James Harrison

With a bit of work the Farish generic stock can also produce half-decent GCR matchboard stock as their overall appearance is about right (it's just scratching in the matchboarding is a bit tedious). Keeping on-thread with the Hattons carriages, I'm very much looking forward to getting my GNR-liveried 6-wheelers. I'll probably be removing the insignia and lettering with T-cut and then scumbling over the teak finish to get closer to the GCR dark teak/ not quite mahogany livery.

I've had good results lining carriages with one of these: http://www.mylocosound.co.uk/?page_id=12 The raised beading on a panelled carriage side makes for a fairly easy guide to get a ruler on to guide it.

Funny you should say that, the 1900s suburban sets were rather what I had in mind. (Being purely selfish, 50' suburbans I'd buy two or three rakes of, 42- 44' carriages I might two or three examples of). There's a yawning gap in the market for both, of course.

Just a thought. If these take off and sell like the proverbial hot cakes (and of course we all hope they do, don't we?), would that encourage Hattons to look at, say, 50' non-corridor bogie carriages in a like manner?

It also allows me to play with the multi-period idea I was toying with a few years ago. I've lost count of exactly how many locos I have, suffice to say some of my collection is, strictly, out of period for me. I could have the main layout set in my stated 1918-22 period and the loco depot could occasionally go back to, say, 1905-10. Or vice-versa, the loco depot being 1918 onward and the main layout being 1912-14.

I like both options! The shed area is based on a plan I found in Iain Rice's "Designs for Urban Layouts" and that too uses a cassette to get locos on and off. I think what needs to borne in mind (and the plan doesn't really show it too well) is that the shed layout will be probably 5 - 6" above the main layout, so a cassette option probably makes more sense in avoiding an awkward gradient that has to come across in front of the main fiddle yard and then make a 90-degree turn (still climbing) to get to the yard entrance. .

That's one idea (I ran out of bits on my free SCARM to investigate it more thoroughly). It should be possible to get one line from the sheds down to the terminus, I would have thought.

Over the Christmas break I managed to clear out some of the railway room, and then I realised just how large a space it is. Work started on redecorating the top hallway and it's been found that the wall separating hallway and railway room is pretty much life-expired and will need to be renewed. Then of course came lockdown so that's not going to be rebuilt anytime soon which then in turn means no railway building anytime soon either. However, when I was looking around the space I was considering how I could make better use of it, it always seems that my layout plans take up abou

That's OK, nice to know it's not just me it happens to

That is what I was referring to.

What Zunnan said. If you can build your range up quicker than Peco (and considering how long their slips and crossing have been 'in development' I think you'll struggle not to do that) and you'll have a customer here.

I think you're thinking of @richard i's Dettingen thread, French Grey and Chocolate is too early for me (plus I can't understand why that livery has been chosen as there's nothing currently available in the motive power line that could run with it, except maybe if Bachmann backdated their J11?- and even that wouldn't particularly a good fit). Considering the expertise of the people who have restored No.946- including the guy who has I believe literally written the book on GCR carriages- I can't see that it's a million miles off what the livery actually looked like. But it was so long ago who

I always just view it as the necessary blood sacrifice for a decent model.

At the rate Peco are developing and expanding their range though.... what is it now, three years and counting for slips, crossings and a second size of turnout?

In another of his essays he writes about a dislike of using the same word twice in short succession, which possibly explains it.