jwealleans

Make sure you post us some pictures, Vernon. I have a couple of the Hornby vans undergoing a Graeme King style makeover at the moment and I always fancied an E&WYUJR open. Sandy Croall has one on 'Penlan' but I imagine he hand-lettered that. John S, that's a good tip. I'll file that one away.

He does respond to emails and I had some bits from him in January.

Ex-GE coaches would certainly be in evidence - these kits were among the first reissued and may all have gone. Worsley Works do some body etches if Danny can't help you. Bill Bedford does some M & GN stock in 4mm on his made to order range. I think some of the Midland coaches Wizard Models do are also suitable although I'm not sure when they might have been withdrawn. I don't believe any of the cast D & S kits are being reissued so your best bet for goods vehicles will be standard LNER/LMS from the usual suspects; ABS, Wizard, Parkside, David Geen and Ebay.

Horseboxes were among the first things Danny reissued - he may still have some on the shelf. I'd be up for some 6 wheelers as well, GE and GN ones especially.

Last I heard from Danny was that he was going to do elliptical roof stock in the early part of this year, but was struggling to keep up with demand for what he'd already offered. My order for elliptical stock hasn't come through yet so I assume that's still the case.

If we're starting a 'me too' thread, I've got three of the Hornby H & B wagons half way through a Graeme King style makeover. Has anyone mentioned that John Fozard does some H & B coaches?

I volunteer at Ormesby Hall and am fortunate enough to operate and work on this layout regularly. The late Ron Rising who built it was part of the team at Pendon in the earlier part of its existence as you can see from the quality of his modelling. There are as many as six buildings on 'Corfe' which also feature on the main Pendon layout. Ron was from Hampshire but lived most of his life north of Oxford. The layout is centred on Corfe Castle station but the buildings are an amalgam of real buildings from the Hampshire/Dorset and Oxfordshire areas. One of our members has researched the locations of all the buildings. The layout came to Middlesbrough when he was looking to dispose of it and simultaneously the then house manager was looking for model railway items to fill a restored but empty part of the Hall. He advertised in the Trust magazine and he must have thought all his Christmases had come at once when this arrived. The layout was remodelled when it arrived to better fit the space in which is it exhibited and so some of the landscape work and the stone viaduct have been done by the then members of the group formed to run and maintain the layout. Ron did visit and approve the layout in its present form before his death in 2006. It has been in several magazines; in Railway Modeller in 1990 when still in Ron's attic; in Model Rail in April 2006, followed the next month by a feature on the group's other permanent layout of Pilmoor Junction; in at least two issues of the Hornby Magazine annual, but featuring stock from other eras than the usual LSWR which we run on it. The group meets in the Hall on Monday evenings to carry out any work on the layouts and we're always keen to welcome new volunteers. We also have two exhibition layouts which visit local shows to publicise the Hall and have recently completed a static diorama of Ormesby Station which stood on the edge of the grounds on land donated by the Pennyman family (and still does, although it's now called Marton). The layouts are open to the public each weekend and Bank Holiday afternoon from 1.30 to 5 between March and September.

If only you could find a source of blue card, you could put that up and it would make a good background to the pictures.....

Ian and Stuart, Can I suggest the BR Yahoo group run by the people behind the Xpressbooks volumes? They have access to what must be a large amount of information and are usually happy to oblige. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BritishRailways/

That would make sense if all the NE Atlantics used prewar had gone to the scrapper. I'm sure it's 'Top Shed' which mentions them and has a shot of one with an excursion headboard, but I can't put my hands on a copy just now. What radius curves are you working to, Gilbert? Ours at Ormesby goes round 36".

Maybe by 1958... I'm pretty sure B16s and the North Eastern Atlantics were fairly common on excursion trains at the Cross before the war.

But if you had a subscription you could have read it by now!

One word for you - 'Kardashian' .

Did someone say 'invisible ink'?

Is this it, Rob?

In case you haven't seen it, Mike, I've just noticed a good almost-broadside photo of one of these in Eric Sawford's Fifties Steam Remembered.

Best of luck with that, Arthur. Hope to hear from you fully recovered in the near future.

Cheers, Mick, I'll pass that on to Peter. R1 is a chap on the LNER forum who goes by 'Mossie'. He did an L1 and made a nice job - now he's onto an R1. http://www.lner.info/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6571

No problem, Mick. We only had one semaphore and a ground frame, so there'd not have been much for you to get excited about.

Good stuff, Mick. You swept past me at Donny this weekend and I never caught up with you to say hello. There was a chap on the LNER forum asking about your R1 - I've told him to get in touch.

When we had a local model shop, his display layout in the window had a cow which had been chopped in half by the train. My kids loved it.

Some updates worth posting after a few days fiddling about. First of all the coaches are about finished. There are one or two bits of paintwork to touch up but I'll leave them for a couple of weeks now and come back to them with fresher eyes. I will probably give them a run round Pilmoor on Monday as a test, so there may be more photographs then. I've just about done the passenger brake as well. The shiny bits are where I painted up the cornice to match the body after gluing the roof in place. The roof needs another coat and then it'll get a blow over with satin varnish again. I also realised that I'd forgotten a handrail, which you can just about make out unpainted at the right hand end. Now a couple of different jobs. When I took the A8 apart to paint it, I removed the insulating arrangement from the front cylinders. This consisted of a piece of electrician's tape over the cylinders and across the underside of the front of the body. Now it's painted I needed to put something equivalent back. These locos are notorious for shorting on curves, as are the B16s - in fact our B16 on Pilmoor can only be used 'down' because it won't go round the 'up' curves. The cunning plan we came up with on Monday night was as follows: This is the problem - the front bogie wheels touch the front edge of the cylinder very readily. The cylinder had already been cut away in the past, possibly when the loco was built, to try to counteract this. I cut it further back, almost across the half way point. To complete the cosmetic subterfuge, a couple of circles were punched out of black paper and stuck over the cylinder ends. I'd like to say it worked perfectly, but I painted the wheels today so I haven't been able to test it yet. Full report to follow in due course. Next a job Ian (Pennine) knows I've been going to do for months and kept forgetting. I have a GW open which I acquired and built last year, don't recall where from. I wanted to sheet it, but make the sheet removable so I can run it 'loaded' or 'unloaded'. The problem was how to make the sheet a realistic looking fit - and the wagon has a tarpaulin rail as well - but still be able to get it off. I had an idea but hadn't tried it. I'm pleased to say it seems to have worked. First, wrapped the wagon in clingfilm. Then coated the back of the sheet (Roger Smith) liberally with PVA and stuck it on, folding and moulding it to the shape of the wagon and over the tarp rail. A rubber band holds it nicely in place while drying. Once dry, only the absence of ropes is the giveaway - but that's an unavoidable compromise if you're going to be able to take it off. Judicious trimming to remove all visible evidence of the clingfilm and the sheet slides off easily. The PVA makes it quite rigid, but this may well get a bit of weathering and some matt varnish which ought to stiffen it up a bit more. I'll make a rolled sheet from plain black paper to put into the 'empty' wagon.

Well thanks, chaps, you're very kind as usual. The horsebox was done in a bit of a hurry for - I think - Manchester last year and I was pleased with the way it came out, so I have never revisited it. I'm not sure it's had much more than a wash over witha weatheirn mix and clean with a cotton bud. Rob; the variety comes from suddenly realising that we open again at Ormesby in not many weeks and all the jobs I said I'd do for them are largely unstarted. I have an F4 masquerading as an F8 to look at and the Sentinel railcar to remotor (although that won't be done by March).

Coaches now have roofs affixed and filler is drying. That doesn't make for very interesting photography, so here are a few other things I've been messing about with: I volunteered to repaint and line the A8 for Ormesby over the winter. The boiler bands are done with what I think must have been Modelmaster lining, given the way the lines kept detaching from the carrier film. The rest is Bob Moore. It's very much just a repaint and there are a few things which could do with attention at another time. The boiler bands will need toning down once it's cured enough to weather. This was in a lot of cast kits on Ebay which someone pointed out on the LNER forum. It was in bits (although described as 'well built') and so didn't seem to attract much attention. I know a GE 10 ton van when I see one, though. It came yesterday morning, went straight into the Nitromors and half an hour last night saw it put back together. I'll probably have to replace the brakes as I want to put it into BR livery and I believe they may all have had 4 brake blocks by then. Finally another parcels van. I've had these for years and done nothing with them, but the simple expedient of using the box for something else so they're on the test rack and in my eyeline has got me working on them. I though this D & S NER D171 van would be as simple as a few lamp irons and a repaint, but closer examination showed that the builder had failed to fit any handrails (and had blocked up the holes for some, so I assume it was a deliberate decision). Anyway, a bit of bent wire later it's about ready for primer again.

Or it's like Jarrow Slake, where they photograph all the engines?