PatB

I'd assume that their dependence on an external source of steam/hot water makes steaming them a bit more involved than is the case with a small conventional loco which is more or less self contained. Not a major issue in their native environment where every industrial concern had piped steam on tap but rather harder to deal with today.

There is (or was in April 2010 anyway) another one outside the canal museum in Gloucester docks. Don't Didcot have an ex-Huntley & Palmer example too? If not I plead a 40 year old memory from a time when I was 6 years old .

A useful rule of thumb for visualisation purposes is to think of a narrow gauge train as being of similar bulk to a standard gauge train using the same track gauge. Thus 009 has similar physical presence to N standard gauge, 0-16.5 to 00 etc. This starts to stretch a bit in the larger scales as a train in SM32 (16mm/ft scale on 32mm gauge track) definitely has a bit more visual bulk to it than anything short of a scale length main line express in 0. As to the choice between 0-16.5 (which I assume is what you mean by 16mm gauge) and SM32, I, personally, would go for the latter. Not only are the models more robust and more visible against a garden background but, IMHO, it can actually be more economical in terms of cash and time. Sure, if you want to go for large, sophisticated live steamers, SM32 can absorb a substantial fortune. However, if you are more modest in your initial ambitions and look at some of the starter kits from someone like IP Engineering for simple battery locos you can get something attractive running well for as little, perhaps less, than in any of the smaller scales.

The bodywork would almost certainly have been manufactured by the original buyer's choice of coachbuilder, regardless of the maker of the chassis. Could have been one of the big ones (Park-Ward, Mulliner etc.) or could have been some tiny outfit that only a dozen living people have ever heard of. As a result it may be unique or, if not, probably owes more to the coachbuilder's house style than to Wolseley (or whoever).

Limited turning circles? There's a Triumph Herald in there . Seriously though, rearward visibility (tiny or non-existent mirrors and tiny rear windows) would have been a much greater handicap than the turning circle of most RWD cars methinks.

I think it's more likely that the inadequately braced insulation board surface has sagged between battens .

I'm mildly concerned that a Mk3 Capri and a VW Scirrocco class as "old" because of what that might say about me . An Austin Cambridge that didn't get smashed to bits by the banger racing boys and a Herald 13/60 that didn't end up under a kit-car have a fair bit of rarity value and a degree of nostalgia for me as I spent my teens and early twenties keeping examples of both (well, it was an Oxford actually) running on a shoestring. The Oxford is particularly well remembered as the only car I've ever inadvertantly spun. In a lane only marginally wider than the Oxford's length. Without hitting anything. Jammy git .

That's the free market for you. If it sells at those prices (and an awful lot of rubbish on Ebay seems to) then, pretty much by definition, the prices represent the market value. I wouldn't pay what many items reach but then, I'm probably not representative of the market as a whole. Realistically nor are, what? A few hundred? RMWeb regulars out of the tens of thousands (based on how many viable businesses the market seems to support) of model buyers in the UK and worldwide. Incidentally, whilst I'm not a regular Ebay watcher, it's relatively rare that I see what appears to be a bargain happen, particularly with anything that appears to be remotely mainstream.

He'd be right at home in the secondhand model market in Oz .

And 1960s Polyfilla ballast.

Really? That's not how your post came across. Use of the phrase "laughing all the way to the bank" implies that you believe that he gained excessive reward from the sale. Perhaps that's not what you meant but it sure liked like it. All a few of us have attempted to point out is that nobody's going to get rich building kits to that standard and then selling them for that price. Good quality one-offs will always cost more than mass-production items. OK so the seller might be a dealer and not the original builder but a glance at their other items for sale suggests not. As for whether people have money or not, as others have also pointed out there are always those who either can afford or will make the necessary sacrifices to pay for what can be considered luxury items. Economic circumstances affect whether there are more or fewer of them at any one time but there will always be some. Back in the dark days of various recessions I worked for a few of them whilst virtually eating out of bins myself*. I don't think the sale of one high quality 4mm loco for an apparently fair price proves otherwise to anyone without some kind of chip on their shoulder. Now if it had been a slightly battered r-t-r item that went for twice what you would pay for new from Hattons (something I've seen once or twice) you might have a point. *Not seeking sympathy, by the way. I had a tobacco habit, spent far more than I should on motorcycles and liked a pint or two, all of which I gave a higher priority than proper food. Maybe my modern equivalent likes Electro-diesels instead of Kawasakis .

It appears to be a very nicely made and finished model. I haven't the experience to guess at the number of hours work in it but I suspect that once you deduct the cost of the kit and ancillary bits you'd find that the builder/seller would have made a better hourly rate flipping burgers.

What a marvellous old film. I love the occ health and safety practices . I assume it was made c1960 given the glimpse of the Brush 2 and the fact that the cars in the scrapyard look suspiciously like victims of the holocaust that followed the introduction of the MoT test round about then.

Interesting variation in below door bracing detail between the wagons in that second pic.

I don't know the situation in NZ but here in Oz my local tip has a barrel for waste oil disposal but putting brake fluid in is strictly forbidden as, apparently, it makes the oil unrecyclable. These days my brake fluid disposal needs are limited and I heat with wood so I take advantage of the low ignition temperature noted by crompton 33 and light fires with it.

Having been submerged to the chest on Whitley Bay beach on New Years Day 1995 as a result of an alcohol fuelled experiment (at high tide, is it possible to run from one set of stairs to the next between waves? No ) I can well believe it .

Whilst I agree that brake fluid, like all chemicals as noted by JeffP, needs to be treated with the respect due to harmful liquids, I don't honestly see why using it to strip paint should be any more hazardous than, say, servicing or rebuilding a vehicle braking system. Something which thousands of amateurs achieve without problem. Safe disposal can, I admit, be a problem whether drained from the paintstripping bath or flushed from the hydraulic system it was intended for.

Very nice. Small point. If you can afford the space, it might be an idea to attach a baulk of rather battered timber to the walls at the ends of the sidings at buffer height to give some protection to the brickwork. Alternatively, two vertical baulks at buffer width would look OK too. Or one of each on the two sidings for a bit of visual variety.

Any possibility of a pic? I may need to go down the homebuilt route myself due to lack of funds as much as lack of commercial availability.and it would be nice not to have to reinvent the wheel. Besides, it makes sense to start now, with only one loco and two wagons to retrofit rather than having to convert a substantial fleet.

Really? In that case, I've got a nice one they can have for half that .

No, but Gresley was heading in that direction. Speculation as to the debugging of the P2 and further eight-coupled developments had he not died when he did provide an interesting line in might-have-beens. Anyway, we got the 9F instead which wasn't that bad a deal .

Yatton Junction for Clevedon and Cheddar

Now that's a thought. Has there ever been a r-t-r atlantic? Singles have been done before, albeit to 1950s Triang standards but I can't bring to mind an atlantic.

Just saw the film Doomsday the other night. What should pop up in the wasteland of post-apocalyptic Glasgow but a fully functional and very foreign looking steam loco. Given that large chunks of the film were shot in South Africa, presumably it was something from SAR. Oh, and the film overall, much as I wanted to like it, was a bit rubbish too .

How about a single to modern standards? A Stirling for preference but there are few ugly ones so I'm not that fussy.