Helmdon

I’ll reply more properly/acknowledge people tomorrow - many thanks all- but am working late tonight. I have actually thought of this but didn’t know where to start. Definitely worth some consideration and thanks for the link!

Hi all, not sure where to start with this one or where to put it. I'm building a small diorama of the Mid Suffolk, and thoroughly enjoying it. But I've been collecting stock, for a planned 16 x 12 OO gauge layout over the past 8 years, and now thanks to a change in living arrangements am having to look at what I can do with more like 8 x 5 in N. so, what's the best way to dispose of everything - am I best trying to drip it out on well known auction sites (I know I'll get more money overall) or just bite the bullet and get it all gone to one of the high street buyers of collections? Part of me just wants it gone at this point, to free up space and cash to get on with what I can do, rather than what I've come accept I'll never do. thoughts/advice welcome

8 ton L&B open wagon arrived yesterday, brilliant service as always. Favourite online model dealer by a long way.

They are trading and will be until they stop. It’s not being a vulture, it’s a transaction. Gutted to see them go but they haven’t gone bust. It’s all money in the till until the doors are locked for the last time. if anything, people are a bit stunned - me included - to see a company closing down the old fashioned ethical way, having become used to the ‘we’ve gone bust, please buy everything including the fixtures and fittings from an administrator’

A fact which has been repeated by ‘historians’ down the years as gospel despite being demonstrably not true. quite apart from anything else, Great Northern wasn’t even selected for rebuilding by Thompson! See Simon A C Martin’s book on Thompson from the other year. The choice of locomotive was made by GA Musgrave, Southern Locomotive Superintendent of the LNER, conforming to the totally normal practice of CME proposing the design, a Locomotive Running Superintendent proposing the locomotive due a shopping that fitted the bill, and the LNER board signing off on it.

You mean in addition to Clan Stewart and Clan Macdonald which are still around new in shops? I reckon the Clan demand might just have been satisfied for now.

Though amazingly you can do a passable early 1950s Master Cutler

I’ve got two DJH ones (B16) though, and would happily have an RTR polished up version of their compromises

certainly in terms of locomotives they reached their final form in Southern ownership, so technically if you want to portray things like steam heating (or Lew) then the livery decision makes itself. However, I’ve always suspected (and I’ve got an L&B Southern era OO9 set up) that it’s the legitimate ability to represent a mainline company livery on the narrow gauge

Bigger potential issue (and I realise that this is picking nits on nits) for me would be an instinct that that driver is going to work better with a right hand drive locomotive…

LCGB Railtour. When in doubt, always an LCGB railtour.

If it fits with what I need and I think it’ll sell out I do. One variant of the A5, the LNWR liveried Precedent, now Gordon (from ECR) almost everything else I buy is second hand anyway I did pre-order the second batch run of GT3, but only because I missed the boat the first time and the reviews by that stage were positive

still want a B16...

It would be a serious wallet emptier for me

Exactly - I’ve gone for Gordon as a big part of my childhood. It’s expensive but seems fair.

thanks - that's all really helpful, and much appreciated. I actually know the remains of Thaxted reasonably well as family friends lived there when I was growing up and I spent more time than was probably sensible crawling around it all. Also a big fan of Akenfield, and Ronald Blythe in general. I've got a J15, and a couple of crimson Hornby generics, so let's see what happens...

Great to stumble across this thread this morning and have a read through. I think we're on parallel lines... I'm just starting my own 'shunting plank' based on the MSLR and have got the same building for the same reasons. Mine is set in 1951 and I'm still fiddling with the trackplan - I'm modelling Arcady as per Love on a Branch Line (novel rather than the 1990s tv adaptation) so there's scope for a few changes to real life - it's mainly an excuse for a traction engine in the station yard and a cricket match in what's supposed to mainly be a test piece to improve my modelling skills rather than a full-on layout. I've looked at the Mendlesham trackplan but think I might get bored quickly from an operating pov, which is tipping me back towards something that looks more like Laxfield. Anyway, I've got a couple of questions if I may given you're a couple of steps ahead of me? I've already partitioned off the interior (great minds!) and wondered what you've used for the corrugated iron on the roof (and if you just cut it to size and stuck it over the top? I've been staring at mine for a couple of days wondering whether I couldn't just score lines into the resin of the roof.... Secondly, and I throw this open to the wider readership of the thread, given I'm doing the early 1950s I've a feeling the building should be a sort of washed out grey... can anyone suggest either the closest paint or point me to a colour picture of the sort of shade I should be aiming for (doesn't have to be of a building, anything the right grey will do)?

I suppose you could always model it in heavy fog! In terms of scenery, are you thinking contemporary or period? I always thought an Arley backscene featuring the authentic gothic riot that was Arley Castle, and which must have prominently loomed over the station (to the left as you look at it in your orientation), would be interesting...

This is very much at the musing stage. My main interests are the GC and the L&B, both very much based on plug and play items in the main, with the GC layout in particular still awaiting construction of a room in the garden that will give room to do it properly. In the meantime, I've got this internal space, about 8' x 2', a J15 and a copy of Love on a Branchline.... So the intention, as a winter project, is a little essay on the MSLR designed to practice all my skills again after nearly 30 years (aside from the last 2 years membership of a club) before I start work on a GC London Extension which will be more like 18' x 12'. So practicing tracklaying, ballasting, scratchbuilding, kitbuilding, scenics etc. DC with motorised points, potentially some of the space to be fiddleyard/casette or similar. First up though, any suggestions for operational interest? I'm thinking at the moment roughly the Mendlesham trackplan - so single line with a siding and headshunt, unless someone with more specific local knowledge reckons I've got the space to have a go at Laxfield....? Anyway, just putting it out there as a statement of intent/encouragement to self to get on with it.

Normal techniques aren’t, but the Former naval officer in me is now going down all sorts of by-ways in my head about how you could (given limitless budget and technology/ideas that didn’t really have currency at the time) apply the principle of controllable pitch propellers somehow….

more mileage in a coffee pot I think, though the Lewin wouldn't vastly surprise me either...

had ya gob* *sometimes having had a grandfather from Seaham Harbour comes in handy. Not often I'll grant you, but sometimes...

I'm another firmly in the 'please can I have a B16/1?' camp - despite the fact I've now got 2 DJH ones, one of which is fully operational and the other coming along. So being purely selfish, please can I have a GCR Class 8/LNER B5 fish engine? Preferably in BR black...

Nothing says dignified like being propelled towards the flames at 450mph (from a standing start) by a dozen Smokey Joes...

there are times that I really hate modelling the GC mainline in 1950s Northants... I think I'll just hoover up all the kits that are about to have a massive price drop.