Michael Edge

Back to the Jidenco F1 now. The etch for the boxes inside the cab weren't much use, wrong width for 00 and the half etch lines don't bend very well - they are either too narrow or the brass is too soft so new ones made from steel sheet. Clearances are so tight inside here that I had to make the tops from plastikard - the compensation might allow the driving wheel flanges to touch here. The cab floor was OK though, beading added with soft brass wire, handrails from duchess pins. The material for the splasher tops was very thin and soft, put on full width and cut back to allow for the boiler between them. The boiler and smokebox etches are OK but here we come to the usual 00 difficulty - a lot of the boiler has to be cut away to leave room for the wheels, fortunately all this is behind the splashers/sandboxes. Front of sandboxes still to be fitted. Boiler temporarily tried in place with the back of the smokebox soldered to the footplate, looks OK so far. This is probably the most important step in buillding a steam loco, the boiler has to be level and once it's soldered on, provides nearly all the loco's torsional stiffness so the footplate has to be flat. This isn't made any easier by having the cab step plates incorporated in the footplate angle, I like to leave the bottom edges of the buffer beam and drag beam straight and unobstructed to make checking easier on a flat surface.

We should have the C14 at Scaleforum in September, no work on the SR 0-6-0DE recently (it's holiday season).

Can we leave this here please, I didn't want to start a war or a witch hunt, I just wanted my loco back - I built it for myself, not for the kit display, it was going to run on Cwmafon in a pway train which is why it wasn't powered. Unless of course it doesn't turn up.....

Well I’ve paid the ransom now, it should be back with me by next week. It leaves a nasty taste but I’ll say no more for now.

He says he's going to put it back on with a silly price of £500 and then I can make an offer on it of £25. Not appeared yet though.

He's blaming this Chelmsford entry on one of my "friends". Perhaps this was a good idea but it's just muddying the waters at the moment, he has promised to get it back to me after I pay a ransom of £25 for it which I have agreed to. If I spend much more time on this I would have been able to build another one.... Thanks again to all for your efforts with this.

Fencing All threaded on, this is how they arrive at the layout with all the posts at one end. First one is planted then the others are slid along and planted one by one, black dots in the grass at 12ft intervals. They still have to be pulled tight in this photo, pva glue round the base of the posts holds them well enough. Threading all the posts takes a long time but planting this 3ft length takes about 10 minutes. Another job done quite quickly yesterday with the fiddle yard control panel. Working the layout at Leeds last year led us to the conclusion that the original idea of setting the points at both ends of the loops together was slowing things down, although it works well enough with Herculaneum Dock. Extra switches now in place to set each end of the loops independently, this allows the operator to set up the road for an arrival while setting a different road for a departure at the other end, 5 extra red switches at the LH end. This turned out to be much quicker than I expected since the connections between the points was only in the panel. I ran out of red switch sleeves so put blue ones on the crossovers to free some up, blue and green sleeves on the link switches as well. The long back road didn't need an extra switch since it's only accessible via the brown section at far left.

The last streamliner was City of Lancaster which wasn't rebuilt until 1949 and actually got its BR number, so well within your time frame.

It's a good few decades since I used number drills, metric dimensions are a lot easier to work with.

I will be at the Leeds show in October and we are at Manchester in December.

It is indeed the Harrogate gasworks Peckett, the cab was modified but is now back to its original shape.

He only knew that when we all told him, if he gives it back now he hasn't done anything wrong.

Almost all the boundary fence is this post and wire, most of it is still in place. I've threaded another section today, dipping the ends of the threads in paint works better than superglue and I've enlarged the holes to .65mm which makes it much easier. Most of the tangling occurred because I was trying to keep the posts strung out along the threads but this turned out to be completely unnecessary when I was planting it so they are now all together at one end, the loose ends of the threads can't tangle, the trouble happens when they accidentally turn over while handling.

That's how the tender frame is intended to be built, I just didn't have room on the etch for any spacers. The tender tank is intended to be built on a bolted base, in the same way as most of our kits - the four holes seen in the footplate will take 14BA screws to hols the baseplate on.

I think that if he tries to sell it again, which he almost certainly will, he will be knowingly handling stolen goods and I think that's a different category.

All gone quiet now, his last message was to say that he had taken legal advice and he had done nothing illegal. He then said why don’t I make him an offer for it. I had already (very reluctantly) offered to pay him the £25 which had been bid on it plus postage but no answer on this. I suppose he will now try to sell it again, if anyone sees it anywhere please let me know. I have reported it as stolen to EBay. But I don’t suppose they will do anything. Thanks for all your support and efforts in this.

There‘s about 200 locos on the layout, at the moment I’m just content to see the trains moving reliably. Some do have appropriate head codes though.

Next some from the goods lines avoiding Citadel station. Trainspotting from Currock Road bridge. First a long train of bogie bolsters behind a very loud Sulzer 2 crosses over to the NE lines as a Stanier pacific runs light engine back to Upperby shed on the main line. Next a fitted goods behind a rebuilt Patriot appears off the LNW line, the light engine still waiting at Upperby Junction's home signal. Another very loud Sulzer runs south on the goods lines with a long tank train as the Patriot passes in the other direction. Moving on to London Road Junction with the bolster train seen earlier. The shape of the tracks is severely distorted here (the scale section ends at St Nicholas bridge in the background), the signals and some of the buildings are authentic though. Judith was operating the camera here while I was crouching down near the control panel - I put my head up a little bit too early...

Yes, already thought of that.

Moving round to Garsdale now The up Condor running through Garsdale behind two Co-Bos as an EE type 4 runs light in the other direction. The very loud clicks are the signal switches, very close to the camera in this shot. The short fitted freight seen in the last video leaves the loop. The whirring noise is from the Tortoise point motors.

Will that go through a .5mm hole?

The owner isn't as tall as me but he prefers the eye level view - we have however had to get some benches made for others to stand on.

It doesn't twist once it's all planted, it's just difficult when it's on the bench but I've got another plan....

He's now pleading that he's only a pensioner running a small business.... and complaining about you all attacking him, thanks for all your efforts on our behalf.

I've sent him this message now: I didn't want to be unpleasant about this, I appreciate that it must be very difficult for you to know if goods are stolen which is why I offered to come to some sort of amicable settlement of this. However, as you may have now realised a great many people in the model railway world are aware of what this is and where it came from - I was alerted by someone in Australia. How you came by it is irrelevant in law, theft is theft and it remains legally my property. You may well have a claim on the person who sold it to you but I would like it back please