dick rowland

Nice!!

The 'Rails in the Valleys' cover illustrations are excellent. Very evocative.

Welcome back Jack, a much missed name, well remembered.

Years ago I saw a painting of an A4 in lined maroon, it suited it quite well in my opinion.

Tish, I left it too late, it seems! Seriously, these controllers are very good. I have had one in use for about four years on my German n gauge layout.

I managed to visit Pendon yesterday, it must be about thirty years since I was last there. As I had expected, it was excellent. It was good to see the Madder Valley actually working. I understand that the operating locos are not always John Ahern originals. I'm fairly sure the railcar, with interior lighting, is of more recent vintage. I got there about 1300, so I had plenty of time to enjoy the MVR, Dartmoor, the Vale scene and last but not least, the Teignmouth Sea wall scene. A good selection of trains, as always. I even saw a train on the Midland & South Western Junction line on the Vale scene. A couple of 'wind up' points: the signal arms didn't 'bounce' and really good smoke units with drain cock simulation would make it 100% perfect instead of only 99.9%. Some people are very hard to please! More and more simply superb buildings and scenes have appeared on the Vale scene, Pendon never fails to amaze me and inspire me. A note: public transport from Didcot Parkway to Long Wittenham appears to be virtually non-existent. I used taxis from Didcot Parkway to Long Wittenham. The train fare, from Cambridge, was actually quite reasonable but, factoring in the taxi fares I may well hire a car next time.

I am not a vindictive person, but it is very tempting to wish some very bad karma on the clowns who started this fire unintentional or not.

Hopefully 'Continental Modeller' can now be fully archived, this should not be too difficult as Peco only need to go back to 1979.

'Are you aware of anything comparable for the LMS or the BR? My interest is just opposite yours :-) Michael Can anybody recommend a similar general guide for UK steam locomotives, that might be helpful to other European enthousiasts?

Not the original sketch, I think.

The original Airfix church, memories! I will have to see if I can find one. With a little imaginative detailing, it would still be a good model. About seven quid it seems, even though I model the DB in N gauge, I feel a 4mm scale diorama project coming on.

Perhaps Shapeways needs some competition. A while ago I looked at some Deutsche Bundesbahn wagon bodies in N. By the time I had sourced wheels, lettering etc, I would be paying about Euro 100.00, that is for basically a kit. A few months later, I found the same wagon, complete and ready to run from Modellbahn Union, for about Euro 35.00, guess which option I took. The only thing I have bought from Shapeways is a three-axle chassis for the Fleischmann Whylen crane in N. This was a few years ago, back then I paid a much more reasonable price of Euro 22.00 plus a normal, in my opinion, postage cost.

Reinstate the Ex-Great Eastern Mildenhall branch, and continue it to Thetford, or Elveden at any rate, as originally intended.

One may just make it to the Moselbahn, the Cochem area. Rule 1 applies!

Announced recently by Arnold for N 1:160. Even though I am a DB modeller, I am seriously tempted.