MPR

In the light of the comment above, the linked website makes fascinating reading. https://www.statelytrains.com/vintage-railway-carriages-cinderellas-or-saviours.shtml#balmoral - one of their projects was featured on this TV series https://www.channel4.com/programmes/great-rail-restorations-with-peter-snow/on-demand/65794-004

Alternatively, MJT do white metal 7’ bogies. I’d always use these as cosmetic sides with their CCU’s - but these need some soldering in their assembly.

https://youtu.be/I781itRPJH8

Electric vans are unlikely to kick or bite you though.

I saw an interview with the CTO of Arrival, who made the point that the whole setup of a distribution centre will change with BEVs. He thought that one source of efficiency would be that on arrival, the driver could leave the van to complete their paperwork whilst the van would trundle off and park itself. Similarly, I suspected that automatic plugin would be much simpler in this controlled environment. (I could also imagine that parcels vans that could auto drive at very slow speeds would make the delivery persons’ life much easier when out on the round)

I’m working on a few of these at the moment - I reckon that the Colletts in particular scrub up quite nicely as layout coaches. The main thing to know is that the very oldest (Mainline) are the best - the tooling was modified early on for better stability - the windows on later (and current) releases are shallower than they should be. The B set coaches really do need a lot more work if you are picky , everything below the sole bar is more or less fictional, the bogies are poor, the buffer beam & buffers are wrong, there’s an extra window where there shouldn’t be and the door handles are the wrong types. One advantage of this type is that there is laser glaze available - this will sort the prismatic effect and provide a filler for the extraneous window. Even for basic detailing, I’d definitely swap out for proper coach buffers at the outer ends of the set as Johnster suggests. Painting the interior makes a big difference too - I simply sprayed my interior brown and brushed enamel for the seats - the windows on a B set are pretty small!

If you are happy to reletter it: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/311657482482?hash=item48903bc8f2:g:L8YAAOSwoEFb~pzy (technically, it is the same livery..!) If you are going the High Level route, you will also need the cylinders too. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/312969718962?hash=item48de72ecb2:g:ewoAAOSwm1deLrUK

In the summer of 2018, we holidayed at Tanygrisiau in a small cottage just below the FR railway station. Walking north from here takes you up to the remnants of the Cwmorthin Tramway - where there are still rails in-situ in places. Cwmorthin water falls - the inclined plane up from the Ffestinog Railway ran to the east of here. The stark remnants of Wrysgan Quarry. The exit tramway runs through the centre of this photo, just above Llyn Cwmorthin It then ran to the west of the lake up to Conglog quarry The tramway was abandoned just before the Second World War, but had been largely unused for years before. Lengths of rail and sleepers are visible on the side of the path. The tramway heads for the remains of the mill and ancillary buildings - a further inclined plane exits, stage left.

Just done one of these for a friend using the Narrow Planet kit and additional custom parts.The kit went together well, but I had a mysterious short which eventually went away - without knowing intervention on my part. The lining was done with the Modelmaster 2mm BR mixed traffic sheet - this is right at the limits of printing accuracy (and my ability to get them on straight), as can be seen in the rather cruel closeups. It was decided that the cab was too bare, so I passed the stripped shell back - it returned with the cab support neatly milled away and with a nicely designed and printed backhead. I added a brass hand wheel to this.

Hi John PPD will etch steel in a range of grades https://ppdltd.com https://ppdltd.com/images/2020/2020-stock-metal-info_2.pdf Also Precision Micro. https://www.precisionmicro.com/stainless-steel-etching/ (PM me if you want help drawing up the artwork) Best Wishes Martin

Snailbeach shed - the rails are just visible in the turf

Snailbeach District Railways

I used https://www.cutplasticsheeting.co.uk/product-category/browse_by_material/pvc-foamex-board/ for the backscenes for Torre - they cut it all to size for me. It's a fair bit lighter than plywood, but don't mistake it for the foam-cored card materials you can buy at Hobbycraft -it is much denser and more damage resistant. I also have a stock pre-cut for a lighting bar /pelmet in the "round-tuit" pile. I am going to make this as inverted "u" shape in two pieces each 4' long - in my case I will be using the name board to hide the join! It cuts very cleanly and can be drilled and pinned well enough to allow box sections to glued together effectively. Take a look at Re6/6 and 10800's posts on Balcombe to see this material being used on a larger scale!

The Guardian is reporting similarly - I've seen suggestions that a combination of increased supply of the AZ vaccine and first deliveries of new vaccines following additional approvals will more or less double the daily rate starting from next week. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/03/all-uk-adults-could-get-covid-vaccine-dose-by-june-if-supply-speeds-up

Should be here later https://www.uahirise.org/releases/mars-2020/

How many of the allocation were at works for overhaul? How many were on loan? How many were stopped away? And lastly, how many were out at work at any given time of the day? I’d build one of each class/variant/livery that fits the location and you fancy building and take it from there.

The last time I saw it, the “Great Western” lettering was clearly still present under the painted over green, so it is only a “really good clean” away from being in that livery right now!

The view from Berry Head as dusk fell on the last day of 2020. HMS Severn Zaandam and Marella Explorer 2 Plus their sister ships Volendam And Marella Explorer respectively. QM2 was flanked by Azura, Arcadia and Ventura

Yes please!

Glad to see you’ve sorted the camera settings out. The D80 remains a really nice, usable camera even today, my father-in-law has used one for many years, only recently adding a D7200 to his bag. I had the same 10 megapixel sensor in a Sony A100 and got a lot of good images from it - neither of these cameras does well above 400ISO though. One thing to remember is that ISO isn’t a real thing with digital cameras, there are photons landing on each pixel and then gain (amplification) is applied to the photo current that is generated. The cleanliness of the output signal is then dependent on the intrinsic and largely fixed noise of the sensor element plus any non-idealities in the amplification chain. If there is little light falling on the subject, either because the overall light levels are low, or part of the subject is dark, the noise will tend to dominate. Putting it another way, setting to ISO 100 and under exposing by one stop may give identical results to exposing correctly at ISO 100. As another poster commented, more light is usually better!

For those who are unaware of a relatively recent relevant story http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3845 https://www.internationalsteam.co.uk/tales/belgiumtales01.htm

Another locomotive with an emigrated sister http://www.australiansteam.com/1033.htm

With regards to the Frenchmen, go to https://www.martynbane.co.uk/2003Trips/AlsaceLorraine/museum2.htm and look closely at Nord 2.670.

What about a British prototype fireless steam locomotive for the poll next year? Definitely quirky, maybe even a contender for a conventional wish-list?