papagolfjuliet

Beamish and the Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland have now announced that they are closed for the foreseeable future.

I saw elsewhere that the Chinnor volunteers manning the railways 'phones have received death threats as a result of the cancellation of the diesel gala. Appalling.

I can think of three lines which are already in financial difficulty and for which this might be the last straw.

There are now photos on Facebook (Ff&WHR Insider, Narrow Gauge World and others) showing K1 on a running in turn at Statfold on Wednesday of this week. They didn't half turn that job round fast.

Autumn Gala news: 'Lady of Legend' has been confirmed as one of the guests.

The NYMR's Car No.79, also of monococque construction, is currenty undergoing a very thorough contract overhaul. That said I doubt whether the Moors will be able to afford to do another one for a good long time.

A nice surprise, far sooner than anybody expected. https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2020/01/steam-locomotive-k1-to-return-to-steam-in-2020.html

The article was nothing to do with me. However, back in the very early days of this forum our genial host @AY Mod posted a thread in which he combined a Bachmann Percy chassis and a Hornby Pug body to produce an 'Ironside' which was much closer to scale length than mine. I do have a cut down 'Nellie'. If you're not too bothered about felicity to prototype then in terms of modifying the body it's really just a question of shortening the bunker. As you can see I really do need to do something about the cut line.

Here's another, which is not my work but which would be dead easy to replicate: J83 body + Hornby 'Toy Story' 4-4-0 chassis + replacement pony truck + Plasticard stretcher = Drummond D50. Or, keep the original pony truck for a Drummond D51. The number is wrong: 10392 was scrapped while still in NBR livery.

Yes indeed. Behold: A Pug Called Ironside. (Apologies for the horrible nameplates. These were supposed to be temporary, but have so far outlasted three Prime Ministers.)

This may be of interest: a relatively simple modification to the cab of a Hornby Holden tank.

On which point, does anybody know what became of the working Rocket replica built in the US in 1923 for the Buster Keaton film 'Our Hospitality'?

True enough. As I recall Bahmann got into a spot of bother for using its Thomas and Percy models for other purposes.

This unfinished and rather dusty example from my stores cupboard might be of interest: another Tri-ang Nellie, cut down to produce a reasonable facsimile of the LSWR C14 on which the original model was loosely based.

Speaking of American stuff, and assuming that the toolings still exist, I am somewhat surprised that the Wild West loco and stock from Hornby's Toy Story set have not been used as the basis for this range.