Martin S-C

Perhaps ceremonially buried inside a pyramid.

Goodness, you are absolutely correct. I see they carry the blue and yellow banner on their packaging. I stand corrected - I must be thinking of another company. Maybe Zvezda?

Those are the latest range by Strelets I think? They are producing some great stuff these days but sadly since they are a Russian company I won't buy them. I am still using a bunch of old Airfix and Matchbox plastics from the 1980s. Still going strong - they get their bendy rifles repainted every once in a while.

Standard M&GNR livery!

Good gracious, you are a wargamer too! How tragic we've never met! With soft plastics also remember to give them a good bath in a bowl of warm soapy water to get rid of any traces of the release agent used to ease their removal from their moulds. I scrub them with a redundant toothbrush at this stage. Wargame figures are odd things though with often cartoon levels of over-emphasized detail and depending on the manufacturer and how long ago they were made, some distinctly non-human proportions. Metal figures seem to be worse in this regard than plastics. Not the best ranges to look at for model railways.

Probably because the sculptor made him sit after he'd just come out of the bath. Poor old geezer must have been freezing.

The Drill Hall is a classic piece of superb modelling and I hope it has appeared in a number of magazines! There are very few flint buildings modelled, on railway models or otherwise. As for my long silence on RMWeb I have been unable to find the mood to do any railway modelling for a year or more, my life has focussed on wargaming, mostly 18th C and 1930s fictional by which means I can enjoy a short spurt of modelling and get results on the table top within days which is terribly appealing and motivating. However stepping back into my model railway planning shoes and looking at that plan in light of my trials and tribulations with designing a system layout I would voice concern at almost all the aisle widths given on these wonderful plans. In my painful experience you need 36" for two people of average girth to pass and I would fix that as the minimum aisle width on any design. More is preferable. Unless the intent is to operate this wonderful empire solo and assign guests or visitors to a seat by the door, this plan would be quite problematic for 2-3 people to operate, especially if they are in their dotage (as I am now). You may have to accept narrower baseboards and wider gaps between them.

Its incredible to think that Woodcroft was very seriously damaged at the break-in on Friday night of the Market Deeping show back in 2019. The team have done a fantastic job of restoring it.

As happens in good exchanges of ideas, people branch off along their own lines of thought :)

The post I was referring too was Schooner's which I've quoted above yours. I am sure what he suggested can be done, the problem I foresaw was that the system would/might not know in which direction the movement was taking place. I wasn't necessarily aiming the discussion at the Modulus System specifically though I was wondering (perhaps not at all clearly) if it could also handle such things.

In the real world yes, but the signals in this system would operate even when shunting within station limits. Imagine a simple terminus with a 2 points forming a run-round loop and 1 starting signal at the end of the track with the passenger platform. A train arrives along the straight line into the platform. In the system described above the starting signal would be off because the straight road is set. The system has no idea in which direction the move is taking place, only that a route is set. How would this software know which direction a move was happening in?

It could but if in a shunt situation might you wish to operate a point but not clear a signal? I don't know if that would be the case but if it were signals would wag about unnecessarily. Or a point be set for running in one direction but setting it that way also clears the signal in the other?

That second option has potential.

That would entail a further lever though wouldn't it? The cost issue raises its ugly head once again.

I still want a fully manual lever frame, but with the pulling of the signal lever by the operator to be blocked until after the route is set. The exact equivalent of manual interlocking, only digital or electronic. I haven't a use for route setting software. I suspect what I am looking for does not exist because it would have to be impossible to pull the signal lever and that almost certainly has to mean a mechanical system.

The way you have described it makes it sound like something I could use since it appears its a system that would control points and signals. I wonder if it can handle digital interlocking so that a signal cannot be pulled off until a road is set. Is that possible?

Thank you Stu, I appreciate the information. It sounds like a full blown layout automation system which I don't think I have a use for. If I go down the route of lighting I'd do that with switches and circuits for various buildings. I plan on a sequence timetable rather than a real clock. Points and signals will be by lever frame so looking at what it offers I think its not for me. It sounds perfect for a large exhibition layout that frees up people to engage with the public and would be ideal for a display model. I'm going to move from plug in controllers to wireless as well and I wouldn't want to risk interference between two signals. @Corbs thank you for that information. I wonder what rules changed. Can't be due to Brexit as we imported it from the USA before that. *sigh* bureaucracy *shrugs* I have found this stuff but no idea what its like: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Plasti-kote-24002-400ml-Premium-Acrylic/dp/B006O6D8FS Has anyone come across that product before?

I also dropped in here with a cry for help. I have run out of the awesomeness that is Testors Dullcote. If you don't know it is a satin varnish finish/protector but I have also discovered it is a superb protection layer for transfers. It does not seem to be available anywhere outside the USA. I can't afford the crazy postage rates now being inflicted upon the UK by USA postage so I'm wondering if 1) anyone has a spare can I can buy or 2) knows of a supplier in the UK or EU. Thank you very much!

I agree, fantastic work @Stubby47. I confess in all humility that I couldn't watch a 1 hour video, let alone 2 of them. I am so very sorry. Is anyone able to summarise what the system does in a few paragraphs please?

Thank you! Yes, as I think you may remember, I do not like straight track, sinuous curves are very much my thing. I can even squish the colliery sidings closer together as the plan is based on standard Peco points geometry which I can reduce with a bit of a snip here and a snip there. I am glad now that I didn't succumb to the temptation to add a passing loop at the colliers platform. While it would have added operational funstuff it would have cluttered things up as well. Seeing the plan laid out full size also indicates that the village of Witts End with the branch running through it as a tramway in a Welshpool & Llanfair style should turn out nicely if I can get the buildings right.

Meanwhile as a birthday treat Neil popped over yesterday and magicked up a whole bunch of baseboards. All we need to do now is add the elevated cross-board for the branch terminus, raise the colliery 2" and build the looooong 1:67 incline from the main station all around the room to the branch. All the track and points are here (just as Peco announce their Code 75 BH medium points. Argh!) and I can get on with track laying. I hadn't grasped from the plan how freaking enormous the colliery model is. Its got stacks of siding room and should look lovely with the grade up to the reception sidings, a second level up to the screens and sorting sidings and then the raised branch line behind that. There is also more open space around the main line at the front than I imagined so I'll keep the scenic treatment here simple with just hedges and fields, resisting the temptation to stuff it full of cameos of gypsy caravans, workmen mending punctures on their upturned bikes and schoolboys scrumping apples. I will pull the branch line track inwards away from the wall. It is too close but there's plenty of wiggle room. I will also shorten the tunnel. I had wanted a train to disappear for a while as it went past the colliery but access to the track is an issue if there are any thrills and spills and as long as I specify a maximum train dimension on the branch and make the tunnel about 6" longer than that, a train can be stopped in the tunnel to represent intermediate halts along the branch. This should also allow track cleaning to be less of a chore. There's been an annoying tendency for the room to accumulate junk over recent months, most of it associated with wargaming so clearing the room out on Monday ready for Neil to get to work was very cathartic. Now the stuff can go back under the layout in a better semblance of order. Once there's a fascia board and curtains added plus a runner of carpet down the operating aisle it should look quite cosy. Yesterday was useful too in that the entrance gap from the door between the terminus buffer stops and the branch terminus board proved to be over-generous so there's some nice space there. The main well is 36" wide so plenty of space for 2 people to pass there as well. What did become obvious is that the end well where the fiddle yard operator will stand is really too small for 2 people unless they are very very slender, which means the question of whether to mount the branch terminus control panel on the fiddle yard side or the door side has been resolved for me.

Thanks for all the evidence. I went ahead and added the main external end beam and it was a chore. I wish I hadn't now :( Anyhow, this was just a bit of fun to see if I could make the basic Dapol 1930s LMS corrugated end van look like something a bit older. I added some details and I hope a coat of paint and a bit of weathering will hide the bits that I don't want to be seen. Now that there's good examples of end wooden uprights without the roof line beam I may try another one sometime. EDIT: Looking again at the prototype images I can see that the uprights need some bolt heads adding. I can trim these off the 5 thou strapping strips I have. Anyhow I really OUGHT to stop buying wagons. I have far too many already.

I've just been messing about with a wagon or two and had a question - as regards wooden plank covered vans with outside bracing at the ends was there ever a case of the two uprights of the frame ending at the roof arc, or did they always (by the simple nature of how the wagon frame was built) end at a main cross-timber that spanned the entire end? Here is a picture typical of what I mean - my question is was that upper cross timber ever excluded on any design or should any kit-bash I do include a similar beam? Image courtesy of and copyright C.2009 Chasewater Railway https://chasewaterstuff.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/midland-railway-box-van/

Yes there was and very useful it was too. I have it to hand and yes, it needs updating. The present layout of industries and places though is considerably simpler so I am unsure if a whistles-and-bells excel spreadsheet with clever macros is needed. What I should do first is scribble out some of my thoughts about traffic flows onto paper and get an idea of what goods will be going where and why. Nick C was the signalling advice Hero of the Hour and I have all his data carefully stashed away. I'm sure his work is correct, its just that I need to sit down with it in hand and place some trains on the (unpowered) layout and move them about to get a proper appreciation of how frequent certain moves will be and how infrequent others will be and place the levers accordingly. Right now though the railway looks like this as the land has been requisitioned temporarily for a huge army barracks... I'm awaiting funds to buy a couple of Bisley 9-drawer units so the soldiers can live in comfort and safety out of sight under the layout. @MrWolf - indeed, when Neil arrives in a couple of weeks to put up the major portion of the baseboards I hope to find myself fired up to rouse the track-laying gang again. Its the colliery on that side which I'm itching to get my hands on.

Though please don't let me stop you lot nattering away. There's tea brewing on the pot-bellied stove in the (half-built) engine house and fresh bread and cheese at Mrs Poddling's bar across the (unballasted) tracks at the Camel in the Desert, a most fine hostelry at the end of Railwaymens Row. And ... I still need to work out my lever frame numbers. Argh. In fact this is becoming imperative as track and points wiring approaches. My brain has been so full of wargaming this last couple of months I've had no time to think about toy trains.