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I might be being a bit dim here (not the first time) but that report says that they are hoping to restore services in July but that the railway won't be repaired until September. Might be a bit bumpy! I wonder if words haven't been chosen too carefully or if there is a cunning plan. Maybe September will be the completion of the repair but trains will be running before then.

I did hear that a short while ago the old rails were succesfully cut at both ends of the problem area, allowing a start on removing the damaged track. There was some concern as to what might happen when this was done as a rail twisted like that might whip around and do damage. Other than that, I can report a large amount of road activity involving very big lorries! Tony

I don't have the inclination to do the maths but for a slip carriage to stop from, say 50 or 60 mph in a platform it is going to have to be released some way before the platform, unless the passengers are going to be flung about by severe braking. Peter Denny had a slip carriage on Buckingham, but with inside bearings and low speeds the uncoupler was only just at the end of the platforms and the slow down and stop was a bit fierce. That used three link couplings with an "on board" uncoupling hook worked via a treadle under the carriage, activated by a tiny ramp between the tracks. Unless anybody has a huge layout, the actual uncoupling would very likely be off scene and perhaps a motorised carriage following behind the train is an easy option and does away with any coupling worries. It is very tricky to get a carriage to move realistically without it being powered, as you would struggle to replicate the brake being applied. Tony

If there has ever been a better stonework effect on a layout, I haven't seen it! I hope that the layout finds a good home and that wherever it ends up, we get a chance to see it from time to time to remind us just how good Tom was. Tony

Lovely stuff! I have always thought that the period immediately after nationalisation would be a good one to model but apparently there are very few folk interested in it. One of the big manufacturers once told me that anything with BRITISH RAILWAYS in full on the tender/tank side was a poor seller compared to other liveries. I suppose it was short lived but to be able to have LMS and LNER liveries, plus BRITISH RAILWAYS and the early crest and even some express locos in blue would make for a very unusual and interesting layout. Tony

Fair do Ian! He is certainly inspirational to a lot of people. I just took the swing in the thread to be to inspirational layout builders but I am happy to see the net cast wider than that! Tim has had a few articles in the recent press, about weathering. I can't recall which mag it was and as it isn't one I get, I can't look it up. Maybe Model Rail or Hornby magazine. He has also just had a second weathering DVD released via Activity Media and has filmed another DVD for release later this year. He lives a long way from me so we don't meet often but he has been here a few times doing a bit of very subtle restoration work on some parts of Buckingham. Hopefully he will be up this way again before long. Cheers, Tony

I am very pleased to call Tim Shackleton a friend and I have a huge respect for his modelling and his writing but an inspirational layout builder? I doubt that anybody could name a Shackleton layout and I am not even sure that I have ever seen or heard of him finishing one! I am not entirely sure that he would enjoy being named as "older" either! The bloke is only a few years older than me. No witty riposts please! Cheers, Tony

The extra work on the coal rails looks to be worthwhile, especially in 7mm. It has crossed my mind that the coupling rods may be better in the 7mm kit as the artwork may have been checked for scale before it was turned into metal and the error in the 4mm kit may have been corrected. Cheers, Tony

I really looked forward to seeing Borchester Market for the second time at Nottingham. I think that the design of the layout and the railway itself really stand up as a superb example of a proper operational model railway. It was let down for me by the stock and some of the operation. I recall reading that Frank Dyer was a bit of a stickler for his operators being highly skilled on the layout before they were allowed to operate in front of others. I saw rather too many locos come to a halt because points weren't set or sections weren't switched correctly and a lot of studying lists of what to do next. The other thing with the originbal stock was that nothing was unusual or "one offs". I recall reading how Frank Dyer got his atmosphere by modelling the day in, day out railway scene. On something like Borchester, that meant B1s, K3s, J39s, J6 & 11, J50 and all sorts of motive power appropriate to a secondary line. At Nottingham, when I looked, there was an A4, a 9F and Falcon on shed! It rather went against the spirit of what Frank Dyer was aiming to achieve. I appreciate that the current owners don't have the original stock but enough suitable RTR locos have been available to allow a more suitable loco stud and it rather spoiled the overall effect for me. The layout was still worth a good coat of looking at though. Allowing a train to be seen running along the back and round into the station, with off scene fiddle yards like those is something that more of us should think about. Brilliant design!

Dad's photo shows the loco standing in the sidings at the back of Nottingham Victoria and I have seen at least one other shot of her apparently standing light engine in a platform there. That plus the odd lamp code (looks like Class K - pick up freight) made me wonder if she was pottering about the station and doing a bit of local trip working. Maybe filling in between Grantham locals. Cheers, Tony

Your dad and my dad (or my uncle they both took photos and I am not sure whose is whose) must have been knocking about at Nottingham Victoria at pretty much the same time! I have his rather poor shot of 62000 there in that livery at around the same time. I wonder if it spent some time there as a station pilot? It is my favourite part of the world for railways so many thanks for posting. Tony

Model railways are strange things when it comes to prices and values. If you wanted to have something like Bramblewick built to commission, it would cost a fortune. Yet if you look at the number of P4 modellers, who model the NER and who have space for a 40' layout, you may be looking at the fingers on one finger, so the market is tiny. There is always the chance that somebody will but it and rip up the track to change it to 16.5mm gauge but I think that would be a shame. I recall that one very well known and highly respected large layout sold for as little as around £200, simply because the market place for a large and highly specialised layout was so small. I hope that the layout is saved, hopefully in a way which will allow it to be seen by others again. It is indeed a masterpiece of modelling and artistry and deserves to be retained in a sympathetic and appropriate way. Ideally it needs somebody with the sort of skills that Tom had but there ain't many around who come even close! Tony

Looking good! I like the mod for the cylinders and motion bracket. I tried to pursuade Malcolm to do something like that when he was designing it. Sometimes he would listen to me but more often he was not one for changing his mind once it was made up! You seem to have worked your way around the discrepancy in the coupling rod centres too. The rods were not drawn new for the K2 but were lifted from the J6 artwork. This is long before CAD drawing and all those kits were hand drawn. The rods in the K2 kit seem to have had their scaling slightly adrift in the etching process as the K2 rods are not the same length as rods produced from exactly the same artwork for the J6 kits. If they had been on the same sheet of artwork as the K2 frames, it wouldn't have caused a problem as the rods and frames would have both been out by the same few "thou" but as they weren't, they ended up slightly different. Nobody made the problem known until Tony Wright's review/build article as the test build was done with sprung hornblocks assembled using the rods to set the centres. Tony

Whoever thought of that livery? Must have been a "glass half full" type. You can imagine the meeting...... "If we have to have then black at least we can give them a silver lining". I like it! They get worse...... sorry.

Very nice! I think with that one, I would have done exactly the same, especially as coupling rods are not an issue and those etched slidebars look a bit more delicate than the K2 ones. Just goes to show that there is always more than one way to tackle a modelling job! Cheers, Tony

Sorry for the previous slightly less than serious post! One of the news reports referred to the slip being from the waste from the most recent workings, adding that the tips from older workings, which were the ones nearest the houses, were quite stable and safe. What it didn't say was what "recent" means in this context.

How about Bernard Cribbins and "There was I digging this hole"?

Your second idea might be best as that will allow the valve gear to be removed as a single unit with the cylinders and slidebars. If the curved link is firmly attached to the frames by the motion bracket, that will make removal tricky. Tony

That looks a very neat solution. I have an unbuilt K2 kit in the cupboard and when the time comes I will be nicking that idea! I cannot quite recall how the motion bracket fits but I think that is designed to be soldered to the frames as well. You may need to put your thinking cap on for that too. If you would like to solve that one for me too, it would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Tony

Spot on! I worked briefly in a coking works 30 plus years ago and regular inspections were carried out all over the plant. Even while I was there for a few months, decisions were made that it was expensive to carry out regular checks and to maintain the plant and that it would save money if we just waited until something broke and then fixed it. There were places on site that were deathtraps, such as rotten mesh walkways to the top of the coal conveyor belt towers but getting anybody to spend money to fix them was impossible, so you had to walk up with your feet wide apart on the main runners. That plant is closed now but a friend of mine who has worked in the same factory for 40 years has had exactly the same done there and as a maintainence engineer he just waits for things to break. Was Hatfield Colliery the same? I have no idea but with previous owners having gone down financially I would guess that money wasn't exactly flowing for routine maintainence work. If politicians are to get involved, it is those sorts of things they ought to be asking about. Who inspected the tip, how often and what is in their reports?

My comments were not so much about the specifics of the problem at Stainforth but more about the general state of land drainage in the area, which may have contributed to the problem as the land on the far side of the line to the colliery has been waterlogged for many years. My father in law worked for Yorkshire Water and part of his job was as to be one of a gang of 20 who spent all summer long clearing drainage ditches from new growth. The work is just not done now and what do you know, the area suffers from frequent flooding. Perhaps it is a coincidence but my father in law doesn't think so and he had 40 years experience at the blunt end. I am really not assuming anything, just commenting on a posting regarding the lack of drainage planning on the tip. The area he worked in is actually below sea level, so it doesn't take a genius to work out that drainage may be a problem if it is neglected. Hatfield Colliery is probably at pretty much the same sort of altitude. This colliery is less than 100 years old and I class that as modern compared to when the land drainage schemes were being put in place. I pass Stainforth station regularly as one of my daughters works a couple of hundred yards from troublesome slag heap and I give her a lift 3 days a week. The whole area is run down, uncared for and suffering from vandalism. There seem to be "travellers" caravans and tethered horses and ponies all over the place. I would think that even the idea of leaving anything on site overnight would give anybody working there nightmares! Access isn't easy either as you have the dodgy pit tip on one side and the railway line and lagoons on the other. It will be a very challenging task to sort it out and I wish those involved the very best in their task.

I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. It is the modern way of doing things. Cheapest and quickest and don't worry about the future too much if it reduces the profits now. Land drainage generally is badly neglected and many ditches and dykes have been left to get choked and blocked as there is no profit in spending money clearing them. It may even have something to do with the ever more frequent floods we seem to be having. Looking after roads seem to be going the same way. The Dutch drainage engineers who made large parts of this area of the country into useable farmland many years ago understood that such work had a long term benefit and we seem to have forgotten that in the chase for the quick financial return.

Cheers Gus but sadly I can claim no credit for the articles you mentioned! I have had one or two bits published in RM, MRJ and BRM but nothing with anything as modern as a 9F (unlesss you count the GCR 9F better known as an N5!). I tend to be more of your "behind the scenes" sort and spend much of my modelling time helping other people with their projects. In fact, I have just spotted some of my work in the heading to this page! Tony

I know just what you mean! The proper solution, good engineering and all that, is to make the cylinders removeable to allow good access to the driving wheels. Then there is the practical approach! How many times do you ever actually need to get driving wheels out? I once had a leading crankpin wear to the extent that it sheared off and took the wheels out to replace it. That is once in 35 years and having been involved with hundreds (not all mine!) of kit and scratchbuilt locos. A compromise might be to just tack solder the cylinders on in a couple of places, rather than a full blown soldered seam joint. That way, if the worst happened, at least you have a decent chance of getting the assembly off again. Even a blob or two of epoxy, allowing the joint to be broken with a sharp knife if necessary, might do the trick.

That is coming along very nicely. I a sure that it got mentioned on here somewhere but without trawling through lots of pages I am not sure where, so I will just touch on it again. One of the shortcomings of the kit is the access to the leading driving wheels if it is built rigid. Malcolm built all his either sprung or beam compensated and when I raised it with him his response was that if peple wanted to build it other than how he intended then it was their problem! You cannot get the leading wheels in and out once the cylinders are on. So you have a few options. One is to build up the frames as a simple wheels/coupling rods arrangement, get it working and even paint the frames before assembling the cylinders and valve gear. Another is to modify the cylinders/valve gear so that they can be attached with a nut and bolt, rather than be soldered to te frames. A third is to make the leading wheels removeable, with a slot and a keeper plate or retaining wire arrangement. All three will work but I thought it worth suggesting them before you get too far! Keep up the good work!! Cheers, Tony PS Just noticed that you have mentioned Comet cylinders and I think the frames look a bit altered, so you have probably sorted out a suitable modification to make the cylinders removeable but I will leave the post on just in case!