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There's a couple of Coopercraft W1/5 on ebay at the moment.

There was, in 1919, a plan put forward by a Mr A.W. Gattie for an improved method of goods handling, known as the 'Gattie transport system', which I've not found very much out about but would appear to have been some form of containerisation. it attracted enough attention to be the subject of a parliamentary inquiry, with a report published in December 1919. In a parliamentary debate, it was claimed that ' that the North-Eastern Railway Company asked Mr. Gattie to inspect their Hull Station and report on the possibility of installing his system there, and that Mr. Gattie reported that it would be necessary to clear away the existing station, thereby involving a capital outlay which the North-Eastern Railway could not undertake?' [https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1919-07-17/debates/724ebbb0-49cf-4f28-a666-a88f1a719fd9/GattieTransportSystem] It also completely ignores the subtleties of the coal industry: that many small communities required relatively small quantities of several different types of coal, from different seams within one coalfield and from different coalfields. Such small communities, or the coal merchants who served them, could not afford to have money tied up in large stockpiles of coal. One man could unload an 8-ton wagon in a day's work, hence avoiding demurage charges; the wagon would be back on its way to the colliery within a couple of days of arrival. It would take the same man a whole week to unload a 50 ton wagon which would be out of circulation for that length of time, tying up capital unproductively. How could that possibly be more efficient? What it all comes down to is that these big mineral engine fantasies depend on the MGR principle of operation, with a single large colliery supplying a single large customer. That was achieved in the 1970s, the customer being the CEGB, but by that time steam was dead. The conversion to electricity, with the National Grid, ought to have gone hand in hand with railway electrification - that's where governments chose to muddle through rather than tackling the problem. But I remember those MGR trains thundering through the centre roads at Oxford station in the 1980s, Class 56 roaring away at the head. A better engine for the job than any Mountain you can devise.

It’s an 08, not a Tardis! If you can find room, it’s a good idea. Paul.

Far be it from me to quibble with the author of The Newcomer's Guide to Model Railways and owner of this immeasurably useful web site, but if you mean wired from the CDU (via the switch) to the first solenoid, then from the first solenoid to the second, then back to the CDU, then surely that's in series, not parallel? Or is my aged brain becoming even more addled than I realised? Connect them in parallel, but don't wire the second motor to the first, wire it back to the switch and to the same return point. If you wire the second motor to the first, the first will steal all the power, because electricity to the second motor will have to pass through extra lengths of wire and additional soldered joints.

I spotted this elsewhere..... The Mexicans have put the BR IC 125 liveried power car into service, along with one retaining most of the LNER vinyls as well !

Morning, from a sunny and not quite as cold rock, 10c and still for once. I was absolutely cream crackered after 80 miles on bumpy roads on the bike yesterday, so not a lot else got done. Like Brian we have a lot of birds in the garden currently, nesting time obviously due to the amount of cargo they're carrying. New is a Goldfinch, very colourful little bird, and the woody woodpecker is going bonkers over the back somewhere in the old farm, must be making a new nest in a tree. Debs has just gone for one of her bird books as she has spotted something by the not-a-Koi-pond-anymore she is unfamiliar with - doesn't happen often as she's a keen ornithologist. Edit - a Linnet, not seen one here before.

Bought my wife some of your socks, she loves them

Quite easy when you're dealing with whole numbers of feet I guess but I imagine it gets tedious if you're having to include odd inches and fractions of inches Ah, but the pint is, when it's smaller than 1mm it's too small to worrit about, or model. Except the rivets.

I think the REAL reason these types weren't required, is that the country simply isn't big enough. Also, most traditional steam-era freight, especially coal, didn't warrant a premium in speed

OO and N gauge club models of DB Cargo HRA in 'Freight belongs on rail' green livery https://www.Bachmann-collectorsclub.co.uk/site/search?q=HRA 865K

Thanks Chris, I've been following your thread avidly and it's always interesting to go back to so I'll reread your siphon experiences. Siphons from my archives: Tony

The front grab rail has more curvature on the 2nd batch of Heljan models for some reason

i would love to see your layout someday ! Ropley October 30th 2010 130pm

I don't think Johnster was saying anything about kits (see the bold I've added above) so there may be other accurate options if you are also interested in kits. For example, I think Peco/Ratio/Parkside have some 4mm scale cattle wagon kits, though not sure on accuracy or whether they offer a GWR one (other than the larger 'Beetle' type for prize cattle).

Got any pics?

As a graphic designer by trade, you can understand that I spent countless hours looking for the right font for this. Bovey Quay is to be both quirky and also very rundown set between '55-'65.

Great film! In this still, for the first time, I see that while the tram running rails have been removed and/or tarmacked over, the conduit slot has not. Shouldn't take long.

Are you sure those aren’t panniers? 😇

Just as well I pay my £12 a year to not get those ads!

The "N" is weird/eye-catching/both.

16xx Pannier stabled in the Turntable spur siding

That's the one I recommend.

I'm sorry? A model wagon with a rotation counter is more accurate than a proper tape measure? What a load of utter nonsense!!!

Imaginary locomotives like that really need imaginary railways to run on, so let's suppose that the two London - Scotland routes had, after the grouping mandated the use of auto couplers of the US Janney type, which are stronger than conventional UK couplings fully fitted freight trains This reduces, possibly eliminates the need for slow, unfitted goods trains, limited in length due to coupling strength and loop size. Then there might be the work for such large, powerful locos. Of course this would require a seismic shift in how coal traffic was handled-the tens of thousands of short wheelbase 10/12t coal wagons, largely privately owned, would have to go, and be replaced with fully fitted, preferably bogie wagons of say 50t capacity. This would require changing colliery & distribution yard track layouts to accommodate longer wheelbase wagons. All this would require the cooperation of colliery owners and coal merchants, which is why it didn't happen. Then there is the tens of thousands of general merchandise vans, many of which were railway owned, but still had to negotiate short radius curves in the thousands of small goods yards across the country. So it would really require a concerted effort on the part of all the railways, colliery owners, coal merchants and other general merchandise carriers. This requires government action, and this is another reason why it didn't happen. We preferred to just muddle through rather than tackle the problem. Even if it had, I still somehow doubt there would be the traffic to justify a fleet of fast powerful 4-8-2's.

I still have my Panasonic F70 VHS Recorder set up and connected to a modern TV via a SCART to HDMI convertor 😁 It recorded its audio two ways: firstly to the conventional linear side channel; secondly to an interlaced arrangement between the actual video channels on the main part of the tape. The quality of the second is vastly superior to the first.