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That is yet another variation. Repainted into LNER Green but still carrying the GCR numberplate and the C suffix, rather than the 5438 number she would have ended up with.

As is often the case, I spotted a couple of details that I had overlooked, namely bending the guard irons and adding some bolts where they meet the frames and also I decided to add the cable/conduit for the electric lights as it shows up as being fairly obvious in photos. She has now had a coat of Halfords "Acid 8" primer on the body (I forgot to prime the cab roof, which is loose to allow the cab fittings to be painted and stuck in, that will be done later). .

Which is why my modelling is set in and around 1907! At least in 1923, there was still a big variety of liveries from many different companies, including some in full livery and some in wartime economy colours. By 1948 by far the vast majority of steam locos were black, very often plain black. Nobody can argue that there was a greater choice of liveries in 1948 compared to 1923. In 1923/4. a GCR loco might be in full GCR livery, simplified wartime livery, hybrid livery with GCR colours and GCR number but lettered LNER, or LNER lettering and LNER number still with GCR lining and livery, or full LNER livery with L&NER or LNER. By 1948, nearly all the survivors were black, mostly plain black. The only change was the new lettering/crest and number. A few GCR locos were painted green after WW2 but it was a tiny number.

I agree and it surprises me that the RTR locos sold in very early BR livery tend to not sell very well and that there are not very many layouts set in the 1948/9 period. Perhaps it is that the railways were pretty run down at that time , not having recovered from WW2. Many photos from that time depict things to be pretty grimy. Not a problem for the modeller who likes weathering!

Indeed but back in the day, they didn't have "photoshop" and fakes were generally quite crude and easy to spot. I have seen enough models in dodgy/fictional liveries to not worry too much about it nowadays. If somebody wants to model a loco based on a "faked" photo then good luck to them. We often model "might have happened" locations, so why not "might have happened" liveries? I am really just saying that if you want to model lots of locos with various and unusual liveries, then 1923/4 is a good time to portray.

That sort of period is a very interesting one as far as LNER liveries goes. That F1 illustrated above is almost certainly still in GCR Green, as it has full GCR style lining. It still has the GCR number on the brass plate and on the tank side. Note the caption describes it as 5594, which is the number allocated by the LNER (adding 5000 to GCR numbers). The B6 is similar too. LNER lettering applied to a GCR liveried loco, still carrying the GCR number. Such liveries may have only been carried for very short periods of time in some instances but if you are modelling 1923, you can have all sorts of rarities. Other companies were in similar situations and there are lots of examples of hybrid liveries on the LMS too. The GWR had little immediate change as the locos kept the same numbers and the company name remained although there may have been some odd liveries amongst the smaller absorbed companies. There must have been lots of hybrid liveries on the Southern but it isn't an area that I have studied.

It says "Airbus" on the side but I am pretty sure it isn't one of those!

It is one of my favourite layouts too. It won't probably appeal to fans of "urban grot" and those who like their model railways mucky and who like to model dull unattractive scenes. For those of us who like to see our railways at their best, with our rose tinted vision, it is a superb example. I can spend ages just taking in all the fine modelling, the design and presentation, which are up there with the very best. It is the sort of layout that can make the difference between me travelling to see a show or not bothering. York is a fixture in my diary anyway but I will look forward to a repeat viewing.

Well, apart from the couplings and windscreen wipers, which will be added after painting and glazing, I think I have run out of jobs on the 04. I have made up some under footplate "gubbins" from brass rod, angle and wire. They are done from the photo of 11111, so I can't guarantee 100% accuracy but they look OK. I am quite pleased with the way she has turned out. A test run on a friend's O gauge model of Framlingham was carried out on Sunday and she can haul the 15 wagon branch goods with no problems, so I may not add any more weight. Thanks for all the help and information. Tony

At that price, I think that kit is from their O Gauge range.

I get the Vallorbe ones from H S Walsh. At the time, there was a bit of discount for bulk buying and a friend and I each bought a bulk pack, which we split, so we had half a bulk pack of two different sizes. As they are so superior to the previous ones I used, I find that they don't "snatch" as often and they actually last much longer. Nowadays, I often discard blades that have gone blunt and stopped cutting well before I break them. The Vallorbe blades were about £3 for a pack of 10. Hardly extravagant, although Walsh don't have the Vallorbe blades in the sizes I ordered any longer.

Good morning Tony. It was the most challenging kit I have ever encountered. Hand drawn, with LH and RH parts drawn independently and not quite identical, along with many parts that simply could not be used as they were provided. Challenging but rewarding too. Ken Hill started it but ground to a halt. Malcolm Crawley finished the construction many years later but couldn't make it work. I made it go and then Malcolm painted and lined it. A true labour of love and a nice team effort by a good bunch of friends. I had the opportunity to demonstrate the use of a piercing saw at Missenden this weekend. My success at this technique is very much down to buying decent blades. Anybody who struggles using the blades bought from model railway suppliers should try some good ones to see the difference. The ones I use are from Vallorbe. More often than not I can now cut a straight line that needs little or no cleaning up.

It doesn't seem like two minutes since we were discussing Jidenco Claughton kts. I think I mentioned the that you had photographed the one we have on Narrow Road. You sent the photos on a disk, so presumably you have them somewhere digitally. I have a small file digital version, which was sent for me to write the captions, which I am posting. I hope it is OK for me to post one of your own photos. It took three of us around 18 years to get it finished but it spent most of those in a box where it lived in disgrace for a long time. I have never resorted to prayer when using a piercing saw. Just careful marking out and a little bit of skill, learned through practice.

You may well be right but I haven't seen any evidence of the new TT120 being anything other than a train set gauge. I am sure there must be plenty of people working away on "proper" model railways using it but I just haven't seen any yet. I have seen plenty of superb 3mm models and layouts.

That makes sense and is pretty much how I saw things too. the advent of the Hornby TT:120 stimulated interest in the 3mm side. I keep having a look at the 3mm Society lists and daydreaming! I inherited 3 shot down George Norton/London Road kits a while ago so I wouldn't be starting from nothing. I have seen some lovely modelling in 3mm scale and the reason I like it is that it is very much a modelling scale. You have the historic Triang TT or the very much self reliant build it yourself projects and not much by way of mass produced, good quality RTR that has swamped the 4mm world and is doing something similar in 7mm now.

Except that they are two quite different scales. 3mm uses 1:100 as a scale and the new Hornby variety is 1:120. I don't see how they would mix on a TT project. I am totally on board with you though, regarding the appeal of the scale. I have always had a soft spot for the 3mm version and I even have one r two kits stashed away, just in case I get the urge to have a dabble. Many kit manufacturers have been happy to have their kits resized and sold through the 3mm Society. As a builder rather than a RTR enthusiast, I would be happier building 3mm kits (or scratchbuilding) and would avoid the Hornby RTR products. If I ever did do anything, I think I would be looking at the 14.2mm track gauge. 12mm gauge at 3mm to the foot is even further out than OO Gauge. A one part, 3D printed body has little appeal for me. Most of the fun I get is from making things. I like to do a bit more than paint it, add some coal and some transfers. I would be a little concerned about the weight of the finished model too. A cast or even an etched kit gives an opportunity to add weight in nooks and crannies. The smaller the scale, the more important weight becomes to aid power pick up. Perhaps there is room in the 3D printed 3F tank to add some but the actual body itself won't contribute much.

Thanks for that. I hadn't twigged it was the same loco. My knowledge of diesels of that period is very sketchy and I hadn't looked up the renumbering scheme. I had looked at the buffers on the side on shot of 11111 but couldn't quite tell which of the two oval types they were. The second shot confirms which they should be. I am still a bit undecided about the buffers in the kit. They are quite nice castings but obviously the shape of the heads needs altering depending on the loco. I have wondered about drilling them out and making new turned heads to allow me to spring them, or perhaps replacing them if some suitable sprung alternatives are available. So I put them on just to see how I feel about them and I quite like them, so I am now tempted to keep them and just alter the shape of the heads to suit the prototype. Watch this space! Thanks, Tony

It is interesting that you found pretty much the same as I did. The more I looked, the more variations I found. Locos which should have a conical exhaust sometimes have a stovepipe, locos that were built without skirts got them later (like 11111). A few had LNER style buffer beam lining, with a black and white edge. Perhaps they did have post war LNER style numbers too. I do think that the wheels suggested by Connoisseur and supplied by Slaters are not quite right for the early locos. they are the right diameter but they have an even number of spokes, whereas the early locos had wheels with an odd number. So the balance weights are a full 180 degree arc when they shouldn't be. I can live with that as some locos have wheels with an even number of spokes and a full 180 degree balance weight but I think these were the later batches with larger wheels. The diesel is very much a little "quicky" side project for me and although I like to get things right if I can, I am not going to lose any sleep over minor discrepancies. I only bought the kit at Guildex at the beginning of September and I just wanted to see how quickly I can build a 7mm loco if I put my mind to it!

The kit I am building is the Connoisseur Models one in 7mm scale. It is a very nice kit indeed and I have hardly had to alter anything to make things fit together, although I chose to upgrade a couple of items, like the brake pull rods. It still needs a few more details adding, like sand boxes, front lamp irons, hooks for the shunter's pole and a few other bits. It does include quite a lot of alternative parts, including some for industrial versions. I attach a couple of snaps, posed on the Colin Marsden book that has a nice photo of 11111, with no skirts. I my have to drill some holes along the edge of the footplate to represent the fixings for the skirts.

Many thanks for all the responses. I do have MRJ No 3. My memory for MRJ articles is usually pretty good but it let me down this time and that one had completely slipped my mind. Having had a read through, it clears up the vacuum pipe query and also confirms that the early black livery used normal steam type numbering. I have a few books that I have borrowed from diesel minded friends and had a good trawl on the internet and I managed to sort out most variations but I just couldn't find a reference to tell me which locos had vacuum pipes and what colour the lettering was. My model will be 11111, just because it was in the right part of the world at the time and there are not many opportunities to give a model a number like that. I have now found a photo confirming it had vacuum pipes. I think I have the footplate, cab handrails, side door panels, sandboxes, and other details about right. I have given it a whistle and no horn, which turns out to be right according to MRJ. Once again, the membership of RMweb is a wonderful help in such matters and I really appreciate those who have taken the time and trouble to help. I have been looking at Railtec transfers and I quite fancy their "faded" crests. Tony

A little out of my normal comfort zone and my personal library and internet searches have failed to help but I am currently building a kit for the Drewry 04 diesel shunter. I have two questions that I hope the assembled RMWebbers will be able to help me with. The loco will be finished in the early BR black livery, with the early crest. Were the numbers cream or white? I have found a colour photo but it is rather too weathered to tell what the base colour is. Looking at models produced either commercially or by other modellers, I have come across some with white and some with cream, so i am a little confused. Secondly, most locos seem to be vacuum fitted but there are some that have no vacuum pipes. Is there list or any information on which locos were fitted and which were not? Is it down to particular batches of locos or is it more random? The kit is for one of the first 15 locos and photos of them in original condition don't seem very common. I don't trust preserved examples, which may well have changed over 70 odd years. Hopefully there will be those more familiar with this class than I am who can help. Many thanks in anticipation. Tony Gee

My experience of RTR models for my own use is virtually nil, as I have said before. When I took on the task of making Burnden Park run, there were many locos which bumped quite badly through the hand made, fairly tight tolerance points on the layout. To be fair to the locos, the points were 16.5mm gauge with 1mm check rail gaps, which required a B2B minimum of over 14.5mm. However, when I started checking and altering them, the B2B measurements were anywhere from 14.1mm to 14.5mm. So the points were not built to a normal OO standard, which made the situation worse but measuring the B2B dimensions was a real eye opener. As has been said, generally OO is a fairly tolerant and forgiving way to build a layout, so perhaps it is not that critical if you have wider check rail gaps. If you do the sums, 16.5mm minus two lots of 1.2mm check rails means anything over 14.1mm B2B should go through, so you may have a wide variety of B2B dimensions and just never had a problem with them.

My eldest daughter always counters "It's not rocket science" with "I studied rocket science at University and it's not that complicated". I like the way that some folk say RTR back to backs come at a good consistent standard and others say they don't. Both can and could very well be correct. It all depends on how the wheels are assembled in the factory and how good the machine, or the person operating it and checking it, are. I have had some RTR locos with good, consistent and accurate B2B dimensions and others with dreadful ones. So they all get checked (I also use a Vernier Gauge, an old fashioned non battery one) and any adjustments made.

I have used both the SE Finecast and the Slaters bricks in 4mm scale. My latest purchases of Slaters have all been very brittle and I have had great problems with the sheet just breaking apart, especially if I have tried to make a curved wall. Whichever I use, I always sand the surface to flatten the bricks and to give a bit of a better texture for paint to stick to. I know two people who hand scribe all their bricks, one in 4mm scale and one in 7mm. It gives superb results, with all the small bricks at corners and windows reproduced correctly but you have to be a certain sort of masochist to try it in large areas. This is my most recent 4mm brickwork, this using English Bond sheet from Slaters. The small bricks at the windows are not correct but I am not losing any sleep over it!

I recall reading somewhere that an express would serve "principal" stations and that an "ordinary train" could call at "secondary" stations but I am sure people who know the rules and regulations better than I do will know more. I presume Grandborough Junction is classed as a secondary station as many Class 1 passenger trains (in the Buckingham timetable there are no expresses, they are called "semi-fasts") rattle through without stopping. Presumably the same applies to non passenger workings. My common sense tells me that a loaded cattle train would get a higher priority due to the nature of the load, requiring food, water and general looking after. Maybe that isn't the case.