Michael Edge

With most of the layout up and working, though not connected to the fiddle yard, I've taken the opportunity to take some photos. All are taken from somewhere it would have been possible to stand - no "helicopter shots". Viewed from outside the car shed, a 40ft motor set leaving on its way to Dingle. Down on the ground by the old MR coaling stage, imported timber loaded on bogie bolster wagons. The view of Brunswick shed yard from an Overhead train, newly repainted compound on the sheerlegs road and two time travellers, the B16/3 with the later BR crest and the new MDHB Hudswell in the shed. Same stock, slightly different viewpoint. A closer look at one of the shunters, ex MR 3F 0-6-0T is ready to pull a train of coal empties out of the exchange sidings. Under the Overhead this time, a stray point cover lying in the middle of the Dock Road but no trains in sight. J69 shunting a loaded Trestrol EC in Brunswick Goods, the CLC gantry crane in the foreground. From the inside now, looking down from sandstone cliff, the MR 3F shunting full coals down to the dock. More to follow.

This system isn't complicated, it's very simple and just about foolproof. I does not and isn't intended to provide full compensation but it helps a great deal. I've been using this system, scratchbuilt and etched, for many more years than I care to remember and it's included in nearly all our kits. The way to move on to full compensation isn't to put a beam in the middle which in my experience is a good way to get wobbly running but to add a rocking arrangement to the third axle. It does break down once more than three axles are involved, with four axles I leave one of the intermediates lightly sprung - I haven't done anything with more than four axles yet. This photo of one of our North British 440hp 0-6-0s shows full compensation on the same system (bearings not fitted, this is only a test etch/display model), the trailing axle runs in swinging arms pivoted as far back as practical. The arms pass round the jackshaft axle, the axle itself is allowed to rock under a knife edge. The whole thing is based on round holes, etched in these cases but it can be done by jig drilling, and no fitting is required as with hornblock systems.

Check your transfers, standard size should fit. Try the ones you used on the BR 3MT.

Cadbury No.9 back from Dave Studley superbly (and very quickly) painted. Safely delivered to Don this afternoon, only a little late for his birthday.

C14 is nearly finished but work came to a halt when I found that I'd got the wrong HL gearbox for it. The right one turnec up yesterday so it won't be long now. No further work on the Ashford DE.

Quite so. The J10 is still stalled on the absence of end view drawings with particular reference to the cab spectacles. The variety of MS&L tenders for this is a bit problematical as well.

Not yet but I would like one. Locos for Wentworth Junction are taking precedence at the moment though, next on the drawing board will be the Q4 and I've really got to get moving with the EM1.

I would have made the cab sides in two pieces, either side of the splasher top.

That's my L&Y 2-4-2T facing the camera and my modified Hornby Dublin BR 2-6-4T on the buffers at the left. I've still got them but they haven't run for a long time.

It's a long time since but my usual method then was to make the splasher tops from brass sheet of the appropriate thickness, leaving it standing proud of the splasher face. Solder up the splashers, clean up the joint and sand it to the thickness of the beading. All these were built before I got into etching but I did do some etched splasher faces for the L&Y Atlantic in 4mm and 7mm.

I use 62/s solder - tin/lead with 2% silver, melting point is 179. It flows really well and changes soldering techniques a lot. Available from Warton Metals, RS and Hobby Holidays at least.

Here's a couple more L&Y locos, again built many years ago (1992-4), painted recently by Dave Studley. Nothing visible from this angle but the 4-4-2 has inside motion (Joy valve gear) - I did an Aspinall 4-4-0 with it as well but it's not this one. Looking back through my files I did build a few locos from kits, Craftsman and George Norton ones. My photos of these are all pre-digital, not so easy to find and post on here.

No kits involved here, all his locos are scratchbuilt. I think the Millholme kit was a bit of a mixture between the L&Y and subsequent LMS versions of the Dreadnought but It's a long time since I built one.

This customer has at least three of them including the only original version I have built.

I am slowly working my way through my own older locos putting more modern and efficient motors/gearboxes in them. Latest one at the weekend was this venerable Buckjumper. Built way back in 1987 with Herculaneum Dock in mind this is just the bog standard Wills kit - I know it's not really an accurate model of any one of these mind boggling varied locos but it looks the part to me. The J69s were used for many years shunting at Brunswick. It's old enough to have Sharman wheels which are still OK but it's been grinding round all these years with an Airfix/MRRC motor and Romford gears. Now it has a High Level gearbox (Highflyer) and a 15mm square motor from China, the big lump on the left is what came out. These motors are extremely powerful and just about silent but they do seem to run a bit warm. They also run very slowly and need a high gear ratio, this is about 30:1 and gives a top speed of about 40mph or so. 68601 now runs silently and smoothly, current consumption is so low that it barely registers on the ammeter so I'm not too worried if it gets a bit warm. The screw holes in this motor are nowhere near the ones in the HL gearbox so it's just soldered on.

Some photos turned up this week of a loco I built in 1995. An L&Y Dreadnought running with an 8 wheel tender, EM gauge. Although this model is 25 years old it has only recently been painted, superb job by Paul Moore.

We still use the detect circuit on all LMRS controllers and it will do the same thing with some Portescap fitted locos - you just have to remember to switch the section off when the loco has stopped. The green light on the controller (I think Victoria was the first application of this) is absolutely invaluable for operation if it's used like this. Before moving a train: 1 make sure the direction switch on the controller is on (either way) 2 check that the green light is off 3 set all the route 4 switch any required link section(s) on and check that the green light doesn't come on - this would show that something else was connected. 5 switch on the section where your intended loco is - at this point only, the green light should come on 6 drive away There is also a red light which tells you you have done something wrong.... Other commercial controllers have a similar green light which tells you absolutely nothing....

We have the 14" as well in 4mm scale - others also in 7 and 3mm scales.

No I'm not that sure but I've never seen any photos of Hymeks on any other possible route from Gorton.

This might have been what was supposed to happen but Garsdale is a pretty remote place and there were never more than a handful of passengers. There's never been a footbridge here either and everyone was supposed to go down to the road and back up again but in my experience all the passengers used the barrow crossing at the up end and might still do for all I know (they did when I was last there in 2013). Looking through all the photos I can find the covers over the fpl equipment are clearly visible everywhere else but there aren't any in the main running lines at either end. It's not very clear on the signal diagram what the EFPL at the down end crossover is referring to.

All the 16" 0-6-0STs had the balance weights in the same position, as far as I know right hand lead was normal Hunslet practice. The 18" Austerities were the only Hunslet design built by other builders. Always check the scale of printed drawings in both planes, the worst offender in this respect was Don Townsley's 15" drawing reproduced in Model Railway Constructor with a noticeably exaggerated vertical scale - this has led to quite a few inaccurate models over the years.

Manchester - Derby via the Midland was the first leg of this delivery, there was some test running on this line as well.

The Bonnyface shunt was definitely done at the north end, not sure whether it had passengers on or not - but there were never many of them anyway. It was as you say all under the nose of the bobby so anything might have happened.

The turntable pit is still there, I scrambled through the undergrowth to get some photos and measurements for our version of Garsdale. The turntable bridge is at Keighley - incidentally the hole in your baseboard looks a bit big, this is only a small table - 50ft? Your photos are very interesting, showing the difficulty of getting water for Bonnyface. The only water columns at Garsdale were the two at the south end so these had to be used one way or another. There were two reasons for turning the tank loco at Garsdale, to be chimney first for the run back to Hellifield and for the firebox to be at the bottom end of the climb out of Hawes. No turntable at Hawes so it had to be done here. They always filled the tanks before running down to Hawes - was this because there was no water there, or possibly a poor supply? The same didn't apply to the NE G5s, they were working through to Northallerton until 1954. Interesting to see that the up siding was used as a goods yard, all I've seen in there were pway wagons and the odd cripple. Horse box traffic must have been significant, I have a photo of two parked in the short end loading dock at the up end of Garsdale - maybe returning empty? I have only seen one photo of a goods train using the down siding as a layby - in an early LMS Journal it's wrongly captioned as being on the down main.