MattR

Ok, wow. I just arrived home from work to find my order from Osborne’s on my front porch. I only ordered this one week ago. Seven days from the UK to the U.S. is astounding. As far as this order goes, I gotta give them top marks.

I have. Nothing there either. Only thing I have is the initial "Thank you for your order" email until this morning when they emailed me about my comment here. Maybe they're having email issues.

Painted/weathered the track yesterday. My first time using the airbrush I got for Christmas 2021 for something other than locomotive weathering. I was very pleased with how it came out. It would have taken me hours with brushes to do this.

Fascia boards finally painted and final track layout secured down with acrylic caulk in an attempt to soften the sound (that may come back to bite me.)

Scratch-built representation of the goods shed at Summerseat station. Might be slightly over scale.

At long last, the layout finally moved indoors on March 25. Here are views of both sides. The unpainted area will be where a hill sits (haven't started making that yet) that will butt up against the backscene that splits the layout. This was a slightly different track plan before I secured everything down.

Late fall is a bad time to start a layout that must be constructed outdoors. Cold weather, and even more so, rainy weather put most of the construction on hold until March of this year. Here it was as of March 5, with the foam board on the completed base, with beginnings of plaster work for the sections representing the River Irwell.

As it was in the beginning. After months of planning, construction work finally got started back in October. It's built from pine 1x2s for the frame with 1" insulation foam over the top and 1/4" poplar fascia boards. Attempting to make this as lightweight and non-permanent as possible. I live in the U.S. and the layout will be indoors in a 3-year-old temperature-controlled house, so I won't have to worry much about weather extremes messing with the layout.

I’d been toying with the idea of another, larger railway layout for a while. After finally unlocking the mystery of my English great-great-great grandfather William Clarke, I decided to base my layout on the village of Summerseat in Lancashire. In the late 1830s and early 1840s, William’s mother, Nancy Chambers, lived with her sisters and parents in the village of Brooksbottoms, now a part of Summerseat, working at the Brooksbottoms mill when it was owned by the Kays before it was rebuilt in the 1870s by Joshua Hoyle. However, the Chambers family moved to nearby Bolton by the time the East Lancashire Railway opened the line in 1845. My layout “Dreams of Summerseat,” will be a heritage railway as well, based loosely on the current East Lancashire Railway, It will represent Summerseat as it is today with some fictional elements as well as reincorporating aspects of Summerseat that are long gone — hence “dreams”. The layout is 96 inches x 39 inches (roughly 2.5 meters by 1 meter). It will also an oval of track be split into two sides longitudinally separated by a backscene -- effectively making more like a a continuous 16-foot by 20-inch layout -- the front section representing the line from Bury as it passes the Chestwheel crossing and into Summerseat station and curving away towards the town; and the back section representing the old goods shed (now the Victorian Lanterns apartments), onto the Brooksbottoms viaduct over the River Irwell and into the Brooksbottoms tunnel on the other side.

That's the thread that gave me hope that maybe they were finally on the up-and-up and I placed an order on March 27 for their flexible walling that I've been wanting for several years now. But the news that they're still up to their old tricks is discouraging. When I go to the cart, I don't get any stock info if I add the walling. Possibly that means it's out of stock? I'm wondering now if I should just save myself the trouble and ask for a refund. I live in the U.S., so long wait times could be up to shipping or just them not shipping it at all. Do they ever send emails saying they've shipped anything, or does it just arrive in the mail one day? EDIT: I've just received an email form Osborn's saying they had previously sent an email showing my order had shipped. I can't find that email anywhere, but I'm very happy to hear that my stuff is indeed on the way!

Hatton's have two of the Hornby R6287F weathered blue ones on their site second-hand right now -- both £35.

Excellent! Thank you, I never would have thought of that!

You do incredible work! Very inspirational as well, as I'm working on both an engineers train and newspaper train. How do you get the dark weathering in the recesses on your brake coach? Do you use weathering powders or paint/washes?

I have a continuous run with no hidden sidings. Yes, when I'm bored I switch out the locomotive/stock. I don't put it back in the boxes. My layout sits on a bureau. The third drawer holds a plank of wood onto which I've nailed some old brass track. This holds all my locomotives/stock and I can easily take it out and swap it out with what's currently on the track. Maybe I'm weird, but I enjoy taking out the stock and setting everything up. Aside from a few oddments, all my stuff is post-2000 manufacture -- steam and diesel. So far nothing has broken off anything in the three years I've had this setup going.

Depends on what you do with it, I suppose. I recycle the cardboard boxes and keep the bubble wrap for other packages I might be sending though the mail (and I still end up needing more). So at least on my end, it all gets recycled/repurposed.

That makes sense! Thank you!

I'm in the process of making up an ex-LMS driving trailer from a Hornby non-corridor brake 3rd (R4801). I've got the Comet kit, but I'm a little confused about the parts the website describes as "bufferbeam and body/underframe fixing box". Is there anything different about the kit's bufferbeam than the one already on the coach? And does anyone know or have a photo of where the fixing box goes? What is the hole in the center for? Looking at photos of LMS driving ends, I can't really see anything that looks similar.

Excellent, thank you!

Hi Railtec folks! I've been looking at your GUV/motorail transfers -- do you happen to ship to the U.S.? I can't find anything on your site about international shipping. Thanks!

Here's one I found interesting -- a Class 40 hauling an EMU coming back from wheel turning, but with brake vans on either end. https://www.flickr.com/photos/graham_williams/5811053153/in/faves-197603766@N08/

Agreed! I got a Bachmann Derby Lightweight for a great price back in October, but was somewhat disappointed on arrival that the unpowered car was missing a front buffer, which wasn't listed in the description. Also not listed in the description was that there were DCC chips in both cars!

That explains it! Thank you!

This is a question the Internet can't seem to give me an answer for. There is a difference between the 25/2s and 25/3s fuel/water tanks (I'm not sure what they're technically called) on the underframe between the bogies. It is obvious on the 25/1s and the 25/2s that there are two of them, completely filling this space between the bogies. However, the 25/3s only appear to have one -- on the No. 1 side (fan side) of the locomotive. On the No. 2 side, it's just a large empty space. Everything I've been able to find claims that all the differences between the 25/2 and 25/3 were internal only and outwardly looked exactly the same, but this fuel/water tank issue seems to me a huge difference. What are these tanks and what was the story behind why the 25/3 only has one? Thanks!

I'd sell off all my lit Pullmans and replace them with these if this ever happened!

Trading one convenient plot point for another!