M.I.B

Nice to see a "less modelled" engine, especially when it is as well finished as this. Not one of the names most remembered for a Hall. Great choice.

Agree with JD: MG needs the snip. They would have been removed for most transports. Weathering is great. Comments if I may: Used armour tends to have a tinge of rust and earth/mud colour to the tracks - unless it's in a museum or bulled for the Colonel In Chief's Inspection* The outer band of the road-wheels (non toothed wheels) is actually a tyre of rock hard rubber. When new, this needs to be a "black with dirt and gunge" colour as opposed to body colour. However if the tank has had a quick lick of paint at the unit ( not the main workshops) it's not unheard of to get body colour paint on the rubber as seen above. If you want to add some real detail on a "used" tank, you could finish one or two of these wheels in a pristine green with new black tyre finish, to make it look like it had had a road-wheel change. And don't forget the correct way to chain: crossed chains - the WARWELL has some obvious lashing points, and the tank model will have too. *Always followed by drinks in the Sgts' Mess and a thoroughly good lunch in the Officers' Mess.

Used gun tanks returning for conversion: Bridgelayer AVRE ARRV

You are correct John. Snip away using the photo on ANTB as a guide - good photo frm T&A posted.

I have done exactly this - a couple of "All Over Browns" using a nice dull GWR brown (Phoenix or Railmatch) and also a lake Clerestory which I deliberately over-sprayed lightly with the "wrong" varnish and it has wrinkled very slightly. Add some weathering and hey presto - a nice world weary, piece of emergency stock. I would recommend the removal of the running boards on the bogies - as seen in Rob's coach photo. I used Xacto rail clippers and some Draper mini files. Doesn't take long and it is period correct for "old" clerestories in the 40s. A rule I have set myself is that no clerestories will be "Austerity Brown". By the "Austerity" period, I personally think that the likelihood of a service coach getting anything more than a patch paint is slim. (This is not based on fact but opinion/logic)

"For those of you watching in black and white the pink is just behind the blue............"

Just when I thought I couldn't justify one of Hattons new Project Genesis offerings........... lovely all brown 6 wheeler Mess van.............. Brown paint, made usually using pigments of green and red or black and red, would be subject to worse fading due to the cyano content of red, especially when not sealed by varnish. Add the fact that most "all brown" vehicles would not be at the top of the list for carriage washing, and you will soon get 500 shades of faded and matt dark brown. Austerity brown, with the orange lining would have been varnished and still pristine albeit grubby in your time frame. This is the brown which is more "milk" chocolate than "Bourneville"

All depends how "Ex works" it is Will. It it is going to be very grubby, go the whole hog and go for matt black. Euro Car Parts do a primer that is a lovely shade of very dark grey. Green tin I think. It looks great with 2 coats of that and a mist of matt black sprayed on from above from 3 feet.

Just home after a week in the middle East and a parcel was waiting for me. To say that I am pleased with the detail on this is an understatement: It comes in primer, with a removable transformer load and the "spare" low loader body/frame as well. It is beautifully manufactured as well as detailed. Look forward to seeing this finished and occasionally clogging the Up Relief at a sedate 20mph, behind a 28XX and TOAD with a second TOAD following. On Google's 21st birthday, I hope that you are happy and healthy and enjoying the rugby.

Cast iron lino-floor bumper used on the ceiling? And all the leaves picked up too I hope.

Like the saying goes: i support two teams...........

Back to UK for scrap, factory level upgrade (there was a super-sized workshop in Germany that did some serious deep repairs ( in Wetter?) And some units relocated to the UK brought their tanks with them, or if a unit gets a better model the old ones were usually relegated to the Yeomanry (TA) Plenty of reasons for armour coming back into Marchwood. There was no need for German based tanks to come back to play in the UK - exercises then and right up to the late 80s allowed you to literally roll over germans' fields and go where you liked - so why waste your time on a postage stamp like Salisbury plain when a Div exercise could start on the Dutch border and finish at the fence in the East? and they frequently did! I'm somewhat stunned to see the tanks in Calne photo again. No idea what they would have been doing anywhere near Calne with 5 x MBT. It's not on the Plain and there were no Army units close enough. Plenty of airfields..........

I couldn't possible support anything Russian out of principle Comrade. Smirnoff and Stolly are not Russian so I am content with that stance (: Georgians played well - but the St George link worries me a little............. So I may stick up for Samoa after all.

I'd rather not watch the rugby unless I change allegiance to the Soamoans..........

Other stereotypical things not generally correct for late GWR include: beige fuel tankers - silver, grey, black or PO colours in the 40s. 4 wheel milks - replaced by 6 wheelers County Tanks and 4-4-0 County engines whole trains of GW wagons Only "local" PO wagons - they were pooled and got everywhere. Conformity - black engines with green tenders, most trains were made of mismatched stock, in all brown, chocolate and cream, and Austerity Brown, often at the same time. Lined Express engines - the only lined Halls now seem to have been the "newfangled improved" ones. (There's a whole thread here just on that)

I have read in a couple of books (don't ask where tonight), and more than one place on RM Web that the offset corridors on TPO and TSO/ Supporting full brakes, were the product of spatial design and not security. Having done postal sorting, I can't see a central gangway working: the passageway down the coach would have to be off to one side to allow the sorters to work their pigeon holes whilst "collectors" and " deliverers" moved up and down behind them either taking away full pigeonholes or delivering bundles of unsorted. The film "Night Mail" shows all of this going on. Youtube has a few copies. Plus the bag mechanisms on the TPO would take up room when being prepared: an off set gangway would allow the business of moving bags into and out of the TPO and sorting to go on.

The six wheelers replaced churn traffic because it saved so much manpower. I'm not going to say "there was not a single churn shifted in 1947" because someone will turn out a picture of one being used in 1956, but in general, churn traffic was dead by then. SIPHON Gs also had drop down shelves which make them great for light bulky loads such as trays of flowers or fruit and veg. That's a typical cargo which din't like being stacked too high, so in a "G" with shelves you almost doubled the amount you could carry. So in the right season in the right region, you would have had an increase in that sort of traffic. There's the much quote Cornish broccoli season for example. Other regions had peaks at other times for other foodstuffs.

Check your dates on churn milk traffic and the use of SIPHONs to carry them. Plentiful in the 20s and 30s, but gone in the 40s. By then express milk was bulked into 6 wheelers (4 wheelers were also gone in the 40s) Parcels trains would likely have carried end plates, but postals would be open - sorted and un-sorted sacks of letter being moved into and out of the TSOs and TPOs as the letters were sorted on route. Parcels all going to one depot were more likely to be sealed into one van and not get sorted on route.

Little Town Flirt - Del Shannon

Funky Gibbon - The Goodies

I Only Want to be with You: Dusty or The Tourists

Some Girls - Racey

Stick It Out - Right Said Fred (with Fluff Freeman, Bernard Cribbins, Basil Brush, Peter Cook and Hugh Laurie on "vocals" and Jools on the Ivory)

Together in Electric Dreams - Gorgio Moroder