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It is interesting that the announcement of the sale is released this way. It takes the wind out the sails of any announcement DJH or Ellis Clark (no "e" as you have put but others have added it) might want to make.

As does the Robinson style chimney.

Thanks for that. It is along the lines of what I was thinking. In my case, the first 100 wagons were all plastic, a mix of kits and RTR. All have pin point bearings. We then attached 35 wagons, a mix of plastic, whitemetal and etched (with varying weight) at the rear of the train. I fully expected the heavier wagons at the back to pull the lighter plastic wagons at the front over but they didn't. We were probably at a stage where the pull forwards, through the coupling and the low rolling resistance was just enough to keep them going. I can imagine just putting a finger on the roof of the brake van would have had them all off. Examples have been given of trains being pulled over on curves and I have seen it happen. I just can't work out whether just the length of the train would make it come off or if it is down to variations in weight and rolling resistance. If all vehicles have the same weight and rolling resistance, would an exceptionally long train get pulled over on a curve just due to the overall weight of the trailing load or would it stay on? That is the bit I don't know the answer to. My instinct says that they would stay on but I don't know for sure. Why I even bother thinking about such things is another matter altogether!

Quite a few years ago, we ran a train of 135 wagons around Tickhill & Wadworth, which had 3ft radius curves (EM Gauge). The train went right around the layout and the brake van was a few inches in front of the loco. It would run at various speeds with pulling over into the centre and we didn't get any derailments. I expected it to come off but it didn't. Somebody cleverer than me can explain why some heavy trains pull off the track inwards on a curve and some don't!

There will be a good turnout from our little gang. Two are in the show and at least five of us are coming as visitors. Looking forward to it.

When I was an absolute beginner, my mentors taught me to thin off the over thick edges on whitemetal kits. As far as enhancing a model, it is just about the simplest job I can think of. If a novice is going to go down the route of building fairly ancient kits without trying to do anything to bring them up to modern standards, they are just going to end up with locos that look rather poor if placed next to modern RTR ones. That may be even more discouraging for them than being shown how to improve the kits. Replacing a cab roof, especially something as complicated as a GCR one, is a bit trickier and should possibly be attempted by somebody with a bit more experience but my Millholme N5 got a new cab roof and that was the third or fourth loco I built. At least it didn't have all those complex ribs and angles on the outside. Perhaps the hardest one I have done is a GCR C14. That was tricky! Older kits often turn up at Missenden Abbey and it is a very satisfying to see the reaction of people when they are shown what a difference a few minutes with a file can do to make things look better. To me, it is well worthwhile with a big reward for little time and effort.

I agree completely. I don't think I have built any GCR loco and used the cab roof as supplied. The large scale "Ypres" illustrated above is a great example of what it should look like. As does Mike Edge's B7. I did find a problem with the G Train etched B3 roof but I can't remember why now. I think the rear extension was not to my liking and altering it messed up the half etched part of the angles. I think I used brass T and L section to make a new one. I also dislike GCR locos which have an obvious join between the cab front and the roof. In real life, the cab roof sat behind the front, set down below the top. So many kits have a roof that sits on top of the front with a very visible join. In the case of a thick whitemetal roof, you also end up with the front windows not going up high enough. So I replace the thick roof in a whitemetal kit with a thin brass one and try to fill and make the joint flush. With all whitemetal kits I thin down the visible edges, on roofs, cab sides, tenders etc. to remove the idea that they were built to withstand an attack from most small arms and anti tank weapons. It adds to the construction time but makes a big difference. A chamfer on the edge is better than armour plate.

Possibly a P4 layout called Knutsford. Quite a few years ago there was a plan to have some Gladiator 7mm kits reduced to 4mm scale. It didn't come to anything but a tiny number of test etches for the B7 (and a D9) were produced. One ended up built in P4 on Knutsford and Roy Jackson also had one. He built most of it in EM many years ago. That is the one I have now. The castings were never produced at 4mm scale so Roy got a friend to machine parts for the slidebars and crosshead but he never got around to assembling them. So that is a possibility. They are certainly rare beasts in 4mm scale but I have seen some gorgeous 7mm models from the Gladiator kit.

I just love a B7! There is an air of brute force about them. I have one that the late Roy Jackson almost completed to finish off in EM, a set of G Trains etches for another EM model, plus a Gladiator Models kit in 7mm. One day.................

Very nice! It is good to see somebody going the "extra mile" to get these details correct. This is what the hinges and handles look like, at least on one example:

Does Butler Henderson have its water pick up gear? Yes! You can also clearly see the 13 spoke wheel. The tender on 63771 is not, I believe, its original one. As an ex ROD loco, it would have had a simple round filler cap rather than the D shaped box. The low rear coal plate and the D shaped box make this a GCR rather than an ROD tender. The simple D shape, without the small cut out in the side and without the asymmetrical box on the RH side for the cross shaft on the scoop gear was what was put on some GCR tenders built without a water scoop. Others (such as the self trimmers on the D11/2s) were built with the full set of boxes and looked like a scoop fitted tender other than the wheel and the scoop itself. It is indeed a minefield and it is a brave person who will say categorically that a particular combination of features never existed!

That mounting block is what made me mention the water pick up wheel. My thinking is that the boxes in the back of the tender were kept. There is little or no evidence to prove this but if the boxes were removed, there would have been big holes in the tank top that would need plating in and I know that some tenders were built with the boxes but without scoop gear, so I call it an informed guess. It also made it easy to put the gear back in at a later date if the tender was transferred to a loco that needed it. The mounting for the wheel on the tender front was removed as you say and illustrate.

I have made wire flat by tinning a sheet of brass, soldering wire onto it and filing it flat. It doesn't have to be absolutely precise. You can do both sides but at that size, just getting a flat on the outside facing surface should be enough. I hope that is a possibly helpful suggestion.

Did they run with the tall GCR dome in BR days Tony? That isn't a combination I have seen, as I thought they all had shorter domes by then. The chimney is puzzling me too. If it is supposed to be a "flowerpot" it isn't a very good one but maybe it is a type I am unfamiliar with. Alan Gibson will supply a shorter dome and a better chimney should you wish to improve it. Are you going to add the wheel for the water scoop? I think there is an etched one in the kit from memory but it was a long time ago when I built mine.

Perhaps it isn't very good as a scale representation of accurate valve gear but the point I was making was that they manage to have small moving components on RTR models. So as the scale of the people using the models is fairly consistent, if small wiggly bits are OK in N gauge, they should stand a chance in 4mm scale. They are just as likely or not likely to suffer at the hands of the "average modeller". The lubricator linkage on a Hornby A4 is considerably bigger than the valve gear components on an N Gauge loco, yet both are sold to the same RTR market, yet it was suggested that Hornby had to make the linkage overscale for it to survive. I hope that clarifies what I was trying to get across. I am aware of people moaning (hard to believe, I know) about the finer details falling off RTR models, so there is a point somewhere where delicacy becomes a problem but I am sure that Hornby could have done a better job with the lubricator linkage. Just making the crank shorter and the operating rod slightly thinner without altering the joints would have improved things. I don't have A4s as they are far too modern for me. If I did, I wouldn't tolerate that lubricator linkage looking like a second set of valve gear. If others are happy with it, then that is fine!

Modern N gauge RTR seems to manage with fairly small and delicate valve gear. The Golden Age models A4 shows what is possible. If I wanted an A4, I would be quite happy to take the Hornby lubricator off and put a nearer scale one on. It would be one of the things I would be looking to improve. I would also make a bracket on my new frames and hang the top end of the lubricator on the frames rather than attach it to the body. Just because a model is produced for the "average train set" market shouldn't mean that it stays that way. If folk are happy with it is as supplied then good luck to them but it is something I would want to change.

Roy's Lilliput A4s dated back to High Dyke days, when that was about the best way to get an A4 without trying to scratchbuild one. If you wanted to stock an EM layout very quickly, it was the best route to go down. If I recall correctly the body was not 100% accurate but was better that the Wills kit or the Hornby Dublo RTR, which were the other options at the time. More recent "Retford" A4s have been based on converted Hornby models. The Golden Age lubricator does show the correct proportional difference between the lubricator and the valve gear. If they could do it, why not others? It is no worse than doing valve gear in 2mm scale and plenty of modellers (and RTR people) seem to manage with that.

I say he did well because so many model A4s, both kits and RTR, didn't get the shape quite correct and he seemed to manage it. It shouldn't be remarkable but in the case of model A4s, it is.

It is indeed a tricky shape. I recall Malcolm Crawley building an "as built" W1 from the SE Finecast kit. He had a set of "proper" railway drawings that had several cross sectional views at different places along the boiler. It was clear that they hadn't been used to design the kit, which had an almost triangular shape rather than the more rounded body of the real thing. There is hardly a straight line in the A4 and anybody trying to make a kit from just a flat 2D drawing has their work cut out. Then trying to turn all those fancy curves into a flat etch that needs to be curved to shape makes it all very challenging indeed to get it spot on. Martin Finney did extremely well to produce such a good shape if he did it from "flat" drawings and if Hornby scanned a real one, that would explain why theirs is a good shape.

That was it. Lovely!

I wouldn't want to use the Hornby A4 as it comes. There are always some aspects that need sorting out. One thing I am not keen on is the "working" lubricator drive that is almost the same size as the valve gear. In real life you hardly notice the lubricator as it is tiny compared to the valve gear but on the A4 shown above, it almost looks like it has an extra set of motion on the rear axle. It should be much less conspicuous. If perfect models could be had RTR, there would be nothing left for people like us to do. Have you any A4s that use the Hornby body on a new mechanism, such as the Comet one? That might give the best of both worlds. I did that with the Royal Scot on Narrow Road. The Bachmann mechanism was discarded and Comet frames and motion/cylinders were used. That gave a loco with a more than acceptable body on a mechanism that runs like a kit built loco and there was plenty of room to add weight to give it plenty of haulage capacity. It was probably easier than converting the RTR mechanism to EM too.

Your recent Proscale A4 has a rather poor shape to the valance ahead of the cylinders that spoils the look for me. It has an almost square corner to the cut out in the valance where the real thing has a curve. There is something about the shape of the body that doesn't quite seem right to my eyes too but that is a bit more subjective and I couldn't say exactly what it is that bothers me about it. As a shape, the A4 is a nightmare of curves and subtlety that is very difficult to get just right. The Proscale one is, in my view, close but not quite there. The latest Hornby ones look better, as does the Finney kit. One of the best looking 4mm A4s I have seen was a Hornby one with modifications to the cylinders to get rid of the slab sided look that so many models have. It has been illustrated on your thread before but it was a while ago and I can't remember whose it was. At least you have the satisfaction of knowing that you built yours, even though it isn't quite as good as the RTR one. As for the Proscale V2, your comments about different models exhibiting different faults sounds as if you mean that the other models didn't display the same errors. So if one model had wrong wheels but the other had correct wheels, it means it is possible to build it with the correct wheels. If the cab on one pointed sideways and the other didn't, it must be possible to build it with the cab straight. So somewhere out there, there may just be a "goodun" with all the faults fixed on the same model.

The Gauge O Guild shows are already that sort of thing. Mostly trade and a few layouts, often smaller ones. They are none the worse for it and I really enjoy going to them. They become a social event, to meet up with people I don't get to see that often, along with a chance to pick up kits, bits and bobs and materials. I do like a bit of a mix of layouts at shows but the larger ones don't inspire me to do something similar. I will never have room to build anything like them. The smaller ones often trigger an idea or two that I may be able to adopt for a future project. I have exhibited larger layouts in the past but any future ones will almost certainly be smaller ones, that will fit in a car and can be exhibited by two people. One "American style" layout I had the pleasure of seeing in this country was Geoff Taylor's "Barmouth Junction". It had several stations and fiddle yards and needed several operators to run it properly. It was a superb layout yet as far as I know, every loco and very likely every item of stock, was RTR. So there are people who are really good modellers but who have no interest in building locos.

I agree with you. MRJ had a huge impact on my personal modelling. All of a sudden, there were articles on the sort of modelling that I aspired to, which rarely appeared in the more mainstream press. There was a full page, double spread photo of a scratchbuilt "Princess" in an early issue that blew me away completely. I had no idea such a thing was possible. All these years later, I haven't got close to matching it but my modelling has improved steadily and continues to do so. Just this week, I started scratchbuilding a crosshead and slidebar in 2mm scale for the first time. A few years ago, I wouldn't have dreamt of doing such a thing but now I can have a go. When you come to Missenden, you will come away knowing how to build valve gear easily, getting good articulated joints first time every time, without the use of a hammer! Once you have a few tricks up your sleeve, it isn't that difficult. The biggest problem is that lots of people do it different ways and the sheer variety of advice is baffling. It makes it hard to know which way to go about it. Tony Gee (one of the tutors at Missenden)

Absolutely agree with you Clive. I am happy as long as I am making something (or "playing trains on various layouts). It doesn't have to be all about building locos. I don't think I have ever built a kit, or a scratchbuild, of anything where a good RTR model is available. Time is valuable and I would rather spend mine making things that cannot be easily obtained by other means.