but compared to the amount needed on the smaller boilered HR ones this was one of the easier bits of construction. Assembly proceeded, with much perusing of images of the two types, and use of my trio of solder, superglue and 90 second epoxy can be seen in this photo. I found epoxy handy in boiler and fittings fixings- things like domes and chimneys could be tweaked into the correct position while the glue sets. However, problems soon appeared with both engines. The bogie engine turned out to be squint, with one footplate half leading the other by a mm or so, but showing up as out of squares all over the engine. Now, I don't know if it was a casting fault or a built in mistake by myself in the original gluing together, but the whole assembly had to be dismantled. I thought I might lose the whole casting, but to my relief it came apart more or less intact. It was from here on that the soldering iron became the preferred tool of choice as I discovered the hole filling properties of 70o solder and lashings of Powerflux, and the home made extractor fan started earning its keep. I managed to square up the chassis and after that there was little to note of with the 4-4-0. Everything went together with little problem apart from getting things square and in the right place, which involves studying pictures of the real thing as the instructions were of little use except to photograph WIP on Eventually body work reached a basically intact state and much buffing and cleaning was done to get rid of decades of oxidation and general grime, and then work started on the tenders. The two types had a plethora of pipes and fittings on them, esp. the bogie and I decided to make at least a representation of this on the bodies. Fortunately, both types have been well photographed in colour, so much poring over the like of Keith Pirt's Scottish volumes and others was done. It turns out that hardly any two had the same arrangement, so I did enough to pass muster although I basically used specific pictures of 57585 and 54491 as prototypes.The bogie engines had Westinghouse brakes, as did some 0-6-0's, but 57585 wasn't fitted as such, at least in my period.Two views of the bogie loco with pipework here. As an aside- the cab backhead casting- an example of 1970's detailing When I started the tenders it became obvious that there was something far wrong with the 0-6-0's one. Here it is as supplied and tacked together and after modification. Starting with a complete ignorance of CR locos, I soon discovered what a minefield this subject can be- lots of variations on a theme, usually blithely dismissed under the catch-all phrase of Jumbos. They seem to have had common access to tenders and fittings, and trying to pin down what went where proved too much work for a one-off job. I finally settled for 57585 which had steam and vacuum fittings and a smaller tender than that supplied. This was achieved by cutting down the existing one and using a strip of plasticard to pass as a patch repair that lots had to disguise any rough bits. The tendertop flare was sadly underdone as well, so much filing away of metal and some brutal bending of now very thin WM was needed to remedy this. Eventually, with this cured, progress was uneventful and tenders were ready for priming. I decided to model 54491 with the cab doors closed- a rarely seen feature of the real thing, but as there is a lot of chassis showing in the cab I thought this might disguise things a bit. I also added rolled up cab weathersheeting, which can just be seen in some of the layout photos. One final hiccup with the 0-6-0 showed up after priming- despite looking at dozens of images of the real thing I had glued on the chimney supplied with the kit at the start of the build, but only noticed its apalling shape at a very late date. It can be seen in this image. and in this workbench shot, where a prototype pic is in the background. Anyway, a replacement CR one was found and fitted. They had two coats of Humbrol acrylic primer and three of GW Chaos Black, with 54491 then lined out with Pressfix transfers. Weathering was confined to a dusting of well thinned Humbrol no.79 through the airbrush for this one, and 57585 received the same then about ten following coats of variations of browns, greys and black added to the basic mixture till it had a subtle mixture of shades passed over lightly to give a well worn look. At the time of writing I still have to tidy up the cab numbering of 57585- a gloss varnish adhesive base still shows up in photos, and needs some disguising. Lastly, a couple of the engines in action during their running-in turns.It was an interesting build and has given me two useful specific engines to add to a growing more accurate roster. November 2013- addendum. The Bachmann chassis as originally fitted was too far out, even for my lax approach to the odd mm or two, so has been replaced with a C class version, which is more or less the correct spacings. Additional work was also done to the body work after even more shortcomings were noticed with this kit. A copy of a booklet covering the restoration of 828 showed up errors in cab cutout shape and spectacle glasses. The attached photos show this,so a bit more filing was called for to remedy things. Replacing the chassis involved some butchery in the cab area as the motor is set further back than the pannier, so a spare T9 backplate was fitted to hide this. Brutal stuff at this stage, but its amazing what a coat of paint can disguise.... And finally, in service and looking a bit more like a 812.... Addendum Dec 2017 To bring this up to date, I eventually tired of the flaws in the 0-6-0 and with the advent of the Hornby 700 did a rebuild of this loco into a more presentable CR 812. The original 57585 had its chassis removed and the kit one built without a motor and the loco went to an elderly gentleman who had an interest in Thurso based engines to spend its retirement in a display case alongside other 60D residents. He has since died but the family are retaining the collection as a memory of their father. Here is a shot of the replacement conversion at work. It has since this photo had a replacement chimney fitted.

I was invited to speak at the inaugural meeting of the Nottingham Area Group of the Scalefour society, and it bowled me over to think that all these people (21) were in one place to talk and find out about model railways. OK, it was a bit like AA, but my feeling is that groups, like Nottingham that is just starting, are an excellent way of showing that as modellers, we are not on our own. Someone out there knows the answer, and the best way to discover is to talk about it with other modellers. Someone has the answer, and sometimes the act of describing it makes the solution clear.

There will no doubt be a proper way to do this, but I can't find a facility that allows me to store snippets of info... I don't know when Andy will be locking down RMWeb3 and whether I will still be able to gain access to old PMs, so to save embarrassment, - dimensions of a batch of PNAs , as kindly supplied by the Fatadder in May (scratchbuilt bodies, for the use of...) . I haven't actually got round to using them, mind, but perhaps this year.(It's the time of year for reviewing outstanding oprojects, progress or lack of it and tasks for the year ahead. This one's on the to do list) <H3 class=first>Re: On Rich's Workbench - Urchins and Parrs last page</H3>Sent: Tue May 05, 2009 10:00 pm From: The Fatadder To: Ravenser PNA details: Height - 14 top rib -2.6 other ribs - 1.6 length (excluding end ribs) 105 width (over top rib) -35.7 inner width 31.2 And I should get a proper blog update on the outstanding steam age vans up in the next day or two. I might even have the couplings on them by then so they can be released to traffic Addendum - New Year's Day, the year after the end of time... Just to add some further detail on this one while I'm about it: the Cambrian POA/SSA kits come with a lot of extra bits, including several types of solebar. While the Bachmann PNA covers one type of the wagon, PNAs seem to be a motley bunch, built on a variety of second hand underframes of varying lengths . There is a reasonably extensive section in the recent Burkin/BRM book Modern Wagons in 4mm Scale, which quotes wagons as having lengths of 28' 8" over buffers / 101 mm over headstocks (as Bachmann) , 103.5mm over headstocks , and 106mm over headstocks. The Cambrian solebars are 104mm long , so you get a varient with a very different underframe and length. Going through the photos turns up several wagons at the 103.5mm length, and CAIB3840 - disc braked , Gloucester suspension units, straight solebars , with 7 ribs spaced very differently to Bachmann and very minimalist underframe equipment - looks the best candidate (p99 bottom). It will certainly be a little different from RTR. One issue may be sourcing suitable transfers for the very weathered Railtrack lettering I think, as near as I can make out, it's one of these: It ought to be a reasonably straightforward scratchbuild job for the body. I had understood Cambrian sold their plastic fold up axle units seperately , but can't find them. I may use conventional W-irons as an emergency fudge to attach the moulded plastic suspention units to (Given how long its taken to find the Burkin book, I badly need a clearup in the study . And yes I am putting everything here so I can actually find it easily...)