Softvark

I used resin on the harbour scene on my layout and it can work well but you have to be really careful to make sure the area you are pouring into is completely sealed. Resin will find the tiniest pin hole and empty on to the floor. For the river area I used good old gloss varnish which was far more controllable. Julian

On some more remote Scottish lines it was quite common for rodding and signal wires to be covered with planks to protect them from snow and ice. It could be that that is what is seen rather than the tops of electrical trunking. It’s also a useful excuse to avoid having to model rodding and signal wires! Julian

That 37 sounds the business! Whose sound file/decoder are you using? Julian

There's a picture of a 31 at Mallaig on the Railscot website - Railscot - Class 31 at Mallaig

Have a look at HMRS - they do blue grey coach lining transfers and the curved ends. https://hmrs.org.uk/br-coach-lining-up-to-including-blue-grey-period.html Julian

I’m looking forward to this build too as I bought the same kit only last week. Lots of photos please, Ken!

Thanks Simon, I thought that might be the case.

Spectacular modelling as always, Simon. Just going back a bit - please could you let me know where you got the decals for the propane gas cylinders?

Have you seen the downloadable instructions available from the PRMRP website? I have one of these to build myself and the pdf is more comprehensive than the paper instructions included with the kit. http://www.prmrp.com/uploads/1/2/0/6/12060808/brf-012_ota_instructions_new_version_2008.pdf

I got around this by putting a small piece of the MSE yellow lens material over the white LED then using the blue lens material in the arm. This actually works very well - there is enough red light passing through the yellow filter to still illuminate the signal red, and the blue material displays green. I'll post a photo later if you're interested in seeing what it looks like.

There is a track plan of the P4 version on page 9 of Ian's book Modelling Scotland's Railways - Santona Publications - ISBN 0953844889 and there are some photos of Lochside scattered through the book. Ian says that the station building was based upon Eyemouth.

I'm just about to convert a 26 to a 27 (body is currently sitting in paint stripper) and it's definitely worth getting the etch from PRMRP. As well as the headcode box it also has new tank sides, fan, snow ploughs, side windows, steps over the buffers etc. They also do castings for the roof vents. The only bit I'm not looking forward to is sanding down the raised part of the roof.

See http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/133523-sound-effects-for-your-layout/

I use several different strips of LEDs with different colour temperatures fed from DMX dimmers. DMX is a lighting protocol extensively used in concerts, theatres etc. It's then easy to control them from a PC using free software such as MagicQ. I've also got a few LED 12v spotlights at a low angle to simulate early sun or moonlight. There's even a DCC to DMX converter so you can control lighting from your command station. See Open DCC.

I recently upgraded to a Hakko solder station. Also not cheap (and rather garish) but an excellent iron with lots of bits available. Very controllable either manually or with presets. I got mine off a well known auction site for around £100 but make sure it's a genuine Hakko. https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=hakko+fx-888d