tycho14

Jim There's an Ambis 3 axle set 'for LNWR/NSR and Scottish rolling stock with early narrow plate axleguards' which has got that shape of W iron. Ref no. is LWBO/C. But it's designed for coach wheel stock with 3' 7" wheels..... Alan

First class Brian - brickwork on those NB boxes absolutely authentic for Scottish bond! Not sure about NB practice but Caledonian were very partial to polychromatic brick decoration (usually pale yellow) for arches, reveals, quoins etc.

Your model buildings are of a very high standard, but can I just add a cautionary note about Scottish brickwork. Your use of commercially available embossed brick sheets for Scottish buildings is not authentic: in the 19th century, by far the most dominant brickwork to be seen in Scotland on all brick-built public and industrial buildings - including the buildings of all the Scottish railway companies - was what has been called 'Scottish Bond', which consisted of 3 (but also occasionally 4 or 5) stretcher courses for every header course. This pattern was almost totally absent from English practice, where it was only used for garden walls. Walls where the brickwork is entirely stretcher bond indicate cavity wall construction, and are not really representative of 19th century origin. Alan

Thanks for tne responses. I have a copy of Essery & Jenkinson (although only Vol 3), but there are few specific references to black counter-shaded numerals and I can't find any connected with 18" numerals. They only seem to feature in the notes for the HMRS transfers. I've looked closely at lots of photos of both tank and tender engines with the early livery (and including both red and black), and can't see any sign of black counter shading. In contrast, the later liveries with red counter shading show up very clearly. So I'm still unconvinced....! I hadn't thought about using the 7mm transfers! There are indeed 6mm (ie 18") numerals on the 7mm Sheet 2a. So that seems to me to be the way to go. The down side is that the 7mm sheet is about 3 times the price! And I'll have little use for most of the sheet. There also seem to be fewer stockists of 7mm transfer sheets! Might there be any 7mm modellers out there willing to sell me a portion of the 7mm Methfix sheet 2a? If so I'd be very grateful! Alan

I have recently completed an ex Caledonian tank loco and want to apply early LMS livery. Almost all the photos I've seen have 18" numerals on the tanks, but I'm struggling to find suitable transfers. Logically, the 18" numerals on the HMRS sheet 1 should be the ones, but these are black shaded and the photos all seem to be plain yellow/gold with no visible black shading. I thought that maybe the Crewe straw type numerals available on Sheet 2a might be suitable, but there are no 18" nos. - largest is 14". Can anyone advise please? Is there another source, or should I just put up with black shaded 18"? Alan

Came across some photos today which show glimpses of the bunker side of the cab of 16153 in 'British Railways Illustrated' Volume 14 June 2005, part of an article entitled LMS Northern Division Dock Tanks. Photo acknowledgement given as 'J.T. Rutherford / The Transport Treasury'. Several other good quality photos of 498 Class locos too. Alan