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I saw an ex-GE excursion at New Cross Gate waiting in the early/mid-1950s to change locomotives. It was headed by a pair of condensing gear fitted J67/69s and I believe that these were the more normal loco power in steam days than a N7.

I know of a few people that have experienced problems with memory wire activation when exhibiting, seemingly because the ambient temperature in the exhibition hall has been very different from that of the place where the layout normally lives. One might expect that a hall would always be warmer with the press of visitors, but I know of at least one location where draughts produced an even more unwelcome chilling effect. If you are intending to exhibit, it might be worth doing a few experiments using both a heater and a fan to replicate various conditions. Someone did suggest that providing a cover might at least provide more stable conditions for the wire.

Funny that. The real things were real b*st*rds when it came to keeping the ballast packed. Their big advantage was that the chairs were parallel to the sleepers and so you didn't need to use wide timbers, which were, of course, disproportionally expensive.

I bought Heimdorf from David Cox back in 1985, built a new fiddle yard, made a few very minor enhancements to the scenery, and exhibited it a few times at Burgess Hill and Brighton. It now lives in my loft, ironically not so far from the area it was meant to depict. Sadly, David's hand built track using code 60 rail has deteriorated over the years and it would be very difficult to replace it without damaging David's superb scenic work. Otherwise, I would probably be exhibiting it on the continental circuit. I did get one surprise when I bought it, the station building with its exquisitely-modelled front and sides has a plain back, just painted the correct colours without any features such as doors and windows.

It's ironic that I should come across this topic for the first time today, because exactly 50 years ago, a little after 2pm, I arrived at the real Manchester Central on a "half-day excursion" from London St. Pancras en route to visit the Manchester Model Railway Society's exhibition at the Corn Exchange. I have been an MMRS member ever since, but that, and a similar journey in 1965, were the only occasions that I used the Central station, although I did stay once at the nearby Midland Hotel when it was still in railway (well, BTH) hands. An absolutely superb model. Oh, and that half-day excursion went back from Piccadilly to Marylebone (via Bletchley and High Wycombe), quite a rail-tour for less than £2!

Remarkably, between 1977 and 1988 there was a passenger-carrying Monorail à crémaillère as the final means of access to the Barrage d'Emosson in western Switzerland. It has since been replaced by a "minifunic", but when I rode on it in 1983 one sat astride the monorail on one of a series of stepped seats, it was powered by a petrol motor. The whole excursion was quite remarkable - metre gauge electric, then a single-car (and VERY steep) funicular, then a 60cm gauge train and then finally this thing. All but the last offered reduced fares if one was a professional railwayman.

I have provided below detailed track plans for the "standard" track panels for industrial narrow gauge track using a prototype radius of 36 feet (British Standard type 2). The dimensions are given for 7mm scale modellers using a 14 mm track gauge. Components for making this track work are available from KBscale. Note that in the points the track is straight, not curved, through the crossing and that the point blades, together with the length of the stock rails opposite the blades, are also straight. Although this results in "kinks" at either end of the point blade sections, industrial style rolling stock will pass perfectly through points built in this way, whether being drawn or propelled.

For comparison, here are a few photos of the P4 Bembridge layout first exhibited at the MRC's Easter Show at Central Hall in 1971. I was the scenery wallah!

Looks like the GWR got their dirty hands on the S&D fifty years early!

Trench was situated on the LNWR Wellington-Stafford line a mile or two after the junction for the Coalport branch. At one period, at least, the resident of the loco shed was an ex-L&Y 0-4-0ST "pug" which worked the siding. IIRC the siding closed in the mid-1930s. Oh - and a very nice neat model.

N gauge? I could have sworn it was 2FS when I saw at Epsom & Ewell's show at Nescot some years ago - but then it had an attractive and extremely knowledgable lady in charge and, just perhaps, I got distracted.

I have analysed the photo, to produce the diagram below which shows the spacing of the visible features which are basically the running surfaces of the tram tracks, the flange being lower and hidden by the thin tarmac surfacing. I have shown the statutory limits for that part of the road surface which was the responsibility of the tramway undertaking (London United Tramways), but on this particular road there is nothing to show for this limit (elsewhere - within the LCC area, for example - this area was often paved with granite setts), and the road is wider, perhaps around 24 feet between kerbs. The diagram shows the road flat but in practice there would have been a camber.

Certainly in April 1962 all four tramlines right across the bridge were visible from the front of the top deck of a trolleybus. The fact that they were to all intents and purposes flush with the road surface probably tends to hide them when photographs were taken by someone standing at road level. The spectator view of the layout is, of course, much closer to that "trolleybus" view. I think my approach to reproducing them when the road surface is already in place on the model would be to use thin nickel-silver or brass strips (from Eileen's, for example - a query on the "tramway" section of this forum will give you an idea of the correct strip width and spacing) chemically blackened and glued to the existing model road surface. I would then use ready-mixed filler (e.g. Polyfilla) to build up the road surface between and either side of the new "rails", smoothing off with a scraper made from scrap plastikard. Finally, I would use a matt grey acrylic paint (sample pot from B&Q?) to paint the whole road surface including the "rails" - and then add any "weathering" effects desired. Probably not much more than a couple of evenings' work to bring a real touch of historic detail to the model, just wait 'til you exhibit it locally and start hearing those very satisfying "Cor! - I remember those" comments.

Some further checking of background information has revealed that there was a "statutory restriction" on Twickenham Railway Bridge and only one trolleybus was allowed to be on the bridge at any one time (so it was effectively, but not actually, single track for trolleybuses). A similar restriction had previously applied to trams. Such a restriction on public transport vehicles is rare, because their axle weight distribution is usually optimised, and would seem to confirm that the bridge suffered from some weakness that led to the decision to retain the tram tracks within the road surface. That road surface, incidentally, would seem, from the absence of granite setts around the tram tracks, to have been laid with tarred hardwood blocks (with their grain vertical), albeit, by 1960, with a thin layer of tarmac added on top to compensate for wear. Wood block roads weren't uncommon in town centres in Edwardian times and seem, in particular, to have been commonplace along the routes of the London United Tramways, (they were relatively quiet in the days of substantial horse drawn traffic), but had become rare by 1960. I do, though, remember seeing them being lifted outside Charing Cross railway station in London when The Strand was widened in the 1950s. Note that the restriction means that it would be wrong for the model to show two trolleybuses actually on the bridge, the southbound one would wait north of the bridge for the northbound one to finish crossing it. Doubtless the local inspector would spend a reasonable amount of time here to ensure that drivers always obeyed the restriction.

Well, since I had no idea that they were there, I only got to know about them by seeing them. In fact, they extended some way south of the bridge as well as over the bridge itself and the only photo I have was taken from the front of the upper deck of a northbound 667 trolleybus en route for Hammersmith early afternoon (perhaps between 2 and 3pm) on Saturday 14 April 1962. The tracks had been tarmaced over but were quite visible and would make a charming feature on the layout. Incidentally, I was really surprised to see the tracks as I believe that they were the last remaining running tracks in situ in a road still used by public transport anywhere in London at the time despite the fact that they had been abandoned well before WWII, the last remaining remnants of the remaining post-war network at Peckham and Woolwich had gone by this date. I made enquiries a week or so later of knowledgable acquaintances at the MRC Central Hall Exhibition which is where I picked up the story of them helping to stabilise the railway bridge. photo copyright: David Woodcock

Since the layout is an amalgam of the 1950s/early 1960s period and I can see two trolleybus models on the bridge, the tram tracks are a feature which should be included since the trolleybuses disappeared before the bridge was rebuilt. I remember being told by a SR civil engineer that the tram tracks were thought to be contributing to the stability of the bridge structure and that was why they were retained when all the other tram tracks in the area were lifted in the mid-1930s after the introduction of replacement trolleybuses. I have done plenty of historical research myself and consequently I know just how difficult it is to confirm, and particularly date, features like this. Someone half-remembers them, so they were probably there post-war but they can't date it more accurately than that, and photos looking along a roadway over a railway bridge tend to be as rare as hen's teeth and, even if you find one, precise dating can be difficult - when was that car registration issued or when did that car model first appear? In fact, I can clearly remember being very surprised to find them in situ when I used a "Red Rover" to do my personal farewell tour of the Kingston area (and last London) trolleybus routes in late-April 1962; when I next travelled over the same road in 1967/8 I looked out for them but they had gone because the bridge had been rebuilt. So, there is definitive dating information that they were definitely in situ at the period(s) the model is set in. My memory suggests that, by that date, they were just set in surrounding tarmac rather the more traditional granite setts and there would be some logic in that, but I wouldn't wish to be definitive on that point as I know how fallible memory can be when it comes to detail. Given the quality of some of the modelling projects that I know Andy York has been personally involved in which must have required a lot of sometimes frustrating research, I would have expected him to be encouraging anyone who has definitive information that can help an ongoing project to come forward.

I hope that they have remembered to incorporate the disused tram tracks in the roadway over the over bridge at the end of the station. They outlasted the trolleybuses so were definitely still there in 1961 even though the old station had, of course, gone in reality.

I spent several months on secondment to Chiswick (Bus) Works in the summer of 1968 and there was a daily late-morning LT pannier hauled train from Lillie Bridge to Acton Works (and there must have been a return working outside office hours). Although this train only conveyed materials for Acton Works, many of the wagons had worked through from the BR network via the connection from the West London Line to Lillie Bridge, and, in consequence, the train was shown in the WTT as a revenue goods train rather than a service train.

Although there is one sitting in my "to do" box, I haven't yet used any of Nigel Lawton's motors so I have no experience of how hot they run. Based on my experience of other modern motors, I would have been very wary of using "superglue" as a (very tempting) way of fixing a motor to a chassis because I would have worried that the glue joint would fail at a crucial moment (that middle of Saturday afternoon when the exhibition crowd is at its greatest and the sunlight is pouring in through one particular window to further heat up a layout). So - do you have time and tested experience of the use of superglue as a motor fixative or was this a first-time trial?

I am glad you posted the picture of the model of the model, Tim. I found that the aerial photo of the CF at Kings Cross instantly reminded me of it and it is good to see that after all these years it is getting somewhere near full fruition - just another decade to go? David

I remember going to the Southend Club's exhibition specially to see it - in 1968 possibly?

The Slaters Plastikard sheets are the wrong size for Roman bricks.

Paint the ripples on to the flat pre-coloured surface using diluted white wood glue which goes transparent when dry. When it is thoroughly dry apply several coats of a really good quality gloss varnish (sometimes called yacht varnish in the UK), allowing each coat to dry really thoroughly before applying the next. You are not trying to build up actual depth with the varnish, only the appearance of depth. Obviously you need to keep it dust free during the process.

Living in Belgium, I haven't seen the layout in the flesh, at least, not at all recently (although I had seen, and admired, Wenfordbrridge on a number of occasions), and I do realise that photography "enhances" the white lining. In theory, at least, the "white" lining on the prototype was only 0.25 inches wide, or 0.02mm in 2mm scale (if I have my arithmetic right), and should "disappear". In practice, it unquestionably punched above its weight on the prototype even without any photographic process intervening and can't, therefore, be ignored on a model. Even in 4mm scale it can't be done to scale width (other than using computer-produced transfers) and I was therefore trying to make the point that if the model lining was straw instead of white - as it does seem to have been on the prototype in use - then it would still be visible but would stand out just a little less. I don't have any locos of my own in either 2mm or 4mm scale to demonstrate but I have, hopefully, attached a photograph of a 4mm scale model of an IoW O2 tank which was painted by Alan Brackenborough well over 40 years ago and which I believe captures the effect quite well. I neither built nor painted the loco, although I did build the turntable on which it is standing. Furthermore, just in case anyone thinks that I have no experience of fine-line painting, I have also attached a cruel blow-up of the poster boards on the same layout - I painted both the board headers and all the posters by hand c1970 simply because nothing suitable was then available from the trade and b/w photocopiers had only just started to appear let alone colour ones. I have to admit, sadly, that I couldn't do anything like it today. David Woodcock

Having watched the video can I make the comment that the locos in Maunsell livery are slightly spoilt by the heavy white lining. I do realise how difficult this lining can be, even in larger scales, because, despite being very narrow on the prototype, it does show up inside the outer, and wider, black band. Part of the problem is that the lining wasn't normally white in practice. The specification called for white paint, and that undoubtedly was what was used, however several contemporary reports of SR liveries speak of straw coloured lining and experience on the IoW Steam Railway, where the original specifications are followed as closely as possible, has shown that the white lining does turn straw very quickly indeed once a newly painted loco is returned to traffic. It is probably a result of a complex chemical reaction between the pigments in the white paint and the oil used to clean the locos.