Joseph_Pestell

My old Disco passed on to my daughter who passed it on to her collie.

 

He loves it.

 

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Dave.

Is he doing dog agility?

Outside our local Vintage bus garage..

 

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..and inside

 

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Dave.

Amazing.

I was thinking only this morning (after looking at the Rapido bus scan thread) that we should have a thread for old buses on RMWeb.

Why stop at steel wings? I agree that replacing steel with GRP is bound to affect resale value.

But a friend of mine had an Alfetta GTV (he may still have it) which had a complete replacement GRP body. Simply magnificent and valuable in its own right as a rarity.

Ivan,

 

they were designed to make a large profit.

 

The driving bit is entirely coincidental, especially nowadays when driving a BMW is secondary to impressing people.

BMW who visited us last weekend did not impress me very much. Got his car completely bogged down in our newly laid gravel driveway and even managed to remove some of the scalpings layer below the gravel. Had to pull him out with my 15-year-old Maverick.

A good example of an everyday car failing to attract the "collectable classic" desirability. They were very good, practical, estate cars but like other family cars, few have survived.

My cousin had a 305 Estate when he was running a taxi business. Amazing car which just went on and on.......

As OP says, they are only doing what the aviation industry has done for a long time.

I doubt whether there is a big demand for such units but it certainly addresses the issue of having a lot of trains that are only used during weekday rush-hours. If the fact that the trains are largely paid for by passenger use means that out-of-hours freight use can be done cheaply, it's worth a try. Parcels is an ever-growing business as we all shop on t'internet.

But where would such trains be loaded and unloaded? Most modern stations no longer have good access for the road vehicles that would be needed and the whole operation has to be mechanised as much as possible (robot BRUTEs?) to cut down on manpower costs.

One of only two built, a lovely period piece that, back in 2013 I saw it in traffic near Shepards Bush while I was driving my P5B Coupe. Not sure if the other one has survived.

Interesting, certainly. But what  a terrible bodge up!

Another layout worth looking at on here for its track plan is West Kirby. Quite similar to what you are trying to achieve.

As regards height, I am working on the idea of legs that work like those on an ironing board to be able to adjust height. If I am feeling really clever, I might try to do it with triangular legs (one of the triangles inverted) which should give maximum stability on uneven floors.

The potential difficulty, of course, is that as the layout gets higher it could be unstable especially if narrow. Iain's idea of booster legs to put on a standard exhibition table gets around this neatly.

Apart from an obvious demand for 4mm and 2mm scale, a Lionheart/Dapol version of this would go so well with their B sets.

Not sure what you are planning for the fiddleyard end, but you could simplify the station by having the freight side more separate from the passenger with the goods trains leaving on a separate single line.

Thanks for all your responses. I'm converting a Hornby brake compo. Began it it years ago, but stopped because I couldn't find a picture of one side. In fact, both sides are remarkably similar and the main difference is the precise placing of doors and windows. I've thought for years that slip coaches make interesting models but could never get Hornby interested. There seems to be an obsession with "how do you make them operate realistically?" I don't think it needs to operate. After all, they spent the great majority of their time attached to the rear of the train and that's all mine will do. It'll be interesting to make the special lamps etc, though. 

I'm not sure about that curious first class 'compartment'. I think The Johnster may be right. The gap between the door and the window is much wider than the gap between the compartment windows and the door, suggesting that it's wide enough for a bulkhead. That would give two small guard's compartments, one each end, but only a single first class compartment. I have a feeling that one received lined maroon after it ceased to be a slip coach, but I may be imagining it. 

John Coiley took good pictures of the very last Didcot slip. It was, indeed, a Hawksworth vehicle. 

I think slipping is one of the stranger aspects of the old railway, which is consigned to history. Like 'dipping the troughs' I think its a curiosity for which we'll need to rely on archive film and photos as no preserved railway will have the need, the funds or the enthusiasm to re-introduce it. (CJL) 

Still two first class compartments there, one with a door to the platform and the corridor, one with just a door to the corridor.

I totally agree that there is no need for a model one to work - even if now quite doable with DCC. These Hawksworth coaches would only have been used as Slips for slightly more than two years, so more time just as a strengthener on other services, mostly branches. But I can see that it is perhaps not mainstream enough for Hornby. Could be an ideal special commission.

I'm not suggesting that any preservation line should use slips regularly - just a one-off occasion (60th anniversary?).

Regional boundaries changed a bit over the years. So, for instance, Panniers and other Western Region locos became commonplace at Exeter Central after the Western Region took over the ex-LSW lines west of Salisbury.

But nothing quite so weird as a 14xx/48xx with LSW gate stock.

Bought the book, started the layout before hearing about the competition. Board and lighting pelmet completed and painted. Some buildings completed and more on the go. Hope to have the track completed by the end of the week.  This has provided me with the impetus to complete a working scale layout in a certain timeframe. Competition entries only have to be in by September, not the completed layout, so that does allow more time than one might think. Mine is in 7mm scale, with both broad gauge and standard gauge tracks. I am enjoying my modelling thoroughly. Thanks to Simon and Iain for providing the inspiration!

 

Best wishes

Signalman Rich

That's ambitious! I am struggling to come up with an interesting enough design just for standard gauge in 7mm.

Oh well, here goes...

 

I guess I should own up to being in charge of this monstrosity for about six weeks. If only I could have stuck some Minilights shod with knobblies on it. 

 

That would have at least made the embarrassment of driving it bearable.

 

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P

I rather like Mokes. But I wouldn't want one that colour.

I am still interested in which donor(s) could be used with this please.

 

Edit to say I am hoping a 2EPB would work as I have one available.

Assuming that you are modelling in 4mm scale, I don't think so. IIRC all the L&Y units had long wheelbase bogies.

Arsenal? It ought to be remembered that they are the only club to have only ever played in the top league. Maybe we can't close them down, but a spell in the now Championship League, would give them a taste of what every other club has faced!

Not quite right. They have never been relegated from the top flight.

But their history is a bit odd as they gained promotion to the top flight not via the usual system.

About Cristiano Ronaldo - I agree with the saying "It's not arrogance if you can back it up".

Even I could have scored a couple of those last night. The credit should go to the players who created the chances.

Basically good but, as you say, there is a problem for departing goods trains.

Since the baseboards are fairly narrow, I think the likely solution is to turn things round and have the goods area below (as drawn on the plan) the platforms.

Hiya Simon,

Nice modelling. If you should go on to do the later Class 504 version in O gauge, I'm interested. Remember riding those from Bessie's into Victoria!

 

Nice 3D modeling of the L&Y versions.

 

Rich

3D rather too expensive when expanded to 1::43 - at least to produce complete shells.

But a 504 might be built up in a modular style like Ian Kirk's coaches. I think I am right in saying that those same modules would also be appropriate for various 30x series units as well.

Hi Al, just catching up with your thread, looks a good layout with lots of shunting potential.

 

May or may not be of interest but I took a couple of phone pics of one of the water tenders (assuming the lettering is to be believed presumably it was used on the C&HP) which is preserved at Wirksworth on the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway:

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It would make an unusual model at any rate!

 

Regards,

Martyn.

The CHPR certainly had a number of water carriers converted from loco tenders. I'm not sure if that is one of them.

Maybe worth reminding people that while CJF was editor of RM in the early 60s, these small space designs - occasionally he did a large one - appeared as "Plan of the Month". But there was also a monthly reproduction of a BR trackplan for those that wanted something to base a "proper" model on. So he managed neatly to appeal to a broad sector of modellers which is the big difficulty for most of the magazine publishers.

I think that it is a pity that the magazines do not show more real plans like that and relate how they can be transformed into a model.

Back safely from Trainsmania, which was brilliant but exhausting. It was held in the 'Grand Palais' in Lille, and if you're picturing something like Versailles think again!

 

 

It looks better on the inside!

 

The show was a one-off celebrating the 80th birthday of Loco Review magazine and LR Presse put on a cracking good exhibition.  We found getting to Lille was easy, but when we went to book into the hotel and park the van we found that all the car parks in Lille are underground and are designed for cars...our van wouldn't fit in any of them! After driving round for two hours on Thursday afternoon in rush hour traffic we went back to the exhibition and left it there....on Sunday night we parked it in a bus lane outside the hotel and hoped for the best...fortunately we got away with it.

 

This is the exhibition hall; we were right by the main entrance.

 

 

There was loads of room, but it was needed because Saturday in particular was incredibly busy. We operated for nine hours solid on Saturday, from 10 to 7, which was a bit testing, and then at the end Voie Libre wanted to photograph the layout for the magazine and we had to look all cheerful and full of energy as we had our pictures taken.

 

 

We picked up invitations to Nancy, Boulogne and Montelimar shows which was nice so we'll be taking our bit of France back home again.

 

Peter

Montelimar, a bit of a trek!

Beware that many French shows don't pay expenses.

The Hawksworth slip-coach conversions, Nos. 7374-6, are said** to have been used on the on the last days of two remaining slips: at Didcot in June 1960 and at Bicester on 9th September 1960. They still remained in BR chocolate & cream when transferred to Taunton in early 1961, with slip gear removed.

 

Crimson & cream was by no means rare in 1960 but it was thin on the ground by 1963 after so many withdrawals on 1920's/1930's-built stock the previous year.

 

** Great Western Coaches by Harris.

 

​EDIT: Being typed while above post was being posted.

It's why I asked. Crimson (Carmine) and cream seemed unlikely that late but it does not look like Chocolate in the photo.

Isn't that what they're going to do with the 442's?

Might be nice to convert a couple of 373's to this sort of spec rather than scrap them.