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I'd be pleased to do that well, with my better hand, in 00 - hard to believe yours are 2mm I agree with Mikkel that such jobs cannot be done in a hurry. i think I did some of my best (i.e. least worst) lining when I was convalescing after pneumonia and not up to much else.

Very useful post, thanks Harlequin. I'll see if that app works for me, sounds like just the thing I've been looking for. I've found that depth of field isn't always desirable - if you want to really foreground something for example - but in general it does make a huge positive difference.

I'm really impressed with that Paul, alternative hand and all. I have never tried lining with a bow pen, but I imagine it's a bit like painting fine details. When I do that, I've noticed that the results are much better when I'm relaxed and rested than when I'm uptight and grumpy. Incidentally, I think the Domestic Overlord is wise in not letting you use superglue for lining. It just wouldn't work

Hi. Typically they’re every 6ft on the straight so yes. However they could be at the side off the sleepers instead.

Sorry for the long delay in responding to this. I agree that Norris's adoption of a 4-2-0 wheel arrangement to cope with roughly laid American track on the three legged stool principle was for totally different reasons than Crampton's and led to the classic "American" 4-4-0 arrangement. Apart from the very early St. Germain* and other Paris local lines I think the major difference was always the generally longer runs between population centres in France often on relatively flatter ground. That probably made continuous running at speed more important than accelaration (which also led later to a greater interest in compounding by French loco engineers) Crampton had of course been a GWR engineer and, while working with Gooch on his successful large driving wheel broad gauge loco, conceived the idea of getting the same broad gauge advantage of stability at speed on standard gauge railways by achieving a low centre of gravity with a large driving wheel. The reasons why his locos were more successful in France and Germany than in Britain may though have been as much to do with his general understanding of the value of larger steam passages, heating surfaces and bearing surfaces, as to his actual patented wheel arrangement. France's early railways did draw very heavily on British engineering as evidenced by their running on the left and widespread use of double champignon (bullhed more or less) chaired track. However, quite apart from the Brunels, it was by no means a one way traffic The multiple tube boiler was invented by Marc Sequin in 1828; the mechanical semaphore (and the name) was developed by Claude Chappe but Britain's railways came to adopt a simplified system of moving arms for almost all its signalling. Ironically, France's use of rotating targets for most signals, seen as very foreign by many British observers, actually came from the GWR. In 1843, The Paris-Orleans simply adopted Brunel's disk clear and crossbar danger signal (I think their engineer had come from the Great Western). In 1845 Benoit Clapeyron, in charge of traffic on the St. Germain and Versailles line modified it to a simple red disc that was presented as a stop signal for five minutes after the passage of a train then rotated to not face the driver when the line was considered free. The "disque" was widely adopted by othe railways (though its meaning changed as other targets were introduced) though the PLM had a very British looking three position semaphore (danger, caution, clear) until 1885 when a national signalling code was adopted and movonmg arm signals were confined to direction indicators and sémaphores which are non absolute block signals. *The St. Germain line, France's first steam hauled and passenger railway, was fairly flat without undue curves from St. Lazare to its original terminus at le Pecq. The limited power available to early locomotives meant that the final two kilometres up to St. Germain itself, requiring a curved route with a 3.5% gradient, was only made possible by using Samuda's atmospheric system which could haul a train up the gradient at 35km/h (return was by gravity) . The extension opened in 1847 and, with the odd glitch, operated satisfactorily for twelve years as an atmospheric railway until more powerful locomotives became available. Even then, trains had to banked up the gradient until electrification of the line was completed in 1927. I've always thought that the successsful use of atmospheric power on this line gives the lie to the popular view that it was Brunel's great folly. Brunel was not though a good locomotive engineeer so may have underestimated how rapidly the development of steam locomotives would make it obsolete.