Michael Edge

The bridges can’t be curved, both are straight girders, concrete deck on the Crown Street one. The M&C bridge is also a straight girder but the tracks are sharply curved on it, leading to it being much wider as I pointed out before.

They don’t look any different, you just have try them and it’s often not audible until it’s installed in a loco.

Those are nearer the top of my list.....

I have all sorts of possibilities in mind but the EE demonstrators aren't high up the list as yet. LSW C14 is still out of stock but we are expecting etches from PPD soon.

Tony's comments on Portescaps are quite correct (the motors were Swiss, the gearboxes from UK - and were copied from a Leeds Model Co. 7mm design of the 1940s) and the cause of the noise is indeed the plastic bevel gears. The do gum up when the "special grease", removal of which was stated to invalidate the warranty, solidifies - it's easy to remove with GT85 spray. I find the quietest gearboxes now to be the various High Level ones but you do have to assemble these, Chris will supply a variety of suitable motors, I've not used his coreless ones but I'm assured that they are very good.

This is Silkstone No2 tunnel on Wentworth Junction. This tunnel is only 74 yards long and on a curve, I use a bin liner curtain at the far end of tunnels and this one is showing a chink of light at the far end. The S1 is banking a loaded steel train on its way up the incline towards Barnsley Junction and Manchester.

I only built three of them but I think I may have designed the other two…

Not all pencils are pure graphite, I tried what looked like suitable one and it didn’t work at all - you only need one and it will last a very long time. Mine has done seven years now on several layouts, including Carlisle.

I use a graphite pencil, bought it from Hobbycraft, it's a rather large stick which develops a groove as you rub it along the rails. I only put it on plain track now, it's difficult to apply through pointwork but seems to spread along on its own. It does build up on the loco wheels, makes them look dirty but it's conductive dirt....

Wentworth Junction has the 6ft set as narrow as I dare, 44mm centres but 00 still looks wrong - like Tony I wish I had changed to EM years ago, too late now. Incidentally there are places on the Carlisle layout with multiple 6ft spacings, i.e. no 10ft where there should be one ( not my fault!) and it has made signal placing rather difficult there.

My advice is to throw the Peco track rubber away - it's far too coarse for this job and leaves scratches in the railhead. I used to use very fine (1200 grade) emery which gradually polished the rails but since applying graphite to the track I hardly ever have to clean anything.

That's the one in Turin, ex FS 700 001, the working one is ex FS 700 003, painted green in the latest photo I have.

The Maunsell 0-6-0DE is at a fairly advanced stage, we hope to get it out next year.

One of them is in working order but the other is deteriorating rapidly.

That's the mistake most compensation systems make - far too much movement, I'm not sure Mike was entirely to blame but he certainly paved the way. I'm glad it works, perhaps it's a good job the hole in the swinging arm was drawn concentric with the gearbox axle..... Thanks for the publicity and excellent photos by the way.

Does it still work OK with the jackshaft axle moving? It hadn’t occurred to me that anyone would do that, the swinging arms often pass around the fixed gearbox axle in our kits - the idea is to make them as long as possible in this case as the arc they travel in is not concentric with the coupling rod movement.

Very nice work and thanks for your clear description of how you did it - I'm a bit puzzled about the way you have fitted the axle bushes though.

The jackshaft axle doesn't move, the swinging arm has a large hole to allow it to move around the fixed axle. The bearings for the jackshaft axle should be fitted in the frames as you say - in full size this axle is the gearbox output shaft and the gearbox is bolted between the frames.

If the steps and bogie of a Duchess are the right size and in the right place they will not touch on sharp curves.

Some video I took at Barnsley

Very similar but I've used p/b wire since it became readily available - back in the dark ages all you could get was the flat strip which could only bend in one plane. Phosphor bronze is the best material to use because it stays springy, other materials may soften with heat produced by arcing.

No, not mine, I haven’t used p/b strip for pickups in more than 50 years.

Is that U1 one of mine as well? Have you looked for a works plate on it?

I've built a lot of Garratts, here's a few of them. This was the first one, scratchbuilt for myself - not quite any of the UK industrial ones. Powered both ends (as I always do) it's pictured here at Herculaneum Dock but it runs on Cwmafon. This LMS Garratt built from a K's kit, the motion looks very clunky now but otherwise the kit isn't bad. 7mm scale NGG16 from the Backwoods kit (Ian Rathbone's photo), definitely not an easy kit to build. Another Backwoods kit, 4mm EM this time, one of the four UK industrial Garratts, this one for Vivians Copper in Swansea. Painted by Dave Studley and again not very easy to build. Another NGG16, 4mm this time - curiously the Backwoods kit seemed easier to build in this scale than in 7mm. This Backwoods kit is an absolute pig to build but it makes a very nice model of the first Garratt with the cylinders inboard. The original now runs on the Welsh Highland with some of the SAR NGG16s. Mauritius Railways 2-8-8-2 in EM, scratchbuilt with some etched parts. Painted by Dave Studley

We have two LNER Garratts for Wentworth Junction. We don't run them together but it's handy to have a spare - one failed on the first day of the Leeds show last year. The one on the nearer track is standard DJH with one motor in the hind unit, built by Andy Ross, the other one I built with a DS10 motor in each end. The twin motor one on the layout at Barnsley last weekend