E3109

Cheers dude. What's interesting is that ever since I started this project, my 'modelling mojo' for it has never abated, not even once. I've got an absolute shed load of Asian stuff to do and as you can imagine, most of it involves scratch building and so on. Asian railway modelling is my other passion but I'm more than happy to put that on the back burner right now, in order to see the Reddish thing through to completion.

I've just got home from the Horwich Collectors' fair, met an old friend who is aware of what I'm doing. He's built his own model in low relief, and rather impressive it is too. He's a draughtsman by trade, thus he has a good eye for detail. Anyway unbeknown to me, he'd brought along his end elevation drawing of RS at 4mm/ft and gave it to me. I was absolutely dreading the comparison but I'm truly buzzing now, my Lego frame matches his drawing almost exactly. I'm at the stage where Slater's brick plasticard is being added to certain positions. The difference it makes when the Lego is disguised, well I'm a pretty average modeller but it's really starting to look the part now. I'd recommend the use of Lego and/or its derivatives to anyone who's minded to use foam board instead. It keeps its shape, and stays square whatever you throw at it. A Brucie Bonus today was picking up an absolutely mint Triang EM2 for just £65, no pan damage, tipped off by my mate, cheers Ian. I'm doing a bit of work on this project tonight, hope to post some more pics over the next few days. Cheers E3109

Cheers for that Simon. Just something I was reading in the union notice case the other day, it may be something to do with a proposed resignalling, rather than the current one? Not been to BTM for years, so I can't really add anything, thanks again.

I remember when BR was being ring fenced into business units, one of the shadow FOCs wanted royalties for using their logo on models. It was either Loadhaul or Mainline, the latter I think.

The clipped form of grammar is the Americanism I was referring to, nothing to do with traps as such, the word 'point' in this phrase means 'position' rather than 'turnout'. As in, the fouling point is the point at which a train would be foul of an adjacent line. Or would it be fouling?

Kids are so fickle these days, aren't they. If the Internet killswitch were ever pulled, I imagine that many of our youngsters simply could not function. My generation, well we'd just go down the woods, make some rope swings, be RA all night and then maybe Nick a few pints of milk off doorsteps on the way home.

1. Tell her it's her fault for requesting such an impractical colour. 2. If (1) fails then get rid. 3. Www.emirates.com offer flights to the Far East from just £449. 4. Whole new set of rules there and kiss half your pension and assets goodbye. Ps pinch of salt etc..l

Hiya bud. I almost included the phrase 'calling on' but I assume the signalling grades may point out a potential inaccuracy. But in a nutshell yeah, serves the same function.

The US habit of altering verbs to nouns, such as 'Foul Point' rather than 'Fouling Point'. Gets my goat that, mind you the term 'sparking plug' sounds rather quaint, even to my ears. Still, it could be worse. And it is. 'Da Yoof' seem to be replacing the word 'feelings' with 'feels'. FEELS, ffs! Thanks a lot, Katy Perry and any number of talentless, caterwauling no-marks who got lucky. PS.... '#1' in lieu of 'No1'. I fear we're fighting a losing battle here. Or maybe that should be 'a lose battle'.

Incidentally re 86501/86608. If anyone requires a detailed shot of the engine's extra sandbox let me know on here, and I'll snap it next time it's on the yard. Photos are on Flickr etc but more than happy to get close up shots of it.

...which, you'd think, would be the way around it. I'm no lawyer (clearly!) but my limited understanding of copyright and/or patents is that you can copyright/patent an actual design, but not an idea. It's quite possible I'm combining copyright and patent into the same notion, and perhaps erroneously. But am I right, or wrong, in saying that the Awdry family weren't the only ones in history to give engines human characteristics, including faces? Interesting points you raise there Phil and surely the 'moral argument' is that the notion of faces on trains cannot be copyrighted? That said, I'm well aware that morals and courts are mutually exclusive from time to time. Which came first, the chicken or the egg, or in the example I used, was Met Vic around before Gullane and its successors existed.

The copyright owners of the brand have been pretty ruthless in the past, ever since the Awdry family sold the rights. I'm sure many on here will remember when Gullane kicked off with the owners of 'Stepney the Bluebell Engine' and were told in no uncertain terms to go forth and multiply. Thomas is (was) an institution, I was brought up on it and can I just say it was a sight more accurate when the Awdry clan held sway. I welcomed the tv series initially, but the last straw was when Thomas had to be dragged and his wheels weren't even going round. The Reverend would never have allowed such misrepresentation. Put it this way, if I was part owner of D5705, I'd be sticking a face on it occasionally and to hell with their whines. As the Fat Controller said (book 23 I think?) "This engine, is a Metropolitan Vickers, diesel electric, Type 2."

A subsidiary signal, basically gives authority to proceed past a red main aspect but at caution as the section may be occupied. Imagine there is a unit occupying the block section, and you are the driver of another unit that needs to enter the section in order to couple to it. If there were no sub, then the signalman would have to give the driver verbal authority to pass the danger aspect. In layman's terms, a GPL mounted on the signal post and associated with that signal. Incidentally there is currently a right kick off at Bristol TM, as apparently the new signalling system does not have subs but instead NR are proposing that trains can enter the section on one yellow even it is occupied. Aslef have kicked off about this, and rightly so. It's a blatant contravention of Network Rail's own rule book and is asking for trouble.

Posted this to give an idea of size. Just over 5ft long. I was minded to do it in half relief, with a mirror in lieu of a backscene. Too late now! Wilko's and Asda must love me, with all the copy Lego I've bought recently

Originally I was only going to use red Lego bricks, to get a feel for what the building would finally look like. Two things put paid to that, availability of red bricks, and more importantly it's much easier to make adjustments when the bricks are in random colours. None of the Lego will be visible eventually, or hardly any. What a difference a bit of Slater's brick styrene makes. Here's just one small part of the depot, the sanding tower, before and after. Still some work to do on that of course, but I hope this gives an idea.

Here are some of my initial musings in 3D. Taken a few months ago. It's progressed much further than this now, but still a long way to go. One of the photos depicts the end elevation, with another smaller one on top of it. There's a story there! The smaller one was to give some idea of construction, it was put together at what I thought was approximate size, but without having access to drawings or dimensions. Only a mock up, but shows how far out you can be. Quite surprised at that as my guesstimations aren't usually too far out. Only when I started counting bricks on photos did I realise I'd underestimated the width by a hefty margin. None of these Lego forms were used in the end, as further tweaks to the dimensions were necessary. Post edited to rotate the pics the right way up.

I haven't posted on RMweb all day , purely because I was at the ELR for the Class 40 60th bash. But luckily for me, I managed to bag a set of three OO Graham Farish pre-grouping compos there for £12 each (with a bit of discount too). When I did some further research I realised that although they are the perfect start for one of these sets, they are in fact approx a foot short. If I could live until 200 years old I'd probably fret about it. But I won't, thus time to get stuck in. Same reason as I'm happy with OO! Life's too short to be worrying about whose name is cast into bullhead chairs...

Bit of a tangent but thought I'd share this. A few years ago one of my guard mates at Wallgate Depot (Northern) had standing time at Preston. An old dear turned up for a VT service, for whatever reason she couldn't buy a ticket at Preston booking office. Queues I think. So she did the honourable thing and approached the VT guard, and requested a ticket at normal fare. The guy was clearly a drone for he laid the law down to her. Luckily my mate witnessed it all. He sold her a ticket for her journey and the VT guard went ballistic, claiming he couldn't do that and so on. Er, he just did! Stick that in your pipe ! So happy that there are people on Our Railway who still care.

VT's preference in using the term 'train manager' when the Rule Book is very clear that the correct term is 'Guard '.

Well I thought it was about time I started a thread on this, seeing as I've been at it on and off since New Year. I *think* this is the right place for this thread but if not, Mods please relocate as appropriate. Anyway. Reddish. Lego is the chosen medium. It's progressing well, work permitting. Looking forward to posting the pics over the next few weeks or months.

As much as I loved BR it certainly wasn't without its faults. We need a unified railway for sure, if only to reinstate the command structure we had before because as it is, all we ended up with is various factions with vested interests kicking off with each other in a multitude of control rooms. Doesn't matter if it's public or privately owned, when overall control was lost it all went a bit FUBAR and we need railway people in charge rather than lawyers acting on behalf of the operators. Obviously in 1969 BR didn't want to be embarrassed by a private upstart. It's been mentioned before that people who cared about the route were happy to put their money where their mouth is, acquiring NBL class 29s and so on to run the service. I imagine that one reason the Waverley Route was ripped up with indecent haste, is simply because BR didn't want to be shown up in a bad light by newcomers who, more than likely would've made a fine job of it.

When the phrase 'any more' is written as a single word. It may be acceptable usage these days, but it still irks. Never mind, we may all find ourselves vaporised by this time next week

I just had a thought. The compartment roof panels are translucent fibreglass on 87s and 86s. I wonder if you can see any light through them at night, if the corridor lighting is on. And if so, is there anyone brave enough to model it? Manufacturer or purchaser.

Hi Thunderforge, great topic this. Many moons ago I worked in a tin can factory, and had access to as many sheets of plate as I wanted. Never took the opportunity, but your thread has reminded me. The 'tinplate' came in various forms depending on the food or beverage that it was destined for. Long time ago now but as I recall, different types of plate served different uses. Most of it was steel (sometimes plated, sometimes not) and there was also aluminium. What all these had in common was that at least one side was lacquered, I think the norm was both sides but the lacquer varied. Again, depending on its intended use. For example, Coke would presumably be more acidic than baked beans, thus a different lacquer was used. I'm intrigued to find out if the plate you have access to is lacquered or sealed in some way. Obviously if it is, this would affect soldering and perhaps paint and adhesives, although clearly it also offers corrosion protection (and especially so if it were steel). Hope that's of use.

Hoping to get a pair in a bit, as per my docket. Bet I don't though! Been bowled out on a few diagrams that show 2x86/6 of late. Mind you as they're undergoing a mini refurb programme it's understandable. As 47079 says, 90s slip like buggery when it's wet. 86s will slip too but not to the same extent, and being the lovely old-school ladies that they are, will tend to give you a clue they're about to play up by making grumbling and/or whiny noises beforehand... "You've got to talk to them", as one of my colleagues says. And I do haha. Just as an aside, 86608 still retains the extra sanding kit that it received during its 'Christine' days. There's an extra, external sandbox which is rather large and visible, something modellers may want to take note of. Cheers E3109