Butler Henderson

Pretty easy, see www.transportdirect.info

Doubt it will have any influence, the 4-6-0T Bachmann have announced is as generic narrow gauge loco as you can get whereas the Double Fairlie and Heljan L&B loco was specific to one line. Certainly I can see more people finding a use for the Bachmann loco than the Heljan one, or the Roco one if it did appear.

Ask at a local newsagents, most will order a current magazine even if they do not stock it normally.

On the other hand if Victoria was still open it suspect it would be akin to Birmingham New Street. The 60s/70s redevelopment did not thankfully reach its full impact, the opening of Maid Marian Way ( a dual carriageway that split the Castle from the City Centre) was met with such outrage that the remainder of the city centre dual carriageway network was abandoned, although some buildings to the east of the city centre around the Lace Market were felled for a road that never got built. Voted Britains ugliest road MMW has been improved by reducing its carriageway width - glad I was at college when it was still in its original form as the third, hardly used, lane made a good cycle track!

True, that seemed to be more a problem however with branded bird seed from the diy centre, have not noticed much lying around of this pound shop stuff and if any is the blackbird etc seem to quickly pounce on it.

Or could it be those who have bought all the others before you visited the store have not bothered with the K3, can hardly imagine they would start stocking it with this release.

Cheap resolution to getting a flock of garden birds, Poundworld "Wild Bird Special" 1.5kg bag of bird seed, never had to fill up the feeder so often!

WHS stores tend to have wide display racks specially for partworks such as these so it probably not as space sale dependent as other newsagents who are either selling it or two other magazines in the same space.

A razor saw, the metal is pretty soft and having cut it slightly it can be split at the cut using a pier of pliers, and then filed if neccessary.

Heres my version using the models wheel castings, the front and middle ones held in place using cut down bolts and bushes from the display track fixings for the model - you need to use fully threaded bolts, one of the three with mine was only partially threaded

Picked up a City of Truro from WHS. On mine the cab was not fitted right and would not properly fit in place over the boiler moulding into the slots on either side of the running plates. I ended up gluing it in place and trimming the boiler moulding to remove the cab holding slots. Tried removing all of the bogie fixings bar the central one but the amount of adjustment away from a straight line remains very limited.

Obviously no K4 model to come :-( Wonder how well the K3 will sell, anymore newsagents stopping selling it will make it impossible to find. Never seen the Black 5 on sale, can only assume local WHS sold out, local Sainsburys seem to have stopped stocking it after Evening Star and all other newsagents seemed to stop selling it before then.

Might explain why Rails are flogging off A versions in their sale at £59.50 https://railsofsheffield.com/br-pull-push-coach-pack-2-car-r4534a-JJJA19892.aspx

K3? Poland was suggested to me the other night. Not certain that H and B are struggling to get supplies would be relevant to these. Hornby are relocating production and Bachmann UK have to take there turn with all the other ranges produced by the Kader factory. It has been said to me that the US market dominates and consequently the tiny, in comparison, UK production gets pushed around as a result.

Rubbed off some of the excess paint on mine using a foam "magic eraser", the dark green appears to have a satin varnish coat. Not noticed any problems with no, logo alignment. With Rocket I'm hoping they copy the Airfix kit and it comes with both a closed and open coach.

It would be interesting to find out how much they cost to the newsagent. Think a comparison can easilly be made if we equate them with a Mk1 GUV for example which a RTR ones are well over twice the cost so to expect something perfect at that price would be hoping for a huge bargain. Obviously Mallard and Coronation were loss leaders although it would be interesting if someone lodged a claim against them that had entered into a subscription on the basis the rest would be of similar standard. From normal viewing distance of a layout are its faults, paintwork excepting, that noticeable?

I found the original bogie fixing screws worked just as well through the central "plinth" hole.

My WHS is giving out £5 off £20 vouchers so it was a couple of BOGOF superglue flex gels, the Deltic and the Future Publishing NRM Poster magbook for a just under £16.50.Have to agree the finish is poor but as its D9002 not D9009 as seemed likely from the image used mine is likely to get a coat of grey primer and parked sticking out of the preservation society shed with a Do not move sign on it.

The pricing is reflective of the assembly time, theres a lot more parts to put together for the pill box than a Queen Mary, if models wrere priced simply on their size how come n gauge stuff is not far cheaper.

Have you asked them? My local WHS sold out of Evening Stars within a couple of days of them coming in so anyone looking in store for them since would assume it was no longer being stocked.

Shows how out of date my April 1973 Festiniog Railway Companion (cover price 35p) is as with regard to Welsh Pony it states "the extremely costly rebuild that will be involved, for a machine of doubtful value, has mitigated against reconstruction." The same booklet also described K1 as "the next engine to be overhauled"!

Not on transfers though, the web site says the code is MAYPOLE, although MAYDAY certainly worked last night.

Re the NEM socket height the Kadee 19s come out spot on in my example, however yesterday I spent the best part of an hour fiddling with a Bachmann 03 chassis as it had serious NEM droop, the problem transpired to be the NEM socket part was too loose in the mount into which it slides vertically and a different NEM socket part was less loose. Problems with NEM mounts are not just whether the height is right in the first place but also how good the interference fit is between the parts. Its useful to have a thin strip of brass to hand that can be slid between the coupling and the internal base of the NEM mount and which can also be bent upwards if neccessary to counteract any NEM droop

Tried out my D6507 with Kadee 19s and all of the factory fitted bufferbeam detail left in place. The tigthest cuve being a Peco Small Y no problems arose with a Bachmann/TMC Mk 1 horse box or a Bachmann conflat (both fitted with NEM Kadees) and equally an old Airfix GMR conflat with NEM Kadees glued into its coupler mounts gave no problems.

With dcc Greg can always be fitted with different decoder, mine under Bonnie Prince Charlie has a hard wired direct plug in DCC Concepts decoder; it was a relief to find something small enough to need it yet big enough to accept it even if it meant soldering wires to the built in plug.