PGN

Hando ... are they going to introduce a motorail service? OCTs with golf buggies ...

If they think you made THAT one up, what on earth would they make of some of the other SMJ constituent companies? I am thinking here, obviously, of the delightfully-named Easton Neston Mineral and Towcester, Roade & Olney Junction Railway. This one is particularly dear to my heart, of course, because it is the only British railway company ever to have featured Olney in its name ... and I am a member of the Olney MRC!

That's really nice modelling. I wish I could get my corners to butt up that cleanly when modelling with embossed styrene sheet!

And here's the (nearly) finished O class 0-4-4T in NER livery. I still need to add coal to the bunker, a locomotive crew, and possibly a reversing lever from N Brass Locomotives. Number plates will have to wait until Narrow Planet are accepting orders again. The panel edging is brush work, whereas the lining out has been done with Modelmaster lining transfers. I am not sure it is an altogether happy combination, and I think for the second build I will use the lining transfers throughout. This was the first time I had used them, though, and I was in two minds about trying them at all until after I had done the panel edging. The compromises in the kit design meant that the lining could not be applied in a strictly true-to-prototype manner; but all in all I am very pleased with how this one has turned out.

Oh ... the documentary evidence was pretty explicit about who had committed it and how ... he just didn't understand how it had been possible to do that and escape undetected. Once he'd visited the locus in quo, he understood ...

Well ... this may be a joke to you, but ... ... my brother's a history professor, and he was always bemused by some documents he had referred to, suggesting that one of the subjects had literally got away with murder, but he could not figure out how. Eventually he decided to go to the actual location (in rural France) and have a good look around, to see if he could reconcile the documentary accounts with the actual physical geography; and when he did this, all became clear to him, Not, however, before the good citizens of this sleepy French town had become thoroughly suspicious of this stranger in their midst, poking around in all the back alleys, and confronted him demanding to know what he was up to. His answer - "I'm investigating a murder" - had them all very excited indeed ... until he went on to explain that it had been committed in 1795!

Yes ... quite. I've read all that (several times) and it leaves my head spinning! Hence my question ... is my locomotive a J4 in GNR-speak, or is it a J4 in LNER-speak? And if it's a J4 in LNER-speak, what does that mean it is in GNR-speak?

Thanks Becasse ... Is that J4 in the GNR classification, or J4 in the LNER classification?

I acquired this N gauge scratch build last year, and I've been trying to identify it ever since. I am assuming that its running number (394) is a correct locomotive number for the prototype ... but what IS the prototype? I mean, obviously it's going to be a J-something or other ... but what is that something or other? (And yes ... I'm aware that the numerical designations changed between the GNR and LNER scemes, so that a GNR J13 became an LNER J52, and a GNR J23 became an LNER J50 or J51 ... so it would be helpful if any replies make it clear whether they're using the GNR or LNER classification ... ) I should be very grateful for any thoughts that people might have.

And a while back (QUITE a while back) someone was bemoaning the paucity of Midland locomotives in my roster. So here's the kit-bashed "Yankee Mogul" which I finished just before Christmas (still running with a part that I fashioned from scrap brass to replace a missing piece of valve gear ... I have a second-hand non-runner on its way which I will cannibalise for a "proper" replacement part ...

Here's my latest project: an ex-Highfield Models kit for an NER O class 0-4-4T passenger tank (LNER class G5) ... the moulds and masters are now owned by B H Enterprises and they will happily supply the kit, but without instructions as Peter Middleton never wrote any. I've got mine running on a Dapol M7 chassis, and here it is presented in primer (it's currently in my paint shop receiving full NER livery ... photos to follow when complete)

Well, I'm steadily getting closer to the point where my N gauge pre-grouping layout "Neraland 2" will be ready to join the exhibition circuit ... I may even get there before there is an exhibition circuit to join! It's basically just a scenic test track (single track oval; passing station; ladder fiddle yard with a few kickback sidings at rear) to be used as a vehicle to show my growing collection of pre-grouping trains. Ideally, at an exhibition I will take viewers (well, those that have the patience to stay in front of the one layout) on a tour Britain, looking in on all the major railway companies and a fair few of the minor ones, and ideally showing at least 4 trains for each company (a passenger and a goods in each direction as an absolute minimum). I've recently marked the major milestone of my 50th train entering service, and I hope to hit the 60 mark some time in 2021.

I've assembled quite a few more trains since then ... and I'm currently working on the LNWR goods, headed by a Coal Tank and brought up by a Newman Miniatures 3D printed LNWR brake van.

Atso - I really like what I'm seeing there. Is this a one-off, or are you doing anything else like this in N??

Well, it's not bad ... but you have breached the cardinal rule of heraldry that metals cannot abut metals and tinctures cannot abut tinctures. (Think about the mediaeval technology of making a shield ... you either had a painted wooden shield to which you affixed metal charges ... or you had a metal field on which you painted the charges.) You have or abutting azure for the fields of your two halves. That having been said, coats of arms invented in the 19th century were notorious for this sort of thing, so I think you can get away with it. I have rather greater concerns about your motto. Your cases are all wrong. "vi" is either dative or ablative, whereas "vapor" is either nominative or vocative. This makes no sense. If you had "vi vaporis", however, then we can read "vi" as ablative and "vaporis" can only be genitive, giving us "by the power of steam" which is probably, I think, the meaning you intended to convey is it not?