Andy Hayter

and that is exactly the point. Whilethe unwashed masses complain about prices, they also complain about lack of documentation.

I never saw the survey Brian, and I suspect I am the right side of (as in more than) 50. I have no intention of counting them. Additionally I have a number of projects obtained from others that will require (sometimes extensive) work to bring the kits to the standard and livery I am looking for. In addition I have more than a dozen significant buildings to be completed. I could scratch - build that that would take longer and not give me a better result. Will they all get completed? I hope so, but the answer is finally not entirely in my control. I have built up my stash while working, and now retired thought I would have much time to complete them. I have added to the stash as a number of potential suppliers have announced their intention to retire. With the debacle that is Coopercraft and the demise of other ranges into an abyss, I feel this was a cautious but necessary approach. My 2017 aim was to reduce the number of outstanding kits waiting to be completed - I failed for the reasons above. Will 2018 be any better - only 297 days or so to go.

Thanks - just shows how easy it is to make a mistake with the complexities of grouping. I have adjusted the original post. I should perhaps apologise now to all of those who I have offended by leaving out "your" company Maryport and Carlisle, Furness Railway North Staffs etc. and many, many more.

We have now lost the headings Mike but some comments: Column E is either post grouping - in which case LMS, GWR, LNER and SR are correct but no LNWR, LYR, MR etc - or pre-grouping in which case the LMS, LNER and SR markings are wrong. Column D - in some cases you show more than one company which can be quite legitimate, but then show only one in column E. Sometimes this will be right - LYR/LNWR becomes LMS - but sometimes it is not completely right MR/GNR becomes LMS in your sheet but in fact becomes LMS/LNER. You also have for Cambridge GER becoming LNWR (no, but they could have operated perhaps in tandem with the GER) becoming LNER (yes) To give you some ideas from the main companies and how they amalgamated at grouping: GWR was made up of: GWR Cambrian various Welsh valley lines - TVR, RR and several others SR was made up of: SECR (which in turn was a late 19th century combine of the SER and LCDR) LBSCR LSWR LMS was made up of: LNWR MR LTSR LYR (actually combined with LNWR in 1922) CR GSWR HR GNoSR LNER was made up of GNR GER NER HBR (amalgamated with the NER in 1922) NBR GCR GNoSR I will certainly have missed some companies out from the above lists. Then there were a few lines that were built/run as joint ventures before grouping and after grouping belonged to more than one grouping company and therefore retained their joint operational status Midland and Great Northern (as the name suggests jointly owned by LMS and LNER after grouping when the MR went to the LMS and GNR went to the LNER) Cheshire Lines Committee - originally GNR, MR, GCR joint venture and was at grouping owned 2/3 LNER and 1/3 LMS I will stress again that this is a very simplified overview. For your spreadsheet, I think it would be useful to include the name of the private owner company on the wagons.

Robin I think you could still have problems with your track. Remember this: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/81251-Bachmann-e4/page-14

Welcome DoctorP. I applaud your desire to get to know all there is to know. All I can say is that after 40+ years of study I am beginning to realise that the more I know, the more I know what I don't know. But don't let that distract you in any way. If you have any questions, just fire them off and the crew here will I am sure do their best to answer them - just don't expect all of the answers to be the same. Model railways holds a lot in common with philosophy. There can be many answers and not all of them are wrong.

I am a bit confused Mike, your database seems to show LMS as a pre-grouping company, which of course it was not. You have a list of towns - where have these come from? Is it from the sides of PO wagons? Also you have York as LMS - it was always LNER (post grouping previously NER) although the LMS had running rights into the station (previously many pre-grouping companies had running rights - I think only Carlisle had a greater selection of companies with direct access). Your 1922 date would be better as 1923, which was the start of grouping. Before then you can forget LMS, LNER and SR - although GWR will be right for some locations. http://www.railmaponline.com/UKIEMap.php This link will give you some idea of the ca. 1920 companies and who owned what and where. You can zoom in and in some cases almost see groups of sidings. Many lines if clicked on will give a brief resume of the line and a link (usually to Wiki) to get more information.

It is perhaps a codicil to the negative that rtr models are expensive. But in addition to the models just being expensive, it leads to all layouts of a particular subject looking the same because people don't want to risk spoiling (devaluing) their expensive model. I am not sure quite how you phrase that but perhaps you could say the rtr negative "leads to a sameness in model layouts". Even that is not quite fair because a lot of it is down to the high price and those who buy cheap second hand or remaindered stock may not be so constrained.

That looks like a very fair summary Brian. One point I might add is that the cost of new rtr can be a major disincentive to using these models as donors for cut and shut projects, or even re-liveries and minor alterations.

It is also worth remembering that if there was any delay in shipment for whatever reason, then Chinese New Year will likely have intervened. Given this affects all Chinese manufacturers, when things get back to normal there will be a backlog for containers and shipping slots.

Coopercraft are probably not at Scale4 North - assuming the info has come from his website. All of the other exhibitions he lists are for 2014 . The Scale4 North just gives the April dates but no year. Scale4 North in 2014 just happened to be the same dates as this year.

Actually you cannot deduce that younger modellers are taking up pre-grouping. I do however accept that it is possible. Yes there is an increase in the take up of pre-grouping (as judged by previous polls). Yes there are more young modellers - putting the link between the two is however unproven. A lack of exhibition or magazine layouts may be due however to a lack of cohesion in the rtr offerings which make it difficult to construct sufficient stock of any one company to provide the basis for a layout for either of the two purposes. A lot of scratch building or kit building is still needed to reach a suitable end result. On the other hand you could build a not too bad modern layout straight from the boxes.

Limonene and Butanone are chemicals so any supplier should do, provided they are supplying pure and not diluted solvent. Check the descriptions. Tamiya thin is my current chosen favourite - which is driven by availability rather than brand loyalty. However, the brush is huge when used for fine detail.

I do agree that to have everything in one place would be the ideal, though I think we are beyond a book - a website might be a good solution. I make no apology for once again posting about what is happening with French pre-nationalisation information which is being collated on the web under the Rails d'Autrefois banner (rails from another time). So far they have something like 35000 entries (including the drawings where they are available) and are part way into their second and third companies out of 7. http://railsdautrefois.fr/ The English translations cover only a few cover pages but not the real information, but you can get a feel. So far I think it has been 10 years of work

Humbrol and Revell solvents are fine for the plastic kits. They use moderately aggressive solvents, so for fine details I would also get hold of some Limonene which is less aggressive but still works fine. If you have the bottles with the brush in the lid, I would recommend ditching the brush which generally delivers far too much solvent and leaves the probability that it will run under your fingers and leave a fingerprint impression in the plastic. Use a 000 paint brush instead - it does not need to be a new one, I usually promote my brushes to solvent when they have lost half their bristles. IIRC The Peco Buffer stops are made from Nylon and you need a glue rather than a solvent - epoxy, superglue or evostick types will work.

The GNR Society have a whole range of books on GNR rolling stock and RCTS published a 4 volume series on locomotives and their histories (without drawings IIRC). While I might well be very interested if such a work existed, I think the size of each volume would be enormous. While I am probably wrong, I think a lot of the information is already out there but you have to do a lot of digging and expend a lot of money to get everything covered. The biggest gaps are likely to be scale drawings.

Unless putting the bits together is going to correct the warping, I would straighten them first.

If you are buying track you might consider the PECO Bi-Block track made for the French market but available in the UK http://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/p/39832/SL-106F-Peco-Finescale-Code-75-Bi-Block-Sleeper-flexible-track

The problem with small publishers is that they can disappear overnight. We can all (me too) complain about soft covers and cheaper paper, but if the alternative is that the company disappears............................... We have lost two magazine (high quality art paper) publishers in the last 9 months here in France. When they have all gone and all we can buy is revues of on-line games, what then?

Not only is the GNR Stirling Single more difficult to source, it is arguably a poor example of progress through the Victorian period. Remember our audience is 10 year olds who will look for the differences rather than necessarily understand the major engineering nuances. Still a single driving wheel Still a relatively high chimney etc

To show the development of the railways during Victorian times you could take a Dapol kit of the Rocket and put it alongside one of your late Victorian locos.

Thanks Gordon. Yes it is important to remember that these companies are largely small publishing companies, unlike for example Railway Modeller which has its PECO model manufacturing business behind it. Sad to see Objectif Rail go, although I stopped subscribing when I retired as it did not coincide with my mainstream interests.

GWR De Glehn Atlantic called La France for good reason. Built by SACM.

I didn't forget VAT Simon - second point after advertising. I agree about sealed books, but by and large I have been able to find somewhere that has a display copy available for perusal.

And further south than Ian we had -17C last night. -7 max today but no snow -YET. Forecast for tomorrow and if anything like earlier in the year we could easily get 35cm in a single sitting. And despite that the world will go on and not grind to a halt.