SD85

This is a very rough plan of the layout based on my memories. The backscene was possibly low relief industrial warehouses? Locos were small, no bigger than an 08, and may have been something like an 04 or 05. Even if the show guide was just a list of layout names and owners, that would still help. I remember that the layout was located towards the back of the area used for the exhibition inside the town hall, certainly it was not near the entrance, and it was up against a wall with enough space to operate it from behind.

Good suggestion and I did consider it, but having looked at the relevant pictures of that layout it definitely doesn't match in terms of period. The one I remember at the show was definitely set in the 1970s or possibly later. The general concept of an industrial/freight shunting yard with a double slip in the loop and the lines going offstage behind buildings is about right, though.

Thanks. I did look up the exhibition listing in the relevant RM for that year (the exhibition was on the last weekend in October), but it just gave the location and not any further details of the layouts. Lydney show nowadays is put on by the FoD MRC but the RM listing makes no mention of who is actually putting on the 1997 show and apparently FoD MRC have only been holding their Lydney show since circa 2001 anyway. So who was putting the exhibition on I wonder? If anyone was connected with the Lydney shows in the 97/98 era or attended them, or knows someone who put them on, even that would be helpful. A show guide or a list of the layouts which were exhibited in those years would help tremendously if one could be located. Thanks

(Changed thread title and edited info below for clarification). This is a very long shot but I will give it a go anyway. Back in the late 90s - I think it was in September/October 1997, but possibly also the year after - I was visiting family in Lydney (Gloucestershire) and there was a model railway exhibition on at the town hall there (I think a two day one). One of the layouts there was a 7mm scale one of an urban shunting scene, British, diesel operation, circa 1970s. I got talking to the operator (who was an older gentleman I think) and he very kindly let me operate it for an hour or two towards the end of the show. I remember it being interesting to operate. The layout itself was fairly compact and was of a small urban shunting/goods yard, with at least one fiddle yard and possibly two (one on each end). The track plan was a sort of loop with sidings coming off both ends, and I think these sidings were accessed via a double slip built into the loop line. One of the sidings served a wagon works building. The double slip was a key point of the track plan. I would like to track down this layout or its builder if possible. I don't know the name of either, however. I don't think the show was put on by the Forest of Dean MRC, as the date is too early. I have already asked about this layout to them via FB Messenger to them but received no reply. If anyone could provide some info about this layout then I would be grateful. It may have been on the exhibition circuit during the late 90s, possibly in the SW/W Mids/S Wales areas maybe? Thanks.

It would seem that Hornby have really set new standards in realism here. They've produced a cheap, shoddy locomotive that has design flaws and is notably not up to the standard of the P2 release. People are now questioning the value of purchasing one. 100% accuracy to the real thing then.......

One of the Merchant Navy class hauled a self weighing tender for a while. I'm intrigued as to the meaning of the term. Why does the tender need to be self weighing? Thanks.

I thought that Black 5 had a WD tender behind it at first. Any other shots of this loco with the tender? Thanks.

I will paste my response in the aforementioned thread onto here as while I do have some issues with Sam's Trains I also watch his channel a fair bit: I do have my reservations about Sam's Trains (he should at least put his railway on boards on the floor and not directly on the carpet, and I'm also not entirely sure his reviews of Hatton's products are unbiased as he apparently acknowledges that he has some sort of arrangement with them, plus the El Cheapo 'character' he sometimes plays is... erm... questionable at best), and yeah there's the perennial issue that people on YT do tend to go down the clickbait route chasing subscribers, but his reviews are pretty thorough and do go into a lot of detail, plus they're quite good to just put on for half an hour or so to unwind to. I don't just use him for recommendations of particular models either, I tend to gather a wide range of reviews and opinions before purchasing, so his reviews are just a part of that.

Top photo, the windows make me think this is possibly Brighton? Can't be sure TBH as I can't find any photos of the shed interior to check. The bottom photo is possibly taken at Eastbourne, which was bombed in the war. The girders look familiar.

Top photo is possibly East Croydon, or maybe Clapham Junction? But not certain either way. Second and third photos are at New Cross Gate shed which closed after the war. The station nameboard can be seen in the background of photo 2.

Thanks, much appreciated. I suppose I was a little confused by the opening post of this thread which implied the T9 would be hard to convert. It's a fairly obvious conversion that I'm a bit surprised hasn't been done more often, although not as many people operate pre Grouping layouts. Still, there were unsuperheated T9s running in SR days too, so anyone modelling the 1920s could also do such a task.

Can someone please explain to me why it is apparently so hard to backdate a T9 to as built condition. As far as I can tell all one has to do is shorten the smokebox and add wing plates and the cross boiler tube panels.

TBH I would be perfectly happy with something to the same standard as the current ex Kitmaster stuff and consequently retailing for the same price. Details etc can always be added as needs be. I don't think £30 would be too much to pay for a better quality static model either; that would still be a reasonable price given that Hornby rebuilt Bulleid light pacifics seem to go for £150 and above on Ebay.

An old thread but I will add my opinion that static plastic loco kits are an avenue I would like to see pursued a bit more; that said many of the posts here outline why no manufacturer is likely to produce them. From the perspective of someone whose main interest in modelling centres around locos and who is planning an MPD layout set on the Southern Region in 1967, some more static kits would be a great way to inexpensively fill out the shed scene. I have been finding the Dapol Standard 4 kit to be of some use in this regard; it would have been great if Kitmaster/Airfix had also made a model of the rebuilt Bulleid Pacifics too.

TBH it could have been the algorithms picking up that you'd looked at a thread on here discussing the Sam's Trains video and decided to suggest in in your Youtube feed. They work on a pretty wide basis; just because you read up on something on a forum elsewhere probably isn't a barrier to Youtube suggesting it.

Note that in photo 12 the shadow in the bottom left hand corner matches that in the photograph of Chudleigh Knighton Halt. If you look at photo 8 above it shows the auto train in the Teign Valley platform at Heathfield, and in the corner of the left hand window of the auto coach some sort of handle can clearly be seen. I think that this is the shadow present in the aforementioned photographs. Photo 8 is also taken facing north (i.e. in the Exeter direction) towards the point where the Teign Valley line diverges from the Moretonhampstead line after the signal box, which means the auto coach is facing south away from Exeter. Photo 12 and the one of Chudleigh Knighton Halt are both taken with the camera pointing in the Heathfield direction (i.e. away from Exeter). Referring back to the earlier query last year, I think the other two photographs (of the tunnel and the track section) were also taken with the camera pointing down the line towards Heathfield. As mentioned earlier, the Teign Valley line diverges from the Moretonhampstead branch at Heathfield. The general theme of all the photographs I have discussed here is that they were taken on a sunny day in the 1950s (the photograph of Chudleigh Knighton shows that the platform had been replaced in concrete, which did not take place until after the war), and they all have a similar 'look' to them. It is not too unreasonable to assume therefore that all of these photographs were taken on the same journey. It is not clear which direction the journey was in as the photographs taken inside the auto coach could have been as the train was either arriving or departing the locations, but it seems that this was a summer trip which involved doing the Teign Valley line and changing at Heathfield (after photographing the train) before journeying up to Moretonhampstead, or vice versa. A link on the Teign Valley line website (http://www.cornwallrailwaysociety.org.uk/teign-valley-branch.html) gives the following extract which may provide a clue to the photographer's identity: A note from Edward Hooper Nephew of Charles Fennamore. Charles Fennamore sadly passed away a year ago on 09 Nov 2018, a day after his 78th birthday. Above is one of his photos of Longdown on the Teign valley Line. I would be grateful if you could share it on 9th November. (This was done) Charles would have been the first to admit that it wouldn't win any prizes, but his memories of the line make for interesting reading: "A lovely line, and easy on our pockets, because you could get a day return Ply to Exeter, and they'd let you come back via the Teign Valley. I went on the last train, which was a very sad occasion......the 55XX labouring away up to Longdown with 5 or 6 coaches. On our first trip, it was a 14XX plus 2 car auto, with the loco in the rear, and the driver in the front vestibule left his door open so that we could see the line ahead." Charles Fennamore's photograph of Longdown station (looking towards Exeter) is reproduced below; the general ambience of the print seems to match that of the other photographs. The photographs we have analysed were however probably not taken on the trip described in the extract above as the one of the train at Heathfield clearly shows it to be a single auto coach. Longdown - a photograph from the Charles Fennamore Collection. Copyright The Charles Fennamore Estate. EDIT: Photo removed due to copyright etc., but if you go on the page I linked you'll find it.

Regarding photography, Treacy was and still is IMO the master. I grew up on his books and his work has always been in the top echelon. The photographs taken in Lime Street cutting in particular still have a power that the years have not dulled.

When it comes to clickbait there are far worse Youtube channels out there TBH. As an aside, I sometimes look up the Ivo Peters S&D clips on Youtube, but they tend to be broken into smaller sections.

The proposed but never built loco I'd be interested in having a go at is Maunsell's express Garratt class that was speculatively considered for the Basingstoke-Exeter section of the SR in the 1930s. 4-6-2 + 2-6-4 wheel arrangement. These would have been absolutely huge - 91' in length over the buffers - and would have essentially worked all the express passenger trains on the West of England line with as much freight as possible switched to run at night. There is one outline drawing with measurements somewhere around if anyone wants to link it. I did have a go at making a static display mock up of one of these locomotives using Dapol plastic kits to build the power units but got no further than the main frames, bogie and wheels/motion. Judging from my calculations and the basic measurements the power units would have essentially been the same wheelbase as a King Arthur chassis, but with 6'3" driving wheels instead, and the bogie from the Schools/Nelsons, plus a trailing truck. No names were proposed for the class as the idea never got very far. However, given the attention to detail of the SR's publicity department at the time, and the fact that the locomotives would have been primarily operating in the ancient kingdom of Wessex, it seemed to me that naming them after the famous rulers of that kingdom would have been a fairly straightforward PR move. The doyen of the class in that case would probably be named Alfred The Great, and perhaps the second engine would have been called Athelstan. I would still like to make this loco but I do not have the skill to scratch build a working one.

One of the golden rules I took from Iain Rice's books is that a loco crew should always be in positions of repose; I try and adhere to this as much as possible, so a lot of the time my crews are either sat or stood still with their hands resting on the controls, or leaning out of the cab window surveying the road ahead or behind.

Some very nasty comments on here. I do have my reservations about Sam's Trains (he should at least put his railway on boards on the floor and not directly on the carpet, and I'm also not entirely sure his reviews of Hatton's products are unbiased as he apparently acknowledges that he has some sort of arrangement with them, plus the El Cheapo 'character' he sometimes plays is... erm... questionable at best), and yeah there's the perennial issue that people on YT do tend to go down the clickbait route chasing subscribers, but his reviews are pretty thorough and do go into a lot of detail, plus they're quite good to just put on for half an hour or so to unwind to. I don't just use him for recommendations of particular models either, I tend to gather a wide range of reviews and opinions before purchasing, so his reviews are just a part of that.

I can't help feeling that just as the layout cliche of the 60s/70s/80s was the GWR branch line set in a 1930s summer, the current layout cliche at exhibitions is the diesel depot, sometimes improbably attached to a small urban terminus, with every class 66 livery variety on display and every single diesel idling on shed. TBH the last point is the most egregious. A lot of the time diesels parked up somewhere aren't idling but are either silent or making odd little clonks and drips and tapping noises from their engines, and this particular feature is not something DCC sound seems to replicate. I have to admit that I am still yet to be truly impressed with sound chips in locos in 4mm scale. In 7mm they sound more convincing due to larger speakers and a larger bodyshell to reverberate in; most 4mm ones just sound tinny, at least that's how I hear it. That said sound can work if it's subtly done. Graham Muspratt's Canute Road Quay uses an ambient background sound file (I think it's about an hour long, on a loop) of typical dockside railway sounds such as seagulls, ringing buffers, distant flange squeals and occasional chuffing. This doesn't necessarily synchronise with the movements of the stock on the layout as it's meant to represent what is going on offstage as well as on. Played at a gentle background volume the effect is quite persuasive IMO.

Wasn't that what the Mendip MRG's Aberhafren was? Railway of the Month in August 1997 RM. The shed was built earlier though as a standalone layout (basically a renamed Aberystwyth shed) and that featured in MORILL in about 1994. Fisherton Sarum is another one, there's also one called Kensal Rise IIRC. I am starting an MPD layout but worry about how to make it interesting from an operational and viewing perspective (the intention is to exhibit it eventually). The running lines idea is a good one but that requires much more space and stock.

I am interested in the 9F but Hornby really will have to pull out all the stops to beat the Bachmann one which IMO is one of the two or three best RTR British outline steam locos of the last 25 years. Would have liked a new variant of a rebuilt Light Pacific as these models are not easy to find new or second hand. A couple of years ago I did ask Simon Kohler at the MK show if there was any chance of a retool of the old LBSC brake van (which was one of the better Margate era wagon models); he replied that it was a possibility (albeit vague), so that would be a good future product I think as it would complement the LSWR brake van released recently.

I don't quite understand how the K and Schools classes were banned while the obviously larger Light Pacifics were allowed on the route (and the heavier rebuilt engines were permitted from 1960).