phil_sutters

A convenient link to the electrical engineer on the Repair Shop Australia, who made a pathetic job of repairing a Hornby Dublo 'train set'. He was presented with a fair amount of three rail tin-plate track, some rolling stock - mainly tin plate HD but also something that may have been a locally sourced box-car. It had been the pride and joy of a young boy's grandad and he and his mum wanted it in working order. He first had to repair the controller, which he did ok. The loco the boy wanted to see working was, in his words 'The Flying Scotsman' - actually the Duchess of Montrose, although no-one on set seemed aware of the difference. It had no tender or leading bogie and any capacitors or suchlike gubbins were also missing. A play-worn black N2 was fully operational. So its innards were sacrificed to get the Duchess moving, as spare parts are apparently unavailable in Oz - probably unsurprisingly. Oh the excitment when the train set was revealed to the lad, with the Duchess, still without its tender or bogie, doing curcuits round the track. I have to say that the jeweller and horologist were both up to the UK version's high standards.

Not EBay but wonderfully presented - handy to have the bin bags ready https://www.easyliveauction.com/catalogue/lot/65b44a19d2d5c3cd171636218a3eccea/0af8d24542e81eb9357e7ef448a6646f/general-antiques-interiors-lot-88/ Chances are that this entry will disappear as the auction is tomorrow - so here's the illustration of this fine antique which has the following description - 'A 2 piece model railway layout board with n gauge track, various accessories such as buildings and scenery'

A solitary Peacock so far this year. Too many cold breezes perhaps.

Was the full length loop the one put in when the second platform was added or was that the shorter version, which served the passenger platforms adequately, with the additonal length added when the siding was put in, to allow for longer goods trains. Alternatively could it have been that the added loop allowed both goods and passenger trains to be held there, while a train in the other direction passed. From the sound of it, it proved to be an unnecessary bit of pointwork.

During or after the time the Nazis were there?

Was this the first layout where the expression 'Hand of God' was used for rerailing? Mind you with those voluminous sleeves one rerailment could well lead to another derailment.

They really need them now, as Pontins, Brean Sands, has been taken over for accommodation for Hinkley Point C construction workers.

727 is the common factor, I guess. Nice to see it not hiding in the bushes! I would have been surprised to find Brighton station used as a parking zone, but apart from Newhaven aggregates sidings, I don't suppose there are many other vacant spaces, between there and Willingdon, with carriage sidings in off-peak storage use.

Sorry I wasn't in a position to hang around for 727 to emerge from the bushes! There are a couple of additional, non-66 snaps in my album at

Just because I had a album of collected snaps of bankers ----

Bath Green Park / Queens Square & Templecombe. The banking engines there were not specifically for banking, but were rostered for those duties as appropriate.

At least one model of it is now on the market https://www.scale3d.co.uk/products/fm104-the-crooked-house-pub-oo-scale . As it is/was a unique building I wonder how many will find a need for it on their layouts. I am sure there will be those who want it for the fun factor and in this era of 3D printing I guess it can be just manufactured on demand.

May be this service could help -

On the bits of the South Downs where they couldn't be bothered to lay tracks over or through the chalk we have to make do with Coasters. The latest versions seem to have caught on to the love of sheep - so devotedly portrayed in this thread. Very comfy buses these are too.

Lewisham has a road junction, a small river and the DLR under it.

I don't know whether you are also looking for dockside workers. Scale3D have a good range of modern RNLI crew and some new fishermen who are from an earlier era. This chap is £1.99. https://www.scale3d.co.uk/products/mm944-fisherman-hands-in-pockets?variant=44520226160860 + p&p. Usually very quick service from my experience as a customer. The problem is that they keep on introducing more figures, animals and other items. My painting queue gets longer and longer.

Why are 'gratuities' actually mentioned in the wagon train advert? If the staff are doing a good job, just adjust your prices to pay them a decent wage. Don't rely on the goodwill/guilt of your customers. Free p&p? No - you have just factored it into your prices.

In Geoffrey Maslen's 'Around Burnham-on-Sea and Highbridge in old photographs' he gives the opening date as July 1856, with the renaming to Ashcott & Meare in 1876. This the opposite of information referred to above. His emphasis on photographic local history rather than operational railway history may account for the difference. The caption is under a photo of the station c1915 with a train heading towards Shapwick. Steam, from what looks like a 0-4-4t running bunker first, obscures the rolling stock. It could be passenger stock or goods stock with a van or cattle truck leading. There are no sources quoted. He just refers to '..those whose knowledge and expertise of local history supplied the historical data from which many caption details have been derived.' British History Online gives the opening date as 1854 and says that Ashcott & Meare station was built just inside the village (Ashcott) boundary. Wikipedia doesn't give an opening date, but says the '& Meare' was dropped in 1876, although the running (in) board remained until closure. Having travelled that route a number of times in the early '60s I had always remembered it as 'Ashcott & Meare'. May be it was because of the board or perhaps that's what the porter or guard called out as is came to a halt. It was one of those stations at a distance from two communities. It was actually nearer to Meare, I believe.

No - not sub-lime - superior lime!

It appears that I haven't previously uploaded this sign from a bakers up hill from Lewes station. If I have - apologies. No guarantees that it works, but it could be worth a try. I wonder if they make gorgeous Lardy Cakes, like the ones we used to get on holiday in Burnham-on-Sea.

One that materialized at the much missed Brighton Model World in 2016. As you can imagine the grandson is somewhat larger now - 6ft+.

Newhaven and District MRC built this layout in Seaford Museum. It is well guarded as it is in the Martello Tower. I was allowed to photograph it for non-commercial purposes. I visited the Wealden MRG exhibition a couple of weekends ago. While passing through Upper Beeding High Street, which is reached just before Bramber, I was fascinated to see the street lamps mounted on cast-iron? brackets off the telegraph poles. I took a fair number of photos of Steyning buildings, with the intention of adding them to the 'Missing pieces' project at Historic England - filling photographic gaps in their Listings. They can also be seen in an album on the ipernity photo-sharing site that I frequent, when not on this one! http://www.ipernity.com/doc/philsutters/album/1360844

Make sure you have it bent in the right direction! Please note that this was taken when the wind wasn't blowing.

Back in the late 60's I modelled a GWR branch with S&DJR running powers. I thought that my Hornby Dublo 8F to SDJR 7F was quite good. My SDJR Sentinel was however decidely pathetic. It was a card and balsa body on a K's tender chassis, with a set of wheels removed. The problem was that I didn't want to cut off the redundant worm gear, in case I found another use for it, as a tender drive for perhaps a Kitmaster City of Truro. However the latter never happened and 101 still exists!