LochMaree

That's lovely work, Anthony. I wish my soldering was as neat. As for buffer heads, I turn them out of ordinary round nails. Lovely material to machine, but you do need to keep flux away from them as they do enjoy turning into ferrous oxide, so I usually glue them in after painting. I haven't in my Yankee Tank for various reasons, wasn't careful enough, so had to clean off some rust before painting. Incidentally, I now glue on the main boiler fittings. That way I can get them off much more easily than desoldering, after I stick them on wonky (which usually at least one is).

That's looking really nice, Anthony. It looks like a good kit you have produced there. In my scratchbuilt version (my first 2mm loco, long before the Worseley Works version), I managed to fit the decoder in as a post fit when converting to DCC, by shoving it underneath the water filler at the rear. I manged this, although it is fitted with a 1016 motor, so you should have room. Admittedly, I used a CT Elektronick DCX77, no longer available in the UK, which is quite a bit smaller than the Zimo, but I think it should still be possible given you can still play about with the longitudinal position of the motor to some extent . You'll need to be careful given the pivot position of the body on the underframe. It will mean you have very little dead load on the front wheels which will then tend to have a wee wander into the four foot at the slightest puff of wind particularly when it's going forward. (The underframe is getting pushed from the rear then.) The only way I have found to get round this is to add weights to the front of the underframe. Springs from the body might seem a good idea, but then you would be taking load off the body weight, which you want on the back end of the loco... Incidentally, I see you have upturned ends to the steps. Not sure what period of the HR you're modelling, but the locos were built without the upturns. Generally, they only seem to appear post WW1, although there is one in the HRS collection which shows HR20 in 1912 with them. I ended up filing them off the steps on my loco when rebuilding the chassis. Alisdair

The Highland Railway Society has a few images of Grandtully (most, if not all, are on Am Baile), but none show the station yard side. Alisdair

Does anybody have a spare 2-151 etch for a pair of BR B4 bogies? The Shop no longer stock it. I fancy building a model of the civil engineer's train on the Boness and Kinneil Railway - two vehicles; a much brutalised and bashed about Mk1 BSK being one of them. I'll be using the appropriate Association kit for the BSK, with the other vehicle (a Flatrol) having to be a scratchbuild. Alisdair

You are right about the sleeper length being 9 feet. However, the spacing of the sleepers for 11 sleepers per rail length was 2' 9½" generally with 12½" at the joint ends. This is shown on the drawing at the first link in my last post. If you are interested (and even if you are not), the spacing of sleepers for 10 sleepers per rail length was 3' 0" based upon measurement against known wheelbases. This would give 1' 6" at each joint end which is a bit excessive. However, looking at photos, I don't think that the overhang could have been much shorter, if at all. Perhaps it was 3' 0½" or 3' 1" with a commensurate reduction at the joint end? Apart from cranking up the old time machine again, I don't think we'll ever get fully defined information for the 10 sleeper option. No wonder the world is in the state it's in, when such basic knowledge has not been carefully preserved.

I have, over recent months, been taking an interest in this topic and have been counting sleepers on a large number of photographs in the Highland Railway Society collection (I lead an exciting and enriching life). Forbye the rail lengths mentioned by Graham R in his posting, which gives the lengths of rails in some early constituents of the Highland, I believe that by around the 1890s, the HR standard track was using 30 foot long rails with 11 sleepers to the rail. Most photographs on HR metals show this well into the grouping. This ties in with the drawing at: http://www.oldpway.info/drawings/1895pw_pl16_HR.pdf This is a drawing from an 1895 publication and shows rail of varying cross-sections of 76½, 77 and 80lbs/yd. The 76½ lbs/yd section looks awfully like a double headed rail to me; the other two are definitely bullhead. However, there are a few photos which show 10 sleepers per rail length. There is also one which shows 8 sleepers per rail length in LMS days (at an unidentified location but it shows Mackenzie and Holland signals, so almost certainly ex-HR). I doubt that this would be 30 foot rails. I have also recently found one photo which shows 12 chairs on each rail, but only 11 sleepers per rail length. How was this remarkable feat achieved? By use of joint chairs at each end, that's how. "Jings, crivvens!" I hear you say. You can have a look for yourself at: https://www.ambaile.org.uk/?service=asset&action=show_zoom_window_popup&language=en&asset=28586&location=grid&asset_list=28586&basket_item_id=undefined The bottom right hand corner shows a joint chair. Count back from there, if you have nothing better to do. The use of joint chairs is confirmed by: http://www.oldpway.info/drawings/1905jt_d42_HR_supported.pdf This drawing is signed by Mr Roberts in 1905 and shows the use of 90lbs/yd rail. This is quite an increase from 10 years earlier, but it would tie in with the introduction of heavier rolling stock and locomotives at that time and ties in with the general development of British permanent way. My thoughts are that, once the use of 30 foot long rails was introduced, the Highland used 10 sleepers per rail length for a while, but later used 11 sleepers per rail length. I have not seen any evidence for the use of longer rails on the HR. (This has to be treated with some care, as longer rails would tend to not show their full length in a photo, so the number of sleepers couldn't be counted; I hope that makes sense.) My view is that the use of 30 foot rails continued to the end of the HR. Given the low volumes of traffic on the HR generally, they would remain in use for a long period after the grouping. On my own layout in 2mm, I have opted for 11 sleepers per rail length on the main running rails, with 10 sleepers per rail length in the yard. Incidentally, there are a good number of photos of HR trains on the CR between Stanley Junction and Perth. A few of them show 14 sleepers to the rail length. But that was CR track, I presume using the CR standard of 32 foot rails (later 48 feet). Fascinating stuff! It's remarkable how little attention most modellers give to the permanent way. Without it, there would have been no railway. Locomotives were only replacements for horses, so we could still do without them. Back to my sad and lonely existence. One sleeper, two sleepers, three sleepers, four sleeper - ooh! look at that lovely bit of ballast...