JamesSpooner

They do indeed and I took a photo last September. Nigel

As my Fulgurex motors have failed (some are thirty five years old) I have been replacing them with DC Cobalts and I haven’t had a problem with one yet. In the fiddle yard I was lazier and started with some cheap H&M SM3s off eBay, replaced a few with SEEP but couldn’t get on with them so have converted the whole area to Peco and they have also been very reliable. Nigel

Yes, well spotted! It is very heavily based on Lavenham. There are some differences as Lavenham was very short on headshunts and long on bollards and ground signal protection equipment for shunting with horses and chains. I tweaked it to enable a J15 to shunt with three wagons and so changed the name to Elmham Market to save any embarrassment! Nigel

Tony, I have just arrived home from a weekend of being ‘mutually improved’ on the Ffestiniog Railway and have caught up with this post. I guess I am one of those who quite happily (and very slowly!) am building my own recreation of a small slice of 1950s East Anglia. A few photos of progress to date are attached. Nigel

I’m quite happy to be proved wrong! Nigel

Surely if the surname has an s at the end of the word, then the possessive apostrophe has to go after that letter? If I think of St James’s Square in London, James is treated as a name in its own right, but an apostrophe and additional s are added on. I accept in pronunciation there might be some difficulty, but in the case of the aforementioned square the last s is almost treated as silent. Nigel

Based on it but renamed Elmham Market as I tweaked the headshunts to make it shuntable by locos without chains or horses…

I do like the additional depth of focus you have in your photos, as well as the slightly cooler colour palate. The black and white photos also resonate well, partly I suppose, because one is so used to seeing photos of the prototype in black and white. When I had a carpel tunnel op just over a year ago I tried experimenting on my layout in the absence of being able to model. One of those photos is attached. Nigel

I must confess I do still derive much of my model railway satisfaction from making things, although I have been known to indulge in operating sessions too. Much of 2023 was spent building a rather lovely 52F kit of a G5 and a D&S ex GER push pull set to recreate the trains used on the Audley End to Bartlow line in the 1950’s. I’m by no means a quick modeller and still have a job and family, both of which take up time, but I am relatively disciplined so use my modelling time all towards the one project. I know, in this case, I could have bought a RTR G5, but the variant shedded at Saffron Walden/Cambridge wasn’t covered, I would have had to convert it to EM anyway and I just fancied making one. It all depends how one gains one’s satisfaction from the hobby. In terms of model shops, Bob Treacher’s son, Paul, runs an excellent emporium in Alton. Nigel

Good evening Tony, Obviously, being set in 1912, Semley doesn’t have Bulleid Pacific’s, but it does have six coupled outside Walschaerts valve gear (with fully working rocking levers) express locos (in the form of the Drummond paddle box) hauling ten or a dozen coaches at speed. I do totally sympathise with your comments on the layout sitting in a totally different universe from that which most of us inhabit. Awe inspiring to watch though. regards Nigel

Tony, I fully accept steam outline P4 main line layouts are rare, but they do exist. It has been my privilege to visit Martin Finney’s Semley a couple of times. It is an approximately forty foot long model of Semley station on the LSWR main line and is set in 1912. Each visit a full day’s operation of that line, based on the working timetable, has been run and not only does it look magnificent but it runs beautifully too. I am only a bodger in EM and could not aspire to model to such a standard, but can certainly appreciate the skill and effort that has gone into creating it. Nigel

Ah, the Oxford comma. Nigel

In terms of cheap, this was an old Airfix kit that I detailed and converted into one of the later Toad D’s which had the concrete weights added to each end… Nigel

I think it depends on how the will is drafted. If a dying spouse (husband) leaves his entire estate to his surviving spouse (wife) then all the executors have to do is ensure it is all transferred over to her. It is then up to her to decide what to do with it all. She can sell items, give them away or bin them… Nigel

Well if we are talking of Trigger’s broom, Merddin Emrys is a good example. Originally constructed at Boston Lodge in 1879, the boiler was built by Hunslet in 1969, the bogies date from about 2005, the tanks a similar date, the cab 1988, in fact probably the only original bits are the name plates…. Still the original engine though… 😊 Nigel

I have found that a polite call through to Dan (or a letter - not email) and being patient (he is now in his 80’s) generally gets good results as he still has a stock of 4mm kits. I am currently making a GER push pull set, based on the Saffron Walden branch sets, from a D&S kit I bought from Dan last year. Nigel

I’m not sure about NPCCS not being painted brown but Stratford certainly continued painting ex GER coaches in brown through the 1950’s. There are several colour photos demonstrating that in the various East Anglian colour albums and I attach one taken by RC Riley at Cambridge in 1958. Not sure about copyright rules so please respect that. Nigel

Looking at the photos provided I can’t see any of the cab etches or the tender rear (amongst other things). Not to say they aren’t there, but they don’t show up in any of the photos so possibly only part of a kit anyway. Nigel

That’s my usual route back from Porthmadog to the south east (A470 then A458). Afficionados say the Tanat valley route is quicker back to Shrewsbury but I have too many friends who have rolled their cars on that road to feel comfortable with it. Nigel

I have been going through a number of my books with colour photos in them and I have a surprising number with ex GER carriages painted ‘Stratford brown’ in the 1950’s. I don't disagree with anything that has been said on this subject before but would add that (and I also have to note here that 1950’s colour emulsions varied too) the colours of the carriage sides varied quite considerably so it would be entirely possible to have several carriages in a rake, allegedly all painted the same colour but, looking to the observer as though the tones were different. That might be partly mixing, as has been observed before, or fading, as has also been observed, but, from a modeller’s perspective, the key point is that a range of colours can be used in a rake of carriages, and they all stand a good chance of being representative of the ‘real thing’. In fact, it is likely that a totally uniform rake of carriages will not be representative. Possibly the moral of the story is to match a colour to a photo and defy an onlooker to say it is wrong! Nigel

When I spoke to one of the Accurascale guys at Ally Pally about options on the Buckjumper he admitted to being a P4 modeller himself and said they would be in touch with wheel manufacturers to ease regauging to the wider gauges. Nigel

Tony, Thank you very much! Nigel

Tony, I would be really interested to hear more about Malcolm’s techniques for improving Kirk Gresley kits, given the range has just been taken over by Precision and may be restarted. Nigel

I agree. I am most definitely not a professional modeller, regarding myself more as a ‘bodger’ than anything else. Attached is a photo of a Hornby B17 I converted to EM and renumbered/ named to Raby Castle. Again I use Gibson wheels and crankpins, which seem to give me perfectly good service and fit behind the Hornby motion (which I then don’t need to modify). Nigel

I couldn’t have built track configurations like this using proprietary point o work, or even kits.