Bedlington North

The Shilbottle signs on the A1 are quite regularly defaced.

Various views of a DMU seat cast in PU. As it came out of the mould, no clean up.

I have successfully cast PU resin seats for 4mm scale DMUs, but no pics at the moment as I'm at work and the seats are at home. The mould was a deep, blind cavity with undercuts which should theoretically be prone to bubbles, but they were good. I will shove a pic or 2 on later.

I have found that the temperature resistant silicon needed to make the mould and the whitemetal are more costly that the equivalents used in resin casting - plus you need a way to safely melt the metal.

It is sold as a casting resin unlike polyester and is water-thin. One tip I like is to put the filled mould on a washing machine on spin cycle. It helps to encourage any air bubbles out of crevasses. Also painting a thin coat of resin into the mould where possible. I've not needed to do that though. I resin cast my own exhaust stacks for my Hurricane model with no air bubbles.

Except most resin casting is done with polyurethane and not polyester resin!

Good work on the models. It does show that the Airfix 31 body is still worth considering for modelling purposes. The only small issue that is immediately wrong with it for me is the exhaust ports which were modelled after the ports fitted when the full-size were powered by Mirrlees engines. A1 models of Doncaster occasionally offer an etch of 6 rectangular exhaust ports which can be used to correct this error. They have an Ebay account which can be found by searching on their name as a seller. I have no connection with them, except as a customer.

I'm sure this is Pontypridd, not Pontypool.

I thought Cameron Bridge, despite the reversed image. It's too distinctive! Sadly too slow to get in first.

I was going to suggest it may have been Inverkeithing.

I'm not arguing with you. But, if I was in Hornby's position and knew I could leverage my old toolings to make a batch of models to sell directly and sell out with days then I'd take that money every time. It wasn't so long ago that some of their other items like the Captain Tom Moore Class 66 or the Rocket were marketed as pre-order via retailers. That didn't seem to pan out too well as it seemed that they were both over-subscribed with orders AND short supplied with models (in the case of the Rocket). They did respond to the demand for the Tom Moore 66 by making more, so perhaps all is not lost and they will make more runs of the models in question here to be made available to retailers. As a company they do need more quick wins to raise cash, so cut them a bit of slack, as the alternative is they run out of cash....

While true, I was only responding to the part of Darius's question about the wagons being air or vacuum braked.

An alternative viewpoint to that is that Hornby have made something popular which has sold out and will no doubt help their profitability to be able to continue developing new models. I'm sure they will be as delighted as you are frustrated.

The clue is in the TOPS code: the last letter specifically. If it's an "A" then air brakes, a "V" then vac brakes, "O" is unbraked and "W" is vac braked but fitted with a through air pipe.

During my first year at First school in Newcastle in 1981, we went on a school trip that took us to Blyth harbour. We visited an RNLI lifeboat that was moored near Bates Staithes and we watched Cresswell tieing up to her moorings as well as wagons being shunted on the West Staith. I was only mildly interested at the time, whereas now I would love to be able to go back in time to that day and take it all in! It still seems a slightly odd place for a school trip. So J8263 has evoked lots of memories for me of that day!

I'd prefer to see if the real model in front of my eyes reminds me of a peak than comparing a photo of a model with a photo of the real thing. In any case it's pointless chasing perfection ins shape and form of a 4mm scale model. It's just not possible to tool every subtle shape or surface and also some detail is either too soft (ie you can hardly see it on the model) so you either leave it off or emphasise it or when you scale it down people say it's overdone. Either way, you will get a kicking on this forum... I saw both the Bachmann and Heljan prototypes on the same day and, yes, there are small differences between them which just proves my point. One company put some details on, the other left some off. The important thing as far as I'm concerned is that they can easily sit next to each other on the layout. I have happily ordered a 45/0 from one manufacturer and a 45/1 from the other.

I would have though it was relatively simple to use at least one diode in the AC supply to the CDU to give half-wave rectification. At least....

Have you actually seen the Heljan model in real life? I saw the prototypes on the Heljan stand at the Glasgow exhibition in 2019 and they definitely captured the Peak look for me.

As I said...

I think you might be thinking of the Green Market in the incarnation of the Eldon Square shopping centre that was built in the late 1970s. That part has now been demolished and redeveloped and there is no market only shops. Hence why I was asking John if he perhaps means the Grainger Market.

I thought the Green Market was gone now after the redevelopment of Eldon Square? Are you meaning the Grainger Market?

And Replica Railways list some 6mm square RfD logos for wagons: http://www.replicarailways.co.uk/transfers/oo-gauge Their product code 41018.

Here are some panel transfers from fox that I have used in the past. They come with stencil type individual letters for the wagon TOPS code which are fiddly but look fine when covered in weathering grot: https://fox-transfers.co.uk/freight-vehicle-stencilled-data-panels-white-clear

Sorry Fran, but there are other (lower profile) options for a coin holder than the example shown in the picture. That one must represent the worst case scenario in terms of size. I fully appreciate why you have taken the approach that you did, but the result is fragile and, to me anyway, lacks the high quality approach of the rest of your products. I say that as someone who is an electronic design engineer that works with very small and delicate components and if I find it fragile, then just perhaps others may also do so. Your point about PCBs I cannot accept. They are both a practical solution and can take up as much space as they need to. They are not inherently "too big". Adding to manufacturing costs, yes. In any case. I just wanted to give you my feedback for what it is worth. In any case the wagons themselves are exceptional - no arguments about that!

I think Rich is referring to the two plastic lugs which are part of the bed of the wagon. I certainly found great difficulty in getting the coin cell under both these tabs on my wagon. I also had to bend both brass contacts too. If Accurascale include a working tail lamp feature on future wagons I would suggest a rethink. I would personally prefer a PCB along with a proper coin cell holder to replace the ad-hoc wires and bits of metal.