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Brilliant idea. My own taste would be to include some scenery but I know that this would make the joins between models harder to manage unless there was a standard scenic end as well as a standard track end. Maybe each section could bulge out in the middle for the scenic bit and narrow to just the trackbed for the join?

Hi Tony, see PM. best, Mikkel

Great idea. I know I bang on about RC a lot, but such an idea would be ideally suited to battery power, radio control as it would not require any track wiring.

An impressive repair job. Your workmen can be proud of themselves! :-)

Hello Mark There have been two good looking sets on eBay this last fortnight. One was sold for £199 and the other was still on offer at £140. I was even tempted but what could I do with a second set? The pine box is big and heavy. I like polished wood and have refinished at least one box. So you have the cost to Australia to think about. The positives are that I like Bachmann's A4s. That said the chassis for Silver Fox does not have darkened valve gear. It is also probable after all these years that some or all of the wheel joiners will need attention. The driving wheel 'insulators' as Bachmann call them can be bought directly from their technical service department in Leicester for not a lot of money. The black plastic joiners for the pony truck wheels become brittle but can be salvaged with super glue. My Silver Fox has been fitted with a later chassis from Seagull - even better get one from Bittern. Silver Fox on the 'non stop' - replacement chassis from Seagull and etched plates and plaque from Fox Plates Moving on to the coaches, run as a rake I think they are passable. The maroon colour is satin and dull as if weathered. I have had a couple of boxed sets and ended up buying a separate replacement coach off eBay as one of my original coaches just didn't seem to have much paint on it! That said when I sold my original coach I didn't receive any complaints. The coaches supplied in the set have plastic wheels on pinpoint steel axles. I swapped in some new Bachmann metal wheels. The old bogies are made of very rigid plastic and swapping wheels was difficult. I have in mind that I ended up swapping a couple of complete bogies from eBay because I had damaged the originals. Beware the early Bachmann Thompson bogies are different to the later offerings with the narrower couplings and are completely different to the very latest super detail coaches. Does that help? If you have any specific questions, let me know. Cheers Ray

Ahhh, bless...

Mikkel, Northroader beat me too it! Always interesting to see photos of people and much safer, when on the internet, to see them from years ago. Well, he was always a safe pair of hands.

Fair point Truffy. I can dim all the lighting by area, here is a pic of the lighting control panel for the left hand side of the layout. ( with the classic error of the photographers reflection ) It would be mainly gas lit, with some electricity coming in for difficult to get at areas. The problem is that if I dim it all down so that it does go yellow to the eye then the camera just doesn’t want to take a photo with the aperture set small for depth of field. I continue to mess about with the camera though I suspect it needs a different lens and someone far more skilled than I am. It has always vaguely surprised me that given the popularity of railway modelling in Japan that one of the camera manufacturers has not come up with a camera tailored for close long depth of field use. Perhaps they have and I have missed it ?