Michael Edge

I wouldn't use 3 in 1 (or "trois en un" in France!) anywhere if I were you - it's absolutely lethal on many plastics, stick with GT85.

My loaded trains are loaded as well, not with coal (I use Woodland Scenics cinder ballast) but they are heavy - and the gradient is 1 in 40. Any of my O4s or WD 2-8-0s can manage the 60 wagon empty train without slipping. My main point is that the graphite on the rail head and wheels treads has made no noticeable difference to the haulage capacity. If Cwmafon was up and running I would have an even better test but that layout hasn't been set up since we started using graphite.

No adhesion problems on Wentworth Junction and the trains are a lot longer than that - they are all banked in the down direction (up the hill on the visible front part of the layout) but up trains have to get up the same hill out of the fiddle yard on their own. The longest is 60 empty coal wagons with one 2-8-0 or electric loco, the whole layout is graphited, no track cleaning done for years.

That's the Craftsman kit I referred to earlier.

If you have access to Colin Marsden's "The Diesel Shunter" it has excellent end on photos of the 02 showing exactly where the bolts are. They are captioned as being from Marsden's own collection but they look like YE works photos to me. I've just looked in Tony Vernon's book about YEC locos and there is a side view drawing of the 02 in there.

I was indeed once a teacher but only for eight years and escaped to be a model maker in 1976. Almost every teacher I knew had an "escape plan" - retirement (I could have retired at 51), lottery win, pregnacy etc.etc. My reasons for being a teacher in the first place weren't very noble, guaranteed weekends off and long holidays mostly - to leave me eough time for real life. Back then in 1968 teacher training wasn't essential, a degree was enough qualification and I learned on the job.

The diagrams mentioned above are weight diagrams, I don't think I've seen a GA for the 02. The excellent Craftsman kit came with a reasonably accurate looking drawing.

Not my choice, I would have preferred Liverpool or Barnsley.

TT B17 now finished. It's powered with a motor and gearbox from High Level, this is the 10x20 motor Chris is selling now in place of the Mashima, works very well in this on a Roadrunner gearbox. Driving wheels are old Romfords, flangeless on centre axle to cope with TT curves, bogie wheels Markits and some unidentified disc wheels on the tender. The motor is all in the firebox.

You can finish the axle ends with a power drill and a file but it does seem a bit poor. You might sometimes need to open the hole in the wheel a little to get the axle started but I don't think it would take much out of a reamer and you would only be using the short tapered part at the end anyway (assuming you don't have a taper reamer).

I think it might be time to give up struggling with w/m kits!

Can't we get Wentworth Junction in there as well then?

What you see on the sludge tender isn't exactly a surviving pre-nationalisation livery but the effect of paint wearing off over the years - later gone over with chalk, this was done quite often, sometimes by enthusiasts, sometimes by nostalgic railwaymen. I can't see any sign of a BR emblem but someone has enhanced the next layer with the wartime N E, underneath it the earlier L N E R is appearing. Most locos were just rubbed down and painted over at overhaul, some of the SR locos at Dai Woodham's yard showed successively every emblem/lettering they had ever carried after a few years out in the weather. I think the pile of coal might actually be in another tender on the next road though.

I've put this photo on before and I know there's a mistake on it (electrification flashes?) but this is what I did with the Hornby A4s and A3s for Carlisle. I've not used Comet frames for any of these, what I did was to etch all the frame and motion with some spacing blocks. This is assembled and fitted outside the Hornby mazak block to bring the frames out to EM gauge, the addition of proper bearings behind te wheels improves the running of the loco and there is enough power in the motor to use the limited weight that can be squeezed into the plastic body. The motion is built up from layers of n/s in my usual way although in this scale I don't usually add a working 2:1 lever for the valve gear. The same frame etch in one of Carlisle's A3s. One of the biggest failings with rtr motion is the lack of depth, particularly with the slidebars - and the LNER 3 bar type is worse than most since it usually ends up looking like a vertical 2 (very thin) bar arrangement. Slight complication in EM is that in these locos (and some others) the connecting rod passes between the two lower bars at top dead centre and thee isn't much clearance. These two haven't been repainted, still in the slightly peculiar Hornby green but it does look a bit better when weathered.

I'll put some more on when it's finished ready to paint, it is all etched but the bits aren't all in the same place. I did the original etch to build some for Andrew Comben but had to juggle about to get enough for this one - I did the etches for the GE style tender as well.

I do wish people would refer to "wheelsets" rather than wheels - why don't we use railway terminology? Good news anyway, I see that the ones for the EE1 are even dearer but at least they are available again. We didn't ask for this wheel pattern but David Stapleton took it on as a challenge when he first took over Sharman wheels. Good to see that they are available without the 14BA screw as well - this is a poor crankpin in itself and the added bush makes the diameter far too big, Ican drill and fit Romford crankpins as usual. The glass filled nylon centres are completely stable (unlike the old stuff) and the wheels should be near perfect if fitted carefully.

I should have added that the WD 2-8-0 is stopped at WJ's up home signal. All the signal positions are drawn on the layout and correspond to section breaks but it all looks a bit theoretical at the moment - it will probably be a long time beofre they actually appear.

That looks like good news but do the prices refer to wheels or wheelsets? (single wheels or two wheels/one axle)

It looks very much like a sandbox from a Hudswell 0-6-0T.

Nearly all of these (even the C&HP ones) seem to have had electrification flashes applied at Derby although I don't think any ever worked under wires even in Liverpool.

Yes, the brake van is uncoupled on the up main and the colliery empties usually shunted into the up siding with the brake van now on the up end ready to be propelled to the pit. In this case the train was one wagon too long so the J11 had to retreat out of the way. The WD is on an empty "double load" train on its way back to Wath yard, Wentworth Silkstone pit was a trip working from Barnsley Junction although the working timetable shows one path a day to Wath. The coal from the pit went this way right into the MGR era when it required four EM1s and a diesel to work it - the diesel brought the train from the pit, two EM1 bankers pulled it out on to the up main (there was just enough wiring on the pit branch to reach) and two more hooked on the front. After a crash when the WJ signalman forgot about the bankers and another train ran into them the working was changed and the diesel (usually an EE type 3) took the fulls down to Wath where they reversed and came back with four EM1s.

Passenger train is an enthusiast's special (needs an LCGB or RCTS headboard), parcel train is a fairly regular diversion. I also have a photo of a V2 coming down the hill with an enormous empty stock train but otherwise it's just mostly coal, coke and steel going west with corresponding empties the other way.

I'm not sure that it had been repainted on WR though, I presumed the electrification flashes had come from elsewhere - no wires over the GW in those days.

We used to combine layouts in those days as well, Nick's Eyam was joined on to Wallgate once and Denroyd was joined on to the original version of Cwmafon. Borrowed stock is one of the reasons I've been forced to stick with 00 gauge rather than change to EM.

I'm sure you could do better.....