Chris M

For me they didn't capture my imagination . I think the boiler in the tender put me off. The 16mm live steam scene is thriving. I think this is because the boiler is the boiler, the valve gear is the valve gear, the pistons actually drive the wheels and plenty of steam comes out the chimney. Obviously this sort of thing just isn't possible in oo. The Hornby effort was a good try but not close enough to a real steam engine for me.

When you have a GWR/WR terminus the brake van has to run veranda first wither when coming into the terminus or when going back out. So exactly 50% of the freight workings on my layout had the brake van veranda first. Rather oddly I did get a few comments that the brake van was the wrong way round at exhibitions. I was always careful to be polite when I explained. In this photo the pannier is about to run round the assembled freight train ready to go back down the branch.

I have never ever found a pre common rail diesel good to drive. Even the Peugeot diesels, which were supposedly the best, had an extremely narrow power band. As soon as they started to get some oomph you ran out of revs. The first common rail diesel I ever drove was a Rover 600 with am L series diesel. At the time it was a revelation. Six months ago I would have strongly agreed that I prefer diesel to petrol but I changed to a petrol with a large turbo earlier this year and now this is easily my preference.

I have mostly bought and enjoyed diesel cars since the "modern" diesel engines appeared but, with the exception of some Mercs (which I have never owned), I really don't see diesels as being classics. I kind of associate V petrol engines inside a nice car with being classics. Mind you the Honda Civic 2.2 diesel that I recently sold was brilliant for torque, acceleration and fuel economy...

No, didn't know about that but it sounds very interesting. I saw all I wanted above ground but I imagine they must have some interesting and maybe obscure blasts from the past down below. Maybe next time....

I recommend visiting Hereford Model Centre. It's a fantastic Alladin's cave of a place with all sorts of wonderful stuff on display. I've only been a couple of times but really enjoyed having a mooch.

There will be small numbers of the limited edition wagons from previous years on sale.

There is no show wagon this year . Interest had started to wain. There have been quite a lot of special show wagons over the years, some by Warley club and some by Virgin Trains. I designed the first ever Warley show wagon way back in the days before we went to the NEC some 31 years ago.

I would have voted for stern Steve as best judge if he was on the list.

That's a really useful photo thanks. I think that is the colour scheme I will go for.

Had a wander around this evening. There are some great looking layouts there.

You need something for testing. I can't use that excuse

And some water based thinners, some sleeper grime paint. No new locos though even though only having one Dapol class 50 is something of a hardship and the special edition BR blue large logo class 66 that Cheltenham Model Centre are selling for £99 looks rather nice.....

If you still have a cheque book you can buy advance tickets for the NEC show without any booking fees from Warley club. You have to provide an SAE though. You can even get the guide posted to you a few weeks before the show if you pay the postage. Unfortunately I haven't had the chance to get hold of some advance tickets to sell at GETS - life is sooooo busy even though I'm retired. Anyway looking forward to running trains for a couple of days. Just waiting for my brother to turn up so we can stuff the layout into the car and then off we go! I'm definitely not going to buy anything at the show, well probably not, well maybe not....I could do with a new xuron if nothing else. Despite clear warnings we all find out that you mustn't use them on steel the hard way.

So far as I am aware there aren't any Warley associated layouts at Taunton this year so there won't be any advance tickets for sale there.

Historical film of the last train

Then came the inevitable closure of the line. Here are some photos of the very last train to run along the branch.

The once proud independent brewery was sold to a big international. Shortly after the brewery was closed and demolished. The branch line lost its last freight traffic which did not auger well for the future.

Things are going downhill at Ridhacre. The parcels depot has been closed and become overgrown

Warley club's new N gauge layout Hawes Junction will be at the show. It was there last year but a lot of detail has been added since then. The station area has the correct track work and is scale length but the sidings and the viaduct have been shortened a little. Most of the scenic work was done by Ed Purcell and Bill Greatbatch although others have also put in many hours. Club member Same has spent the last two and a half years of club nights ballasting the track singlehandedly - she deserves a medal. Most of the stock at the exhibition will be Bill's. All are weathered and many have details added. There might even be an Ivatt 4MT (flying pig) running - it started life as a Farish standard 4 2-6-0 and Bill has done an excellent conversion. At a more basic level I sneaked my HST onto the layout a coupe of weeks ago for a run. The correct signals for the location, which have the ability to work, will be added before the show. At the exhibition it will be running stock that is correct for the Settle & Carlisle line in the 1950s, no HSTs allowed!

I don't know how many GMRC layouts will be there as I am not involved in the planning for the show. I do know that space was planned for the winning GMRC layout right at the beginning this year. With over 90 layouts attending the show there are inevitably some drop outs due to illness, changed circumstances etc during the six months before the show. These spaces are filled by other layouts so fitting in another GMRC layout will often but not always be possible. Agreed, exhibitors are strangely quiet on hear this year.

I don't think I could bring myself to paint coaches light blue and yellow even if that is accurate. I have got a colour photo from the late sixities/early seventies where they appear to be white. They could possibly be a very very light blue but there is no yellow on them. I must say that I think chocolate & cream, which was used later in the later seventies (and is slightly after the era for my project) is more appealing. I have quite a lot of information for this N gauge project which I have not yet started. I have made a track plan though. It could be nice, all I have to do is make a good job of it.....

Just wondering if anyone has information regarding Dawlish Warren station paint scheme during the sixties and seventies. From photos it seems to have been somewhat different to what I expected. Monochrome photos taken in the fifties and sixties suggest that the buildings were not the standard chocolate & cream. The main body was just one colour, probably cream or maybe light beige, but no photos show the expected chocolate lower part of the timber building. Even the doors don't seem very dark colour. Colour photos from the late seventies show the station doors to be a light, faded, blue colour - was this the standard corporate colour for doors by then? Any help would be appreciated. I know the whole building became white by the time it was a museum in the eighties. Also, I know the camping coaches became chocolate & cream at some point in this era. Does anyone know roughly when and what was the colour before that? The previous colour seems to be an unusual one.

I wonder how long the O gauge market will remain buoyant. O gauge stock is expensive and, perhaps more importantly, takes a lot of space to store. Its good to see O RTR doing well but once buyers start to run out of storage space it could bottom out very quickly. Agreed that there are no "must haves" to come in OO. In addition there are plenty of good quality second hand models available at reasonable prices. Twenty years ago it was worth buying new models because they were so much better than the secondhand ones on sale at the time but now the recent secondhand models are just as good as the new ones. On the plus side I have heard that the Great Model Railway Challenge is doing its bit to increase interest in model railways. This TV coverage alone could provide a welcome increase in sales from new customers - but what will they want to buy? Who would be a model railway manufacturer?

This will be the penultimate show for Little Aller Junction. Current plan is for it to be dismantled next summer.