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Tourist thing though isn't it? Anyone wanting to get to the other side gets the train!

I very much enjoyed BBC's Ghosts. When I watched the US version it was garbage when compared to the original.

Beavers are the ones with a paddle for a tail. Don

Another partwork car arrived today courtesy of eBay! This time it’s a Vectra. It’s actually the Chevrolet version instead of a Vauxhall but same difference. Not really my preferred era of cars I’ll be honest, I’m much more a fan of 80’s and older stuff but I’d seen these before and thought about getting one as my dad had an R reg one, a 1.8 saloon in silver, which was about a year or so old when he got it. I got this one with a 10% seller offer so the cheaper price swayed me in the end! It’s quite a nice little model really. Nothing exceptional (much like the real cars!) but not half bad. Definitely one to strip down and Vauxhall-ise one day I think.

The signal is really good but the weathering really makes it. Don

Turning back the clock and a bit of Rule 1... I think I said way back in my first post on Furnace Bank that I intended to run a number of different eras. Despite work being extremely busy, I have made time to escape to the cellar and have found the workbench a truly welcome relief. This post shifts the focus to the 1947-49 era. I'm really interested in the early days of nationalistaion and hope to capture some of the contrasting elements of really careworn stock that made it through the rigorous demands of wartime and the emerging new builds of the postwar and early nationalisation era. This post also proves that I have some stock that originates in the 21st Century... The pictures show my attempts so far at putting a bit of dirt and detail on the Heljan class 11. The application of Rule 1 is that 15101 only made it to Tyseley in 1951 and I've no idea what livery variation it carried by that stage. Anyway, so far I've improvised. A new 'TYS' shedcode has come from Railtec, but I suspect that 15101 would have had a BR shedplate by 1951. I've added a driver from Modelu and have yet to fit lamps; I also need to fit a buffer beam number and I think N gauge ones should be about the right size for the 11s. The shunter's truck is from Hornby - I wasn't even tempted to try any surgery on my original Triang shunter's truck...The three links on the 11 are from Jackson Evans back in the 1980s and look more like North Sea surplus than scale accessories, but they do make coupling up easier. The Heljan 11 runs beautifully and has saved me trying to convert a Lima 09 - different plans await that engine now. Other stock in the pictures includes old Hornby 21 tonners dressed up as SC ex-POs on Parkside chassis - one in black and the other still carrying pre-war SC livery. A Parkside LNER loco coal can be seen intruding into another picture and a 'Walton' ex-PO from Cambrian, commissioned by RD Wyborn many years ago. The lime wagon is a Hornby Minera Lime on a Cambrian chassis. The aim is to recreate the kinds of stock that could be seen at a Midlands steelworks in the late 1940s. I've got a fair bit on the workbench and will be posting more when the day job calms down a little. I'll also really stick my neck out and post some pictures of my attempts at modelling steam engines. The move to the late 1940s is a real challenge for me as I have absolutely no reference points. I was born in August 1968, so my only experience of UK steam has been on preserved lines. The late 40s is a purely academic exercise for me, but has been helped massively by David Larkin's recent wagon books and, of course the internet, not least other people's work on this forum. Hopefully I can get away with capturing something of the essence of the early postwar years. We'll see...

Ugly Caley 0-4-4Ts . How dare you sir ! Pistols at dawn !

Don't do funnies then?

That does seem very good value for an accurate, smooth RTR model. I converted mine to RC, I’m tempted to get another and put a decoder in it.

Thank you Michael. The aspects and shunt signal all work, just not wired yet. The route indicators are dummy. I have shied away from working ones for 3 reasons. 1. The working dot matrix type are much too big in 4mm, and don't look right. 2. They are very fragile - the first signal delivered was Y161 on platform 13, 4 aspect, shunt plus RI, and it didn't take long for me to brush it with an arm and damage it. And 3. It is going to be tough enough to configure iTRains to get these working, and working RI's on top would be a step too far in terms of both hardware and software. Giles

'E & Safety my dear Puppers 'E & Safety. Probably shut the entire network down.

Tales from High Peak Junction workshops, a.k.a. my workbench..... The met camm DTS front end repairs are nealy finished, meantime... Etched Park done a lash up with a class 104 DTS to keep the service running. Nothing more to report on 37403, its currently UVS waiting on the transfers and nameplates from Railtec. Back to the 08 poor running on my layout saga. Spent a lot of time on the match truck Conflat. Painted up the extra liquid lead now its set. Took ages over setting up the wheel backs pick ups so they are not too stiff and not too loose spring pressure, plus on the bar coupler hole, opened it out a bit so the coupling bar had a bit more slop so the conflat can more easily find its own level and not potentially off load the 08 end wheelset due to a too stiff coupler. Result, I am pleased to say. Test running has been good, best the 08 has run on my layout ( It did run ok on a billiard board flat test track at the recent Bingham 3mm meet ). The gubbins, decoder wire and micro connector twixt 08 and Conflat, all wheel pickups on the Conflat, liquid lead added to centre area to add more weight to aid current pickup. Thanks again to @bradfordbuffer for the prototype pics up thread of 08's with match trucks, at least I have got my justification now! And, on the layout. I even treated the Conflat to some stickers. Dug out my 3mm scale Woodhead transfers and found a random 'DBxxxxxx' number set, found a 'Derby' and a 'Match Truck', they will do and look the part. Just needs weathering now. I like the 'Derby' as the 08 is a DY allocated example. Got there in the end despite such previous setbacks as a wheel coming off the 08 and bonding in liquid lead on the Conflat foul of the wheel flange clearance area....🤔. Cheers D.

No need to apologise. Probably made in the grounds of the studios they used which was Pinewood. The last of the genuine Carry Ons, the next one was the awful Carry On England which hardly had any of the regular cast. Then it was Emmannuelle and Columbus, less said about those the better.....

How close to the active trains and presumably live conductor rail were they! They need more danger money! Night All!

As if they would resort to such an underhand way of getting round the regulations. The money grabbing little toerags. Sorry did I type that. I wonder how much they got from the Co-op to allow them to say it's there's. Interestingly I see that the other significant investor is a politician from one of the Gulf States.

They have done a good job considering the photo they were working from is not so clear. The Return to is partially unreadable and the wagon was condemned. https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brpalvan/e3100a632 And this has the later brake rigging. One use not mentioned (I think) is the Weymouth Channel Island traffic. This one https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brpalvan/e347d1e47 is dual Return to - Weymouth and Feltham. Of course, Feltham is not where they were unloaded but the aggregation yard for those distributed to London area depots - NIne Elms for example was enormous! Paul https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brpalvan

Is J5991 45104 The Royal Warwickshire Fusilier? https://flickr.com/photos/pics-by-john/35664261825

As reported above, the Basingstoke show went very well and there was no need to do any repairs or modifications. Although I have added a few missing chairs to the foreground track. This is some rivet and ply track that I made up when starting out in EM many years ago. Perhaps I should have used some ready made track, but it has been useful to demonstrate the different track making methods. This bit of track was a little bald so after gluing on the chairs I will fill in the four foot with some more ballast to hide the fact that some of chairs are not attached to the missing sleepers. Progress on the spare loco, the Hornby /Triang Dock shunter, has made some progress in the past week or so. All I can say is, that it looks interesting. I shall do the big unveil next week, because Daisy is at ExpoEM Spring at Bracknell. Next to me is Nettlebridge Colliery by Nick, yet another Inglenook style shunting layout, on it's first public outing. So come along and say hello. Will we see one or two visiting locos? I do hope so.

Loving the attention to detail. The log loading seems like the opposite of what you’d see on the RhB, well done for not taking the easy way out. Mark

Here is the only photo I've seen which has identified the train as a Jellicoe Special. This is the image that appears Hamilton says the wagons were hired by the Admiralty from a single firm. Initially 4000 wagons but it rose to 16,000. Hamilton wonders where they came from but assumes they had been on lease of various collieries. There were 6000 Jellicoe Specials during the war. The greatest number on a single day was 19. Initial routing: GWR Pontypool Rd - Hereford-Shrewsbury-Chester-Warrington -> LNWR -> Carlisle -> Caledonian or North British to Grangemouth. By October 1915 it was necessary to route away from the LNWR. Half were then diverted via the East Coast at York. By Patricroft - L&Y to Normanton - N.E from Normanton Then the East Coast asked for relief so some were routed: L&Y via Blackburn to Hellifield and M.R over the S&C Finally in 1918 the GWR asked for relief and two further routes were used: via Brecon and Merthyr and Cambrian via Tal-y-lyn and Moat Lane Junctions to rejoin the GWR at Gobowen. via Cardiff to Gloucester and then by the MR. But in answer to your question, Jellicoe specials depending on where and when they were could be hauled by locos from the: GWR LNWR CR NBR L&Y NE MR Cambrian B&M The journey generally took 48 hours so you can do the maths as to how many trains would be in transit + loading/prepping unloading/prepping at any one point in time and how many locos would be required.

New baseboard built just need to fill in the wholes then I’m going to work on track plan, but think I want it super simple and go all out with scenics

Glad to see a LNR 350 finally! On pre order already!

Bit of a long-shot, but does anyone have the contact details for Tony Dyer, Frank Dyer’s son (Borchester etc.)? We have had an enquiry at the MRC from someone trying to re-establish contact. Tim

I keep fawning over this thread at the way people have managed to make these kits turn out so lovely and realised the other day.. ''Hang on, I've got one of those.''. Class 158... completely forgot about this. I found it at an exhibition in Liverpool a couple of years ago. Couldn't argue at 30 quid, especially seeing what some of these can fetch now. Admittedly, I knew nothing of MTK back then but figured I'd just keep it as a nice curio when I was educated soon after; I liked it's crudeness too much to sell it on or forget about it. I'm now rather inspired to make a start. ____________________ I also have this rather nicely built (compared to some others I've seen, it's reasonably straight) class 50 a friend sold to me. He had purchased a small collection and thought it right up my alley. Unsure if this one is MTK to be honest. Jidenco? Plan is to eventually give it an overhaul: some detailing and nicer bogies out of the printer, remotoring and repainting. I haven't got a NSE Hoover yet, so that's the preferred identity for it right now. I'm hunting other such kits down now but my stash of them hasn't grown owing to me not getting to shows as much and auction site woes. Still, there can't be many unbuilt MTKs having survived this long due to their reputation? That said, if anybody has any of the alleged AC electric kits... Morgan

Those lamps have got to go