mike morley

Some time ago there was a layout called, IIRC, Teetering-by-the-Well where the owner got around exactly that problem by removing the visible bits of every other sleeper. He left the web beneath the rails untouched so the structural integrity of the points was retained. When the layout's owner (Dave Balcombe?) died a few years back his family kept his website, on which he detailed what he did and how, going but it now seems to have disappeared into history. Perhaps someone with a better memory than me can recall what he did in better detail? I'm not sure if he improved the somewhat skinny appearance of the remaining 4mm scale sleepers by adding a wider, cosmetic 'sleeper' of thin plasticard or if that was something I thought of/suggested.

Smartphones had been around for getting on for ten years before I finally got one and I very quickly discovered that a degree of existing knowledge that I simply didn't have was automatically assumed and that I was too far behind to stand any chance of catching up. I'm now in the early planning stages of a new layout and was considering going DCC, but am rapidly coming to the conclusion that exactly the same thing applies.

I think we ought to re-name Giles 'Doc' and club together to get him a De Lorean.

I think reversed 'N's were quite common on the Western - particularly on the '1-in-xx' of gradient posts. I recall seeing more than one photographed by Ben Ashworth.

Railway Modeller, August 1995 (Post Swindonisation)

0-4(2)2-0PT?

How well do they take paint? I'm thinking of the cleaning fluid with which I assume they are impregnated.

I went to the other extreme and used the ultra-thin foil used to wrap Tunnocks Tea Cakes. Undeniably fragile and won't withstand much handling once in position, but the results look better than 'ordinary' foil.

Whatever it came from had outside steam pipes. I would also have thought it was more likely to have come from something scrapped in the Stoke area, rather than built there.

Did any of the 15xx panniers end up at Staffordshire collieries after being sold to the NCB?

A friend of mine has always wanted to model Pontrilas. Then, a few years ago, I saw Bucks Hill (Which, for those who havent seen it, is a 7mm scale masterpiece that is Pontrilas in everything but name). Ever since then I've been trying to persuade him to give up the idea on the grounds that it would inevitably be compared unfavourably with Bucks Hill. I've never quite convinced him - mostly, I suspect, because he's yet to see Bucks Hill.

Dare I ask how long it took/how steady a hand/how long an abstinence from alcohol it took to successfully apply those wasp stripes? And, come to that, how long it took to recover from the ordeal afterwards?

Actually, the Surform cheesegrater method is the least tiring of the three! The pestle and mortar method is the one that gives the greatest variety of consistency, which I would think would make it best suited for use as a quarry floor. Edited to add "variety of consistency'? An oxymoron, surely?