dibber25

The model on the video isn't a finished sample, its just plain matt black. We are getting some other, non-powered, samples painted and lettered. The powered sample has just completed its third day of test running with the short train of wagons and is so far faultless. It does stall at slow speed on the long plastic frog of Hornby's curved points but I can't see a way round that, as the plastic frog is actually longer than the wheelbase of the loco. The £80-£100 price bracket quoted above is, as far as I know, a guess by one of the posters above. It is not a price bracket issued by Model Rail, as far as I am aware. We currently have no price worked out because the model is still under development and we don't yet know the final cost to us. We plan to price the model as keenly as we can but all matters related to pricing models from the Far East are very fluid at present. CHRIS LEIGH

I have no idea if this will work, but I've uploaded a small piece of video shot on Ben's phone. CHRIS LEIGH IMG_0057.MOV

Btw did you ever find out where that trestle bridge was located in the Railway Children movie? (quote) No. One or two good suggestions but no one seems really certain. Think I'm going to play with the Sentinel for five minutes. CHRIS LEIGH

....and now the official version: First powered Sentinel model received Dear All, We’re delighted to report that further pre-production samples of our ‘OO’ gauge Sentinel 4wVBT have arrived from China, including the first motorised model. Unpainted samples of the GWR, LNER and BR have arrived for approval, and will be displayed on Model Rail’s stand at the Warley National Model Railway exhibition at the NEC, Birmingham on November 20/21. We’re also hoping to have a couple of hand-painted samples for you to examine. The body and chassis tooling (slightly revised from engineering prototype 1) has now been completed and ‘locked down’ for production. Powered sample No. 1 is currently undergoing extensive running trials on our office test track, including endurance tests to ensure the motor and mechanism are robust enough to withstand 100 hours of running. So far, the model has passed all tests with flying colours, and surpassed our expectations in terms of haulage capacity and slow-speed running. On its first run, the model took 40 minutes to complete one 40ft circuit of a layout and hauled a train of 20 short-wheelbase coal wagons. Yesterday it also hauled a train of eight Hornby Mk 1 coaches – far more than the real thing would ever have been asked to do. As soon as we have photographs and video footage of the model in action, we’ll send out another update.

I've been on leave but I popped into the office today to find 5 Sentinels, one of which is the second engineering prototype, complete and operational. I think you're going to be impressed. I am! CHRIS LEIGH

Tools that are 50 years old - and a kit that Airfix always supplied in a box for better protection, no doubt.

I've been assisting Howes/Heljan as much as I can with railbus information. I think it's unlikely that the WMDs which went to Buxton would have got M prefixes. As far as I can tell none of the cars that went late to Scotland (ACs and Park Royals)had their prefixes changed. There are pictures of PRs in Scotland still with M on the side and certainly AC Cars W79976 still has its W prefixes visible without any sign that they were ever altered. I believe the Heljan model announced with an M prefix will, in fact, have the 'E'. However, I did suggest that a bit of modellers licence might allow them to put Buxton etc in the blind boxes even though its unlikely that the blinds got changed. If you look at pictures of the ACs running in Cornwall, they still show the Kemble destinations or nothing at all. Lots of pictures of railbuses in Scotland show them running with plain white - no blind at all - but I think it would be disappointing if Heljan chose not to put anything in the destination box. CHRIS LEIGH

I had my 1964 Sunbeam Rapier on my Black Dog Halt layout. It was actually painted with the Rootes 'Moonstone' touch-up paint which was all that I had left of the original car. Can't remember if I took the car off the layout before I passed it to Bentley MRG, or not. CHRIS LEIGH

They'll be blood and custard.

We want to carry out extensive testing of the mechanism before we press the green button for delivery. CHRIS LEIGH View Postdibber25, on 21 September 2010 - 21:52 , said: We have a very nice little Sentinel in the office, complete apart from the motor and gears. CHRIS LEIGH Err... For three days apart, aren't these two comments slightly contradictory - are you testing the motor/mechanism outside the body? (quote) Err - No. When I posted on 18/10 we hadn't received the sample and I was expecting it to contain a mechanism. When it arrived it didn't contain the motor, weight, gears, hence the post on 21 September. CHRIS LEIGH

Who says BR didn't run three Hawksworths in a row on expresses? (quote) Not so common by the time they had gone maroon but there are certainly pictures of the complete CRE as blood & custard Hawksworths, apart from the refreshment vehicle(s) which, of course, were earlier stock. Look for Maurice Earley shots around Reading with blue 'Kings' (18000, too) and you'll find rakes with more than three Hawksworths. CHRIS LEIGH

Part of the reason that the 'custard' is to dark may be because it is actually applied OVER the red and therefore needs to be pretty dense in order to cover the red. Try sanding the end of a Hawksworth and you'll find red under the black, too. Check out the TINY metal grab handles on the ends - the smallest I've seen on a OO model. Pity they've had to come off my slip coach conversion! CHRIS LEIGH

Looking back at GWR parcels stock - Part 2. (No. 30, April 2001). There's an Interesting photo of W314W, a Hawksworth full brake in lined maroon. (quote) Ah, yes, a feature by my good friend John Senior, of Mopok kits. By curious coincidence, I plunged into a crate of stored material yesterday and cam up with two printed sheets of Mopok Hawksworth sides. There's three vehicles in GWR livery and a full brake in BR blue, so Mopok didn't shrink from putting Hawksworths in GWR livery. My quest was for the instructions from their Dynamometer Car kit (which I found). That and the slip coach will enable me to have two Hawksworths in Western Region brown and cream. Incidentally, one of the slips lasted long enough to get lined maroon livery, and it ran in ordinary service after slipping had ceased. Two slips, one maroon the other brown and cream, were used out of Taunton on the Chard line, along with other Hawksworths and Colletts. CHRIS LEIGH

Yes, most of the WR secondary services had Hawksworths and Colletts in their final days. They could, and did, turn up almost anywhere. I recall a very lively ride up the Cotswold line from Oxford to Chipping Campden on an all stations stopper formed of two Hawksworths pulled by a Hymek. A few weeks earlier the loco had been 73000 and earlier still 6868. The 1.25pm (SO) Oxford-Moreton-in-Marsh, one of the 'great secrets' of the WR at the time. Most other locals on that line were DMUs. CHRIS LEIGH

Just taken a brake compo to bits in order to start turning it into a slip coach. The clips that hold the body on, are part of the glazing and the glazing provides the rigidity for the rather thin body shell. I won't attempt to remove the glazing as I've no real need, but it looks to be VERY firmly glued in. As the underframe is the same, I guess the full brake will have the same glazing/assembly arrangement, just fewer actual windows. A lot may depend on luck as to how much glue has been used on an individual model. I reckon Maskol on the windows is the least risky way. The assembly is a really tight clip fit - I used a sharp knife to ease the side out and slipped a small screwdriver in, levering gradually along the edge between body and solebar until one end suddenly came free. Even so, the other end proved near impossible and I broke one clip. Hope this helps. CHRIS LEIGH

I have yet to find a photo in my archive that show a train made up of just Hawksworth's, (quote) I doubt that you will. I've seen shots of the Cornish Riviera in late 1940s, early 1950s, showing an apparently uniform rake of blood and custard Hawksworths but even this must have had an old restaurant car because there were no Hawksworth refreshment vehicles. Certainly, when the CRE was turned over to chocolate & cream Mk1s, a Collett-era restaurant car was painted to match - and very few ex-GW vehicles received BR chocolate cream, apart from a few restaurant cars. CHRIS LEIGH

We have a very nice little Sentinel in the office, complete apart from the motor and gears. First public appearance will be at Model Rail Live at the weekend. No pics till after that. CHRIS LEIGH

No problem. The Sentinel isn't available for pre-order yet. We want to carry out extensive testing of the mechanism before we press the green button for delivery. Only once we've tested - and made any alterations - will the manufacturer be able to give us a price. Once we've got a price we'll be able to take orders, but expect it to be a while yet. CHRIS LEIGH

We've seen some pictures of the first engineering samples of the Sentinel and we're hoping to have them on display at Model Rail Live next weekend. CHRIS LEIGH

Hattons are showing the maroon third as "post 1953", (quote) I'm not sure that 'post-1953' applies to the livery. Several of the silver-painted samples which Simon had at the Kernow show were labelled 'post-1953' which suggests that its a detail difference in the moulding, although I don't know what that might be, and Simon wasn't around to ask. As to the 'S160', there's a current attempt to drum up enough interest to develop an RTR 'S160' in HO scale. Sadly there's not been a huge amount of interest - one would go nicely in my Alaska RR collection. CHRIS LEIGH

Personally, I doubt that the Cambridge system will ever open. The local buses have slogans on them, saying "When will I run on the busway?" What beggars belief is that the Luton-Dunstable scheme has got approval without waiting to see if the Cambridge shambles can be sorted out. It's a classic 21st (well 20th actually) century version of the atmospheric railway - a half-baked scheme that someone decided to build without really thinking the idea through. The only advantage it had was that it didn't need to use Cambridge's useless, badly sited, one-platform station. But then, as has been said, it DID need to use Cambridge's equally awful road system. And where did 'Two Jags' decide to build lots more houses?? You couldn't make it up! CHRIS LEIGH

Authors are usually working off 35mm transparencies (slides) and they're usually looking at them through a small magnifier or a 'linen tester'. It's very easy to make mistakes under those circumstances. I know, I've made a few. It isn't practical to use screens and projectors while you're working - indeed the slides might even be unmounted, as they would have to be later for scanning, and therefore couldn't be projected. CHRIS LEIGH