Chris M

Its also said that Hitler made the trains run on time but then we don't know how he achieved this.

My favourite named loco was in the USA - Rock Island Line 4345 "Ivan the Terrible".

I think its a shame that nowadays people spend so much time looking for faults with figures from the past. Oliver Cromwell would not have been controversial back in the 1950s because, even though we all knew there were a lot of issues with his time in power, he was still a very significant figure in English history and he was respected as such. These days it seems that when a famous figure is found to have done some bad things they sort of get deleted which is a shame.

I don't live at Worlds End but I am less than a mile away which is quite scary really. California is only a mile away from Worlds End in the other direction. Quinton is a strange place to live.

Well that's just stupid. There's no way there would be a conical water tower so close to a water tower; it would obviously just be a water crane.

As a layout exhibitor at this show I would like to say a big thankyou to all the Statfold Barn staff and volunteers. What a wonderful group of happy helpful people who looked after us exhibitors very well, also a fantastic venue. I had a most enjoyable weekend. Special thanks to Joey and Tony who did all the hard work to make this exhibition happen.

The end of the line from the plan above. It is a current project so not much to see but it shows how things fit. A single track line on a 7 inch board in N does allow reasonable scenic development. The single track boards are not complete but they are coming along. I don’t think they look too bad considering the very restricted depth.

I am building a skinny shelf layout in N. It is 12ft long but only 7 inches deep. The station at the end doesn't allow for much scenic development but it fits and allows plenty of shunting. The track is all laid but I haven't really started scenic work on the terminus yet.

I don't think Chris adds smoke nowadays.

With all due respect to others who are very good, Chris Nevard is my favourite model railway photographer. I treasure the photos he has taken of my layouts.

Testing to check all was good for Statfold mostly went very well….

All my stock is packed ready for transportation on Friday and the van is booked. I’m loooking forward to a great weekend playing trains and having a few rides on the narrow gauge. Here are a few photos taken during testing. This will be the only outing for Dawlish Warren this year.

There is actually a dam at Frankley

Agreed. I enjoyed the exhibition last so much that I asked if I could bring my layout this year. They said yes. it really is a lovely venue and was a very good quality exhibition last year. I’m very much looking forward to be part of it this year and hoping to have chance to get a few train rides in.

I always print my track plan out full size from Anyrail before starting to build. Just printing it out full size and putting a train on it will usually cause me to make changes.

If you want to represent a main line I would say 4 coach trains is nowhere near enough. The rule of thumb in 00 of 11 inches per coach plus 12 inches for a loco works so if you only want to run 4 coach trains a 5 foot platform length would be fine. One reason I love N gauge is that I can and do run 10 & 11 coach trains on my main line. Now I am used to that a 5 coach train trying to be a mainline express just doesn't do it for me. Yes I know there are some 5 or even 4 coach trains on the mainline but it is the exception rather than normal.

I would either go to your local club or go to a few exhibitions and ask the question. There are no any different approaches all of which are valid. I always use a diode matrix and a flippin big CDU. Unfortunately I couldn’t write about all the options here.

Looking at it another way,maybe it was the existence of Accurascale and their 00 models was a significant factor that helped to push Hornby to go to TT:120.

If Accurascale brought out a TT:120 loco Hornby would not be happy at all. It wouldn't surprise me if Accurascale were quietly working on some TT:120 items; there is more space for new models there than anywhere else.

Everything is progressing well with the Warley at Statfold show. It has been rather quiet of late but that is because a lot of behind the scenes work has been going on and lots of details have had to be discussed. I can say that invitations to layouts, trade exhibitors and demonstrators will go out within the next week. Having seen some of the work done so far I have to say I am rather excited about it, but then I might be a tad biased. 😉 In the meantime I have to tell you Warley club has a new Facebook page. What was wrong with the old one? Well a couple of years ago a rather large cock up was made, not by me though. Anyway we ended up with a Facebook page that we could write to but nobody had full control over so new posters could not be added and ex-posters could not be deleted. After trying to contact Facebook we gave up and created a new Facebook page. You will find the new FB page at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61558041900591 . Please press follow on this page - you know you want to. I will try to keep the old and new pages updated for a while but eventually the old one will be allowed to whither and die.

When Eardington station is open they sell the best cakes on the line.

I would offer my layout (Dawlish Warren) as a Warley related layout, it has actually travelled in a Luton van with the Warley barriers before. It has to be said that a van full of barriers is a very heavy load. I'm not saying the van was tightly packed but my layout couldn't move as it was jammed in with barriers all round it. Unfortunately Easter just isn't a possibility; its important family time for me. Pretty much the whole family except me has birthdays over the period that Easter can happen. Dawlish Warren has never ventured further north than Stafford so a trip further north would have been good but never mind. I've done a fair few exhibitions in the Midlands and the South and Dawlish Warren probably won't go out very often in future. Statfold Barn in less than a couple of weeks time is the only outing this year for me. And I'm still just about young enough to hire a van!

Hymeks in South Devon

No rest for the RAIB even on a bank holiday Monday.