JDW

I wouldn't bother with sound - but then I wouldn't bother with sound on any loco! I think if you're going down the road of investing money in fitting something with sound though, you're better off going with something that has the smooth slow running to match, especially on a depot layout. Most of my Lima stuff that still has original motors runs fine, will start and stop smoothly, etc, but it will never be as good at crawling around a depot layout as a loco with a modern mechanism, which is what you really need for a TMD. If you were on a very tight budget and just wanted locos then they're probably good enough, especially if you're prepared to invest time and money buying good runners and selling on the less good ones. If you're wanting to synchronise sound, fit details and I guess fit lights too, plus potentially remotor them, you might as well just go with the newer Bachmann, Heljan or ViTrains ones which already have more detail and lights and by the time you've paid for all the parts the price difference will be negligable.

No progress on anything of late, due to travelling for work and lack of time. But I did do something... Since I only have a dozen or so projects ongoing or planned, I did the sensible thing and bought some parts towards another. ...because what else would you build after a pair of class 323s than a 365 when you model a station served by DMUs in Yorkshire? I have these two shells and one shell+chassis, all three of which have seating and glazing. And today a cheap but damaged unit arrived in the post. Boxed, bodies and chassis fine but bogies all damaged (I do wonder how some people treat their models at times!). Not a huge problem, I knew that before I bought it, and it gives me another pair of shells/chassis. I might see if the motor runs but its not a priority. I doubt it. The underside of the floor above the motor is filthy, as are the wheel treads, so its obviously been well used! I'll still need one 'good' set, but should have enough parts to make up two inner coaches with plenty of bits left over. The sharp ones among you are probably thinking "you could use the spare cabs as the start of a 325 too". That thought had already occurred to me. Come back in a decade or so...

I think we need pictures

The figure leaning out of the window is a great touch

At this distance in time, I have no idea, I happened to have them in stock, they were as near as made no difference the same diameter as the ones fitted, plain discs, so probably the 12.5mm ones

Just a guess but the picture above would appear to be a pretty strong hint that it will not be either of those...

Yes, I wondered that too, it seems to have affected the bottom of the i and f slightly as well

Could you maybe post a picture of the whole model and a close-up of the logo? Is there any issue with the rest of the logos?

It wouldn't surprise me if it were a repaint, Colas seems a pretty common scheme for repaints. Otherwise, I wondered if maybe the packaging were too tight or mis-shapen so it's been rubbing on that part of the logo. Did the L actually visibly "fall of" in one piece in your hand or has it just disappeared? The former suggests a transfer, which suggests a repaint (I can think of at least one place where a repainted new model would probably be sold as "new" but we'd better not get sidetracked into that here).

I was just wondering the same, I thought it was printing rather than transfers. I've not heard of other people having "this issue" so maybe its a problem with that particular model?

You won't short out the DCC system. You can run (and stop) a DC loco on a DCC system, but as above leaving it sat still for a long time will cause damage. As you've mentioned, painting the rails will have the same effect as disconnecting the motors. So long as current can't flow, it's fine. Alternatively, a thin strip of masking tape the width of the rail top and painted the same rust colour would work and be easier to remove should you wish to re-energise. Saves messing about disconnecting wires. If you want to check whether the rust paint is enough to isolate them, just park a DCC loco there with lights switched on and see what happens. If it stops, no current, so safe.

I wonder if someone with one of the earlier versions (Provincial) might have a set spare - the ploughs weren't originally fitted so someone modelling the first few years might be able to help, if they happen to see this. If you can't get any, I have a few spare sets of Hornby ploughs that can easily be fitted with a couple of plastic or brass strips as brackets, let me know and I'm sure we can work something out.

I've asked them before and the answer was no so I'd imagine it was just a case of what they had in parts rather than making them available as spares in the same way that Hornby do with their 153 ones. There's been a rather expensive Bachmann 150 chassis on Ebay for a while from one of the usual people who dismantles things and sells them as parts, pic shows a snowplough attached, but do you want to spend £25 to get one...? If not, my 950 (from a second-hand 150) has Hornby ones fitted. They don't look quite as good but better than none.

Back to the 1990s and 2000s for a couple more 156 pics, the finished Provincial and Strathclyde units. Lima models with underframes fitted with 3D-printed parts plus Hornby snowploughs and BSI couplings and painted black followed by a couple of coats of 'track dirt' colour.

I don't know if they are or not but I get the feeling if they are they might be the kind of company it is better to contact by phone than email. You could always put an ad in the Wanted section here if its something specific, someone might have one stashed away somewhere!

Indeed! I look at some of his items and wonder how much of it there is a market for, especially at those prices, but looking at the first items that come up (class 150 parts) if he's buying a unit at around 'normal' prices then allowing for the fact that some parts won't sell, or will take ages, and to give a mark up, the prices couldn't really be much lower and him still make any money. £25 for a motor assembly, £30 for a chassis, it seems a lot, but I guess where there's no alternative then sometimes £25 is better than £125 for a new model. All that said, I have to admit to having bought two items from him (he was very good to deal with), and since they weren't available elsewhere and the alternative was to buy and dismantle a complete model, it was a case of 'expensive but not extortionate' and no more than if I'd bougth a complete one then sold on the bits I didn't use. On the other hand, I'm looking for suitable bogies and potential drive units for my 323s at the minute, and six bogies at £20+ each is just a non-starter. Horses for courses I suppose.

Not much to report, the weather hasn't been good enough to re-do the purple on the 156 but I did manage to brush paint around the windscreens in black. Next to the original Hornby version the lilac is clearly too pink, but the more I look the more I feel a need to re-do Hornby's purple which looks too dark! It should be much lighter than the blue doors. Gotta draw a line somewhere though. That can be a project for another day...

Looks good so far, it appears to have the same bow in the sides as mine (see my Workbench thread). If you're going to correct that you might want to do it sooner than later, as I found that a few small hairline cracks appeared that needed filling after I heated it in water and straightened it. Overall I've found it fine and am happy with it (I wouldn't have a 323 at all if it weren't for the kit), but besides the bow in the sides, I've also found myself increasing the door height and moving the gutters up by about 2mm, and also filling the rebate above where the bogies go as the bottom of the bodyside is level with the bottom of the doors all the way along. Something else to be aware of is that the strengthening plate below the doors is too long and will likely foul the bogies. It should only run about one third of the width of the saloon window above it. The bogie centre is pretty much under the centre of the middle window.

Some nice work here @9C85. For first attempts they are pretty impressive. Painting is something I never enjoyed, and still find hard, but like you have taken to giving things a go and seeing where it leads. Your approach has worked well, making small improvements to things that don't cost the earth is a good way to start. I started with things like tidying up the livery on some Hornby 142s, and a simple repaint of a Bachmann 158 into WYPTE version of Northern Spirit colours (by cheating and using the Transpennine one, so I could just follow the lines of the original livery). I'm working on the original Northern 156 now, in lilac and white. It's a more complex livery but by breaking it down into simple bits it becomes much less daunting. I don't have the patience for an airbrush so have used aerosols so far, and results have been variable, but that probably has as much to do with me as with the can. Answering your original question about priming (a bit late I know!) definitely, always prime. I had a disaster recently where I thought I'd get away without it, the surface was clean, and plain white plastic. As soon as the paint hit, it was obvious I should have primed, and I ended up rubbing it down and starting again. As someone else said already, good masking tape is a very good investment, and has paid dividends. I second Tamiya, it's not too expensive and is very easy to use. Make sure it is neat, and properly pressed down especially around rasied detail, use the back of a blade or your fingernail to get into the corners, and try not to spray towards it so the paint is driven underneath - preparation is key, as the saying goes! Looking forward to seeing more of your scruffy parcels vans emerge from the workshop...

And for something different... ...still very much work in progress, especially as the shade of lilac I chose has come out a lot too pink, it should be much more bluey, so an alternative is on its way (and at £21.95 including VAT and shipping I hope this one is right!).

Thanks to those who suggested pantographs, I'll contact Bachmann when I'm closer to needing one. In the meantime, some primer showed a good few places where more work was needed, mainly around the joints. I've had a couple of places where the bodyside cracked (my fault!) and following a comment elsewhere on the forums I'm going to look at UV resin as a way of repairing rather than the superglue and plastic strip behind the joint I used previously. Following their more careful hot water treatment coaches 2 and 3 are looking straighter but might need a second dunking. The only other progress I've made is to realise that the strengthening plates below the doors are too long and need to be shorter to clear the bogies: Obviously thats not the right bogie, its (unsurprisingly!) from a Hornby 156, which has tread brakes that foul the faring, but its a similar shape/size. The pivot is pretty much centralised under the saloon window.

You mention ballasting, use the finest/smallest grade, as anything else tends to appear over-scale on OO. If I've understood right, a train will come from where the red bit is on the left and the platform will be on the line where the pink track is on the right. It's very short, you will only fit a short 0-4-0 loco and a couple of 4-wheel coaches in. The track bottom right is barely long enough to fit a loco in and reverse it into the siding (if that's the coaling siding, then you might as well get rid of the point and just use the straight bit - ask yourself why a railway would put in a siding that needs reversing into from a siding whose only purpose is somewhere to reverse into another siding). Depending how realistic you want to be, the platform would normally be on the "straight" route with sidings off the loop. Putting it at an angle across the board might give you a bit of variety in siding lengths as well as make it look a bit more interesting. If you don't already have the track, try using Y points and R628 curves in places - they are a more gentle radius and look a bit more natural as well as making it easier to avoid all the track parallel to the edge. If you do already have the track, try building it and seeing how it works and what moves you can make.

It's a bit late for you now, but for anyone else having problems, I replaced the wheels on mine with a set of newer Hornby wheels (12mm plain disc I think), which improved the pick up and running of the trailer vehicles. The originals were the version with metal tyres on a plastic centre, the new ones are sold in packs of 10 which is ideal for the five non-powered bogies on a 110.

Will you be posting your progress on here as you build it? I came to similar conclusions about the class 323 kit that I'm building (see my Workbench thread). I found that mine had warped outwards at the bottom, some warm water helped soften it to pull it back into shape. It's gone together reasonably well so far. Be careful, the plastic can be brittle and crack under pressure while working on it, I found out the hard way but nothing that couldn't be fixed.

True but when you're still at one side, and start to run to get to the other...? The only reason the last one can have had for starting to run is seeing the train, yet he was still at the edge of the crossing. Even if he thought it was on the right hand track, surely stepping back would be the most sensible thing, not running across... ...actually, no, I answered my own question. There's "the most sensible thing" and then there's what people actually do.