Halvarras

Thread started 23rd January - model completed 23rd February. I reckon you must live in some kind of quantum realm which makes your days longer than everyone else's! It doesn't seem to matter how many vehicles are involved, or the complexity - window frame overlays on this one - all you seem to require per kit is one month (standard Earth time equivalent!) Stunning result (again) and as others have said, probably your best one yet. I get a sense that you're on a roll with your MTK stash.....!

Hopefully the Class 02 will take after the Class 11 instead of the PWM 'misfire' - purchasers of the former seem happy with it to date......🤞

I had a couple of those early metal-chassis 47s, they did run well although I wasn't convinced by the bogie pivoting arrangement and having pick-ups pushing the split-sleeve trailing bogie wheelsets apart was a ridiculous idea (variable back-to-backs?!) - I replaced these on mine with Silver Seal wagon wheels on steel axles, which made negotiating pointwork a tad more reliable!

I'm just reading 'Small Layout Design Handbook'* (Christmas present!)........and I think I'm going to have to get this one too! Certainly gets the ol' grey matter churning.......especially as I spy a 'Drinnick Mill' plan in the new one - attention grabbed! *I must pop around to Ponts Mill and have a look - I believe much of the track is still in situ but overgrown ('Abandoned rails.....' thread material 🙂!)

Economical source of logos, if of interest: https://blacksquaredecals.co.uk/Miscellaneous-Products/Generic-Decals/Generic-Decals-Shell-New-8mm Also available in 10mm and 15mm sizes. No connection, just happy customer (I've used the Gulf logos from BSD, very nice).

D1702 got its 12LDA28C engine from written-off D1908 (which was the 10th Class 47 I ever saw, in 1968 and by pure chance). D1702/3/5 were all inside Crewe Works on 3/11/69 but there was no sign of the remains of D1908 (withdrawn 8/69) which had been cut up the previous month.

Those interiors look fabulous - there are not many models out there sporting such thorough treatment, and it's great to see this in MTK kits of all things! Well done for coming up with the idea and applying if so diligently - it must keep you occupied for a few hours............er............in your case, minutes?! 😃

Another very decent MTK find - looking at all those door shutline transfers I think a new word for "tedious" is required (I thought applying these to my Class 119 unit back in 1975 was bad enough) but hey, someone else has done all that for you, what's not to like?! With a motor bogie at each end how does the whole unit run? Those old Tri-ang MBs could (and still can) be remarkably smooth-running. I reckon the steel axles and brass gears* gave them the edge over the diesels which used one-piece nylon gear/axles - any inaccuracy in the moulding could make the motor bogie run with a surging motion, so there was an element of luck involved. *I know later versions had nylon gears but at least mounting them on steel axles gave them a head start over the one-piece things.

Truro, Cornwall, summer of '66 - introduced to the real railway by a school friend (who went on to work at the ORR). The same year another friend down the road got me interested in the model side - I'd been building Airfix kits for years, mostly aircraft - now I could create stuff with a purpose!I Truro station in 1966 was of course all diesel-hydraulics - green and maroon with blue just around the corner - with what would become a Class 08 shunting the yard (D3509 may have been my first official cop) and a DMU working the Falmouth branch (usually Swindon Cross-country with headcode panels). My 1967 IA combo shows I saw all five D600 Warships but alas I only have scant memories, D600 in blue passing Penwithers Junction on an up freight being the clearest. Same with D6301 with disc headcodes - underlined but no recollection now. I probably saw these locos and a lot more besides during a week's Cornish Railrover that first summer but I have no written records for that year (if I ever get a time machine re-running that week would be a priority!) My 1966 Tri-ang catalogue had alerted me to the good looks of the Hymek but I wouldn't see one in Cornwall until August the following year when D7029 heading the down 'Cornish Riviera' caught me by surprise at Carn Brea. Many years later I'd discover that they'd been a fairly regular sight in Cornwall during 1964/5 as Laira had a small allocation, but for some reason 1966, for me at least, had been a Hymek-free zone and I've never seen evidence contradicting this. Autumn 1967 had seen D7029/88 make repeated appearances (plus one from D7017), I believe covering for the loan of D601/2/4 to South Wales, but Hymeks would become rare visitors to Truro after that, just one or two a year. Meanwhile my combo was getting heavily scored on the Warship, Western and NBL Type 2 pages....... relief arrived one afternoon that same autumn in the form of D1677 'Thor', followed a couple of weeks later by D1640 - Brush Type 4s became highly sought after and before 1968 was over we'd had some 'for'ners' from the LMR and even the odd ER example - real exotica in the far South West those were, after all they'd had to survive loco changes at Bristol and Plymouth! The down 'Cornishman' on a Friday seemed a good bet for a Brush, although WR examples were still most likely. It was the less likely ones which got everyone excited.....! I have a few childhood memories of steam but Cornwall had been fully dieselized by the time I got seriously interested. In retrospect I realised that, as I inevitably began to travel further afield, the surviving steam traction was receding at a similar rate, and I missed steam at both Exeter and in the Midlands by around 15 months. As I look back now on the fascinating railways I knew and loved, which operationally had far more in common with the steam age than do the last four decades, I get an idea of how steam fans must have felt after 11th August 1968 - and especially that feeling of emptiness which hit me on 27th February 1977....... I'd better stop here, I can feel meself gettin' all emotional now 🤪!

Sort of like this one, from a past era? (Appeared this morning.) https://elaines-trains.co.uk/index.php?cat=39235 Limited edition too, don't see these very often - suspect it won't be there for long.....

Entirely agree - I'd overlooked just how bad it got until just recently when I found a picture of a SWB wagon chassis from that period in that 'orrible flexible plastic with the brake levers facing the wrong way. It wasn't just the massive moulded-on t/l couplers that were ludicrous......that Mainline/Airfix shake-up couldn't come soon enough.

Funny you should mention 'Lord Westwood', just minutes before reading this thread I'd spotted this up for grabs at Howes Models..... https://howesmodels.co.uk/product/Hornby-railways-r765-the-lord-westwood-25555-4-6-0-hall-class-locomotive-boxed/ Loco looks near mint but the box apparently not so. I note that the wheels differ between this one and the example you've presented - perhaps the result of a chassis swap? What do you reckon though? First of three?! 😜

Newquay branch from Middleway Crossing looking towards Newquay on 1st February. This stretch always looks like this regardless of the time of year and how many weed-killing trains pass by. IETs look a little out of place on such track during the summer months.

I've never used Methfix but have used Pressfix - I ordered a couple of new sheets 2-3 years ago and find them very satisfactory. I renumbered a few locos and had no trouble aligning and spacing them correctly. For those unfamiliar with these, the sheet is placed glue side up and individual items cut around with a scalpel but with just enough pressure to cut through the tissue layer under the transfer, not all the way through the backing card*. Lift a corner of the tissue with the tip of the blade then use tweezers to peel the tissue with transfer off the card, turn over and initially press lightly down on the model. If in the correct position press down firmly, wet the tissue with water to release it and lift this away with the tweezers. * Easier said than done, but it just makes the next 'separating' stage less fiddly.

Thank you Jason, this answers the question I had about a fireless loco I saw (and photographed I think) at GWS Didcot in late 1972, before I got around to asking it!

There's no doubt that it was connected to the coupling shackle, but whether the dent was accidental or deliberate (to make life easier for shunting staff by increasing clearance above the hook) I couldn't say. My guess would be that it was created accidentally by repeated clouting with the shackle, and deliberately left there during works overhauls as filling it in would have been pointless!

True, but when you look at the TOPS classifications as a whole for the mainline locomotive types, the first digit mostly corresponded to the four power categories - although that doesn't explain Class 20s not being Class 19. There were so many Type 2s that Classes 30/31 overshot into the sparsely populated Type 3 'group' - but then the EE upgrade virtually made them Type 3s anyway. Then there were enough Type 4s to push the Westerns into the even more sparsely populated Type 5 'group' - but again this doesn't explain Class 50 not being Class 49! So why didn't the D8xx Warships become Classes 41/42 instead of 42/43? It just seems a bit odd that Class 41 was left blank just where the D600s would have slotted in, which makes me wonder whether their withdrawal at the end of 1967 wasn't 100% certain when the classifications were being considered - after all the Hymeks and Westerns defied their original withdrawal plan by a couple of years or so. Perhaps at one stage consideration was given to D800-2 being Class 41? But where would that have left D830.....? It hardly matters as it's all history now, Classes 20 and 50 just seem 'right' and I'm trying to apply logic where none was required.......which is probably why I feel like I've painted myself into a corner. Over and out I think 🤐!

If they haven't been varnished they may possibly be lifted off with sellotape. A caution however - this assumes that the paint's adhesion to the body is stronger than the tape's adhesion to the paint, which depends on the original painter's preparation standards........

Interesting that the question of top or bottom filling of milk has arisen. I remember a layout called 'Timsbury', set in former SDJR territory, which appeared in Railway Modeller in the 1980s, on which milk tanks were shown being filled from an overhead gantry. Somebody wrote into the letters page to say that this was incorrect, they were loaded from the bottom to prevent problems with foaming....... Of course we didn't have the internet or RMweb back then.......

I notice that the artwork shows green 15221 and blue 15212 with data panels, which dates these to the post-steam era. IIRC 15211 was also BR blue but with the positions of the logos and numbers reversed (arrows above numbers was classic SR - I wouldn't be surprised if the WR's Class 08 4126 like this was overhauled at Eastleigh, as there seemed to be some cooperation between the two Regions on shunter overhauls - I saw numerous SR 08s at Swindon, and this makes me wonder whether 15212 was overhauled there too, hence number above arrows).

Likewise! A time and motion study on Darius's methods would be very enlightening, but I suspect whoever conducted it would also have to go without sleep, food and PNBs ! 😉 The Class 109 DMU which started the rush already seems a long time ago........ except that it wasn't!!

5801 was never a WR loco, which is why the BR Database doesn't list it as such. I saw a number of ER 31s on WR metals, including 5603 (in 4-logo blue) paired with Bath Road's green 5828 approaching Swindon from the west in 1973 - 5603 was a rather large cop I recall. Later on I'd watch 31245 - one of the tablet catcher recess-fitted batch - leaving Reading on a westbound passenger train and failing before it had cleared the platform! Reminds me that I photographed 5801 in this condition at Kings Cross in late July 1970 - probably the second 31 I ever shot (5825 in blue at Derby the previous November had been the first).

Yes that appears to be the case........except on the always contrary Western Region where 'No 1 End/No 2 End' became 'A End/B End' and on the single-engined diesel-hydraulic Classes 22 & 35 the non-radiator end was A! (Class 22's radiator grilles were only slightly off-centre but towards the B End - but the Class 21/29 diesel-electric equivalents followed the No 1 radiator end convention). I have a 2004 Chinese-made Hornby Hymek D7046 (R2410) on which, no matter which way round the model is held, the A End is always on the left. More inexplicable is how Heljan have made exactly the same error on their most recent batch of Hymeks after getting it right (I believe) for the previous 20 years!

Yes you're right - perhaps I should have said that the ETH equipment should be factory-fitted to the model since the real D1960 was never seen without it, rather than being in the detail pack (assuming it is). The lack of any obvious provision for fitting this is a concern. Perhaps Heljan should have followed Trix's intention and selected D1959 instead, that would have solved the problem! By pure coincidence (I seem to get a lot of those nowadays!) I've ended up with a spare unnumbered blue original Heljan Class 47 and always fancied doing one of these - I could add it to my collection of mainly WR 1974 locos as 47514 - which used to be D1960! Here it is at Liskeard (on a Newquay - Nottingham working IIRC) - all the excuse I need! I first saw it with TOPS numbers at St Pancras and at the time noted the red dot route restriction symbols below the BR logos, visible in this photo (honorary WR loco?!) I'm aware that the train heating boiler roof arrangement would require changing. D1956 briefly became 47260 too. Curiously during the summer of 1971 several of the D1953-61 blue batch turned up in Cornwall on inter-regional workings, including D1961 which I photographed at Truro (can't retrieve the image at the moment) and D1960 itself, a photo of which appears in page 18 of the Bradford Barton album 'Diesels on Cornwall's Main Line' approaching Bodmin Road on an up working (misidentified as D1650, one of several such instances in that album). These early blue locos had always been allocated to the LMR but shortly after that summer many would go through Crewe Works to be fitted with ETH, repainted into standard blue with central logos and reallocated to the WR to work the new air-conditioned Mark 2 stock between Paddington and Bristol/South Wales. Later still they would gain regional names including 'Albion', 'Fair Rosamund', 'Thames' and 'Severn'.

This is only the second RTR model* of one of the last nine Brush-built 47s released, the first* being Lima's D1957 (I know the BR logos were large on these nine but Lima's were so large they spoiled the appearance of the model). D1960 was built new with ETH equipment (as was D1961), so lower cab front connectors should be included in the detail pack........ *Could have been third and second respectively if Trix had produced D1959, as illustrated in their 1968 catalogue. But no doubt it would have been to their odd 3.8mm scale, so never mind.