checkrail

Well, on closer inspection it turned out that there was no missing chair after all, just one that had been dislodged and moved along towards the switch rail slide chairs. Restored to its place with tweezers in a few seconds. Here's 4574 attaching a low siphon to the rear of an up passenger train. And here's view of the same operation from the other side of the tracks. John C.

Another three pics of 5000 and parcels vans. Aaargh! On the second one I've just realised that the inside half of a chair is missing on the turnout in the foreground, normally a thing up with which I will not put. All I can say in mitigation is that I rarely see the track from that side. Andy Y took a pic from this angle early last year, so I thought I'd try to follow in his footsteps. John C.

This one's having a long gestation. It's what I was working on when the builders arrived to do the bathroom, thereby severely curtailing access to the loft. I did try bringing stuff down and working on it in the study (aka box room) but you know how it is - always seemed that the tool or component I wanted was still upstairs! Yep, it's another Hornby clerestory conversion. Might or might not get to finish this before going away on Saturday. Still trying to get the sides to stick to what's left of the Hornby bodyshell. Superglue? Huh! John C.

Thanks for this Martin. This looks a nifty piece of kit and I think I'll order one. But before I do, just a query: how do you know where the dust has gone so you can subsequently vac it up? Isn't one in danger of just moving the dust around?

Here's dusty 5000 Launceston Castle on a down parcels train. (Had quite a struggle to persuade a Modelu lamp onto the smokebox door lamp bracket for this one - the handrail gets in the way.) I'm quite pleased with the last one. Think it has the illusion of spaciousness that I was aiming for while cramming a main line junction station into a space about 12 feet by ten. John C.

You're right Neal, it's a problem, and I've often wondered how others control dust on their layouts. Most scenic items are well glued down so I'm able to get the vacuum cleaner nozzle near to road surfaces, embankments, cuttings etc. But I'm always a bit worried about denuding all the trees of foliage. And I have recently lost a couple of bicycles and a cable drum to the vac! We recently borrowed a portable air-purifier unit from my stepson (he uses it to keep his IT kit dust-free) and many hours of operation with it in the loft plus frequent vacuuming seem to have had an effect. But dust is still present. I'll just have to call it 'weathering'. The track of course gets frequent treatment with the vac, especially after cleaning, to remove the horrible grey & gritty residue from track cleaning rubbers. Will need to buy a new vac - my little hand-held Halford's one has packed up, and I'm getting a bit fed up of having to haul the main household vacuum cleaner up and down the loft ladders on a regular basis.

Don't think this one's in L T C Rolt's "Red for danger". Seems that vibrations from the bathroom rebuild going on below had made the fire-devil from the down platform water crane fall onto the track. I was looking the other way, driving an up express out of the fiddle yard when I heard the crash behind me. Fortunately the signalman was able to slam on the up home signal to stop a King from ploughing into the wreckage. No harm done, I'm glad to say. But still a lot of dust to get rid of. John C.

Nice vans.

Nice Renwick Wilton wagons.

Lovely looking engine. Like the way the light catches the boiler in the last shot.

That's a particularly nice shot Kevin, from a bit of a different angle. Lovely.

While up there dusting I thought I'd better test the trains, the electrical connections, and whether the heatwave had affected the lift-out access hatch. Good excuse for a mini running session. So here are a couple more results of cropping. 4018 Knight of the Grand Cross rushes through towards Plymouth ...... ..... while 8709 shunts coal wagons in the yard. And here's the original from which they were cut. John C.

Thought this one might look ok in b & w too, and with a bit more cropping. Builders gone until tomorrow. Just been up to the loft. Everything covered in dust, as in every other room in the house. I'll never have a 90 year old ceiling taken down again. And 10 days (so far) without a bath or shower in this weather is really pushing it. John C.

Not been much from me lately. We've got builders in, so no daytime access to the loft at present. But here's a study of 5041 Tiverton Castle, the product of a bit of cropping in the cutting. John C.

Great sense of distance in that shot.

I had the same trouble with the signs in the Timber Tracks kit. I gave up in the end and printed them out on the pc, using the GWR font accessible to subscribers to the GWR e-list. No relief, but neat (and a relief to me!)

Finally made time on Sunday to catch up with all 40 plus pages of this thread. Lovely layout Neal, with a lot going on. Now following so I don't miss any more. John C.

Some people - you all know who I mean - are very good at assembling, painting, lettering and weathering wagons, so how about a fictitious Little Muddle coal merchant with a couple of his own PO wagons. (Probably numbered 98 and 99 so no-one knew he had only two.)

They look great. Now all you need is an admixture of LMS, a light sprinkling of LNER and a little smidgen of SR!

Yes, I've read about the 3 coach E-sets too. Think there's a pic of one in Beck & Copsey? That would make another nice train (if I had the time and the storage space!)

Some of you were interested in my use of Keen Systems gangways with floating end plates, cut from their replacement ends for Hornby clerestories, on my recent toplight build. So just before we leave the M-set here are a few details, starting with a close-up picture. I just happened to have a couple of these ends hanging about spare, so cut the gangway parts off to use on the E88. But at £10.50 per pair this is not the cheapest way to go about it. Looking at Keen Systems' website I now see they do a scissors gangway for some RTR LMS coaches. They look to be of similar profile and would cut the cost by over 50%. When I've used the clerestory ends in the past I've carefully avoided butting them up together, assuming that without the Keen expanding close-coupling system they would derail on tight bends. So I only ever coupled them up to vehicles with folded paper gangways. But with the E88 intended to fit in the train between two clerestories I decided to experiment. I really thought I was pushing my luck, but after a bit of adjustment to my crude hook & bar couplings I was delighted to discover that it worked. Have a look at this video of the train running through the fiddle yard, sashaying over the inner radius of five Peco curved points and a couple of little reverse curves. Very pleased with this result, and what a good excuse (besides cowardice) for giving the construction of those Slater's gangways a swerve! John C.

Those vans are lovely Kevin, and your application of transfers is exemplary. Seems such a simple job, but I find it terribly hard just to get them straight, let alone to fix properly.

Colour for me on this occasion.

Here are the final three stills of the stopping train, including E88 toplight. I've mentioned before that I find the Slaters kits a bit over-engineered for my modest skills. Another simplification I carried out this time was to the compartment partitions. When installed as intended, engaging with both sides and with the corridor partition, they provide a very strong shell. I couldn't quite manage it, and I remember on my first one having a job to get the roof to fit over them properly. Trimming them in situ wasn't easy either. So on this occasion I cut the partitions straight across the top at cantrail level, but just before sticking the roof on I added some struts of stout Plastikard across the width of the coach, just where the door ventilators sit, to give the required lateral stability. John C.

Was nice to see the old 'Starting in scale 00' book Martin. Took me back to the days of BRMSB v. 'Universal' standards, those seminal layouts from the days before much or any quality RTR, and the pontifications of the great CJF! Here's mine, a slightly earlier edition from pre-decimal days, with Max Pyrke's influential Berrow Branch on the cover. At a guess I'd say that yours features P D Hancock's Craig & Mertonford? I still find the standards chart inside the back cover a useful reference on occasion. John C.