SteffanLlwyd

I wished I had photographed it but anyway: on the South end of Shrewsbury Platform 4 adjacent to the bay platform 5 was a suspended sign which read NO BRUTES BEYOND THIS POINT. It did not refer to Wolves FC supporters but to British Rail Universal Trolley Equipment!

I have seen a YouTube video of the sleeve valves being tested. The motion was complex. Unfortunately I can’t find the video at the moment. Can anybody supply the link or the search terms for it?

GER 0-4-0 B74 looked good until cut down in conformity with LNER Y4.... kind of ‘ugly fantastic’ as a school friend used to say in the 1960s...

To me 3MT 77XXXs are like starlings... almost beautiful. I really wish someone would make them RTR in 4mm scale. I saw a great 71/4 gauge one at the Great Cockcrow Railway a few years ago... so somebody loves ‘em besides myself!

I have wanted to try this. Love the gawky Starling-like look of 77000s. All the best with a project well worth doing!

I hanker after BR Standard Class 3MTs used as Riddles, Cox and Bond intended: to make connections from lengthy secondary lines to electric-powered trains... ie in a direct step from Steam to Electric traction. There were only twenty produced but there could and should have been more had the steam-to-diesel transition not been botched to the extent that it was. Another thirty BR 3MT 77XXXs would have been far better than all the Clayton, North British Bo Bos, Baby Deltics and so on.... said of course with the benefit of hindsight! 77XXXs were attractive and would find a use on passenger formations up to six coaches, parcels trains, engineering department maintainance and inspection trains. Black livery suits their 'starling' like looks, but late-crest green would be my choice. The Bachmann 3MT tank continues to sell so why not a better looking and more versatile (longer range) tender version? The obvious first choice would be 77014 which came to the Southern Region late in its life. The problem with Bachmann standard 4MT 76XXXs and 5MT73XXXs is the way the lower part of the firebox overhangs the frames. So I'd rather Hornby had a go at 77XXXs, made to the same standard as the stunning 4MT 75XXXs. Here's hoping.

I'd love to see how a Britannia would look like with a double chimney....

There was a local custom illustrated by the departure of the Up Evening Mail on 20 Sept 1975. It was almost certainly the first and last time the custom was practiced since the end of steam on the Cambrian in March '67 If there was a newly wed couple leaving town by train, drivers would sound whistle SW continuously for several miles. With newly-weds on board the driver of the said up mail 'SW'd with every imaginable permutation of two-tone diesel horn honks and did so pretty well continuously to the site of Ynys Las station. Bystanders looked worried. The question written on their faces appeared to be 'Was it an emergency?' 'Was this a runaway train?' How do I know? It was on my my wife and I's behalf that all the cacophony was in honour. And we were escorted with solemnity by the Guard from Second to First Class. The loco was a Class 24. All I can remember for sure that it was numbered 24.0XX. Something tells me 24.08X or 24.075 but I am no more than five percent confident! Does anybody have a true record of the locomotive involved on that trip? To answer your question, the train consisted of at least four MK1 vehicles; though on other occasions the Up Mail was a DMU pulling a fitted XP van. I thanked the Driver at Shrewsbury where we changed for Chester. He laughed and rocked on his heels. He was quite a giant, standing at least six foot with a large frame. If anybody can supply the Driver's name and the loco number that would be a tremendous bonus!

I'm sorry that I can't answer your question though it had also occurred to me. I put in a 3MT 77XXX 'Product Suggestion' to Hornby and another to Hattons. If enough persons did the same maybe they would produce one as good as Hornby's utterly fabulous Standard 4MT 4-6-0s. Back to the 77XXX... opinion is divided as to their looks but I really like how they looked. To my eye they are a bit like starlings: gawky on first sight but really a beautiful bird when studied closely. Standard 3MT 2-6-0s would be very useful additions to a lot of layouts, placed on short goods or passenger trains, or double-heading long ones over a cross country route. So I'm with you there. What I dislike about the Bachmann 76XXXs is the way the firebox waist and foundation ring over-step the frame in a very conspicuous way, instead of being flush with it. Not good!

Paul, I have been looking at scores of paintings by the artists you recommended: De-Breanski, Koekkoer and Cole. Marvellous skies and good 'lighting' of the scene too. The skies - in many different moods - are just like the skies we see, recorded with great accuracy and then with a degree of kind of 'super-realsim' added. Thanks so much for these suggestions. I think the best sky/ light combination I ever saw connected with the railway was when the down DMU we were on (headed for Aberystwyth) was held in a loop between Talerddig and Machynlleth, probably at Commins Coch Halt (though I must check in a minute to see if Commins Coch had a loop!). It was a July evening around 8:00pm so the sun was in the West dead ahead and still quite high in the sky, over the line but slightly to the right. This made for a dazzling bright haze with a suggestion of blue right above. This was at the end of steam so it was a sunset in more than one sense. After a few minutes a BR Standard 4 2-6-0 came into sight, preceeded by towering white exhaust seen first, which, being driven by a westerly wind that was travelling at the same slow speed as the loco, meant that the vapour was stacking-up to an unusual height above it. The steam was now backlit by the sun to stunning effect and the exhaust beat suggested that the locomotive was working about as hard as possible, practically speaking. Sitting on the front row seats this vision of steam's last stand was framed by the cab windows, perfectly. My sense of it was that the regular passengers had been struck too. Nobody could help but look. Too soon the locomotive passed hauling an unusually long rake of assorted waggons and vans and I think which I think would have been too long to fit into the loop - hence we had to be held instead. It was going to have to haul the lot up the bank unassisted and the crew were doing a good - if slow - job of it. We'd seen the locomotive that morning shunting at Aberystwyth and only now, about twelve hours later, was it on its way. One detail I remember was that the tender was full of compressed ovoid brickettes. Yes. Best ever steam moment. It was the last steam train I saw on the Cambrian system, but what a great way of bowing-out!

I have 23 Hornby 21T MOT Iron Ore hoppers which I found cheap on Fruugo. I am regauging to EM (easy!) and re-liverying to BR 1960s period (difficult!). Does anyone know where I can find appropriate running numbers and transfers? I can't be sure that hopper transfers from FOX would be correct to prototype....

Hi PJB, What great suggestions you make which I will be sure to follow up, particularly concerning skies. Once I got as far as making seven big screens about 2 meters by three meters using a semi-translucent screen material - stretched on 3/4 inch wooden battens. The material is manufactured for back-projection off a regular VCR and was readily agailable from a specialist supplier. This was for a conference/ exhibition and included highly directional stereo speakers designed to create very localised 'pools of sound' . It worked well: seven very large screens which cost me about Thirty Quid to make over one weekend. The projectors and VCRs were provided by the institution. The seven screens meant I could show seven vids at the same time. Delegates were surrounded by screens and could watch whichever one they liked. I very much accept your point about not sticking to 'measured dimensions'. One idea I had was a 'View from a Railway Carriage'. This would be viewed through a full Mk1 Beclwat window (complete with sliding top windows) recovered from a scrapped vehicle. The scene the other side of the window would be contained in a box. The proposition would be that the carriage you are in has been held on a viaduct above a city landscape. A sprinkler would throw raindrops onto the window which would be enough to form streaming ripples down to the bottom of the window - those random meandering streams of coalescing raindrops which always fascinated me as a child. That is the scene would be partly obscured by rain and perhaps by some railway grime at the edges where the cleaners never reached. The buildings immediately below the viaduct would be made to give a false perspective (optical illusion of depth). A 4mm railway would run at what would appear as a scale distance of about 1/4 mile at a much lower level than the 'train on the viaduct'. Between the 4mm distant trains and the viewer there would be artefacts (some actual full scale artefacts such as a 'Catchpoints 200 Yards' sign and perhaps a 'Calling On Signal' and others half scale, and then other items at progressively smaller scales graduated until they reached the 4mm scale as the probable minimum. As for content I like to imagine the railway as Riddles imagined it: his Standard steam locomotives, Mk1s and Fitted Goods trains perhaps running on a formation parallel to an Overhead 25Kv 'Electric Blue' railway with Mk2D stock. There would have to be Cooling Towers. Love 'em! And thousands of Starlings. I think we could manage without any turnouts - just occasional trains running at about 4 min intervals with enough movement in the clouds etc to maintain interest by drawing eye. Sound would be via quad speakers with no attempt to place sound into locos. At the kind of distance suggested and through the glass not much sound would have reached us anyway. It might be good to be able to eavesdrop on the conversation going on inside our railway compartment. This could be constructed from sound archives contemporary with the scene. In this scenario Mr Riddles locomotives have lasted well into the 1980s as intended and the topics of the compartment discussion would reflect this. It is possible the whole model would have to be constructed inside something like a horse-box, towed to exhibitions as a 'walk through' experience. It might make a nice Exhibition Entrance in its own rights.... Maybe film-set designers have the knowledge already. Something along these lines....

BR Standard 4MT 4-6-0. Astonishingly good. (When will they do a 'Wee Standard' 3MT 2-6-0?)

Ah! Hook Norton Manor. I can see it in the mind's eye taking the curves with its 'high stepping' coupling/ connecting rods (Down Cambrian Coast Express in the Summer of around '62 or '63). The Fireman looked exhausted at Aberystwyth (wouldn't anybody?!). My Father explained that because this was a 'Nationalised Railway',then I was one of the OWNERS of the locomotive. Brilliant I thought, age 7)... but they did not ask my permission to scrap it. I would have said 'No!'

I'm returning to railway modelling for the first time since I was 10 (!) and I'm staggered by the quality shown here. Wonderful! And an inspiration of course.