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dibber25

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Everything posted by dibber25

  1. No, nothing from RAILS, just a notification from bank that a payment had been taken.
  2. My account has been debited and that's the only thing I have on order from RAILS. (CJL)
  3. I think the above is pretty ruthless dismantling of at least half a century of 'OO' layout building by some hundreds of modellers. There's really just two types of GWR branchline layouts - the slavishly accurate representations of a particular place at a particular moment in its railway history and the fantasy layouts that don't claim to be anything else other than how someone dreams a place that he dreamt up might have been. Neither is more valid than the other and something is only 'inappropriate' if its on a layout that is claimed to be an accurate representation of a real place and really shouldn't be. The WR branch line terminus has been my first love since I 'discovered' Fairford closed and derelict in the early 1960s but it was the fictitious GWRBLTs that first attracted me to model WR branch lines, (K's 14XX + auto trailer AND diesel railcar. And yes, Fairford, Tetbury, Staines all had the goods shed/cattle dock/engine shed/coaling stage/water tower etc just as described as did lots of others- true Fairford's loop wasn't in the station platform and it also had a turntable. (CJL)
  4. But St.Ives only had one through Paddington train - at least in BR times - it was only only on summer Saturdays and was in fact the whole CRE apart from a couple of through coaches that went on to Penzance. The rest of the time the branch had its own non-corridor stock, trains being strengthened at peak times with extra coaches but simply running back and forth to the main line. Unlike the SR with its through coaches to branch termini , the Western ran comparatively few through trains to minor branch lines and passengers changed trains at the junction station. Windsor & Eton Central had only one through Paddington train in the morning and evening peaks, as, I believe did Henley on Thames although Henley may have had one or two workings through to Reading General. (CJL)
  5. Yes, old age - memory isn't what it was. (CJL)
  6. Way back, in Steam World - probably 1990s, I interviewed the driver who brought Lion from Westbury every day. Afraid to say I can't remember his name but Simon Carstens knows who it was and has noted it elsewhere on RMweb on one of the many threads relating to this movie. The digitally enhanced version now available on Prime is well worth a look. (CJL)
  7. A genuine reviewer will want to give a product a favourable review if it is possible to do so. If one gets an apparent 'dud' (and it does happen from time to time) then I would expect to contact the supplier for a replacement. The review would then be a distillation of the two models, pointing out that there were issues with one (hopefully not both) of them. (CJL)
  8. We did fold-out cards of both carriage roof boards and a huge array of signs and posters more recently in Model Rail. I don't have the dates of the issues concerned, though I did keep a couple of the sheets for my own use. I guess they were about 15 years ago. They were much more comprehensive than the MRC ones (although I'll readily admit that I copied the idea) and it took me ages to compile enough to fill the sheet. They were mainly 'OO' but there were some 'N' and 'O' examples, too. (CJL)
  9. And the Peterborough Arena has just won a major award for the best venue over 8,000sq.m for its Covid-related management of events. The garden railway show was a well-handled, well-spaced event but you're right PA isn't the NEC and the Garden Rail show is very different from Warley. It does give hope, though, that the right event in the right venue can work in spite of Covid. (CJL)
  10. Scale drawings (we shouldn't have called them 'plans') have always been a problem as far as I was concerned as an Editor. Firstly, you need a reliable, accurate, draughtsman to produce the drawing. Sad to say, many of them weren't. The notable exception were those from Paul Bartlett and his colleagues, which were always reliable. I had a drawer in my office, full of 'plans'. Some had been there for many years. They included the originals of the Roche drawings, all of which had been published in books, and the originals of the Bulleid coach drawings which subsequently appeared in a book. The Bulleid coaches were drawn on a type of film which was disintegrating with age and they were literally crumbling to dust. There were lots of others, on paper, that could have been used in MRC but their accuracy was in doubt. Occasionally I would publish one, only to have its accuracy shot down in flames by knowledgable readers, the moment it appeared in print. I recall some drawings of the Liverpool Overhead Railway stock. I particularly wanted to publish them but a quick look at some photographs showed obvious discrepancies. I don't think I ever used them. So, one came to rely on newer contributors whose work was known to be reliable. But, the budget never allowed for them to be paid the commercial value of their work. Basically, they had to have done the drawing for their own benefit and to be willing to accept whatever the mag could afford to pay for a one-off use. Of course, if the drawing had been commissioned and the copyright was owned, it could be repeated as many times as one wished. In the case of Model Rail's original fold-out drawings, they were part of the launch strategy and they were all by the late R.S. Carter, whose family had agreed to their use. We used most everything that was available but when the stock of drawings ran out, the fold-outs were dropped as commissioning new drawings was prohibitively expensive and willing, accurate, draughtsmen with the right research material were difficult to find. I hope this provides a bit of useful background. Editors seldom do things on a whim and there are good reasons why few drawings are now published - not least the fact that there are fewer and fewer scratch-builders who need them. I do still have a book of Midland Railway wagon drawings (GAs) that I acquired somewhere along the way. I've never published any because they don't carry enough detail for modelling use. I built one of my only two scratch-built locos based on a magazine drawing (not naming the mag or the draughtsman) but it was lucky I noticed that the drawn cab-door cut-out was the wrong shape before I started filing brass! (CJL)
  11. Thanks to everyone for your kind comments. A lot has happened since the end of MRC - the original 1963 team are all still around but its sad that Steve Stratten passed away some years ago - he was 90-something, though. The 1963 team - David Percival, Alan Williams and Colin Gifford, and me, last got together way back when Colin's postage stamps were launched but I've corresponded with David since then in connection with Steam World. My Black Dog Halt layout, which I was building in the final issues of MRC is now, in truncated form, in Chippenham Museum, I believe. I tend to think of Model Rail as a continuation of MRC as I was able to do with MR many of the things I couldn't do with MRC. Times do move on, though, and sadly things like scale drawings are no longer practical in a monthly mag. In the meantime I've just built a OO9 circuit so I can test an L&B loco and complete a model of Bratton Fleming station. Who ever thought we'd see ready-to-run L&B locos and kits for L&B buildings? (CJL)
  12. This was taken quite a few years ago and I wasn't quite sure where I was so I'll caption it as what I think it is. A brace of Southern Railway of BC (Washington Group) switchers (SW900s?) head a long train of triple-deck auto-racks over the bridge to Annacis Island (over the Fraser?). From memory they approached across the street but I missed that shot due to having to change the camera battery at the wrong moment. (CJL)
  13. I don't think I said that an injection moulded model wouldn't be viable but if I did, that's not what I meant to say. Anything can be viable if you can get enough people to buy enough at a high enough price. That, I suspect is largely why most wagon models are now being sold in multi-packs - in order to squeeze a bit more margin. Tooling costs are now VERY high but there are ways they can be justified. A couple of years ago Rapido said that making freightcars was no longer viable due to manufacturing costs. However, later, they found that freightcars were a useful item to manufacture in the gaps between locos, when assembly lines would otherwise be idle. Costs have also been pushed up by the need to make a new chassis for virtually every model in order to satisfy the requirement for accurate detail for every variation. I wonder who will make the most from their model - a precise Iron Mink to 21st century standards with every detail spot-on, or the Hornby-Dublo/Wrenn/Dapol dynasty that put GWR gunpowder van bodies on a generic chassis, pretended they were Iron Minks and made them in every known livery and a few invented ones? (CJL)
  14. Having been inside it, there is nothing whatever inside the body - it could be made into quite a nice meeting room! The worst of the rust or rot, as might be expected, is in the lower sides and the rounded bottom 'edge' has largely disappeared and would need complete replacement with new steel formed to shape. I'm afraid it reminds my of my 1960 Hillman Minx - Rootes Rot - from which there was no recovery. But 18000 was made from rather thicker metal. I'm afraid, unless someone comes along with cash and manpower 18000 will quietly rust away. (CJL)
  15. In the end, you can only go on gut feeling and what the economics dictate. As I haven't undertaken a four-wheel van project I can't answer your questions but tooling and production costs for rolling stock are very high at present and that makes the 3D print process an attractive option.
  16. I photographed one in Kidderminster yard - approximately where the SVR ticket hall now is - in 1966 or 1967. From memory it had no markings on it and obviously hadn't moved for a very long time. If I can find the photo, I'll scan it. I wouldn't have done this as a limited production. Should sell like hot cakes and a much better bet than the (similar) gunpowder van, in my view. (CJL)
  17. Of course, there was the 'incident' in which the Class 33-hauled Fawley-Bromford Bridge was bisected by an LMR '8F' coming off Didcot shed. (CJL)
  18. I don't know of a preserved 121 or 117 in anything like original (or restored original) condition, particularly inside. They were refurbished - extensively - and pretty much everything inside got changed or painted over. The 122 at Buckfastleigh has, probably, the best external restoration, as all the later stuff, high-intensity lights etc has been removed. I don't know what its like inside. However, most preserved railways opt to retain the later fittings and work the old-style liveries around them. (CJL)
  19. Yes, that's pretty much how I remember them. Terracotta lino on the floor? Big dark green Loudaphone mounted on the side of the driver's seat. I think it got moved or removed later. (CJL)
  20. They were done by A.N. Wostenholme, who did a lot of work for BR at the time. I had some of his original artwork in a plans chest in my office at one time. There's a fabulous colour poster of all the 'new' BR locos in the 1950s - the Standards plus the gas turbines, 10000 etc which he also did. A personal favourite is the AC railbus he did for the Tetbury/Cirencester branch posters and flyers.
  21. The BSK weighs 830gm. I weighed one recently for a review. (CJL)
  22. Would be nice to have a ready-to-run 0-6-0 tender loco of some sort. Wasn't it the most common wheel arrangement in the UK? (CJL)
  23. Exactly! Unfortunately there's none so blind as those who WILL NOT see.
  24. That is awful. A while since I've been there and scarcely recognisable. Looks like the public footpath beside the railway south of the crossing has been obliterated. Those new-build apartments are on what was a used car lot. North of the crossing I guess the Heathrow fuel sidings have been disused throughout the pandemic as there won't have been many flights. I think the fuel trains only supplemented what went in via pipeline anyway. Here's a couple of Colnbrook shots to enjoy. The Colas 60 is assembling the empty tanks and was taken about 4 years ago from the A4 Bath Road bridge. The cab view was from an up train held at the signal, I think, to await crossing the down working of the morning through train to Paddington. (CJL)
  25. Had some slides scanned recently and couldn't resist posting this one, taken at Lillooet on the British Columbia Railway in 1981. The chop-nosed Alco and single passenger car formed the morning school train for indigenous children from Seton Portage. They would return home on the southbound regular passenger train. The coach (heated by a log-burner which w3asn't necessary in the 95deg heat when I was there) was named Budd Wiser, a gentle poke at the line's regular passenger RDCs. (CJL)
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