Ian Morgan

I think I made an incorrect assumption that you were talking about light for photographing the layout rather than illuminating the layout for operating and, eventually, exhibiting.

Last year I splashed on on this pair, and they have been brilliant (is there a pun in there somewhere?) Pair of LED photofloods and tripods, with 2 spare bulbs. I also used them when making a video covering building some Merg CBus beginners electronic kits (now on Youtube)

A tip: a glass fibre brush is very good for removing errant solder from an etched nickel-silver kit before painting. I hate using it as I usually end up with bits in my fingers for days. I have found that working on a paper kitchen towel will catch most of the glass fibre bits, and it can also be used to wipe the model after brushing, removing more bits of glass fibre. I now end up with less embedded in my fingers.

I add a fillet of solder on all the bends to strengthen them, as the brass bends easily. Blackening does odd things to the solder. Now, I just solder the couplings to the cahassis and give the whole lot a squirt of grey primer and matt black before weathering.

It has even got a slot for the (working?) point lock to go into

Nothing very exciting, just assembling a few more LSWR 8 plank open wagons for Freshwater coal traffic. Now I need more LBSCR 5 plank wagons. Odd thing, one of the bodies included buffer shanks, but otherwise identical. I think I picked the bodies up second hand, so not sure of their origins.

There are bridges in Europe where the authorities have to keep removing padlocks because the weight is making the bridges unsafe.

A transfer of the JLC was arranged on a deserted bridge across the parish border a midnight and a safe drop at a secret location, so we will see how Rich gets on with it

The blade is similar in size to an old-fashioned razor blade. I use it for gapping frogs in 2mm finescale and Peco N gauge points. I only use about 5-8mm of the end of the saw blade at an acute angle. Happy to let you borrow mine.

One side of the JLC saw blade has 34 teeth per cm (86 per inch?).

I use this for cutting gaps in rail now, it is much finer than a razor saw: JLC Saw I have the 'Anniversary set' than comes in a nice case with spare blades. The blades are brittle, so make sure you keep it straight while sawing. They seem to usually show as 'out of stock', but they magically appear when you ask.

You have told us about the changes and compromises in size, etc, and how wrong it all is, but you have still made it all look so right.

There is also OpenLCB to add to your lists. There is, obviously, no simple answer. You have to look at the complete system(s) and combinations available, including the automation software package. A lot of the choices are mutually exclusive, software packages only operate with certain buses and hardware, certain hardware only works with certain buses. Start with a clear idea of what the ultimate goal is, and then look to see which systems can fulfill that goal, and at what price.

or is that YE5?

When we built a tribute to Brunel layout for the Great Model Railway Challenge, we all wore stovepipe hats and had chocolate cigars. The cigars were not seen in the final program, due to careful editting. They were really expensive, too.