john new

That cross-ties with other information received as to owner name so yes, I guess that's it. Looking somewhat sad.

Update. Enquiries via the SLS forum suggest that circa 2015 it was listed by the IRS as dismantled and in private storage at Walton on the Naze rather than on view in a collection.

The Middleton Press book "Branch Line to the Derwent Valley" states (Caption 33) that one of the York Power Station 500v o/head electrics was bought for preservation in 1971. If it did get preserved, and still survives, it is a Kerr Stuart 0-4-0 of 1912. My Google searches have failed to find where it is now, or even if that fact is correct. Does any member have any knowledge of the locomotive?

I would suggest you need to establish what you want to do with it operationally in due course even though scenery appears to be your prime aim. Some fine suggestions on the CarL Arendt site at http://www.carendt.com/micro-layout-design-gallery/ In particular the Tymesaver and Inglenook options for shunting. See also http://www.wymann.info/ShuntingPuzzles/sw-inglenook.html Your headshunts (Leads in US parlance) look shorter than your sidings as is the fiddle yard unless extended beyond the left hand scenic baseboard edge. That will add constraints you may not have intended. I find shunting for a purpose therapeutic but aimless wagon shunting soon bores. The other consideration is uncoupling options as you may need to determine magnet positioning or consider building heights if leaning over to do manual uncoupling.

Thanks for the above tip. At the moment I don't use magnet uncoupling but as I am building a new shunting layout it makes sense to put magnets in now at track lay stage. Newbies question; will these be correct for any magnetic coupling option I might pick in the future?

Point blades randomly not making contact and locos stalling. Yes. A point broke a tie-bar at Warley, the replacement brand-new point (bought at the show replacement) does this. I intend to bond the switch blades to the running rails to cure but it will mean adding extra isolating sections and switch gear to operate more than as one engine in steam.

Some true but not all. The G1? Miniature layout at Warley was too loud, we could hear their annoying level crossing all weekend from our stand despite being an aisle away and the other side of a shell stand wall. At another show recently all you could here anywhere in the hall was one loud diesel on on an MPD layout. However, this is less and less the norm.

Or travels slower. I like to think Hogsmeade is in the borders in the Melrose/Kelso/Coldstream area thus giving an extra raison-d'etre for the reopening of the Waverley route. Wizarding interference in muggle affairs to (a)partially eliminate the need for maintaining magically obscured rail lines whilst at the same time (b) shifting the cost from the Ministry of Magic to the muggle Dept of Transport/Network Rail!

LLS is superb modelling and fully justified being there. I was lucky enough, through being there with the SLS stand, to be able to see it close up well before the show opened as I arrived in the halls for breakfast. Superb modelling, and interesting/absorbing even without trains running. When trains were running it was mobbed by punters. So if it is good when viewed before trains run, and when trains are running, the builders must have got it right. The only addition that personally I think would help would be adding vertical perspex risers to the half bridges; I think your brain would fill in the void easier with a support there, even though that support will be see-through.

Re derail, may not be the wheels/springs. Something I noticed on my shunting plank recently is that some (not all) of the big loop/hook tension locks will derail a wagon fitted with the newer small tension locks on sharpish curves. I think it is the hook swing of the bigger sized one hitting the edge of the smaller loop and forcing the whole wagon sideways and off the track. Might be why your vehicle comes off for no obvious chassis/wheels reason. Perhaps hook locking too if it is a coach coming off a curve onto a straight. I solved it at Warley on the day by buying a few second hand wagons all with the same version couplings but long term I will need to retrofit new couplers to some of the older wagons. I have an old Grafar coal wagon for example, that does this "troublesome trucks" trick to the newer one's! I'd recently read about this issue, either somewhere on here or in a mag article, so knew what to be looking for.

IIRC from the time, Oriana became a schools educational cruise vessel working out of Southampton where I saw it frequently up on the quay in the New (western) Docks. Although I don't recall the programme BBC Radio Solent might know something, or be prepared to run a breakfast show/drive time appeal for you. Edit - https://streaming.britishpathe.com/hls-vod/flash/00000000/00070000/00070437.mp4.m3u8. Pathe news film of the vessel and launch.

If steam is permissible in the venue we now have a rolling road for our 9 1/2 gauge Webb compound.

Possibly live steam would be a trigger for the sprinkler systems.

A fantastic piece of modelling has its place in an exhibition, of course it does, and I can admire it as that; however, that does not necessarily make it an entertaining exhibit with the ‘grip or magnet’ factor that keeps you watching. Obviously it is never at Warley but one of the layouts I like is the signalling school layout at the NRM, scale modelling it is not but it makes up for that in so many other ways. The ‘grip’ factor is not a finite product as every viewer has their own criteria, for some it is operational fidelity, for others movement and for others again the fidelity to scale. Take a parallel with the world of a theatre. Sometimes it puts on a serious, heavy, hard hitting play, sometimes a comedy night, musicals, or a band, often the cast are professionals, sometimes local am-dram groups. A model railway show is rather like a multiplex theatre/cinema but with crafting as the play’s cast not actors and putting on everything at once. Very few coming through the gate will like everything, but hopefully can see good bits even in what isn’t their favourite genre.

Interesting. Do you have a link to it please? Is there a Mac (or run in a browser) option? I still have an old Windows laptop but it is on Win 7 and likely to remain so. I may get Parellels in due course for the Mac but not yet had need to get it.

Our little (SLS) under construction shunting plank for example. A point tie bar broke on Saturday morning after working fine in testing during set up and about 10 minutes after public opening. Fitted a brand new, bought at the show, replacement and that is also intermittently faulty although not enough to stop operations. It is however the most critical one on the layout! If this can happen on small, four points only layouts, with just one power feed and still be problematic the bigger one's will have little chance. Don't forget that bouncing things around in a van for four hours on route to a show is not ideal prep' for a running session with a critical audience.

Not just Warley Club. Groups with a tradition of a volunteer workforce across many areas of society are finding that those younger than the current doers have a different lifestyle and don't/aren't able to volunteer. I know from my own daughters situations this is not down to laziness etc., but social changes, shift patterns, the seven day working week etc. However, it doesn't help those groups and organisations that have established an operating model based on free labour input to reconsider a revised business model where tasks may have to be bought in commercially or as a half-way house pay the volunteers an honorarium. Our own society (SLS) is about to enter our 110th year, what worked for the Edwardian social scene is not how we can work in the C21.

If they did make a change to accommodate modellers doing the 15" it would be a useful move. A big help would be mounting all the gubbins in the tender the other way around so the down slope is towards the front not the back. Also swap bodies to be made available.

After running it today have definitely gone for L is always left to right. On the front op position that is train running in ans operating from the rear means it it is departing. Although I am OK using slide switch reverse controllers I much prefer the older centre top off position type.

Probably another one of the random update glitches. For some reason my posts with embedded quotes are appearing correctly on my Mac Desktop PC but on the MacBookPro laptop, the quote distinction/marker disappears making it look as if the whole post is mine, not an add on. In both cases the browser is Chrome.

If you are looking at the Full view option could the select Full View button be moved from page foot to page header please.

Another snag is cost all at one hit if buying a unit. Example the 4TC, which is on my long-term wish list, you can't buy it a coach at a time like you can any other train.

Agree. It has always struck me as mad that 25kV OH Locos have been available for decades but without accompanying EMUs or (Since Tri-ang pulled theirs) UK based OH catenary gear.

I think that make sense too. Can always swap again if I get confused.

Probably a numpties question despite many years of solo modelling when it hasn't mattered. When I have wired roundy-roundies, I have generally made the F direction on the controller run clockwise, therefore F = left to right on a single track oval and the same for the outside track on doubles. Logical as F always becomes smokebox leading, therefore even on the inside track where F is running right-left it is still F (Forwards) smokebox leading. Today's query arises from wiring up my new shunting plank able to be operated from either the front or the rear depending on circumstance and therefore which of two sockets I plug the controller into. One feed does the lot, absolute basic wiring on purpose. Is there an established convention for which way is F? If yes is it generally smokebox to buffers or smokebox to fiddle yard? I could wire it crossed so F is still always left irrespective of which side I'm operating from or so that F is always a move either on-set (to buffers) or off set (to fiddle yard)? As it is intended for a "have a go" layout if there is a convention I will follow it, no problem to do as all I will need to change is reverse one set of wires in one or other of the chocolate blocs.