Michael Edge

Nice to see my drawing on there - pity we only sold one of the kits to Italy, after they asked us to produce it in HO scale. We have sold a few in other places but it hasn't been a big seller - it's still in production though.

There were etched sides from Perseverance which I used for one of mine - but they didn't quite match the Hornby body, being a little too short...

I was tempted (and gave in!) by this last month. It's a Grünberg S20, very nice road/gravel electric bike, still needed mudguards when this photo was taken. It rides really well without power on levellish routes and flies up the steepest hills - and there are plenty of those around Barnsley. Riding it like this the battery is good for about 70 miles from a full charge, the biggest snag with it (being a European bike) was that I found the brakes are the wrong way round - front brake on the left. I'll just get used to it for now, I don't want to disturb the handlebar tape yet. After spending most of my life with only one bike I now have three, this one, my Orbit tourer which has done about 28000 miles now and the venerable Claud Butler which I've been riding since 1963.

Of course they are but they will wait until there are more of them on the roads.

The side window cab version uses our (Judith Edge) kit to modify the Hornby model, there is one running on Shap which is probably the one you remember. We also do aa etch overlay just for the rivets on the tank sides. The original Hornby model was quite accurate.

And the buffers…..

Not really, the signals will tell you if you have set the right road and links - the layout still operates in the same way.

All the signals are now working and interlocked with points and link switches. S1 69901 runs from the down main to the loop, when points are set this way the ground signal comes off, if the points (and points 17 further on) are set to the running line the main arm will come off. Moving on 69901 is heading for the ashpit siding so the lower of the two miniature arms comes off, the top one is for the pit branch. The much criticised Eckon signal turned out not to have a working yellow aspect so it was junked and replaced with this Berko one which looks much more correct. This distant signal is worked by a microswitch on the servo of the up home, when that is cleared the signal goes green. Home and starter signals can only be cleared when the links to the fiddle yard are on so the driver there will know whether to drive through or not. After much deliberation and argument Strafford crossing is going to be built more or less identical to Kendall Green with a small cabin and single gates.

Round tube doesn't solder very reliably on to flat sleepers, that's why I used square tube. Location and electrical connection are both completely reliable with this.

I used square brass tube for mine but they have actual track on them, not the aluminium angle. Two sizes of telescopic tube soldered to the sleeper ends (that's why I used square tube), big one at one side of the track, small one at the other side. We used these for years on Herculaneum Dock before i built the current fiddle yard for it, I still have e few in store somewhere for Cwmafon if it ever comes out of hibernation.

When I designed Cwmafon’s marshalling yard I didn’t go into any of this theory, I just set up some track on a slope and let wagons roll down it. I then had to mark all the free rolling ones with a white brake lever handle - in those days not all my stock had pin point bearings. The slope is relatively steep at first, then flattens out to level at the bottom and can work remarkably well if the shunter lets go at the right speed. Another snag appeared at this point - since the layout has very little level track anywhere I had to give the brake vans deliberately stiff running wheels to prevent everything running away.

I was referring to layouts where the shunting is done at well below walking pace, "flat out" for a 350 is only 20mph and it won't get there immediately. When diesels took over from steam for shunting the universal complaint was that they were too slow.

I did exhibit Cwmafon at a great many exhibitions with a working gravity yard between 1983 and 2007. The layout is in store now but it really did work even if a little fast at times. This isn’t a hump yard but a continuous (variable) gradient, the well known “gridiron” yard at Edge Hill was the inspiration for this.

Another way of doing this is to mask the lower part and spray primer fairly thickly on the upper part, followed by black. When the masking tape is removed there will be a clearly visible step there. I used this technique years ago with some scratchbuilt SR 6 Pan and 6 Pul units which had a marked step out around the windows. I did warn the customer never to have the paint stripped off them. I think these sets have probably been sold on now but I don’t know where to.

What alternative do we have? They all do this sort of thing and always have.

It's simple, quick and foolproof - and the nut still unscrews without any problem. I've probably been advising people to do this for more than 50 years, I think my Dad told me how to do it when I was about 10 years old (as he was a plumber he also taught me how to solder properly).

Interesting bit of loose shunting, just demonstrates what I always say about slow shunting on layouts - it was actually always done as fast as possible and that 350 was being flogged along flat out there.

If you do keep the nuts on the bottom it's very easy to stop them working loose, simply spoil the thread a little way below the rotating part with side cutting pliers. The nut will then lock on to this part of the thread before it locks the bogie arm or pony truck. I use the same method for coach bogies having seen far too many with springs inserted between the bogie and the underframe, this does indeed keep the nut on but it also inhibits the bogie from rocking as it it should. I still have dozens (possibly hundreds) of these to remove from coaches running on Carlisle.

I think they were Austin Sevens but they weren't nearly as common as the LNW ones.

I would work on the basis of taking the trucks off to get at the body fixing screws - but I never put bogies on like this anyway, I always change them to a centre pivot now. The DJH practice of putting the screws on top with nuts below is a nuisance for anyone who doesn't have a set of box spanners as well but if you are going to leave it this way round you must lock the screws in the spacers.

Black 8 is a nonsensical modernism, there couldn’t have been such a thing since there were no red 8s - LMS power classification only went up to 7. Since I come from a little way north of the Mersey I concur with Tony about loco names, they were always Mickeys snd Semis, although our “coffee pots” were LNW 0-8-0s. I am (and was) aware that the enginemen had their own nicknames and rarely understood ours.

Yes, the 26A allocation shows its origin for my Wigan Wallgate layout. 45154 is also underlined in my spotters books but like you I never saw the other two named Mickeys.

Very probably, it's been running since December 1979 - had a Pittman motor and K's wheels then.

I've built a few Jamieson kits, the pressed shell for the LMS streamliners was the best way to produce one for a long time. This is the only Jamieson loco I still have though. 45156 was the first Jamieson kit I built, it has been altered a bit now with mostly etched motion (not sure if it's K's or Eames etch or a mixture of both). It still had K's wheels when this photo was taken but it now has Gibson drivers.

Trestrol EC drawing was in Model Railway Constructor September 1958.