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We will be running a GNR loco or several on Church Warsop at EXPO EM North. A couple of Stirling locos plus a J6 and a C12. That is in addition to a collection of GCR types. The J6 was built from the test etch of the Norton/London Road kit by the designer, the late Malcolm Crawley. Lovely to see some GN and GC modelling! Tony

Very interesting! I had wondered about doing something similar with one end of Leicester Central but I think your idea is even better. Is it just me or does it just look more railwaylike than many of the pure model plans put forward? Tony

My Grandad used to have a bit of an involvement with these locos back in the 1920s/1930s. He worked at Warsop Main colliery and they used to hire a loco from the LMS for shunting the colliery sidings. There were two regular locos, both Midland 1Fs from Mansfield shed, that worked for a week and then were swapped on a Sunday. He did tell me the two numbers once upon a time but that was 30 plus years ago and I can't recall them now. What was interesting is that they were both half cab locos and the people driving them at the colliery didn't like them, so the workshops at the colliery made up a rear half cab, that would be put on a loco when it arrived and be swapped to the other one at the weekend. I often wonder if any photos exist of these two half cabs, running with their unofficial full cab conversion. The model looks like a cracker and I may just have to have one for sentimental reasons, making it my 3rd RTR model in a year, which is more than in the last 10 years put together. We really have never had it so good! Tony

My version has some goods facilites. Whether it is any good or not is not for me to say. I have two passenger platforms and have created a fish/parcels dock and a centre holding road on Mansfield Market Place. (Photo at an early stage is included in Post 27 of the thread) The long term plan is to connect two layouts together, so that goods trains have to come in to the terminus (arriving at the centre road) to be reversed on to the other station, which has goods facilities. Until then, the centre road is used to receive fish/van/parcels/newspaper trains which are shunted to the dock by the pilot. Then when it is time for them to go again, a train is made up in the centre road for departure. When not in use for goods, the centre road is used for holding a passenger set of ECS, keeping the two platforms clear. I have lost two platform faces but I have increased the number of potential types of operation. Tony

I agree 100% and I have done just that on Mansfield Market Place but I have used 1 in 7 points, which give a lovely snaking effect. The problem comes when you use Peco small radius points and the gentle snaking becomes a buffer locking lurch!

It is tricky but if you decide that you want to build a model of a real place and you have to compress the model to fit the space available, then such decisions become inevitable. People have different motivations for building a particular layout. If your motivation is to create accurate train formations, then you are pretty much stuck if the trains on the real place were longer than you can have on the layout. It is really a choice between modelling somewhere where trains were shorter (I fully recommend the GCR - in the 50s/60s, many trains were 5 or 6 carriages long) or accepting that the make up of the trains is compromised. A third option would be to look at which shorter trains ran over the line (assuming that there were some) and to just model those. As with all modelling, compromise is the answer. But I do see exactly where you are coming from with the dilemma. It is one that has exercised my brain many a time and is the reason I model the GCR rather than the ECML. Tony

Well said! In the range of model railway activity, there is little that matches the satisfaction of building a loco from scratch. I haven't built that many but each one has been an absolute joy to do and in many ways they can be easier than kits as you can design the parts to go together the way you want to build it. It also cuts out much grumbling! If the parts don't fit, you just look in the mirror for the culprit rather than think about heaping abuse and blame on a poor kit designer. Tony Tony

Sometimes it is hard to accept that great enemy of space but there are some possible answers. The longest train on Buckingham is 5 corridor carriages long. That is a dining car set and looks just right in relation to the size and proportions of the layout. There were plenty of shorter trains on the real railways. I was looking at a photo of a Duchess on a 5 carriage train the other day and have a view to putting that train on a layout. Perhaps recreating a real shorter train rather than trying to compress a longer one might work better. Tony

Couldn't agree more Jerry. A less than perfect model that somebody has built is massively more interesting than a perfect mass produced RTR model to me. Each built loco is pretty much unique and even if they are less detailed or not quite as accurate as a RTR model, they have a certain character about them that no RTR model can ever have. Tony

I would bet that by far and away the most common state for a model loco is standing still. On a layout like Little Bytham, a tiny percentage of the locos are moving at any one time. The time most people will pay attention to valve gear in the flesh, rather than in a photograph, is when the loco is standing still in front of them. As Tony W points out, the amount of valve movement at higher speeds is tiny so a mid gear position is closer to being correct more of the time than any other position. Still wrong but possibly a best compromise. All good reasons for modelling the GCR, with not a bit of valve gear in sight! Now if you think that the Belgian with the unspellable name made things difficult, have a look at the outside Joy valve gear on some LNWR locos and explain how that moves........... At least Joy is easy to spell! Tony

The gear position and the return crank are two quite separate matters in valve gear. Unless you make the valve gear fully operational, it will always be wrong in some situations. So most folk go for a mid gear position as it is about the easiest as the radius rod (the horizontal rod from the curved expansion link forward) doesn't need to be able to move about as it does in forward or reverse gear. The rear facing return crank on some RTR locos is wrong all the time and correcting that is worth while as it does look quite wrong. Tony

I don't think that the £260 figure would be the cost of parts for a scratchbuilt loco, at least not in 4mm scale. A scratchbuilt loco would represent a considerable saving on that figure, depending on how many components are bought in rather than made. The posting mentioning the cost of the parts to build a loco was slightly open to different interpretations but if you look at the cost of, say, a DJH kit plus the parts needed to complete it, a figure of £260 is a good round figure and I am pretty sure that was what the poster was intending to indicate. The greatest cost in a scratchbuilt loco isn't measured in pounds but in time. It is a very satisfying activity but not as quick as opening a Bachmann box (although the time taken to find a way into some recent packaging has run it close). Tony

That sums up the joys of model railway operation very nicely! There are some very well known and impressive looking layouts around that would bore me silly in 10 minutes if I was operating them. On some of them 95% of the trains do nothing other than run through. For some people, that is all they want from a model railway. Seeing the trains running is what it is all about and I would never have a dig at anybody for enjoying such things. But for me, a good terminus (first of all, everything has to stop and do something!) is the best to operate, closely followed by a nice junction station. My own Minories inspired layout is scenically unfinished but is fully operational and there are several different ways that incoming trains are dealt with. If it is an express, the pilot can remove the stock to the "off scene" carriage sidings (fiddle yard) or can shunt the stock to another platform to release the train loco (again, that goes to the "off scene" shed for turning and servicing). For local services we can shunt the stock to another platform and the train loco can go back on the front to take it out again or a different loco can be put on the front. I also have a dock for fish/parcels/van traffic, which can come in either as tail loads or as a complete train. Although the fiddle yard only has 5 sidings and we have only 5 trains (plus a few extra tail load vehicles and spare locos), I can operate for hours without repeating moves or getting fed up. Buckingham is a more complex station but there are only 6 fiddle yard sidings. That is the best layout to operate that I have ever been anywhere near. Such operation is the complete opposite of the big "roundy roundy" with a huge fiddle yard full of trains that follow each other round the circuit. That may be a crowd pleaser at shows but having run such layouts I prefer the challenge and use of brain power of a good terminus layout massively more satisfying as an operator. Tony

The original Minories had some rather improbable reverse curves created by using the then new Peco Y points to create a crossover. The main lines arrived on scene and did a quick S bend, which to me was the only part of the plan I didn't like as it just doesn't seem to be what the real railways would have done. The curved point/slip arrangement is actually better than the Y point crossover for reverse curves and is a design used by Peter Denny on Buckingham, allowing access to and from either main line to the platforms with a more or less continuous curve, reducing buffer locking when propelling stock into the platforms or to the carriage sidings. Tony

You are quite right, Doncaster was the main ER base for accepting new diesel locos. Most of the acceptance trials took place on the old joint line from Doncaster to March, rather than the ECML. My good friend, the late Malcolm Crawley, worked on the acceptance trials in the late 1950s and often told tales of his trips on that route. That is not to say that new locos didn't travel up and down the main line but that was more positioning purposes rather than them being out on trials. Tony

One or two familiar faces there! Sounds like a good day was had by all. As has been said, it can sometimes take days like these to remind us of just what a good hobby we are all involved with. Sometimes it can be hard work, very frustrating and quite a lonely hobby and then you spend a great day with a bunch of similar minded people and all the fun element comes flooding back. I feel the same about exhibitions nowadays. The quality of the layouts and the traders matters less than the quality of the people I meet and chat with. Tony

There is a place for photoshopping in model railway photography but to may way of thinking, it should be kept for special circumstances and otherwise used as little as possible. I quite like some of the faked liveries and locos, like the Gresley 2-8-2 based on a stretched and doctored V2, as that is probably the only way we may ever see such things unless some modeller wants to spend time making such things (step up Mr King!). I don't mind background or foreground clutter being taken out and replaced with a generic greyed out area or a basic sky background. I don't have a problem with cropping or adjusting exposure, as those used to happen in the days of film cameras and just makes the finished image more pleasing to the eye. These sorts of things can be done without conning or cheating the person seeing the end product. My problem is when images are doctored to make the model look like something that it isn't. Straightening wonky lamps, removing dust or gaps under buildings is no more than a deceit. If a layout is being photographed for a magazine or for placing images on the internet, I want them to show what the model looks like in real life. I don't want them to show an idealised, sanitised version of what it really looks like. If somebody hasn't hidden the gaps under buildings, don't take or publish photos that highlight such things but please don't con me into thinking that the gaps are not there. Over the years, many photos have been published showing things not quite as they should be. Locos off the track, gaps in scenery and wonky telegraph poles. They in no way spoiled my enjoyment of the layout or the photos as they, in some ways, encouraged me that even people with layouts in the magazines were human too and made modelling like that more attainable to a relative novice. Adding exhaust/steam/smoke is another thing that I am not keen on. Has any model ever had a smoke unit that laid out that even trail of grey haze from the chimney? I think not. When I see an image like that, however well it has been done, I always think "Somebody likes playing in photoshop, what else have they altered?" and my interest in the photo sags immediately because I know that I am not looking at a photo of a model railway as it really is, I am being conned and I am looking at what somebody sitting at a computer thinks it should look like. I fully accept that not everybody feels the same and I would never say that anybody shouldn't play in photoshop (which is an interesting and absorbing way to spend some time as a hobby in its own right) all they want but it doesn't do anything for me. Tony

Many thanks Tony & Mo for a lovely day, playing trains with a bunch of good mates. Things really don't get much better! I can vouch for the quality of the running. Several hours of running trains and the only things that went wrong were human error "brown" faults, of switches and points not being set correctly. When I get round to downloading some photos, if any are good enough (thanks Tony for the kind and very subtle comments about my photographic skills), I will post one or two. Tony G

I don't know what Bachmann are doing but my choice in such circumstances is always to fit slightly smaller driving wheels. Real loco driving wheels could vary as they were turned down possibly several times before they reached scrapping tolerances. I seem to recall that this could be by as much as a couple of inches but I can't remember where I heard or saw that figure. It may have come from Malcolm Crawley, who knew about such matters. That has to be a much better option than increasing a wheelbase or enlarging splashers. Tony

Just testing! I should know..... I have one!

Pretty much any model railway spending is in the luxury/leisure category. It is all optional and through choice. The previous NRM special, the GCR 9J (J11) was clearly underpriced as some people bought them up just to sell them on at a profit. How soon will it be after the release that the first GNR 251 appears on ebay at a vastly inflated price? So why should such profits go into the hands of private moneygrabbing individuals rather than the manufacturers and the NRM, who have done all the work? Yes the price has gone up but such models are still extremely good value.

Got one (a nurse that is). She doesn't know about the Atlantic......... and I hope it stays that way. I will build up to it being a Christmas present "Would you like to get me something for the railway..... I have just the thing in mind". Apparently wallet opening is bad for my health (but only if she finds out about it!). And I am only a Yorkshireman by residence, not birth!

Reality check time! When will folk get it into their heads that the era of superb quality RTR models at rock bottom prices is over. The options are to produce downgraded models with less detail and lower spec. mechanisms or increase the prices. Manufacturers are tinkering with both routes at the moment and whatever they do, people have a pop at them because they are used to high quality and low prices and don't want things to change. Such people need to wake up. Things have changed. Bleating about it on a forum will not make the world go back to how it was a few years ago. Compare the price of this to just about any equivalent mainland Europe or American loco and it is a bargain. Sure, it is more than we are used to paying but it is a limited edition special at a very good price. If there are enough people wanting to purchase them at that price (and the initial reaction makes me think that there are enough, even I have made a rare visit to the wallet) then exactly why should Bachmann produce and sell them for less than that. All it would do is reduce their already poor profits. Now look at the price of a DJH kit, with a decent motor, gearbox and wheels and you are looking at somewhere around the same cost. As with all these things, we have an easy and free choice of at least three possible options. We can buy one. We can keep our money and not have one. We can whinge about it (this option can be used in conjunction with either of the first two). So anybody who doesn't want to pay that price, don't! Nobody is forcing you. There are lots of things in this world I would like to have but can't afford. I choose not to moan about it and I get a little fed up when I see "I really want one but I am unable (which actually means unwilling) to pay the price" postings. Tony

Perhaps the launch of the LBSCR variety is intended to be nearer the completion of the replica build, or maybe that one was announced first to throw us all off the scent.

One very happy bunny. The old Ks kit in the bottom drawer can now stay there.