Fair Oak Junction

Those are looking excellent, top marks Revolution! 👌

The temptation to move my shed location to London is strong, just so I can have an absolutely filthy L44 or L48 appear sometimes 😄

Rails of Sheffield has them for pre-order.

The brass effect is one of those things that divides opinion in the community, so Rapido (and any other manufacturer) is damned if they do and damned if they don't. They've made a choice, and that's that. Like it, buy it, don't like it, don't buy it. These are always our choices in hobbies 😉

Yeah, that's the problem. My shed is set near Portsmouth/Southampton 😄

Plus this isn't tooling that can be used for years to come and produce loads of. It's a niche item, and it's never going to sell anywhere close to the numbers of standard coach tooling. Highly detailed fairly unique items will always fetch a premium due to their nature.

You can sort of see the tender top in this shot, not the best angle though.

Lovely little thing.

It does, very much so. Just wish I could justify one on a SR shed layout set in WW2. Stretching "Rule 1" a bit far 😂

Ooooh, lovely! 👌

I've not found any info on what match trucks the SR 15t cranes would have run with, so I'll probably just use a generic ex-LSWR 3 plank with the jib rest from the wagon it comes with.

Exactly! And this is my argument against people who say "stop complaining and fix it yourself". I've got no problem trying to do some modelling to fix a design issue on a cheaper or older locomotive, but not a brand new high detail £200+ model. That is a lot of money to potentially throw down the toilet.

I was just looking at the Women in Railways section of the website, and I was wondering if figures of Second World War female railway workers had been considered? Cleaners/shed staff, guards, signalbox/station staff, etc. There are quite a few women out there who re-enact the war after all, just look at any 1940s weekend at a preserved railway. I've managed to find some 1/72 & 1/76 ATS figures online that I will be repurposing as female shed staff, but it would be great to have some accurate railway figures 👍

Much like the conversation that was had in the O1 thread, I prefer this style of brass effect to the super shiny type on the Hornby H. Neither truly captures the look of real polished brass, but at least this style is less garish and plastic looking.

That is a beautiful drawing of the Trow! It's tragic that only one survives to this day.

It would be nice to know where they ascertain info such as this. It's not like manufacturers regularly send out questionnaires asking buyers what features they are looking for in new models. A few comments at shows? On forums? How big is this segment? Are there really large numbers of people asking for working lights? Or is it that manufacturers want to try these things themselves, and customer demand is a convenient excuse? Who knows, and unless we work for these companies I doubt we ever will know.

Indeed it did

That's very kind thanks, but you don't need to. I'll wait to see what they say to my email, and then I'll worry about it. I'm sure I can sort something out 👍

A possibility. I'll have to keep an eye on their show calender.

Well I hope they accept my email interest, otherwise no kit for me 😄

While we don't know the price yet, I think an increase was inevitable regardless of the match truck. £19 was insanely cheap for such a model! 😄

I'm sure there is someone on ebay who makes 323 bodyshells, those would probably be ideal for that 😉

I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't that many who actually care about firebox glow, but who buy the locos anyway because it's a class they want regardless. There is very little way of actually gauging how much these features/gimmicks influence sales without asking every purchaser "why did you buy this loco?" which is obviously impractical. I could not care less about the glow, but many of the upcoming models I want have it. So those manufacturers might take my purchases as indicative of people wanting the glow even though it isn't, there is no way for them to know. And when it comes to these Black 5s I would definitely prefer to see them without the lamps, but as I wasn't going to buying one my opinion doesn't really matter 😄

My local library was closed and moved years ago sadly, another sign of the time. As Mikkel suggested I will try emailing them. I'll explain the situation and hopefully they can put me down as a serious expression of interest.

Well I would love to register interest with Alan Gibson for an 850 kit, but apparently you need to print off and post a form in to do it. I haven't owned a printer in over 5 years, and haven't posted anything in even longer 😄