Nearholmer

For reference, I have a BMI of 24, am reasonably fit for my age, but am not actually a python. PS: “clawed back a bit at the bottom” sound too like cosmetic surgery to me.

I think that if you moved the chassis back, so that the notional firebox was between the rear two axles, and the notional cylinders ahead of the first, it might look better balanced. I've got one of the bodies, and the unequal wheelbase ETS 0-6-0 chassis that I got very cheap secondhand planning to rob it for parts, but I can’t get that combination to look kosher however I fit the two together, so haven’t made-up the fixing brackets.

Not one that hasn’t been suggested before, though. (Your eager public awaits)

Power/weight ratio was central to the diesel question pretty much all the way through to the 1970s in the case of machines to haul the fastest heavy trains. This wasn’t a uniquely British challenge, but it seems to have dogged the whole subject in this country in a way that it didn’t quite seem to elsewhere. I’ve not quite got to the bottom of why. Clearly our tight loading gauge imposed physical size limits, but I’m not aware that our allowable axle loadings were significantly less than those elsewhere, or that our load/schedule combinations were more aggressive (they might have been, because of the closeness of cities) ……. I need to delve further into this.

Loctite 638 or 648 IIRC, green coloured stuff. I’ve used it with success to do the same job on metal wheels, press-fitted to axles, which have lost their solid interference fit over the years and begun to go out of quarter under load.

That is definitely a good ‘in, containing several useful ideas - I especially like the diagonal, rather than wiggle. I snuck a quick measure of my existing layout before coming out to football this morning, and that has reminded me how space-efficient ‘Paltry Circus’ is, so I’m drifting back towards using that configuration again (I know, I said yesterday I wouldn’t!), which when combined with some of these ideas might be a winner. Right, KO shortly, and I think I’m about to be handed a linesman’s flag!

Which has prompted me to dig out my loco and an ETS mechanism. Bing mechanism 60mm WB, divers 42mm diameter. ETS mechanism 60mm WB, drivers 40mm diameter. A pretty good match, I’d say. I’ve actually got another George shell, complete, but in bits, part-way through panel beating (it was very badly bashed about), and this is making me wonder whether to put the mech under that, rather than a Hornby loco …… food for thought.

That’s an engine drawing it’s own conclusion.

That looks like a standard German steam tram, probably Krauss, with its skirts lifted (ooh, er!!). There were two little ones of those (maybe three) owned and operated by the Wolverton &Stony Stratford Steam Tramway, so I think they became LNWR locos.

Assume away. I’ve thought about a clockwork loop, mainly because some of the old stagers will only run on tinplate track, but decided against it, because it turns into more of a test track than a layout. The postwar clockers are OK on Maldon track set for the postwar electrics.

Brilliant. Not my cup of tea, but brilliant. I hope you didn’t spend too long on all this, because the community of Maldon-users who might seek track planning advice is very small.

They have an email group, on I think io. I was a participant until recently, but accidentally unsubscribed a couple of months ago, and decided not to resubscribe. 99% of the discussion recently has been about identifying locos in photo collections that have been passed to the IRS, and a lot of it leaves me cold, but this sort of thing is what they excel at.

Have you posed this one to the IRS forum? I ask because I’m sure I’ve seen the photo before, almost certainly in an IRS journal, but I’ve given all my copies away.

Some of the Sherwood locos had Walker-Fenn or Walker-Fenn-like governors fitted to them, although I don’t know specifically about the shunters, one of which was a little Bonzone Peckett, which I doubt you could fit a governor into.

Assuming we’re talking BR, most were Caucasian, but there were guys of African, Asian, and other descent on the footplate, even back as far as Victorian times. Have a look at a railway photo album of your location of interest.