Michael Edge

Yes it's Liverpool with the floating crane Mammoth.

That photo is taken from Nelson bridge which is the continuation of Victoria viaduct at the north end of Citadel, the bridge also goes across the river here. We have a low relief version of that goods shed alongside a line which just disappears into the wall - we just have the through goods lines, no room for Dentonholme yard (the building wasn't big enough....).

The nearer track did go right through Dentonholme goods shed so you could have a bit more in the space......

Don't worry about the theory, just try it out - and don't forget that shunting with steam was a lot faster than most modellers seem to think.

I think the kit built one looks much better, more like a loco and less like a shiny toy - even with the repaint it still looks like moulded plastic.

You will find the end footboards come quite close to the platforms on curves, there is quite a big throwover here - also obviously in the centre of the underframe truss, the coach body should all be above platform level anyway. Our model of Carlisle has the platforms built at correct width/spacing from the tracks (most modellers leave a big gap) and as a consequence we've had to make sure all stock really is in gauge - a great many models aren't.

It’s only the test track that’s tidy, the bench is the usual tip! The test track only contains items being worked on ( or likely to be) , there are also piles of boxes in other places.

This is the G train etch for the B7. Some of the B7s ran with self trimming tenders so I used a Perseverance kit, I didn't bother building up the axleboxes and springs from the parts supplied so I used ours. Boiler and firebox scratchbuilt in my usual way. Now painted in very early BR livery it runs on Herculaneum Dock and Wentworth Junction. Incidentally we have plenty of the etched "ship's wheels" and also etches for the Iracier axlebox covers which some of these tenders had.

I think the lack of beading on the coal raves is the result of open rails plated on the outside.

I sent this away unpainted as usual and if it was Larry who painted it they didn't always reappear as the loco I built..... Some real howlers occurred in this way including one Duchess which eventually got to Carlisle but with the wrong tender for the number.

It's a long time ago but I don't remember any problems with the frames and I think they are probably 26mm Romfords - I will have machined the flanges down though. There isn't much clearance between leading and driving wheels on a Star or a Castle anyway.

Looking through my books I've built 33 Proscale kits over the years but don't have digital photos of most of them, here's a few anyway. I don't recall any problems building this Star. A3 in BR blue, looks a bit pale to me but Ian Rathbone painted it. Another A3, I don't know who painted this one but possibly Larry Goddard with the partly green cab roof. Finally a couple of P2s, I've built 13 of these in total, it was definitely the best way to get one. No readily accessible photos but I've also built the A1, Princess, K3, B1 and V2, some of them in 3mm scale as well.

I knew you would find something wrong with it! The actual mechanism is all Hornby, the new frames are essentially cosmetic, fitted outside the Mazak block on spacers. We have two A3s with this modification as well.

This is the Hornby A4 on new frames and motion. This runs on Carlisle and is EM gauge, the etched frames are fitted around the Hornby mechanism and it has Markits wheels on 3mm axles. Motion is all etched and includes the slidebar bracket which most rtr seems to ignore, leading to silly angles when the slidebars are just stuck out of the cylinders. To my eyes the body shape is just about spot on apart from the bottom of the cylinders, I've rounded them a bit but it's still wrong. The loco runs well but even with cerrobend poured into every cavity in the body it still won't pull our heaviest trains - it doesn't really need to though. This is the original Hornby finish with Barry O's weathering.

You’re using the wrong flux, stick to phosphoric acid, fluxes everything you’ll ever solder and it’s rustproofer for steel. It sounds like you’ve got Bakers fluid (or some other name) - I won’t have it in the workshop.

You don't need solder paste for laminating, just clamp the parts together and run flux and solder along the edges, capillary action will take the solder in.

The drawing in MRC January 1970 is fairly comprehensive and accurate.

How about Lancashire Derbyshire and East Coast?

That's how Alan describes it but it's clearly not what was going on in the photo. The accident report makes interesting reading: BRER_WentworthJunction1971.pdf In this case the 30 wagon MGR train was drawn out on to the down main which was permissive block from Kendall Green but as I pointed out earlier there were no signals for this move (no backing disc by the signal box). The driver of the down train was held at least partly to blame, reading between the lines the suspicion was that he was going a lot faster than he said he was but the interesting bit is that he thought the train off the pit was on the up line - perhaps that's where it usually was? Wentworth Junction was a rather remote place and I'm sure rules were bent/ignored fairly regularly.

You’re going to need to find out about black sections for that…..

The empties arrived first and were swapped for the fulls. They couldn't be propelled on to the main, the locos were all at the wrong end. Don't worry about relevance, I'm happy to see any stuff about this line. Closure date for Strafford crossing box is very useful but what I would really like is a photo of it.

If they were being objective and fair why didn't the interviewer ask him about the motorway noise? It just sounded to me like another attempt to rubbish the idea of building anything new in this country - especially a railway.

Have a look at the track plan, you can’t get to the down main from the branch, at least not with a signalled move. This was the normal operation, we do it on the model if the pit trip loads to more than 14 wagons or if the Garratt is the banker.

Yes..... The photo is definitely before the crash, the two bankers are hauling the train on to the up main, the train engines waiting on the down main. There would also have been a diesel involved to run to and from the pit, wires only went far enough along the branch for the electrics to hook on.

If that was true it would leave a very large hole in our sales.... We do produce kits for steam locos now but the vast majority of what we have sold in the last 22 years has been diesel and electric. As far as rtr competition is concerned it frequently does severely damage the market for our kits but the effect is variable depending on the model produced. Sometimes the rtr offering is so good we can't really compete, for example the Heljan 05, absolutely identical to ours, similarly with the recent ES1 Bo-Bo but others include so many errors that there is still a market for a more accurate kit. We do also continue to sell to the P4/S4 builders for who can't readily use the rtr models, often for lack of springing/compensation. One consideration is that the price of rtr is escalating at a very rapid rate and the kits now frequently appear relatively cheap, another is that rtr is based on a fixed run of products and once they are gone they are gone - our kits are still around. Add to that the modellers who really prefer to build for themselves and our market seems fairly steady. It remains completely impossible to predict what will sell and what won't.