Michael Edge

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.....

Latest test track photo shows things moving on a bit, some locos gone and one or two new arrivals. The EF1 has come back in from the layout to be painted, Leeds United might get finished this week. The little Harton loco on the right is for comparison with its 7mm counterpart under construction now (test etch). Caradon has been bought by one of my customers and needs some attention - might be recognised on RMweb. No further progress on the Kirtley well tank yet.

I'm glad to hear it wasn't boring, there'll be plenty of electric locos on test before any catenary goes up but I'm not sure about No.13. An attempt to see how many trains could realistically be out front at any one time produced this. On the down line a Crab on a mixed goods with 26510 banking (in this case all the way up from Wombwell since 42864 needs a bit more weight), an O4 following with a coal train. Up to the junction the line was permissive block so trains can be stacked nose to tail along here. WD 2-8-0 on the up line with about 55 empties and two bankers waiting in the siding. The O4 coming off the colliery branch must be running very late since a J11 has already arrived at the junction with some more empties - parked in the up siding for now. The fiddle yard was looking a bit emptier than usual. Electric banker on the mixed goods, the O4 is waiting at WJ's up home signal. All moved on now, one of the bankers (S1 0-8-4T) has pulled the train off the colliery branch on to the up main for the O4 to hook back on at the front to take it up to Barnsley Junction. As can be seen here ballasting has now started, I'd like to get this finished before the weather gets cold - the glues dries really quickly when it's hot. Incidentally it must have been extremely hot in here last Friday (far too hot to do anything) but none of the track has moved or gaps closed.

That will be one more than Herculaneum Dock then - not much vegetation there either.

Paint it and run it anyway, it's really good. Could be on its way from Leeds to wherever on delivery, it was usually done by rail in those days - although this one would have been a bit slow. Some of the first batch worked in East Anglia but I don't think any would have got to Carlisle, the Scottish ones were all from the second batch.

I think I must have about 150 of them here for Wentworth Junction - and i still don't have enough.

Hunslet built a huge amount of stuff for the colonies, Africa was one of their biggest markets. There is a small but growing number of modellers in New Zealand using 1:48 scale (US O gauge), I've designed some diesel loco kits for this market. The choice of scale is a bit obscure for UK modellers but 1:48 equates to S scale standard gauge for 3'6" - personally I find all this fiddiling about with different scales a bit silly, the easiest thing to change is the track gauge.

I do have 5/0 blades but don't use them very often, never used anything finer. The table is just a bit of sacrificial kit, nothing precious and easily replaced when I eventually get round to it.