F-UnitMad

Hence why I said that 31 111 was the only loco with 4 ones under TOPS. 😉 I should have added "at the time" (although I did put "back in the day") because it was long gone by the time 91s came along. 🙄

I have a lot of locos which is WHY I don't have deep pockets!!! 🤪😁🤦‍♂️

There's a Thread about how nicely the old Airfix 31 scrubs up. 👍

Glad I wasn't the only one who thinks that!! Their enamels were a very thin pigment, held in a very thick medium. Awful stuff!!

Was it also wrongly located, in the firebox? 🤪 (I'm assuming here that GT3 had a firebox... )

Something in the dim recesses of my mind is telling me that 31 111 was nicknamed 'sticks' by Spotters back in the day? IIRC it was the only loco under TOPS that had 4 '1's in a row.

Hi, thanks, yes I did mention them in my opening post, & I am signed up there. 😉👍 As like rrpicturearchives, they are amazing resources, but I just find them difficult to search when it comes to re-numbered, patched or second owner cars. I was reminded of this issue when a comment was posted recently on the Gateway layout of Chris Gilbert's :- His patched boxcars are so up to date & believable, some of them obviously show traces of their previous owners (some look like ex 'per diem' boxcars), but it's how to find prototype photos like that I struggle with!! Or are they just made up ("foobies") anyway, like his loco? Fictional but entirely believable. What about the boxcars? I have no idea if they're proto-accurate but they sure look it, and I'd like any I do to at least look plausible. i'm not insistent on total 100% accuracy when it comes to freight cars, and I know most of mine probably have errors, especially when it comes to numbers, like my UP above. For example I have an MTH O scale Premier 50ft HiCube in Wisconsin Central livery - Photographed straight out of the box, before conversion to 2-rail. It has fantastic detail, and all numbers, symbols etc are in position and accurate - for a 50ft ordinary boxcar, not a HiCube!!! 🙄🙄🙄🤯🤯🤬🤬🤬 Why not just do things properly in the first place???!!! But for now at least, I'll live with it.

That canvas weather sheet is a sublime bit of modelling - and weathering!! 👍

Best answer I ever heard to that question was "Disobedience".

Agreed. So given the car can be patched, and therefore the number changed, how to go about finding examples of that livery and/or boxcar type, rather than searching the number series? 🤯🤦‍♂️

That's actually come up with a very close number, 169872... But the boxcar looks nothing like mine, of course, never mind the lettering!! 🙄🤦‍♂️🤯

Just wondering if there are any decent websites or resources out there for photos of modern freight cars that are patched with 'stencil' numbers, either for the original owning Railroad, or in 'Ex-ABC Railroad' liveries but patched for current Lease owners? That is, beyond the usual 'go to' websites rrpicturearchives.com and railcarphotos.com which to be honest I don't find too helpful, unless I'm not searching them right - for one thing I'm not sure even what Lease companies are out there & what their reporting marks are. As an example, I have this Weaver boxcar in U.P. Yellow. I'd like to update it to circa. 2000's condition. It's number - or anything close - doesn't appear on either of the above websites, it may be a "Foobie". Even searching for "Ex-Union Pacific boxcar" doesn't help. So how can I find out what a boxcar in that livery might look like more recently and what reporting marks it might have?? I accept a lot of it might well be covered in graffiti these days!! Thanks for any help or suggestions.

Interesting. Without being told, I would not have guessed these are the Peco setrack points, even though I've been following that other thread about the modification as well. I realise it's work in progress, but they also look very different in grey primer as well..!! 👍

Unfortunately that looks more like an Invitation.... 🤪

From what I've seen, the price of the full HST train set is very favourable compared to the price of the two Power Cars alone.

I did say the content is usually good. 😉 Yes I remember the Spitfire-Hurricane gaffe as well... 👍🤣🤣

Just that exactly in my case. My first train set was a Hornby HST, 1st time I saw a real one was at Edinburgh Waverly, the same year, 1978. New & exciting then, but when I realised they were killing off the Deltics I soon hated them!! But now years later, I contend that original blue/yellow livery was THE best they ever carried, bar none. I'd prefer the TT120 blue/grey HST if it had the later cover over the roof front & exhausts & modified rear compartment - I would find it hard to resist that HST train set in that case, mostly for the pure nostalgia!! As it is, I can resist... just about.

I had a small sign - "WARNING - Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again". Well it was an American outline layout. But I don't think I'd use such a sign now.

Re loco #29. Let's find the tallest driver we have, and roster him to the engine with the lowest cab roof.... 🤔🤣🤣😝

Has AI been used for the "Expert Reviews" 'headline' at the bottom of the cover? Or someone from the lower end of Tabloid journalism?? "Be the first to find out which new models you need to buy".... Seriously?? Such over the top hyperbole fails on two counts - "be the first..." yeah like all the other readers who buy the mag - or saw reviews online well before the mags are published anyway!! - and secondly "new models you need to buy" - well I'll decide for myself thanks very much what models I need - and speaking personally, the models I'm most likely to buy won't ever feature in BRM anyway!!! Which also blows out of the water the strapline across the top - "The only railway modelling magazine you'll ever need"...??? Sorry, not in my case, or, I suspect, quite a few others. Someone at Warners needs to calm down a bit when writing headlines for BRM. Or change the colour behind the BRM logo so they remember they're not writing for a tabloid 'red top' audience...... "Don't judge a book by it's cover" is an old phrase with more than a grain of truth to it. The content itself of BRM is usually good, even if often it doesn't make it a 'must buy' for me, due to my mainly 'foreign' interests, but o.t.t. 'headlines' on the cover really don't help, to my mind anyway.

I am immediately reminded of a classic two-word line from "Carry On Up The Khyber.... 2nd word "off"... 😂

Oh for a Time Machine, eh?? What a fascinating little snapshot of history!! Anyway as for the Thread Title, yes, 100% agree!!! I have some model locos that are linked to the Forest of Dean, but my UK outline layout is a bit generic. I'd like one that was unmistakeably F-o-D, like some that are on here.

I did have someone absent-mindedly lean on my layout once at a show, while he was deep in conversation with his friend & not really watching the layout. I immediately said - politely and with a smile - that he might not want to do that.... he apologised profusely and removed his arm. I was actually more concerned that the way he was leaning was putting sideways weight on the last board, which it wasn't designed to support, being 'cantilevered' off it's neighbouring board, lined up with split-pin hinges, and one set of wood legs at the end. The other end of the layout was secure on two of those metal trestles that are quite popular as layout supports, he could've leaned there no problem!!

Like 34C says, check first, especially as it's an item you've already bought being sent. I vaguely recall on here some years ago an issue someone had returning a loco to the USA for attention, and getting charged VAT on it's purchase value again when it was returned to the UK. Also a story of Bachmann US outline models not being covered by 'free' warranty repairs when bought outside the USA.