BernardTPM

Hi Brian, All the special lettering on the sides was printed on, but there were also waterslide transfers for the special markings on the end, however, they just overprinted on the normal TK/SK sides so the slight alterations made on the prototype weren't done. Also, as with all the Mopok Hawkesworths, the window sliding vents were to the pre-war style.

There are no small windows above the doors either, so it's definitely not a Bullied Southern type. Perhaps it's meant to be a BR one, but the scaling is out; a lot of the later MTK etches weren't that well drawn!

Perhaps the easiest way to paint the Clams would be to buy and extra set of body mouldings from Parkside and cut them at the appropriate height and stick them together when they're dry!

Nice job on the chassis, Missy. I guess the correct spacings on everything meant that you didn't have to alter the critical stuff like geared drive trains. It proabaly also means that 'spares' would be relatively easy to source from a second chassis. They do have such big windows...

You can't really see much of the roof rivets on a Class 60 eiither (I believe they're near flush pop rivets) but it didn't stop them making it knobbly.

The 57xx/8750 bodies are nicer than the 94xx which is a little overscale in height. But a 94xx converted to a 15xx would be very cool...

Looks like a Lone Star DS - so 1:152 scale; better than 1:160 anyway!

Yes, RF and RFO are two quite different vehicles. The RF would have to have be either converted, kitbuilt or scratch. I think Comet do parts for it.

Excellent work, Simon! Regarding road markings, I did once measure out a whole load of them for someone who wanted to do some rub-down transfers and things like bus-stops and the zig-zags for crossings do take a lot of space. In many cases it's best to compress it slightly, unless you have a really large or long road. With the zig-zags there are some location in real life where they are shorter than usual, so there's often some kind of precedent to follow.

There's a fair chance that the SOs marshalled next to the Dining Cars are being used as Catering vehicles. The second wave of Mk.1 catering vehicles were built in the late '50/early '60s so there's also the distinct possibilty that the Kitchen/Dining cars are pre-BR at this time.

Nice job! As an alternative you could just use gloss varnish to represent the area swept by the windscreen wipers.

One was shown in the Dec. '66 RM under 25kV overhead with the later 'Pork Sausages' branding and according to "LMS Coaches" they were withdrawn between June and October of 1966.

Funny cake should be mentioned earlier - would using one of those revolving cake stands help with scribing out the horizontals?

Plastic moulded seats are already available from people like Southern Pride, with and without arm rests and in corridor and non-corridor widths (and a range of seats and tables for 'open' stock). The seats glued back to back effectively form the walls between compartments so different widths of compartments aren't really relevant here. The main thing needed for a normal corridor coach would be a corridor wall and the most obvious way to supply that as an etch is with the etched sides.

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That's a neat trick, turning it though 90 degrees I guess with a single axle drive it's no great loss.

The English Electric name survived into the 1970s, though it became part of GEC in 1968. The front cover of the November 1971 Modern Railways has an advert for what was to become the class 87 with the joint name English Electric-AEI Traction Ltd. with 'A subsiduary of GEC Power Engineering Limited' underneath. Soon after this became GEC Traction Limited, though I'm not sure of the exact date (could be '72 or '73), so an 'English Electric' built in 1970 is quite OK. It looks to be one of their standard designs dating from the 1960s, built in various sizes.

The Southern Region only had one Mk.1 FK allocated (at least 'as built') S13003. Also the upper sides of the coach are flat, there's what appears to be a seam running a few inches above the rainstrip and the vents are dome, all consistent with a Mk.2, however, according to the 1979 Platform Five book, all seven push-pull FKs came from lot 30749 and none from the Southern Region's allocation of Lot 30734 (13387-406) which were still on the Southern.

Is that a Green (ex-Southern Region) Mk.2 on the right, being converted for the original Glasgow-Edinburgh push-pull service?

Langley do point motor castings.

The different heights certainly show up well in the photos; the early batch must have lasted almost as long as the later ones.

There was an article in the July 2005 RM that showed one roof pattern; apparently there may be more than one...

The two new VDAs in Railfreight maroon would certainly fit with that 1977 date.

The classic 100 ton TEA tanks were designed to have the same discharge points as two 45t TTA tanks coupled together thus avoiding that pitfall. I suspect the latest TEAs are generally the same.

That does not necessarily apply; the Research Department at Derby made in-depth studies of rail-wheel-suspension interaction in the '60s and went through a whole series of wagon suspension designs (the HSFV series) that optimised ride and minimised track wear. One of the critical factors is 'yaw' which allows a vehicle to 'steer' round curves. In fact some bogie types, notably the old-fashioned 'three-piece' (like the junk EWS brought in) cause more wear than advanced 4-wheel suspensions due to their propensity to 'lozenge' i.e. the sides angling under load, increasing flange contact. Of course, this would not apply to advanced bogies like the LTF types. As to loading, four-wheel P.O. wagons enjoyed something of a revival in the '70s with the introduction of 25 ton axle-loading 'pedestal' suspension, though Derby were somewhat dismissive of their performance; they certainly weren't 'low track force' hardware! 25 tons (25.5 tonnes) remains the maximum axle loading. Four wheelers were also cheaper to build, even with advanced suspension. Not that Railtrack or their ilk ever worried about cost...