dibber25

I can't now find the photo but there was a working to Colnbrook on the Staines branch. I believe it was once a week to collect consignments of Penguin books. 1960s period but after withdrawal of passenger services. (CJL) Edit : Found picture. Photographer T. Wright

If we held back magazines for new product announcements, they would never go to press! (CJL)

It would depend entirely on what the original contract arrangements were, as to who can do what with the tools and when. Very early on in the project I did suggest a boxed set of loco and tramcar in GER livery. However, the costs of tooling the coach made it prohibitive at that time. (CJL)

I did that conversion and described it in Model Rail a while back. I don't have file copies or an index here to check when it was. Hawksworths are not suitable for pre-BR, however. BSL did a nice Collett slip with punched aluminium sides and PC Models did a toplight era slip with printed sides. (CJL)

If we do a re-run - and to the best of my knowledge there are no plans to do so - it would probably include a GER livery this time. However, in the survey we did originally, the GER livery choice was evenly split between the blue and the red/grey schemes, meaning that neither got sufficient support to be worthwhile. (CJL)

Sorry. Never heard it referred to as 'BR Standard blue' before. (CJL)

Depends what you mean by BR Standard blue? Do you mean the Corporate Image Rail blue which began with XP64? There was a Brush Type 2 painted blue long before XP64 ( from memory was it D5578?). (CJL)

There were one or two WR units that received rail blue with a yellow panel, not a full yellow end, and maroon buffer beams. Yes, maroon. The Corporate Image was undermined from the outset by localised adaptations by people who didn't like the official version. The most extreme was probably the SR-based Pullman cars for the Golden Arrow, and the Brighton Belle, where the livery adopted broke all the rules and even the font used for the lettering was nothing like the approved fonts. The late Brian Haresnape, who was on the BR Design Panel that produced the Corporate Image, was highly critical of these unauthorised departures from the plan. (CJL)

Excuse me? I must be the 'railway journalist'. I thought the discussion was about 'Ready to run model railways' . It is, after all, in the Hornby thread. Peco and Dapol were omitted because they both manufacture what they can profitably produce in the UK and don't produce the things that they can't - the complex electrical and mechanical stuff. Peco manufactured one locomotive in the UK and it was a good long time ago. Dapol and Peco produce plastic kits and Tampo-print rolling stock bodies. The reason that you are seeing Chinese-made models with more customer-fit parts is because no country stands still. Progress in China has meant government-imposed wage rises which are driving up the cost of all the hand-assembly which is now involved in manufacturing railway models. My most recent purchase is a Walthers freight car on which there are more than two-dozen wire hand rails and grab irons to be customer fitted and the customer has to drill the No.80 holes, too! Ironically, British manufacturing might have been able to cope with 'Design Clever' levels of detail, but we all know how the market reacted to that. The fact is, as the market shrinks, production runs get shorter and that drives prices up and, maybe, the future does lie in British assembly of short-run models, but they'll be in plastic, not brass or white metal - though they'll cost just as much! (CJL)

So clear that no one is doing it? 3D printing and mass production are not the same thing. (CJL)

They've been made in India for years. (CJL)

Brown under frames on coaches and units were part of the official Corporate Image introduced with XP64. They were subject to local variation, however.(CJL)

No doubt based on the 1960s one in Model Railway Constructor. (CJL)

The HCRY nearly closed as no one was willing to spend any money on it. However, it does now have a rescue package. Found this on Youtube. Well worth a watch - several steel coil cars scattered through the train. (CJL)

One reason? I can think of several and they vary from one manufacturer to another. I would stress, since I am being quoted here, that I have bought models for review only if it was a model I wanted anyway. The most recent is the EFE tube train. There are legal implications around items that are not supplied freely for review but those on certain internet reviewing platforms don't seem aware of that (CJL)

Tracked down an Atlas in the UK and a Walthers kit from the USA (postage not too bad). The majority are for sale from the USA, some with as much as £60 postage though. (CJL)

Will there be a DCC sound-fitted version? Lots of rattling panels and an engine that sounds like a bag of spanners! I suppose (as a user of LT route 218 with RFs) at least the Leyland Nationals had doors! (CJL)

I always thought that was how it was supposed to look before EE got the real thing all wrong! I had one of those - want to hear a REAL travesty?............the chassis is under my first scratch-built 18000 !! (CJL)

I've become very interested in the Huron Central recently. I saw two HC locos switching at Sudbury when I was there in 2018 and I have models of the pair. I want to assemble a typical train, so I've been looking at movie of HC trains on Youtube and there seems to be quite a lot of (what I think are) steel coil cars. Am I right in thinking that the only HO models are by Atlas, and they seem hard to find at present? (CJL)

I have pictures of the depot at Staines West if they would be of any help? Here's one showing it when new with overhead discharge gantries. These were later changed to the gravity type. It was one siding that could take about a dozen tanks so you won't find much that's smaller. It was opened in 1964. First train was steam-hauled, others were diesel. CJL)

When I enquired, I was told there were no review samples. I spotted one, by chance, in a display in Trains4U and bought it, as I thought it was something different that should be reviewed. (CJL)

I only recall Windsor/Weybridge (18) trains splitting at Staines Central. Could be 4x2-HAP splitting at Staines so four (2 units) went ahead to Windsor and 4 to Weybridge, or off-peak and at Weekends, 2x2-HAP with one unit going each way. The Readings (28) were normally a random mixture of 2-BIL and 2-HAL to make 8 cars, splitting at Ascot with half the train going to Guildford and the rest to Reading South. They may have reduced to four cars (2 each way) at weekends but I don't recall it. They were replaced by cascaded 4-COR units which would have limited the flexibility although I imagine the timetable was re-jigged to avoid splitting and join corridor units at Ascot. I was no longer living line-side by that time. (CJL)

Had a memorable ride from Leamington Spa back to Oxford once, on a Swindon Cross-Country, flat-out at every opportunity but the ride was 'lively' to say the least! Loved those Swindon units and the Gloucester 119s. Those Virgin/Cross Country units - Voyagers, do they call them? - are horrible and I've never yet been on one that wasn't totally inadequate in every respect. (CJL)

Worse, according to Atkins, Beard and Tourret, gunpowder vans were lined with timber secured with brass screws, and lead. The latter would have made for a heavy wagon even before it was loaded. (CJL)

About to take my first island rail trip. Shawnigan Lake was a flagstop. My wife asked how we stop the train. "I guess like stopping a bus at a request stop," I replied. So she stuck her arm out and it stopped. 1976 and it was still CP Rail at that time. .....and the track was awful then! It would be another 35 years before it was awful enough to withdraw the service. (CJL)