pete_mcfarlane

You can buy a Roxey kit safe in the knowledge that it can actually be built into an accurate model (and that you will enjoy building it).

Which is what tends to happen with people in specialist roles in small companies.

There was a problem with the buckeye auto-couplers fitted to one of the first batches of Southern suburban units in the 1920s, which were then removed and replaced with the centre buffer. This experience supposedly put Raworth (who was responsible for the design of EMUs) off using them.

Blood and Custard has more details: https://www.bloodandcustard.com/br-2epb.html

I'm still bemused as to why anyone would want to recreate a 210. It would be a fun novelty at diesel galas for a year or two, but that's about it.

I think the plan was for refurbished 3H(M) units to work Victoria - Uckfield portions after the East Grinstead line was electrified. The DEMU would work in multiple with the 4-VEP working to EG and they'd split or join at Oxted. 1111 was wired up so that it could work with DEMUs, but could be quickly altered to work in multiple with EMUs. The plan was to refurbish the remaining DEMUs to this standard, and then swap all of them over to the EMU compatible mode in a short period of time. None of this happened, presumably because of money, and 1111 ended up being banished to the Marshlink line with other oddball DEMUs.

Manufacturers getting together and deciding on who does what model would probably fall foul of anti-competitive practices laws. It would be seen as dividing up the market. So not something any business would want to do. So we get duplicate toy trains but protected from price fixing on more trivial things like petrol and food.

I guess the real problem with 313s (and other modern units) is the lack of buffers. With the 4-COR (or Mk1 based units) you can tow them around as hauled stock using any air braked loco (including a Nord 4-6-0 if you are the Nene Valley....). I don't know what you can do with a 313, except turn it into a cafe like the East Kent did with a 365.

I did 'The Ghost train' about 15 years ago - the script comes with extensive instructions on how to do the train effects, 1920s style. Nail laths to the stage in the wings and push a lawn roller over them (for the noise of the train moving), whilst somebody else opens and closes an oxygen cylinder to make the chuffing noises. "Great Scott! Bolshies!"

Now that is a nice model. You seem to have models of everything - are there any locos that you don't have a model of?

Interesting that you went for the S3/6 rather than the earlier S2/6 that generally seems to be regarded as better looking.

I know a P4 Midland modeller who reckons the Jidenco Midland kits were pretty good. I have a vague memory that they were from somebody else's range that Jidenco acquired. My own experiences are limited to wagons - a LMS wagon that came with a steel underframe rather than wooden (but did get finished), and a Southern Ballast wagon of a type that couldn't be found in any of the 5 books on SR wagons.

Was the ill relative called Bunbury by any chance?

Maybe we should write letters to the Grauniad about how 'expensive' model railway shows are?

71s were HA A standard 33/0 was KA - there's more detail on the various codes used for 33s here: https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/locos/d/d6570.html

Nobody has mentioned the ultimate example of this - the Southern's expresses (in some cases with Pullman cars) from London to Ore, a tiny village on the outskirts of Hastings.

I remember walking past RS8 many times when it was an apparently derelict hulk by the High Peak trail. It's been restored to really high standard, in what seems like a short space of time.

It's always written as '40 hommes et 8 chevaux' rather than 'ou 8 chevaux'. Must have been a bit cosy.

"Hello DIYers...."

These were used on the SECR 'Continental' stock, but later changed to be outward opening after (IIRC) a fatal accident. Pullmans and CIWL stock had inward opening doors, but they had attendants to operate them. The CIE Mk3s had sliding doors a few years earlier than the Wessex stock.

I was expecting him to get stuck and the (modern, CGI) international Rescue to be summoned to extract him.

I'm thinking of the Russian aircraft carrier (on the rare occasions it actually works).

I hope so. It could shell the hall where the contest is being held.....

I've always thought that these units in their original livery was a really good piece of industrial design, with the black windows and warning panels extended onto the ends. Somebody had put a lot of effort into that. I'm about halfway though building one of your 508s, so the announcement will presumably come when that's finished in a few months time.....

Under UK conditions. They were more popular in Europe, where the coal wasn't as good (lower calorific content). The extra maintenance costs were presumably absorbed by the fuel efficiencies - you could burn cheap poor quality local coal instead of having to pay to import steam coal from Wales. That was more of a war time measure - coal was in short supply (as the Germans didn't have enough for their own needs), but Switzerland has loads of cheap hydro-electric power. Back to the original question - yes, it has been done. There are some modern European rack locos that can take hot water from an external source and/or have electric preheaters. The ones on the Schafbergbahn look a bit odd, presumably due to the extra boiler insulation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schafberg_Railway More detailed but in German: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLM_H_2/3_(1992) Whether it can be retrofitted to existing locos is another thing, but if you want a generic steam loco to take your non-enthusiast punters (or whatever the German word is for punters) up to the top of a mountain then it definitely works. The original Schafbergbahn locos were much nicer - here's a rubbish photo of one I took in 1992....