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I want to see the RMweb survive (and not collapse under the weight of its popularity) but I thoroughly dislike advertisements. I have only ever had one "subscription TV service" (I don't like TV much either!) and this is for YouTube, to cut out their advertisements. I would be happy to pay my £50/year for RMweb to host my blog. I want to put it somewhere, I don't have the skill set to use a Pi and my ISP would want about £50 for their entry-level hosting package. Using RMweb lets me integrate my blog with related topics and searches and you do the indexing for search engines too. I would be happy for you to limit me to (say) 200kB per image and one entry a week too. I can lose the WoR stuff - I logged onto Exact Editions a week ago so you can see how often I look at it. - Richard.

Well if we browse eBay -> Collectables -> Model trains, they use "gauge" as the qualifier so we can probably relax here at any rate. - Richard

Supposing 0 means 32 mm gauge and 1:43, 1:45 or 1:48 H0 means 16.5 mm gauge and 1:87 or occasionally 1:82 N means 9 mm gauge and 1:148 or 1:160 and 00 means 16.5 mm gauge and 1:76 (ignoring the USA 19 mm version) So 0, H0 and N all specify a gauge with a regional choice of scale. If there is to be consistency 00 also specifies a gauge, but one where there is only one scale in use. I cannot see a sensible derivation of the phrase "00 scale" but the RTR manufacturers like this for their boxes. Perhaps it conveys prestige. Also eBay. I call it 00 gauge instead of 00 so it doesn't sound like a paint brush. - Richard.

Lovely models :-) I wonder ... do you have a reason for choosing the Mehano model over (say) the ESU one as the base? I have one of each. Both are excellent runners but the ESU one is I feel better-engineered. For me, both are fine because with an end-to-end layout I am not going to be wearing them out. - Richard.

The pump house was an unhappy little building. I don't know quite why, but it just looked wrong, even with its bricked-up windows. A hipped roof might have helped, but I have a feeling it was a model of a structure which has never existed. I could not find a brick-built pump house this small, even using the kit in a 1:87 context. This photo is about six weeks late. The third building for this location and my second attempt at a mess hut: I do like the "interior effect" on this model. It is simply printed inserts, supplied with the kit and glued onto the insides of the windows. I have given this latest building a brief write-up on my blog. I think this attempt is good enough to keep. - Richard.

Memory is a bit vague but in essence it worked something like this: I tried to pay for an item on eBay. (Don't remember if it was BIN or an auction). I asked the seller how to pay because they didn't have PayPal linked to the sale. They asked me to send the money to their wife's PayPal account, but I didn't see the scam. The item never arrived. I phoned eBay and explained what had happened. Charming and understanding woman on the phone. The seller went through a loophole in their system: he had taken money out of me, but according to their records I hadn't paid. This was in the days when a seller could ask for payment in a variety of ways and PayPal wasn't universal as it is nowadays. Nothing to do with them - a PayPal matter. I did try to get in touch with PayPal. Every avenue I took with them online (they aren't a "human" company, no telephone support) sent me back to eBay - this was an eBay matter. All they could "see" was I had paid someone with the correct name at the correct address. I was pi**ing into the wind, I lost about £20, not the end of the World. I never found the seller again on eBay. He was selling well-worn pre-47 silver coinage (scruffy investment bullion if you like), not model railway things. This would date the purchase to the period before the Brexit vote - I was prepping for currency collapse ... - Richard.

Ah - the world's first major suspension bridge, across the Menai Strait. Thomas Telford left us some fine things. - Richard.

I don't have a clue where this bridge is but I've still given it a like :-) - Richard.

A boat trip on the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation yesterday afternoon. This was simply glorious, I am still thinking about it now. The boat trips go from the landing stage at Heybridge Basin, beside the tea hut. - Richard.

I have added the missing photo to my first post, the eight block pavers holding the embankment flat while the wood glue set. I will keep these blocks to use them the same way again, this worked. - Richard.

I have thought through chunks of it. My sticking point at the moment is the era to be portrayed. I rather fancy around 1875 or 1880, but it seems prudent to take this forward to around 1890 to let a few RCH 1887 wagons trickle into the scene. This then becomes a slippery slope because moving forward another ten years to the start of the 20th century lets me have a better range of tank wagons, but the one-off wagons which might have belonged to my (imaginary) railway are probably superannuated and written off. Incidentally I am happy enough to discuss 0 gauge matters here. I know so little about the subject everything helps. The task for Wellwood probably reduces to "decide then build", the best I can hope for is a visually pleasing scene. I am enjoying browsing Peasevern. - Richard.

Now I have a copy of Mabbott's book I can imagine he left himself wide open to errors. Really, it is a bound copy of a spreadsheet containing basic specifications and a potted history of every locomotive. He must have copied at least some of these from somewhere, no mortal could track down every detail. I think for my model loco the works plates will either show '0000' or a blank space for the works number. Or '01632' if I can squeeze in a fifth digit. None of these will be terribly obtrusive. - Richard.

I do like the look of 0 gauge because I think it gives me a better chance of making model trains, and I like the substance of the models and the perfect running too. 0 gauge will always be quite limiting to me because of a lack of space. I do possess a small RTR loco and two wagons, but whatever I build in the way of a layout will be some sort of light railway, and quite a lightly trafficked affair. Probably one engine in steam, with analogue control. All of my 009 and H0e locos are analogue control and I cannot imagine converting them to DCC. Meanwhile 'Shelf Island' is built and wired for DCC with a changeover switch for occasional analogue operation (all tracks live all the time), using this facility means shuttling all of the DCC locos off to Fairport and pulling the plug on their track feed. Quite long-winded in practice. So really, my options for an 0 gauge test track and for a NG scheme would both need a dedicated analogue controller and this is clutter I want to keep away from the layout. So I will cut them out. Anyway, my Peco 0 gauge point was quite an expensive thing and it deserves a layout not a test track. My option 2 'preservation society' would give me an extra few feet of track to display my locos which are otherwise out of period for the main layout. Nearly all of these are DCC. I agree 1.5 metres is very small for 0 gauge. I am rather inspired by the work of @JimRead, he has built a succession of 0 gauge micros in around 1.5 m or slightly less. The key being a clever traverser which creates a run-round loop as well as the usual fiddle yard storage. He has some videos on YouTube and layout topics here. I am fortunate in that I have already sold up most of my 4mm to move to British H0. The H0 is quite a niche thing, and in a way this justifies my layout blog. I would be reluctant to give up on it because I am five years into the project and I still want to enjoy running trains on it. - Richard.

I much prefer open top designs to solid tops, because the ground surface can go below the railway as well as above. Also they are much lighter. Even something as mundane as an area of hard standing has a fall on it, and the open top design forces me to add this as an item in its own right and not use a patch of the baseboard top. The open top is easy to build on a permanent layout, harder for a portable design. I have got to leave the broad diagonal in place, this stops the forces of the curving facia pushing the baseboard frame apart. But apart from this, I should be able to cut out and add other braces at will, as I decide on the final shape of the landscape. I wanted to build this from a uniform cross-section of stripwood throughout, but the material on offer at the DIY chain was of a poor standard. So I bought two different sizes (to get the better bits) and added two more sizes using up offcuts I kept under the bed. - Richard.

I suppose I like it now it is done but I cursed a lot during its gestation. Harry cat (previous photos) belongs to my neighbours but likes my garden and house probably more than theirs. He even sleeps on my bed. Harry is not allowed in the hobby room, and he knows this but probably not really quite why (incompatibility of 1:1 cat and 1:87 model trains). Harry sat quietly watching me wrench this baseboard into being. Perhaps Harry thinks this is a monster of some kind, for bigger creatures like me to have to fight with, and this is why he must not go into the hobby room. - Richard.

‘Wellwood’ will be the final section for my wall-hugger ‘Shelf Island’ for the time being, probably until I move house. I am not sure how this part of the layout will turn out, but I can at least start a topic to show off the baseboard and write about how the scenics might turn out to be. The baseboard is just shy of 1.5 metres long, and has a shape along the front to complement the front of the ‘Shelf Marshes’ section to the right: I think, there are some things in our lives which we do not enjoy doing and are not very good at. For me one of these is woodwork. I can cope with modest building tasks like undoing a household door frame and re-aligning it with wedges, but such a thing is of course fixed to solid masonry. A model railway baseboard I find incredibly difficult because I want to make something which really does have truly flat and straight parts, and which I am trying to make from materials full of curves and warps. This particular baseboard is the hardest I have ever built, but I did change the design twice along the way. Roughly speaking it is the simple open-top design drawn by John Ahern in the 1950s ("Miniature Landscape Modelling"), but built upside-down so the longitudinals are on the top and able to hold the railway on an embankment. I built the embankment first, with the ply track bed pinned and glued to only one longitudinal, glued but not pinned to the other a few inches away, and the assembly placed on the floor of my office, which actually is pretty well flat, and left under eight concrete blocks to set solid: After this, I fixed on the curving front at its left end first, left to fully harden ... ... and then hauled and shoved and fixed into place at the front right. The backscene is a bit shallow but I have fixed it on with screws so I can have a taller one another day. The backscene solves the last millimetre or so of vertical curvature in the spine of the embankment: So, I am using 4 mm ply as a track bed, expecting it to be flat, as a backscene, expecting it to hold itself upright, and as a fascia expecting it to hold a reverse curve. I expect, a carpenter would do the whole thing in an afternoon, without any fuss. Me, I took ten days. I do think the pine stripwood I used is a worthwhile purchase over the usual spruce, but the rest is best worked out by the individual modeller. This baseboard follows a prototype I built on a flush door: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/entry/24296-wellwood-provisional-version/ The flush door is far easier to do, but the embankment would have to be added on the top and not be an integral part of the baseboard structure. It is perfectly possible, this baseboard will never get any track beyond some sections of Kato Unitrack resting along the embankment. The scenic area is about 4 1/3 square feet so a little over the limit of a micro but I think the project belongs here as a diorama of some kind. For the scenics I can imagine quite a few different treatments: An 0 gauge test track with a point and a siding The setting of the local railway preservation society (in H0 of course), again some track and a siding A length of 009/H0e track to run my modest NG collection A siding from the main line, descending a little in front of the embankment to serve the model oil depot I built for Shelf Marshes and ran out of space to include. This would let me use this section as a temporary fiddle yard while I work on the original baseboard of “three intertwined micros”. A scenic section without man-made structures, good for photography where the trains set the scale of the landscape. A scenic section with perhaps a watermill and a pond, but again no railway part. I should add, I did try to make this as a narrow bridging section only 200mm or so wide throughout, but in my hobby room it made 'Shelf Marshes' look like an afterthought I had decided to connect to the rest of the system. Hence the curving front: Goodness knows what I will end up with. More suggestions for the scenics would be good. - Richard.

The book sounds like it was a bit ambitious for one person. Me, I'm not going to be worried as long as I choose my plate number for a "reason", something more than a random number. I could even have the middle of the works plate left blank. - Richard.

This is a kind thought. I don't suppose Manning Wardle built a stationary engine or a boiler? This would leave some food for thought for whoever gets the model after I leave it behind :-) Edit: I've ordered a s/h copy of Mabbott's book - I think it will be useful for future searches. Edit 2: If I get really stuck I might go for "060". The lettering will be very small on a 7mm scale plate. - Richard.

I hope the title of this topic makes sense. I have one of the Minerva K class locos and I want to finish it as an imaginary member of the class. The name will be 'Blackwater' after a local river, the year of manufacture probably 1885 (perhaps earlier, I do want to keep the open cab and I want to fit an earlier pattern smokebox door), and I wonder if anyone could suggest a hitherto-unused works number? This is so I can order up the plates. Many thanks, - Richard.

QED: Backwoods Miniatures - Darjeeling & Himalayan Class B 0-4-0ST + WT for 009 https://ebay.us/e3510h - Richard.

There is always a bit of caution in the back of my mind before posting links like my last. As though the item might just be incredibly special and scarce and sought after. And Backwoods Miniatures did some lovely kits and one day maybe I'll find their crane tank, but somehow a 009 crane is always going to be a 009 crane. - Richard.

I suppose it isn't madness until the bidding starts: https://ebay.us/JlpHx4 - Richard.

I suggest some caution. The NEM pocket is half of a coupling system devised by the major European manufacturers to bring interoperability to their ranges. They had problems with couplers on a scale comparable to our 00/EM/P4 debates. The other half of the system is the close coupling cam. The cam lets you put the pocket pretty much out of sight on stock with a buffer beam. Virtually all Continental stock with an NEM pocket has the cam as well. When they don't, as with the conversion pieces sold for older stock, the pocket protrudes in front of the buffer beam, like this: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/entry/17790-ns-class-500-ee-350hp-shunter-roco/ Bringing the pocket forward lets you use close coupler heads (Fleishmann, Roco, Marklin, they still all have their own) on train set curves. The plastic "fish tail" arrangement chosen by Bachmann and Hornby is, I think, cheap and nasty. I don't know why they chose this route, except of course for the cheapness. These installations won't let you use popular close coupler heads except on very relaxed curves. If (for H0) you put the NEM pocket in its proper place, stock without buffers needs a #17. If there are buffers there is a cam, and stock with buffers needs a #18. If you have tight curves (I do), then bogie stock needs a #19. It is as though Kadee worked this out as a range with defined purposes. But for British models, the fitments are a lottery because the major manufacturers didn't install the pockets according to established NEM standards and practice. For what its worth, this led me to turn away from Kadees for most of my British H0 stock; I prefer the cams. So this is bit of a ramble but hopefully I have explained why I would never want to fit an NEM pocket without a cam. If the model had no space for a cam I would look to the NEM 363 wedge, this is less obtrusive. Thanks for the link all the same, sometimes nothing else will fit :-) - Richard.

I met Mick at a RM Gold day at Pendon. Mick showed me how to weather a model bus. Mick is the first person I have met to get an entry in this forum. I took a real start when I found it yesterday. I feel so sorry for his family; he didn't strike me as likely to be leaving us. I do hope they can take some comfort from the messages above. My model bus has become a very special thing to me. - Richard.

I have a feeling, most of these models will move away from their original factory condition nearly as swiftly as their prototypes :-) On my model purchased from Minerva in August 2021 the full cab was simply clipped into place above the backhead, no glue. So removal was particularly straightforward. I wanted to transfer the glazing from the cab, the glue on the glazing softens with white spirit as described for other parts but it is important to keep the white spirit off the faces of the glazing. At least you get four pieces and you only need two. - Richard.