Chris M

I do my VAT online and there is an option to register there. Something to look forward to next week! I look after a company accounts on a purely voluntary basis so it's my own time I'm using up. And I feel a bit "on my own". I'm sure it will all work out ok though.

I've gone for Sage accounting start. Looks ok but I had to spen a couple of hours on the phone to sage because something went wrong with the sign on. Seems to do what I need at £120 per year . I've just done my VAT return so next job is to register for MTD at HMRC. Hope that will be straightforward....

Based the above adhesion factor figures alone the Stanier Pacifics should have been very troubled by slipping; as bad as an original MN and worse than a rebuilt one. I know they could and did slip but they aren't thought of (in uninformed discussion) as being anywhere near as problematical as the Bullieds. Does anyone know the reality? I've been told that the Duchesses had enough steam past the regulator to keep the wheels spinning for a couple of revolutions after closing the regulator. I guess others would be the same which is why years of experience of driving locos with a rear pony truck would almost certainly be a great help in reducing slipping. The LMS drivers would have been in the same boat as the Southern drivers on this.

It could be that in LNER territory the drivers would mostly have learned their trade on express locos with a pony truck and would habe thus developed required skills . This would not generally be the case in Southern territory. I'm not a driver but I think the skill is knowing a slip is about to happen and cutting the steam off before it does. The Bulleid Pacific's were beautiful locos and did what they were meant to do very well. I love em and it's always a pleasure to see Taw Valley on the SVR. That said an overloaded pannier will climb out of Highley on a wet day far better than Taw Valley. Perhaps they should have a Pacifics climbing out of Highley weekend at a damp time of year in order to provide a comparison. I would go for that.

Yes, the king getting over the line with the help of a sound equipped edition is a significant announcement and a welcome surprise. The state of all the other projects was also an interesting announcement.

Whilst I could express an interest in the mogul I won't because I would not be prepared to pay a deposit on it until the king is a reality . Good news about the king though and I am looking forward to having one. I wish Dave every success with these projects.

Penwithers Junction just west of Truro. My poor drawing based on R A Cooke's book. In 1894 the main line to the West became single just after the junction and was doubled in 1915. The Junction was also moved and the track realigned at that point but the layout remained the same. The down main became bi-directional when the junction was changed.

Yes Warley usually has just over 90 layouts and around 300 stands in total. The BRM shows are quite a bit smaller but are still very good sized shows. When you think about it all model railway exhibitions are all very good value for money when compared to other forms of live entertainment.

Sorry, I didn’t intend to sound as though I was being critical in my earlier post. Railtec are deservedly popular and I fully realise that you can only do so much. I say keep up the great work. I’m after a set of transfers for an N gauge D600 so it’s rather niche and won’t be something that loads of others want which logically means it can’t be high priority especially at a time of very high demand. It’s just when you can see someone offering a great service/product compared to others you kind of wish you could make use of the service . Haven't got round to painting it yet anyway.

I just wish Rail tech could find time to do a custom loco set for me. Any idea when they will start doing custom sheeets again?

I find I get more invites to shows when I attend medium size exhibitions than I do at large exhibitions. You can go to the NEC and get no invites at all and then somewhere like Exeter and get a couple - well that's what happened to me. Not getting invited to shows just means that the exhibition managers who could use a layout like yours weren't at the show you were at. Its fair to say that large layouts will be harder to accommodate at many shows. It can also be that exhibition managers have a glut of certain types of layout and can't invite any more of that type because they have a waiting list. So its nice to get invites but not getting invites doesn't necessarily mean that a layout isn't worthy of being invited to shows or that the builder hasn't made it as a railway modeller.

It's great when an exhibition manager sees your your layout and invites you to his exhibition. It's also great when a magazine asks you for an article. You can of course have made it without either of these things but they kind of indicate you have done some work which is of interest to others .

That's an excellent piece of N gauge modelling. I hope this slight diversion is ok bearing in mind the discussion about baseboards. We used styrofoam boards with a thin ply surround on our G scale club layout. Because of the size of the boards we had to join the styrofoam together and so used another strip of ply at the joint. We put long screws into the foam at the joints and glued it all together with pva adhesive. The ply around the edge cages the styrofoam in and protects it from knocks. A few years and a number of exhibitions later the boards are still rigid and in one piece; they have caused no problems. Ours is probably the only layout where the track weighs more than the baseboard it lies on! Being G scale we use the rail joiners to hold the baseboards together but don't try this in N! Also fitting under track point motors wouldn't be straightforward.

It is of course much easier to fit an N gauge circular layout into a house than it is an 00 or larger scale layout. When layouts are described as oval I think that is fine but the “straight” part doesn’t need to be perfectly straight. The curves can be quite generous on the visible section and transition into something quite sharp once in the tunnel. This layout is 7ft by 3ft 2in so would fit in most spare rooms.

The specialist was all set to do a biopsy based on my PSA score but when I told him I had been on a 20 mile ride the day before the test he cancelled the biopsy and arranged for another PSA test. Second test after no cycling was only marginally lower.

I have been told that us chaps have a design fault and every one of us will get prostate cancer if we live long enough. Its worth having a PSA test as it is a quick and easy check. I got an unwelcome score even though I don't have any symptons other than the occasional need to pee urgently which I thought was just due to age. One thing they didn't tell me - you mustn't ride a bike for 48 hours before a PSA test because it can screw up the results. There are other things you shouldn't do before the test which are more obvious.

If I can build one then they were buildable. In terms of what was available RTR at the time, MTK kits could be made into reasonable models. Just think of some of the RTR models that we were using. The Tri-ang class 37, the Trix Warship etc. When it came out the Lima Western was an amazingly good model. Things have changed a little since then.

My MTK class 22 which gave plenty of good service. I sold it with all my other 00 stock back in the 1990s. I wonder if it still exists somewhere? MTK kits were a quirky but very useful source of loco types that weren’t available in rtr form. You always got a great sense of achievement from completing one.

Must say I agree with the above. I have paid my money towards the King but need to see this progress before I'm prepared to commit to funding the 63xx project. It has to be said that s 63xx would be a more useful loco but the king needs to be in my possession before I would invest in another DJM crowdfunding project. I'm still annoyed with the many people who promised they would crowdfund the king project but didn't pay up when asked. That certainly isn't Dave's fault.

When I spoke to Dave at Stafford exhibition he was sure the King project would go ahead. He has put a lot of time into it.

I have seen photos of a brake at each end on freights running between Newton Abbot and Brixham . The train would need to change direction at Churston.

For no good reason here are a couple of my wagons at Worlds End station. Don't know why they are on the branch as there are no facilities for tank wagons at the terminus.

Sounds like you won't gain a lot from DCC but you might lose a bit drawing trains forward in the storage sidings. Megapoints do a mimic that works for all types of control. It may be worth looking into.

I mostly agree with Ron especially about personal preference. Although my dc layout is small I tend to have more than a couple of locos in action even though I only have two controllers. The wiring around the back allows point route setting through the junction with the push of one button using good old fashioned diodes.

One of our club layouts uses the MERG cbus. It is troublesome and the likelyhood is that it will be removed and replaced with something less flaky. I can see it has some fantastic features but older Farish locos cause the points to change as they go round. I'm told the MERG suggested solution is to fit a better capacitor into every loco. This won't happen as we are not prepared to tell club members they must modify their stock. In other words the suggestion is that your locos aren't good enough for our point control system. At the moment the problem is still being worked on but I'm sorry to say most of us are totally fed up with it.