M.I.B

Wanted to rate that post with just about all the buttons. You will have to explain how you build so may scenes or parts of the layout. I guess you build in chunks like the Post office followed by hotel all on little bases yet they all look seamless.

No idea where the H65 comes from if it is wrong. What colour is Revell 65? "Deep Bronze Green" Ignore H65 and R 65 as an option then. I will investigate where i got that info from.

I have taken a 2 minute break from the keyboard to light the logburner and box up 4707. I have some Modelmasters plates for 4707 and wanted to fit them to complete the "updating" of the lovely Heljan model. Crew and coal are aboard already ( and have been for some time). Brake rods will be fitted when it comes out of the box for good but due to box design, they will stay in the bag. However the number on the model is moulded on, albeit slightly small. It is a complete "plinth" as opposed to many which just have a raised edge. These are simple to pare away and pop on some of Jim's plates. But I'm not in a brave mood and don't want to slip and carve away chunks of handrail or rivet detail. So 4707 has gone North into the loft for now. On the birthday of Tintin and Snowy, I hope you are all well and happy.

My stock is slowly getting very outdated! Bring out a new Manor and Saint.............

You make it all look so easy John. Thank you for sharing and the tip about hiding dodgy edges with quoins is a great one.

Hardy Hobbies crew ave arrived and they look incredibly detailed. And no doubles in the delivery. The poses are very different to the Dapol/Airfix, Hornby crews i already have. Steve1 was very generous and sent me some different ones too, so thanks to him as well.

H = Humbrol R = Revell GW coach oil boxes - R SM 350 GW Dark Freight Grey R 350 GW Freight Grey R 78 H 67 Carriage Brown H10 H Auth 100 Faded carriage brown ( great for SIPHONS and brown "freight" stock) H98 Carriage Cream H Auth 103 H 103 Engine Green H Auth 104 GWR building colours: No 2 Light Stone R89 R 17 No3 Dark Stone ( 1931 onward) H 65 or H 160 Engineer/Blue Brick 50/50 mix of H77 and H 79 Stone/ Light Cotswold (Sills and lintels) H121 H 71 Brick R37 + H 73 + H 100 all mixed but slightly vary the mix for individual bricks

H = Humbrol R = Revell GW coach oil boxes - R SM 350 GW Dark Freight Grey R 350 GW Freight Grey R 78 H 67 Carriage Brown H10 H Auth 100 Faded carriage brown ( great for SIPHONS and brown "freight" stock) H98 Carriage Cream H Auth 103 H 103 Engine Green H Auth 104 GWR building colours: No 2 Light Stone R89 R 17 No3 Dark Stone ( 1931 onward) H 65 or H 160 Engineer/Blue Brick 50/50 mix of H77 and H 79 Stone/ Light Cotswold (Sills and lintels) H121 H 71 Brick R37 + H 73 + H 100 all mixed but slightly vary the mix for individual bricks

..............or buy a "Hogwarts Express" tender on Ebay and swap the tops. They are usually available for not much £££

Tenders remained mixed as with Halls. No doubt the newer larger tenders got more common in later years. The smaller ones tender to be older in the main. But the pooh trap for Stars in later GW years is whether they had outside steam pipes in your era, and which type if they got fitted - straight ( 28XX style) or "Castle/Elbow" type. 4001 to 4020 had a square step at the front above the cylinders. 21 onward were curved. So "Lode Star" can really only ever be one of the engines numbered 1-20. The GWR Archive ( online) is a good tool for this sort of info. Lists each class in number order and includes date detail of this sort of mod. So you can work out which engine name meets your steam pipe set up. Tender info is available but not for every engine, on a site called brdatabase.info But you get an "index card" for each loco and most have a breakdown and date of tender type and number. Takes longer to work out if your particular 3500 gall Hall or Star has the right name or not depending on the tender type. But from a large class of engines, your choices get reduced to 20 options based on the split of square or curved footplates, and then diminishes further based on steam pipes. Don't be surprised if you get down to three choices of engine, and none kept the smaller tender. Adding your own steam pipes increases the options. Not sure if someone has made a suitable casting for this - someone here would know and I would't have thought it a hard mod to do on a model.

This is the "NRM" version, but NRM has rebranded........ Steam's version from a few years ago was in that livery Robin, Shirt-button is always a favourite when at half price - a fibreglass pencil easily removes the offending logo which is quickly hidden by the double shield part of G**W...........

Lode Star making a re-appearance............. Some nice new LNER and LMS items, and lots of modern (recent) diesels in multiple multi- colour schemes. But nothing new for GWR fans. And revival of the Bassett-Lowke name to sell some old favourites with added carbuncles - and re-branded as "Steam Punk"

Hornby's announcements look good for LMS and LNER fans. But Lode Star again already?? Nothing catches my eye in PO stock either. So I think my spending will be confined to DCC chips. And saving for 2021 when the retooled Saint, top-lights and other elusive GWR unicorns get announced.......................

Some of my older RTR steam power has had easy re-numberings because a fibreglass pencil took off the transfer to leave a flat cab side. However as detail improved, RTR manufacturers firstly added a lip to cabside numbers ( easy to carefully carve off) but now we are into full number plate mouldings. I struggled with one of the recent Hornby 2271 offerings, and luckily my sins can be hidden. However I have a Heljan 47XX in the cabinet and a set of brass plates, and an air of trepidation hangs over them. The Heljan number is indeed a full "plinth" as opposed to just an edge to flick off with the flexed tip of a scalpel. This flexed blade technique doesn't work with more solid items. And a fully flat blade to "shave off" the plinth is a non starter due to cabside details (rivets etc) and edges on panels, such as the "C" cut outs. Any tips tricks or advice please. Thanks in advance.

The GWR part of your spreadsheet also needs to include "Austerity Brown", "Lake", bufferbeam red, axlebox blue and the other shade of loco Green. "Austerity Brown" is a moveable feast however as most now believe it was mixed approximately on the day and therefore can vary a bit. But it is at the orange end of the brown scale.

I would add that the legendary RAF Kinloss MRC Halford's spray paint chart is now so woefully out of date: many of the colours listed haven't been available for 5 years, and quite a few of the "matches" are a long way off what we now accept as accurate. The original chart was written about 15 years ago if not older. Be very careful if offered this as a solution.

Humbrol 67 is great for GWR grey. And if you get a copy of the Humbrol "catalogue/chart" on the flip side there is a comparability chart showing what Humbrol colours match other brands (Revell, Tamiya etc). So this then gives very close shades by buying the Revell equivalent. Close shades are ideal because unless your wagons all came out of the works at the same time, colours faded. So paint some wagons in the "alternate colour". Also wooden wagons and vans often had repairs to single planks or multiple planks which got a local patch paint. So carefully pick out these planks or whole doors in a darker "fresher" colour shade. I use the same tactic with GW Coach Brown. By using Railmatch Coach Brown, Pheonix Coach Brown and a couple of Humbrols (98 Matt Chocolate is one example) you get a very varied (and prototypically correct) variably shaded train. Some colours are not available in the standard Humbrol range: GWR green ( old or later versions) for example. For GWR and BR(W) buildings there are some spot on equivalents for the "cream" and "red/brown" for buildings and also for the blue engineer's bricks: don't have my list to hand - but the info is on this site somewhere.

I agree with John above. Brake fluid followed by a warm soapy water bath and then a cold water rinse is always my choice. Found it works better than IPA. But don't do this on Bachmann plastics, and remove all steel ( handrails, buffers etc). Brake fluid will rapidly rust up anything steel content.

Forgot to add the photo of the accessories bag: Vac pipes, spreader bar, hook and chain x 4, ladder and the operating knob, with the magnet in the end.

After what seems an eternity, the Bachmann Steam Crane (45T Ransomes and Rapier) has arrived. No 16 was the Old Oak Crane and hence will often be passing or stabled at NC. Not cheap at north of £200 but it really is as discribed elsewhere, the most detailed RTR model I have ever seen. Not normally one for "box openings" or reviews, but this deserves it. The accessories pack comes with hooks and coupling chains for use as a static model, as well as vac pipes. Also in the accessories bag are two circular boiler ends - these cover the "workings" where the detach-able knob goes when you wish to raise and lover the jib or the hook in "play" mode. And what is even more ingenious is the fact that the "knob" has a magnet on it to enable you to pop out the boiler caps - no need to pick away with pins to pop them out. This wasn't mentioned in the instructions which I find odd. (Or did I miss it?) The Stokes Bogies are fitted in a very finely modeled and clever way. Not as "blunt" as the Hornby method. Not only does the chimney flip over form "storage/run" mode to "operating" mode, but the operator's cab roof raises and lowers too. The legs slip in and out - no surprise there. On the match truck / jib runner the rest plate which the hook lies on in transit actually slides transversely, just as the real one would. Small details but perfection!!!! In the above photo I have laid out the block/hook assembly incorrectly - it should sit flipped back towards the boiler and down into the pocket you see under the frame of the match truck. There are decals all over the crane body and they are highly detailed. But they are only "2d" Bachmann have also supplied "3d" equivalents in the form of "cast" plates. Just add a tiny dod of PVA and it's "detailed". In a lovely Youtube video from GW days at OOC, there is a clip of ( I think) a mogul marshaling the breakdown train. The link used to be on Robin's ANTB but I couldn't find it tonight. There was no match truck shown with the crane, but instead an Open C with the lettering "Crane 16" , hence why a while back I modified and re-lettered an Open C to run with this set up. I may substitute it for match truck but then i may add it as the means of carrying more dunnage, the spreader bar, the extra ladder and a pile of extra coal. I bought, mended, "improved" and sold a whole pile of things in order to pay for this. To make £200 extra on second hand train stuff takes some effort - but I have to say - it really is worth it. One day i will do the cameo I often thought about while reading the GWR Wagons bible as a young teenager. The inspiration comes from the CROCODLIE L pages with the spare "body" on Dean bogies. My mind often wondered how it would look with a steam crane and a body swap going on...... Happy New Year!

Thanks for the advice on the miniZimos John. I will keep an eye out for those in the Spring. Soldering has never been my strong point, so soldering chips to a split chassis loco isn't filling me full of excitement to be honest. I do appreciate your DCC advice - it's far simpler to understand that loads of folk on the DCC pages.

I'm 23 in my head and have been for a very long time............ I can live without new Prairies - my two Airfix ones are nicely detailed and seriously low mileage. I may reconsider when I look at putting a chip in them tho - any advice? However Moguls......... I do have 4 and that's a lot of pocket money to replace. But John has already put the frighteners on me with regard to chipping them........ Perhaps sell them in Spring and do some fund raising................

I hope you all had a nice day yesterday. 2019 has been a good year for new models - especially "BIG" ones: Railgun, Warwell and Warflat, although I didn't subscribe to a Warflat. Plus I sourced a CROCODILE L. And now I have a request for funds for another large model: the steam crane is imminent, which I'm pleased about. Plenty of good private owner models released this year too. I hear that there are some good releases on the way for 2020: I'm interested in a 6 wheeler coach as a S&T crew van, and the 94XX of course. Not sure about the rest. Stay warm and dry.

Hardy Hobbies no longer do the 10 pack, however if you order 5 packs they will try not to repeat any of the figures.

Those AC Stadden ones are great - infinite number of poses. I've done filing and sculpting to the limit of my skills and they look a bit samey. I have crew from the RAF, gangers, Luftwaffe and some re-worked "Joe Public" - I think they were Airfix. I will check out Hardy Hobbies - thanks for the tip.