Solderpete

Brian, Was the Motor Luggage Van you are building the same as the Battery vehicles which were converted to do maintenance work in tunnels? They certainly look similar on the outside. We used them at Cricklewood during the electrification of the Bed Pan line in the late 1970's early 80's. Pete.

Steve, You're right just moving the head-code panel up slightly does improve the front. You might be interested to know that in the steam days there was a particular women living in the flats who took great exception to locos blowing off at RB. She used to throw empty milk bottles on to the offending loco. Made the crews quite careful to avoid her wrath by taking great care that their loco didn't reach the blow-off pressure, however accidents happened! When I worked there in the 1970's we would be preparing the diesels to work trains which would include testing the steam heating boilers. The Spanner type would blow off with quite a force but fortunately the flying milk bottles seemed to have stopped by then! Looking forward to seeing RB at some future shows. Peter

Thanks. It's interesting as different modellers do it in such different ways. Other painters have suggested working from a white base but your dark base works well certainly in 7mm. Pete

Lovely work. Could I ask do you start with a black primer and then build up the colours from there or do you add the dark shadows to a light coloured base coat? Thanks, Pete

When I trained on diesels in 1971 as far as I remember there was no rule about which side the lights should be lit only that if travelling light engine on the main line you must have one white light displayed at the front and one red at the back. When shunting in a yard or in station limits you must display one red and one white at both ends. As you will know many later diesels only had the train description number lit at the front and no other lights displayed on the front. Peter.

Hi Ken, Thanks I found the website http://www.oliviastrains.com/pages/71/DCC_Chip_&_Sound Pete.

Ken, You are right, that does sound marvellous. I've never heard of Oliviers. Where are they based? Do they have a website? I tried to Google them but only found others mentioning them not a website. Great work as always. Pete

Thanks Robin, I see how you've designed it now. The legs certainly look nice and sturdy and I would imagine give a really solid platform for the layout on top. One thing that crosses my mind from experience of our layout, East Dean, is that occasionally we need to do some remedial work under the boards at exhibitions, and at the very least need easy to access to the underneath to ensure all the board connections are tight etc. Have you found the X braces get in the way of accessing the underside of the boards at all? I'm asking as I'm toying with building a new O gauge layout which will require double width boards in places such as yours and if I can get the foundations right it will make construction and setting up at shows so much easier. I'm very much enjoying following your build - thanks for taking the time to share it with us all. Pete.

Robin, I totally agree that as well as supurb modelling on top of the boards the actual boards themselves look excellant. Could you tell me, is the layout designed to put up all the legs first and then place the boards on top? I noticed that each board appears to have a complete set of legs or shared legs - this must making working on just one or two boards much easier. Could we possibly have some more photos of the leg construction and how the boards fix to them? Pete.

Great work Brian as always. Only thing missing is the kick mark on the left side of the doors. If you remember the doors were always stiff to open and invariably needed a couple of kicks on the handle side to open whilst holding on to the handrails usually with our bags in hand as well. Very precarious!! Pete.

Starting to look excellent. Chris of York Models told me at Watford that you are hoping to show Barrow Road at Scaleforum, Leatherhead, later in the year, is that correct? If so that will be one show well worth visiting. Keep up the enthusiasm. Peter.

Thanks Brian. I had been told that you had written about building the Western so sorry about the confusion. I'll try and find Dan Randells blog.

Hi Brian, Great work as always! In the photo showing the sound chip and speaker etc. I can see the bottom of the fan housing. Have you made the fan work as well as the lighting and sound? Also, have you put in smoke generators - I couldn't see any but perhaps I missed them? I especially remember seeing your Deltic with the two smoke generators and found that they really brought the model to life. All the best and see you at Warley. Pete Storey PS: I still trying to find your blog on building a Western but can't seem to access it.