D.Platt

Morning Tony Ebay is like any auction house you need two or three people bidding for any item , it’s like watching certain tv programs the experts can give a valuation but on the wrong day /crowd and items can sell at bargain prices. I think in the past you have listed kits and invited offers ? with the number of viewing you attract on here give it a month for offers , obviously only if this is allowed on this website. Dennis

Only just realised Tony looking at these locos , you don’t do any sand pipes ? stands out on the black 5 with the sand box underneath the footplate. Dennis

Morning Tony Is the scale drawing included in the kit ? I do like the looks of a K2 although I never saw one , I may break one of my golden rules . Dennis

Morning Tony You must have come across these people many times when you have been attending exhibitions , never happy till they find a fault with something ! A “friend “ of mine and my brothers would look at one of our finished kit built locos till he found something to pass a negative comment on , never a complement , and yes he couldn’t two pieces of anything together. So I guess it’s human nature that some people aren’t happy unless they are moaning , and the rest of us ! carry on doing what makes us happy. Dennis

Good afternoon all As the 77xxx has come up I thought I would show how mine finished up , I know the djh kit has some issues but at the end of the day I’am pretty happy with the end result. I have made six high level gearboxes now ,very happy with the results it takes me about 30/40 minutes to put one together. Dennis

Thanks Tony , I knew Rule 1 would be the case , but what a lovely selection of locos you can call on to use on the MR/M&GNR section. I have gone as far as I can go with my WD , it started with a bargain buy off eBay (£70) ,I used your favourite paint stripper, first time I’ve used it , it certainly broke the body right down ! like I’ve mentioned I studied hundreds of photos online, you never notice all the variations till you really start looking. The chassis was given a new set of Markits wheels and a high level gearbox with a 1628 flat can motor , I replaced the steps and added rear steps to the tender and removed the pick ups which had locked its wheels ! So a little more cleaning up after looking at these pictures ! then it’s the fun of painting and weathering it into 90056

Afternoon Tony The J3 has turned into a lovely looking loco , it had me looking at their history as to when they were working, so going on the BR database I see the last one went in 1954 , I would have thought a little early for your running? so rule one applies ! I can understand your problem with the tender, I have been going cross eyed looking at WD photos whilst making my Doncaster version, but on a flicker site that has hundreds of images to study, without good photos then you are right , you do have to second guess. Dennis

The way you can build track Gordon you will have no trouble building the DJH J50 , it will make a pleasant change. looking at your Eastwood layout encouraged me into making my own points, that’s what is so good with these forums, always something new to pickup on. Dennis

Morning Tony I don’t know if you buy Steam World but this months has a photo selection on Stoke bank , an interesting photo of the Midland Pullman passing the site of Little Bytham station in 1965. Another article is about your first train spotting memories, the photo at Manchester Victoria of the L&Y banker took me right back to my first real memory of sight and sound of steam loco.

Hi Tony When you say the K5 is outside your time period for Little Bytham is this because it was a Stratford loco ? , but it could always have been “borrowed “ by another depot. Dennis

Love the first photo of the derailed engine , the three guys giving it a good coat of looking at .

All this talk of YT I have viewed a lot recently, usually when the other half’s not watching anything !! There’s always something new railway related to watch, the other night I watched British Steam Rail Disasters, very fascinating if a little grim but all footage was by the professional news teams of the day.

Hi Tony , Regarding ‘ Professionally built ‘ how many real professionals are or were out there ? compared to people like myself who had a day job but made a few kits for friends etc. A friend of mine who couldn’t build anything , started buying a lot of locos from a certain stall usually at York , every one of these locos ended up with either me or my brother having to put right various shorting problems, I came to the conclusion who ever made them obvious did not test run them round any track circuit. I have bought three locos of eBay ready made , a nu-cast B1 £20 , and DJH 82xxx plus WD for £70 for the two ! I have just completed the 82xxx on which I’ve replaced a D13motor with a high level gearbox with a mashima motor, added all the pipe work that was missing , so I have now a good looking loco which has cost me £50 ! The WD is going to get the Doncaster boiler , next job ! however it is becoming rare to find these bargain prices on eBay anymore. Dennis

Have you looked on the ‘shed bash ‘ website. Or BR data website. Dennis

Afternoon Tony I like the looks of a J6 I have two underlined in my combine 64191 and 64245 I would imagine they were withdrawn when I saw them . Can you tell me how you glaze the windows ? Dennis

Again thank you for the information, you must have enjoyed a grandstand view, can you tell me if this was a 24 hour operation or was there no working during the night ? Dennis

Thanks Baz, So Holden produced about 500 tons a day ? did the Q6 bring in the empty’s and take out it’s train load ? Is there any source of information regarding different pit outputs. Dennis

I have just enjoyed catching up on this thread, wonderful photos of a bygone era. I have on my layout some exchange sidings ,six in total and trip loads into it from a fiddle yard ,then out onto my main line . Could anybody give me any idea of the number of 16T wagons an average size pit would send out in a 24 hour period ? Also would there be a period during the shifts when no trips were made to the exchange sidings ? Thanks for any clues. Dennis

Yes it does Tony , but I always wash and clean the surfaces before painting, or on valve gear a brush over with a little bleach then oiled. Dennis

All the talk of different fluxes, I’ve been using the FRY powerflow flux sold in the yellow plastic tubes, Eileen’s emporium sell it as do the likes of B&Q. I have used it for all my soldering brass, white metal, copper, spring steel pick ups.

Morning All May I just put my soldering experiences into the discussions , the first kit I built was a K’s Stanier 2-6-0 in 1978 and with a little help from my brother I managed to complete it and she still running today, this kit was glued together , when DJH brought out the A1 I had to have one , and realised I needed to learn the art of soldering. After building many kits using various soldering irons of different wattage, my son gave me a temperature controlled soldering station, I said to him what do I need one of these for! Now I can’t do any soldering without using one of these temperature control stations , you never have to worry about melting white metal again. So I would recommend to anyone who is worried about soldering white metal to invest in one of these units, another thing you are never too old to learn something new, for years all my soldering I have used coils of BT solder , after reading on the forum of people using 145° solder I have just purchased some for the first time, wish I’d used it years ago for use doing the finer parts on the kits, I will still use the BT solder on the chassis construction, but like I say said it’s never too late to learn something new. Just a final point, one of my next projects is convert two DJH WDs I bought off eBay into the Doncaster boilered versions, after seeing an article on the website I bought two copies of MRJ no 118 and 119 , a pleasant surprised was an article on Retford in its early days. Dennis

Always makes the wife smile when she asks , what have you been doing, and I reply just amputating some arms and legs !!

Tony , Regarding the backgrounds on the photos, you have just said it took an hour to alter the image, so if your happy to use your time doing this then that’s fine , or what other jobs could you be working on in that hour ? Dennis

Tony Thanks for reminding us of all these brilliant layouts, does bring a longing to get back to an exhibition again, one of my favourites not shown , The Gresley Beat. Dennis

Not to sure about the angle of the cylinders, but I agree that it’s not one of DJH’s finest, I couldn’t use the valve gear, ( luckily I had a Kemilway set spare ) the instructions were ****, I don’t have a scale drawing , but feel the gap from the top of the wheels to bottom of footplate is to small, I think it’s a bit of a botch up from DJH between their 76xxx and a 77xxx. One thing that I’am pleased with is using a high level gearbox for the first time, so not the most accurate model but as Tony would probably say a good layout loco.