Joseph_Pestell

How did you make the payment? If by credit or debit card, I suggest you contact your card supplier for a refund.

I sympathise with your predicament as I have been involved with several clubs that do not have clubrooms where layouts can be left erected. Makes for very slow progress.

I would really like to operate my new layout with a proper leverframe like this although it may be difficult to arrange all the interlocks for points and signals on different boards. How are you getting on now with the point actuators and cables now? Does Scalefour Society sell its frames to the profane?

For many years I have been returning to the theme of Dewsbury Midland. I had an OO version in my late teens. This time, I have been planning for N. Three things have slowed me down: - time (two businesses on the go plus other commitments); - space (even in N, Dewsbury needs about 24' to do it justice); - track (I'm not that happy with Peco but don't want to have to convert N gauge steam locos to 9.42mm). I'm still struggling on the time issue but I have taken a change of course which will hopefully enable me to get started. I am now planning to model Tamworth LL station which only needs 12' length in N (allowing for the fact that the HL station provides one of the scenic breaks and I am therefore only modelling part of the LL station). Boards will be simpler - I may even buy kits for flat-top - and will hopefully be ready for when FineTrax products become available at the end of this year. High Level station may follow in due course with an additional three baseboards.

Sorry to hear of your builder problems. I'm looking forward to seeing this one too. Although I'm not a civil engineer by trade, I like bridges (and other structures). How I would have liked to see Belah before it was demolished. Travelling often in France, I have seen some of the greats including Garabit and Fades. So many otherwise good layouts are let down by bridges that are simply in the wrong place or would not stand up in reality. Modelmakers most important tool is eyes - to study the real world out there.

Do we know of any dates when Mount Pleasant will be out on the exhibition scene? I'd love to see it in the flesh and perhaps even bring my 87-year-old father who has always been fascinated by the Widened Lines and Snow Hill Tunnel.

Me too. A great layout. Looking forward to seeing it develop. Should be possible to build it in a form which works for a small space at home but can still be expanded for the future or for exhibition use.

I had heard of a back-to-back problem with one of the other dimensions but not with 14mm. First time also that I have heard of a problem about them being concentric and these have been around for a while now. Have you spoken to ScaleLink? Perhaps a rogue batch?

Enough space there for a mezzanine floor - and another mega layout!

Amazing to get that far in just two days. I'm not really convinced that I could ever do it but do you have details of the evening class course? I might just try it.

How much space do you need for your layout? Best option is probably to build a partition about 1m20 inside the up-and-over door. That way you get storage for lawnmower, bikes, etc. separate from the layout. Make sure all walls and roof/ceiling well insulated. Check out the current Settle-Carlisle thread on here for details of fitting out a garage.

Carl is right. Someone quoted to me several recent cases of kits selling at £40 on Ebay which are still available new at £23!

I would be mighty reluctant to buy a built kit on EBay. If it has been done badly, it can be more trouble to sort out than to build one from the kit. I would only buy a built kit from a known competent builder or from somewhere where I could see it properly (running).

Good luck with this. When you finally get the workshop, Tiverton Jct is a fascinating station (particularly pre 1930s rebuild) and will make a really interesting model.

Tim, Do you really mean CEP? I can't recall ever seeing one there - only (very occasionally) a VEP to replace our usual diet of 2EPB and 4EPB.

Just come across this thread. Cracking idea but so hard to cut it down to three! Partly a reflection of my age: 1) Garsdale Road (EM David Jenkinson) 2) Buckingham (EM Peter Denny) 3) And then? Tempting to go for Jenkinson again even though that layout never got completed). Also very tempted by some of the S Gauge layouts Millers Dale in O Gauge at Matlock? But I think that I will give the final place to Chiltern Green (N MRC)

Agreed that it would need a big budget except for someone who can scratchbuild all their own trackwork. But, like a lot of city stations, it is quite compact. I have not tried drawing it yet but I am fairly sure that an N gauge modeller could get it to fit in a standard 16' x 8' garage. The plan is also shown in detail in one of the Historical Surveys of the LMS books. Signalling was awesome. How a driver could identify which signal he needed, I don't know.

The box will be a funny shape

To get back to a station that is more like Minories, another French station comes to mind - Lyon St Paul. Back in the day, it had a more interesting variety of services than Paris Bastille. St Paul cheats a bit though by having pointwork inside the tunnelmouth.

Come to think of it, I think they do 2 versions (check with Scalelink) a no4 (about equivalent to 2' radius) and a no6.

Shinohara do one in Code 100 which matches OK with Peco.

Woodside, with its mixture of GWR and LMS, would seem like a good option for many modellers if goods traffic not required. Might need to scale back the roof a bit though so as to be able to see the trains.

I don't think that it's a state secret but probably not that easy to find unless you are a TOC manager. There have been quite a lot of tables and comment on this subject in the Informed Sources (Roger Ford) column of Modern Railways. But I don't keep back numbers so I can't quote dates. Ian Walmsley (who works IIRC for Porterbrook) has also written a lot about this over the last couple of years. He strongly advocates loco + carriages as a much better option.

I did not say that I favour underfloor diesel engines - just that the track access regime in the UK favours them. The seats lost are probably more important factor than the increased axle-weight. Would be interesting to do the maths and work out at what mileage the greater access costs outweigh the fuel and maintenance savings of having fewer engines. 5-car voyager (with a lot of space lost behind the cab anyway) or 6-car Blue Pullman lookalike? I know which one I would rather travel in.

If you put the engine above floor: 1) that's less space for seats, so you may need an extra carriage in the set; 2) one big engine rather than several small ones, so higher maximum axle weight (same problem as works against loco-hauled/pushed trains)