JohnMartin90125

Which is what I'm doing. Droids is not a word that I would use to describe them. Customer Service Trolls is the only one I can put here without a number of ****. Anyone thinking that Hornby's handling of their Black Friday orders was appalling (which it clearly was) have had it easy when it came to dealing with the dishonesty of the trolls at Amercon.

That 0-6-2T Thomas looks so wrong and so right at the same time. The not-J94 looks good as well, pity I sold my last locos ages ago with that 0-6-0 chassis, useful one that. Some of the many things on my workbench* include a (nameless) Connie/Polly/Nelly and the later one with the Margate telephone or telex number on it or whatever. Got some Polly nameplates (had a kitten arrive on Christmas Day 1977 that was named Polly so that's the name for one of the engines - and why not?) Only thing is with a necessary respray is that the original style nameplates won't look right, have to get some etched ones to suit the paintwork (any ideas of who does them would be welcome or am I thinking of replica paper lables?) As we are on the subject of stuff from the spares box... Current-style 0-4-0 chassis needs about a centimetre taking out for Connie & Co where the cylinders would have been, luckily the crude blanking insert used gives a more-or-less spot on cutting guide. There is too much overhang if cutting a notch out and as the body is already 'stretched', looks stupid so needs the chassis shortening, which I tried ages ago. However, if the front steps are broken off the body, a chassis with the cylinders makes an excellent alternative. The spring clip for the motor sits tight against the body and holds everything in place but something better needs to be fashioned. If using the original chassis, at least the later version with the Scalextric motor would make it a bit more DCC friendly than the X04 motor version. Another quick fix would be the gubbins from a "German" tank enging (R254/R256) which with square axles, means no wheel quartering but may need an extra pick up which isn't a difficult job. Won't be as an extreme reworking as others do, they have been in bits for a few years now. Frustrating at the moment when I want to do stuff and can't. Finally, the current-style 0-4-0 can go under a Dock Shunter body as well, a trim here and there. Seem to recall that they may have been an NBL shunter with a higher bonnet and connecting rods (Cadbury Bournville perhaps). Might be worth a try. *For workbench, read a cardboard box. Somewhere.

GBL's customer "service" trolls also ignore e-mails and conventional letters so chargeback is one method of getting your money back from them, the other being a Direct Debit Idemnity. Like others and myself, you clearly have not received the level of service you have the reasonable right to expect. Anyone wanting help with this, I will draft a generic letter which can be used to claiming money back from your bank or card issuer under their legal and contractual requirements. PM me and will send a PDF of it, it can be printed on cardboard as it will be stiff! Deliberately poor customer service does seem to be a business model deployed by many companies these days. Employees refusing to put their full (or real) names is also a ploy to make things difficult when it comes to complaining about the vexation from these *******s and in legal proceedings. I have had enough of being lied to by Amercon customer services. They obviously enjoy offending people. These employees know what they are doing is wrong, so that makes them just as guilty as the company who employs them. My condition is bad enough without the rotten behaviour of these ******* ********. I am more than well aware of the amount of people with Autism, Asperger's Syndrome and so on who are keen on model railways, some of whom have subscribed to this series. The behaviour of GBL's utterly rotten customer "services" does not help those with said conditions. They take more than the enjoyment out of the hobby. It can be very upsetting.

Unfortunately for those of us who have critised Hattons in the past on this forum, abuse can come quick and fast from trolls, hope you haven't had some of the nastyness I was subjected to. I'll never have anything to do with Hattons again, which I won't go into here. Haven't had a problem with Yodel, not used them much. Hermes have been fine whenever I used them for sending things but don't like stuff being left on the door step. I avoid Royal Mail as they are not only a rip off and unreliable but are partners with atos, so never use them for parcels and send faxes or e-mails instead of posting letters!

I started an "Evil Thomas" some time ago, bought one cheap with the teeth stripped on the gear set, probably a result of a youngster forcing it like a push-a-long, looked fairly new. For the preparation, I sprayed some oven cleaner on it which took the number off a treat and left the red bufferbeams fully untouched. Can't remember if it was Mr Muscle or another one that the brand name escapes me but this has inspired me to have a go at finishing that (how many projects have we all started, eh?)

Anyone know when the "suburban" coaches were withdrawn? I take it they were before the advent of blue...

Thanks I thought it was pink then I saw the pic of the 56s in MLI (I think it was) and had the feeling the class 50s were green as well, too tired to go looking now. Eight more sleeps before Dr Who comes back. Is the emperor dalek nervous?

Back to modelling, my Deltic is still in bits with only the underframe and bogies done and the body in white primer, the intention was to do it blue when I do the 9F but had a thought of doing it in workshop condition during the painting for something different. Anyone know what colour primer/undercoat BR used for their blue diesels? What colour pictures I have in things like Modern Locomotives Illustrated seem to have different colours used, white and grey not being amongst them. Just don't mention Porterbrook purple. 9016 looked rather silly in purple (I probably did as well in my goth days as well).

Was slow at getting off the mark with that one I must admit. If I want to cancel a magazine subscription, I normally do that immediately before telling the magazine so that I know they can't take another penny. I did get another unhelpful reply tonight from the same expletive deleted as the last time with the same previous lies as before. I told the him to have a look at this forum to see how much rubbish they are sending out as the lying troll is claiming that only the odd one here and there has minor issues. Yeah, right. Whilst we, as modellers can be fussy, imagine what it would be like (and how much it would cost them) if we all sent everything back that had faults instead of what we are doing by, effectively, fixing them and buying loads more as well. One would have thought that a little dignity and respect would have been in order instead of the pathetic lies and excuses these somethingholes are coming out with. Still no reply as to the Evening Star as in my earlier pictures and still no reply as to the incorrect models received. What is it with magazines that think they can provide deliberately poor customer service and treat the customer like dirt when we effectively pay their wages?

Thanks to The Weathering Man for an extremely good review of the Castle, both the prototypes and in model form. Let's hope at least one of the magazines offers him a paid job as a reviewer. It would be a refreshing change from some of the reviews that add as negative points as "nothing of note" as to avoid upsetting the companies who make the stuff. Many thanks to Corbs who has offered to send me a replacement for the missing valve gear as he is motorising his 9F. 1970s blue 9F will be started soon - maybe I could add weight to it with all the tomatoes we lost in the storm, neither of us like chutney so have dozens of green tomatoes to try and think of something to do with. Uries 15 sums up GBL's customer service rather well. It is probably a good job I can't use the telephone, my blood boils with incandescent rage at their e-mail responses so I'd be turning the air blue with them, probably even embarrass Roy "Chubby" Brown with what I would be coming out with! There are lies, damned lies and statistics customer services! I wonder if we should give an appropriate award for their standard of customer service? Am thinking of a used cat litter tray for them (sent to them without postage so they would have to pay extra to receive it, of course). Direct Debit Idemnities me thinks. Having told the plebs at GBL to cancel my subscription, they took no notice of this and have noticed another payment taken from our bank account on Monday. Since GBL customer service is so bad, I think that those of us who have complained to this company should send a summary of problems to our banks/building societies, highlighting the rotten behaviour of customer services and get their money back that way as there seems to be no way in hell that GBL customer services are going to treat us fairly, competently or with any degree of common decency. Then again, GBL are effectively bootleggers, pinching someone else's design work.

Maybe Bloody 5, going by the track record (no pun intended) of GBL supplying incomplete, badly assembled models and inept customer service to subscribers. Or could say to people it is a Black 5 but I should get a load of shares in Specsavers first to make a few bob. Being Irish, I am naturally pale blue especially when I was unloading wagons in the snow so it isn't a technical term

My GBL Jinty wasn't a good example and along with the missing bufferbeam (a bit of red paint on the front so was it dropped or something before packaging it?) and some odd marks on the body. Plastic flow lines was my first guess but the pattern dosen't seem right to me.

Just looked at it, thanks for the link. Aim to do one but would have to be a straight repaint (with copius amount of artistic licence or when we were doing photography at college, bulls***ing!) BR maroon Stanier 5MT is on the cards as well (can't really call it a Black 5, can't call it a Red 5 as they were Jubilees) so suggestions what to call it would be welcome - other than a Brown 5 as that would be rather naughty.

Wonderful stuff. I sent a few suggestions to that Ficticious Liveries site some years ago and a quite a few were done, such as the Merseyrail 73s in Silver. I also suggested a 9F in blue but didn't like what I saw, large logo. Might not be able to do these fab cut and shuts like you have but it is enjoyable seeing something different as opposed to accurate down to the last rivet. Some fun.

I know I'm not alone in receiving rubbish from this magazine - you should have seen some of the rubbish in my local Asda (I don't mean the Chosen By You range, either although said range of "food" would problably have the same degree of taste as a lump of badly painted plastic). If you can imagine an ice cream man with a bottle of raspberry sauce in one hand and a cornet in the other. hang on a minute, have I worked out who is actually making these models? No joke, the splatters on some GBL stuff I saw looks like the bufferbeams had paint just thrown at them without masking and so thick and heavy, would have been impossible to work with. Maybe what I thought was globs of glue over my Jinty's boiler was actually chopped nuts? I'm just gutted I didn't get a flake stuck in mine or some hundreds and thousands! One safety valve aside, I have two 9Fs that scrubbed up rather well (apart from the two photographed earlier by yours truly). I need to redo the smokebox door for the 28xx and weather it but at the end of the day, whilst we are choosing to detail, redecorate and convert, there isn't any excuse for a lot of the crap that we have been sent and I do wonder if subscribers are being sent some of the worst items in the hope that it would be too much effort to return them? Still no response from their customer service as to why I received another 28xx and another Black 5 instead of two 9Fs. I think for most people, one GBL 28xx is more than enough!