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I have a theory that there's a hidden code in the GWR diagram soup. If you arrange them in the right way, they will reveal the year wagons changed from red to grey

On reflection, you are probably right Compound. We will never know what was going through their minds 110 years ago but it is fun to try and guess! Thanks for your reply Will

Superlatives fail me! (for once )

Now that is a good idea! Thanks for the tip; and what a marvelous tarpaulin template.

Ian and I both made ours by printing onto Rizla.

Thats pretty much how I do it compound, bit of old rubber sheet from something rubbery. Old wellies or something. The straight bits are ok, the corners are the fiddly bit. The gold contacts are I think gold plated onto something and then bonded to a brass Northroader. I solder the wire to the other side of the brass. Its something I have tried on the last few builds, but if it does cause problems longer term I'll have to go back to pb strip. Worth a try, never know til you try it.

Yes indeedy. Tomorrow's task is to work out what is the best household material to make tarpaulins from!

And then there's the auto trailers with an entire alphabet to themselves...

I believe N were rather more specifically loco coal wagons, the Great Western not going in for building its own general mineral wagons, relying on the coal &c trade to provide their own or else hiring them in from the wagon companies. Crocodile is, I think, a telegraphic code - so I wonder if it was chosen on account of the diagram letter C rather than the other way round. C covers trolleys, not all trolleys were crocodiles. So, I think that apart from O for open and V for van, and the idea that specialised vans come after V in the alphabet, you're looking for more system than there really was. Other railways got by with just D for diagram! There's a bit more logic or at least system on the carriage side, with A for bogie first, B for bogie first brake (were there any?), C for bogie third, D for bogie third brake, E for bogie composite - except that where F ought to be bogie composite brake, such carriages seem to have been given E diagrams...

Ray, Didn't realise you can still get axle isolators to repair split chassis, that could be an interesting project. The old split frame locos I've still got that run from time (class4, 22xx that were renumbered, coaled etc. for an SDJR set up) haven't done enough mileage to wear excessively, but I was given a couple of old Scots that need overhaul some years ago. Temped to dig those out having read your blog. I've got a J72 that's on it's 2nd chassis, with the worm drive can motor, that runs ok. Gear train noise is one of the worse characteristics of the pancake motor ones, imho. I bought a number of Airfix 4Fs around 1980-81 during the recession then and after Airfix had gone bust and they were being sold off really cheap. Coal in the tender, renumbered to SDJR ones and tender drawbar shortened (I agree that does improve appearance of tender locos). Also painted the chunky driving wheel rims black. Having done all that I was of course loath to dispose of them later. More recently I've had a couple of them running again, and what I'm finding is that after a lot of running they just run smoother and quieter. Look ok crawling round the layout on a long freight train. i read somewhere that the Airfix tender drive was designed to have an operating life of 400 hours or so. I've also had an Airfix castle running, wasn't very reliable when i got it years ago, but with some TLC and just letting it run, it's now settling down very well. cheers Bill

I believe buff / sand colour was fairly common for lime wagons - black would show the lime-stains more.

Thank you. I have no idea why they were buff and not the usual grey or red etc. I wonder if it was something to do with the make up of the paint to resist the corrosive effects of the Lime? I had wondered if in fact they weren't painted at all for that reason, and we've misinterpreted the bare wood as a buff paint scheme.

Three interesting wagons, I like the livery of the Lime wagon.

Rather than trying to build Euston all in one go, firstly find the tutorials and just work through some basic ones first

Richard should have mentioned that he and I both model in 2FS, so Rizzla cigarette papers are ideal for 2mm scale tarpaulins. For 4mm scale you would need a much larger thin paper. Ian

Nice work.

It's simply that test prints are done at a lower resolution to speed up print time, hence larger layer lines.

Trouble is, once one starts worrying about the height of the floor, one inevitably moves on to worrying about the lack of interior ironwork... At which point the sanest move is to reach for a period-appropriate wagon sheet: I'm on my second bout of Great Western 4-plank building at the moment. Without wishing to sound pushy, you might be interested in my thread, from round about here and sporadically over the following pages: I've had a lot of help from some very knowledgeable folk, including @Mikkel, @Miss Prism, @Craigw, and @Chrisbr - the latter especially on finding appropriate numbers for wagons in particular condition.

Hello again SF Your mention of the lining encourages me to add a couple of pictures of my Jubilee Connaught which has a centre black line to the boiler bands. All other pictures of the model on the web that I can find show a single orange band. I have drawn attention to this matter previously. This model was purchased second hand. The shade of green used by Bachmann on Connaught is similar to that used on Patriot 'REME' - which had a black centre line to the boiler bands - just like my model of Connaught. I am convinced that the lining was completed before the handrails were added and therefore was added in the factory - a nice touch. Cheers Ray

Thank you SF - that really is rather neat and clever. Just a little thing like bringing the tender and engine closer makes a huge difference. I don't like taking a knife to my models. With the B1 family of tenders the 'hook' is a separate screw on moulding that can be replaced. The Bachmann Stanier and Folwer tenders are rather more 'cast in plastic'. I am well impressed with the arrangements for the fallplate. Thanks again Regards Ray

It is a marvelous colour; though I am still experimenting with the shade, as well as which parts of the wagon to apply it to. I can't help but feel it should be on the frames and w-irons too. I'm glad to hear it looks good on an iron mink... I have a few ABS kits waiting in the wings... Hi Mikkel, I can live with the 3 1/2 plank, especially when loaded. I bought a job lot of old kits cheaply as something to practice on, so each wagon is receiving a different type of glue, primer and finish to see what works best. I figured they would make a good starting point. So far Autotek acrylic spray primer is looking promising; it takes brush painted Vallejo very nicely. As for period, I agree! I've always liked the Edwardian and the GWR, but it wasn't until seeing Farthing's The Bay while still at school that I was hooked by the glorious liveries.

The same arrangement would apply to anyone. Let’s say ‘Bob’ sends me a master, I make the mould, cast it up and supply ‘Bob’ with as many castings as he needs from it. If he needs more than two or three then we would need to talk about materials costs, but my ‘payment’ would be permission to include the kit from ‘Bob’s’ masters in my 5and9models range. ‘Bob’ gets his master turned into the kits he needs and I’m out of pocket until I’ve sold enough of his kits to start to cover costs! It’s not exactly a great business model but then it’s not my business (I already have a day job) so it’s not so important.

They’re not Simon’s kits, he makes the masters, sends them to me and I make the moulds and do the casting, write the instructions, sort the etched parts etc., and pack them up. He gets paid in free kits and castings and he hasn’t complained yet... In answer to your question: yes, they’re available from me (5and9models).

Its a challenge and if something breaks you can usually find a similar model on eBay that you can use for spares. That in itself is a whole new interest. Bachmann technical department sells the nylon isolators / axle joiners for their split chassis models. Peter's spares (and others) sell the equivalent bits for Mainline and Replica models. As to the Airfix Castles they were great. I have a couple of their tender drives fitted into much newer Hornby Counties. They seem to be indestructable although I could never work out why some were so much noisier than others. I shall wait to hear more. Cheers Ray

Thanks Bill - there are a lot of good old models out there that can be tweaked to keep up with the latest offerings from the retailers. Cheers Ray

As ever it just needs reducing to 'N'

Thanks Mark The price I feel is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. At the end of the day is there a demand? Yes but probably not from collectors. The engine on its own is probably more sought after than the complete boxed set which takes up space and costs a lot of money to Post. I found four items currently listed on the UK eBay site - I think one is the engine only. Good luck Ray