jwealleans

I think you may not have grasped quite how they work......

I don't often use these, but I think this calls for a Same methodology on the RTO, just less time reading the instructions. Of course, it helps if it all fits, which it all does.

I think Ozzy is referring to City of Glasgow, which did run again.

Saturday was spent putting most of the underframe parts on - and there are a lot - but I was out playing trains on Sunday so no photographs. I also found I'd run out of dynamos and had to scrabble around last night pinching them from other kits. I had gaps around the ends when they were stuck on so those have been filled and the next step will be to fettle and fit the roof ends. I also took the bogie mounts off and put a shim under each (scrap fret) to give just a little more clearance under the solebar edges for the bogies to pivot. I've started the accompanying TO last night - just a pair of rolling bogies up to now. I should also have mentioned the excellent service from Cambridge Custom Transfers for the lettering for this: This is a new sheet he's done in anticipation of the Bachmann release sparking interest in grain wagons. This one also covers the Parkside LNER wagon in the BR era - among numerous others - and there's a separate sheet for the wagons covered by the new Bachmann model.

I believe they are a customer of mine - in the time I've dealt with them they've been Heckett Multiserve, then Multiserve, then Harco Multiserve (possibly) and they're presently just Harsco, or possibly Harsco Metals.

I shall make SWMBO read this tonight. She'll never dare call me an anorak again.

I have been gently chastised for not posting my own photos on here, so below a selection of the guest locos which visited on Sunday: Graeme King's W1 conversion from a Hornby A4 - I think this was written up in BRM some time ago. ECJS luggage brake from the D & S kit, also Graeme's Graeme's C1 making light work of 12 coaches. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWOh8BeHndI All the more impressive when you think that 10 of the 12 are old style Hornby coaches lengthened to scale and true to diagram (that was also written up in BRM some years ago). Then, from my own collection, some Thurston regulars which had taken a trip to Little Bytham and had a run out on the ECML. Tony had left us with a rake of 13 Mk 1 and Gresley coaches to run round, so what we see is a succession of summer Saturday specials returning towards Stratford with whatever they scraped together to take them out with this morning: Lord knows how this got so far without running out of coal, water or both: I expect the trippers smell a bit better than the fish this normally pulls: This, however, was right at home: The BTH prototypically expired and had to be taken off, so we had a real 'summer Saturdays only' sight: 67738 is a detailed, weathered and weighted Hornby model. 61957 is the Bachmann K3, again detailed, weathered and weighted. 61059 is a repainted Hornby B1 with Fox transfers and use of Klear to get the polished finish. 64652 is a Crownline J19 which I've only just finished building.

Many thanks for the kind comments from the group of friends who came to see Little Bytham last Sunday. May I thank all of them for coming and making such an enjoyable day of it? I'm glad the layout worked well and that any 'black marks' were entirely due to my incompetence at setting roads/switches, etc. As for the one derailment in several hours of running, I cannot explain that. I was particularly delighted in seeing the work of others and seeing it belt round at speed (sometimes, remarkable speed). The expertise on tap, both in model-making and knowledge of the prototype was gratifying indeed. Out of interest, my under-construction DMR K1 bowled round on a freight as well. I'll be conducting a full build-review of this model to be published in BRM next year. I know Mike is taking his kits off the market and only supplying them ready-made so to speak, but several people must have the kits already and could well be interested in how I build it. Tony. Posted on behalf of Tony Wright by Jonathan Wealleans

Some GW area tanks were brown with yellow lettering - is it possible it's that colour with the lettering getting a bit shabby? I've not got a lot of information on milk tanks, especially foreign ones.

I have a piece of film of Graeme's C1 belting through with that rake on.... you'll have to wait until tonight or tomorrow when I can unload it, though. I think there were 13, mainly converted 'shortie' Hornbys (for those who remember the BRM article some years ago). I has an outstanding day too.... good company, an excellent lunch (thanks, Mo) and Tony on his old iconoclastic form. The train set isn't bad either. I have my own photos from when we were left to play trains, but I wouldn't presume to put those in the same post as one of Tony's pictures. Here, a top quality souvenir of a top quality day out, are the only two Coopercraft B12s known to science: Tony took these, processed and photoshopped them and presented them to us before we left. A very thoughtful gesture.

Back to the script now, adding solebars and droplights. I couldn't resist posing it for the photo: The buffer beams are spot on the right height, but clearance between solebars and bogies is minimal to non-existent. I may have to file both back a bit to get smooth running. I've also added an extra hole and captive nut at this end to take my preferred Bill Bedford coach coupling.

So here we go, blithely invalidating the warranty.... As regular readers will know, I like my coaches to come apart at the solebar. Mainly because it's easier to hide the join and I'm never going to be good enough to get the invisible roofline seam which Larry can knock out in half an hour. Mike's coaches, for those who haven't built one, are a single piece body and underframe and a roof which is stuck or clipped on. I built the D50 I made in that way and the roof join is still the thing I'm most unhappy with about it. So this one will return to my usual approach. First of all I snapped the ends off the floorpan, tidied the break up and stuck them and the sides together to form the basic bodyshell. Then I stuck captive nuts to two pieces of brass strip and soldered them into the ends of the shell. The floorpan sides fold up and these now need to be shortened by the width of the brass strip at each end. I've already made the holes above, but use the nuts to guide you then drill out the holes to allow a certain amount of clearance. Number sides and ends so you remember which is which although unless you're far more fastidious and accurate than me, they'll only fit one way round from here on in. Once you've done this, you can fasten the two parts together. You did make sure to leave room for the solebars, didn't you? After a short delay while some fool worked out he'd put the presstuds on the wrong way round, we had a rolling body, just three evenings (and one of those cut very short) after starting. It's nice to feel you're getting somewhere.

You're right about Kimbolton Castle, but I was wrong about Quidenham - it's Rendelsham Hall I was thinking of. Now demolished.

This is what's up next, following a visit to Dart Castings stand at Folkestone. It's an MJT D10C Restaurant First. If you want a proper job of one of these you need to look at the 'Dave's C & W' thread on the LNER forum from earlier in the year. Mine won't go into quite that level of detail. The accompanying TO will be coming along with it. If I have time tonight I shall be cracking on, although Mike T might want to avert his eyes as this is the around the point at which I shall be diverging from the instructions.

I thought you had to go somewhere like Brazil for it in those days.

Beat me to it, Brian - except I did do that at Folkestone and was handed a package with everything I wanted present and correct.

If I can throw in my two penn'orth on the subject of building locos? I have a tiny fraction of Tony's expertise and experience (I may be up to 20, but I haven't counted recently) but I was reminded today of a loco I built in one week of evenings - say 15 hours' work - to a rolling, non-motorised shell, followed by a further week or so of evenings fitting and completing the mechanism (once I'd worked out what would fit). The kit was an Arthur Kimber J73, the etches of such quality and precision that they would almost have clipped together using the tabs and slots. If you start from a good kit - and there are plenty of people on forums like this who'll tell you what's no good - most people can build a loco without it turning into an odyssey.

I'm getting dangerously outside my comfort zone here, but is that an Adams 'Jubilee' 0-4-2 behind the T3? LNER van with what looks like an almost complete new end in the right background as well. You don't see that modelled in pre 1948 days very often.

Cracking shot of the ROD - still got the 'continental' buffers fitted (does anyone do those in 4mm?) and the bufferbeam holes where the safety chains have been taken off.

Lovely. I have one to do for someone else and that's exactly the kind of finish I'll be aiming for. If I have one for myself, it'll have to be the one named for a stately home which by the 1930s had been sold and made into a refuge for the terminally confused. I think it may be 'Quidenham'.

1624 or 1628 - if he doesn't say when he posts on his own thread I can ask him directly anyway. I can see where you're coming from Mick, but a larger motor working less hard has to be better for the longevity of the mechanism - it may only shunt 3 or 4 wagons, but if it has to do it all day at a show, you're better off not thrashing it. In this case if it's moving 10-12 kit built bogies then it needs some grunt. On a tank engine backhead detail is all but invisible (and I say that with all the double standards of one who always puts mirrors and pictures in my coaches, but the windows are bigger) and so are the crew unless you have them hanging out of a door or window. It doesn't automatically say 'hiding the motor' to me, but so much the better if that's a side effect. I'd rather have the larger motor and the flywheel if at all possible and the backhead is a sacrifice I'm prepared to make.

I'm with Tony. I've never looked at a loco I've built and thought "I should have used a smaller motor". I note it's a 16 series - 16 by what, please?

A Wath Daisy! Fantastic.

If you turn anything up at all, Jon, I'd be grateful.... I don't think I even have numbering details for the one without the brake hutch, pre or post war.