Mike Arnold

RMC for November arrived today. On the cover and featured inside, our very own Ray O'Neill with his 59th & Rust. Well done, sir.

As some of you may know already, Richard Maxwell, renowned for his sales stand of quality brass locomotives and cars at NMRA Conventions and shows passed away suddenly at home in March. He had on hand a very large collection of brass locomotives etc on sale or return/commission for third party owners which all need to be returned in order to settle his estate. I am one of a small number of Richard's friends helping the family during difficult times. If anyone here believes Richard held brass models to sell for them could they please contact me with full details of importer, manufacturer, railroad, class, wheel arrangement and whether painted or unpainted. This process might take some time, checking against a comprehensive stock list so an early notification would be appreciated. Mike Arnold e-mail: tunnelmotor@tiscali.co.uk

Geoff, As an operator on the American FreeMo layout I would like to offer some insight from our perspective. Firstly your comment about the two feet was taken totally out of context - we simply had difficulty squeezing in the final leg of the branch line which could not be delivered until 8.00 am Saturday. The person who made the comment was the said module owner. We planned ahead by siting the entire layout hard against the barrier line at the other end. Secondly operators. Two were unfortunately unable to attend at the last minute due to illness. We had no reserves - perhaps we should have planned better on that but there is a limit on the number of passes that, in fairness, Warners/MRC could allow us. The whole layout suffered a complete control system meltdown on Saturday which meant we could not run any trains at all for about an hour. Anyone enquiring about the lack of running trains was apprised of the situation. We as operators were as frustrated as you were, albeit from a different perspective. Many of us had spent hours not only getting our contributions ready but also setting it up and making sure it was running perfectly. We started set up at 11.45am Friday on delivery and successfully completed it all including testing all tracks and setting up the trains to run by 6.30pm. At 8.00am it was still working and was with the additional branch line modules shortly thereafter. The pressure on our technical guy to not only identify the problem but also find a solution (luckily he had invested in a booster available only direct from the manufacturer) was immense. We as owners/operators only get a chance to do this kind of set up (75 ft by 25 ft) once in a blue moon and please trust me when I say we have invested far more in the successful running of the set up than anyone else. Our tekkie was a true hero. Other problems like dry solder joints and board movement are symptoms of time and the atmospheric conditions of the hall. We cannot, I think, plan for that. Operator error is something else of course! DCC is very unforgiving if you run a set of points against you. The last member of our crew got to bed at 1.00am Monday (not checked with the guy from Devon); many of us were still putting away our contributions to the set up yesterday - I spent two hours repairing the gears on two very expensive locomotives that failed running around the main part of the set up. We all like to see trains run - some at scale speeds and others at somewhat greater speeds. Each to their own. We try to cover as many bases as we can with what we put on display. We hoped that the quality of the modelling would entertain while waiting for a train. Notwithstanding Ian Lampkin's comments previously about FreeMo being an operator experience (which it is at FreeMo events where the public are not invited), our FreeMo modules were there to show what individuals can achieve in a small space. Seven individual set ups within the branch lines are operated as switching layouts at home. But bringing them all together from Essex, Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Devon means that we cannot truly test them all out together until they get to the venue. As an operator I know that at times there were up to four trains operating simultaneously on the branch - there is testimony in numerous videos now on YouTube to that fact. I am just sorry you found our offering a waste of a large space. We put in so much effort to get this there and run it well. However, your points are not lost on us - there are some aspects we can take away and incorporate in planning for the next time. None of us invests all our time and money to waste the opportunity to entertain but sometimes circumstances dictate otherwise.

The short answer is yes, probably, but not SR(BR) green. Push-pull set number 3 was comprised S2609, a 7-compartment lavatory brake third, and is shown at plate 127 of The Illustrated History of Southern Coaches by Mike King (OPC) in malachite green in 1951 at Bournemouth Central. Your memory was probably spot on!

I have found a colour photo of S2626S (Hornby R4718 in SR Olive) and S4654S (an 8-compartment lavatory composite - not currently manufactured) as a two set arrangement at Evercreech Junction in what is unmistakably BR green in 1959 in Southern Coaches in colour by Mike Welch, published by Noodle Books (first page). The caption to the photo suggests they were loose coaches allotted to S&D traffic at Templecombe. Both withdrawn July 1959.

If I am not mistaken, Hornby have delivered this new item bang on time for the BR version and one month early for the SR version. If so, very well done indeed in these hard times.

I think you will find it was the other way around. I visited Eastleigh shed and works in Decembetr 1963 and 34055 was in the works yard and parts of 34043 were noted out the back where the cutting was done, at the end of that road alongside the works where a few others were waiting their turn, including 34035 and 34074. 34055 was used for static boiler testing or something like that, with 34043's smokebox door in place.