Robin Brasher

Issue 19. A line up of Princesses with a Hornby tender driven LMS Princess Elizabeth, a Hornby Princess Arthur of Connaught and a Great British Locomotives Princess Margaret Rose. Princess Elizabeth did not make it to the Swanage Railway but this is what it would have looked like if it did. The other picture is a comparison of the Hornby Princess Arthur of Connaught with the Great British Locomotives Princess Margaret Rose.

LSWR passenger engine liveries are described in great detail on pages 7 - 11 of HMRS Livery Register no. 3 LSWR and Southern published by the Historical Model Railway Society. There is a colour chart in Appendix 4. No paint fragments remain of the locomotive colour applied after 1917. The writer thought that light olive was the most representative shade and the colour in the chart is darker than the shade used on the prototype 120 in the 1960s and the shade used by Hornby and by the Great British Locomotive Collection for 117. The sepia picture of 702 in 1921 on page 4 of the Great British Locomotive Collection Magazine also looks much darker than the picture of 120 on page 116 of Preserved Locomotives Fourth Revised Edition by H.C. Casserley. Even though 117 may be in the incorrect shade and represents the locomotive as modified by the Southern Railway and British Rail it still looks attractive hauling a rake of chocolate brown and salmon pink LSWR coaches.

Issue 20 of the Great British Locomotives Collection includes a 16 page magazine about the T9 and a scale model which are good value at £8.99. It looks like the livery is LSWR Urie green that 117 would have carried from late 1917 to April 1925 when it was repainted in Southern livery.

Issue 20 Great British Locomotives Collection. T9 117 crossing Corfe Viaduct in 1918.

I have sent an email to Hattons listing my pre-orders and asking them to send them by Royal Mail and not by any other courier. They have promised to do this. I was housebound yesterday waiting for Yodel who arrived at 15:00. I was out when they came on Tuesday so I arranged for it to be delivered yesterday The outer packaging was damaged but the model looks all right. I will test it tonight. Yodel's service was reasonable this time but I prefer Royal Mail as the outer packaging is usually intact. If it had been sent by Royal Mail I would have been able to collect it at 07:00 from the sorting office 10 minutes walk away and I would have been free to buy a Great British Railways T9 from Poole 20 miles away. Now I have probably missed out on that model.

Hattons have said that the delivery date for all three Hornby 700s is now March 2015. It is not unknown for Hornby to put the delivery date further in the future.

I took up the matter of using Yodel instead of Royal Mail with Hattons. Hattons have asked me to remind the retail assistant, who takes my orders, to ensure it only goes Royal Mail. I don't know how to do this. Hattons notified me that they had processed my order to go by Royal Mail tracked 2 day. A few minutes later Hattons told me the item had been packed ... at 18:26 and put in one parcel addressed to me. Parcel 1, courier Yodel, 24 hour service.

I pre-ordered a Hornby Golden Shuttle asking for it to be delivered by Royal Mail. If Hattons had done this and I was out I could have collected it the following morning from my sorting office which is a ten minute walk from my flat the following day. Instead Hattons have sent the parcel by Yodel. I was out when Yodel came so I have arranged for the parcel to be delivered on Thursday which means that I will have to stay in all day until Yodel delivers it. Last time this happened I told Hattons that I did not want them to use Yodel.

Topline Tinplate Trains at the Weymouh Model Railway Association's exhibition on 1st & 2nd November 2014.

00 Works 700 for sale for £124 at the Weymouth Model Railway Association's exhibition today. It looks like the price gap between a new ready to run model made in China from a large manufacturer and a second hand model in excellent condition from a small British manufacturer is narrowing.

Kernow's Boscarne Ground Frame Hut is similar to the North Ground Frame at Norden on the Swanage Railway. This ground frame hut had eventful history. After being rescued from British Rail it was used as a waiting shelter on the down platform at Harmans Cross before being moved to Norden.

Comparison between Crownline conversion of Hornby Jinty with Bachmann 1F.

I am modelling the preserved Swanage Railway in 00 gauge and in N gauge although I also run it as it was before preservation. There are some disadvantages of modelling a preserved line. The prototype buildings are always being developed so the model can quickly become out of date. Locomotives and to a lessor extent rolling stock move to other railways so it is difficult to keep up to date. Most of the trains are five coach passenger trains so there is less variety in operation than in pre preservation days with through trains to Salisbury, Basingstoke and Waterloo, goods and clay trains. The public and not just enthusiasts know what the prototype looks like so I cannot get away with operating present day trains at Corfe Castle Station without a footbridge. The advantages are that it attracts local people who are not interested in model railways. For instance local female artists like the scenery.It also means that I can justify running engines and rolling stock that I like, Tornado and Bittern and the Devon Belle observation car being examples. It is also easy run models of what is running on the prototype on the same day.

It will be interesting to see in which scale the models will be. Their vehicle ranges are to 1:43, 1:76 and 1:148 scales with some models appearing in all three.

I would like to see someone produce an Adams Radial tank as it was a maid of all work on the Swanage Railway before grouping and I am modelling that line. It should go well with Kernow's LSWR brake van. I hope it is not as much of a teaser than the one that kept on appearing in the Wrenn catalogue but was never produced.

It looks like the picture of LSWR 12424 on Kernow's website was taken at Washford on the West Somerset Railway before the brake van was repainted in SR livery. I seem to remember it with SR lettering on one side and LSWR livery on the other.

The Bec Drummond 700 was the first white metal kit I made and I have still only competed one other kit. When I built it in the early 1970s I had great expectations of it with th weight of the metal body and magnadhesion. I cut the recess in the back of the Triang-Hornby diesel shunter chassis too high so the body of the locomotive sloped forwards and the tender wheels were not quite in alignment. Even so it did work fairly well. I would recommend anyone who has a half completed one to make one as it is not certain that the Hornby version will appear in sufficient quantities to satisfy the demand by early December 2014. Meanwhile I have found another picture of a 700 on the Swanage Railway. This is in Pocket Book Steam, Volume One, Swanage Branch Steam published by the Southern Steam Trust with pictures by R. Panting. Picture A5 shows 30695 on 9 April 1955 with a mixed goods from Swanage about to cross Corfe Viaduct. The tender has the small cycling lion emblem. The visible part of the train includes a goods van, a five plank open wagon with a tarpaulin load followed by an eight plank open wagon.

They run more slowly if you put a lot of wagons behind them. You can also replace the chassis with an electric one but it will cost about £120.

I am modelling the Swanage Railway and I have bought a model of the preserved 1F as it ran there from 12 July 1985. It was the oldest main line locomotive on the Swanage Railway and helped to haul the first special train from Swanage to Harmans Cross on 2 March 1989. The Swanage Railway Trust published a booklet called "The History of 1708 and the Midland Railway Open Cab 0-6-0 Tanks." I have run in my model without a load one hour forwards and one hour backwards. Another 22 hours running and I will need to oil it and grease the gears. Anyone know what sort of grease to use? In the past I have just used Peco Electrolube.

Excellent news. I have got some ready to run LSWR locomotives and goods wagons so all I need is a brake van. I did buy a kit made in the Isle of Wight of an LSWR road van but never got round to completing it. I wonder if Kernow's picture of the LSWR goods brake van was taken at Washford on the West Somerset Railway. I have got a similar picture somewhere.

I am having problems with the tender and pony truck derailing on points with my Bachmann Tornado which I bought last month. The points on this layout are Peco Settrack but it is also derailing on Peco large radius points on another club layout even when approached from the toe end. From looking at earlier posts it looks like there is a problem with the back to back width of the tender wheels. Hattons said there are no more in stock but there is a six month warranty on their locomotives so they have offered a refund. They suggested sending it back to Bachmann to rectify the fault. Bachmann have a 12 month guarantee. From this site and others it looks like other people have had the same problem. May I please have some advice about what to do next?

There is some information earlier in this thread. Hornby produced a tender driven R313 Golden Eagle in LNER apple green livery which I thought was let down by the simplified lining from 1990-1991. Simon Kohler said that this did not sell well. Hornby has not produced a locomotive driven one. Bachmann produced a model of the same prototype in 1997 which is surprising if the Hornby version did not sell well. Perhaps there was more demand for a locomotive driven apple green A4 with proper lining. I have got 2 Hornby-Dublo A4s, 2 Wrenn A4s and 6 Hornby A4s. I have ordered Golden Shuttle. I don't know why I have got so many as I am modelling the Swanage Railway and Bittern is the only A4 that has run on that line. I sold my Hornby-Dublo Mallard about 40 years ago after having it converted to 2 rail by Jones Bros. of Chiswick.

I have heard that the top of the GWR fireboxes were not lined because the chief mechanical engineer had witnessed an accident that happened to someone lining the top of the firebox.

There are two City of Truros at WH Smiths at Swanage. I have not bought one as I already have the Airfix and Bachmann National Railway Museum models. I am pleased to see that they are coming out on schedule.

Black 5 44932 at Swanage Station having arrived today Wednesday 4 June at 14:15 from Victoria with 10 West Coast Mainline maroon Mk1 coaches. I hope this boosts the sale of the Black 5s at W H Smiths at Swanage. There were two left last time I looked.