BernardTPM

Slight error on that last parcel van livery that should have white brather than yellow and red 'Rail Express Parcels' on the side instead of black. Overall useful, nonetheless.

The Bachmann pannier chassis is a lot better detailed too. Hornby's current pannier has quite a rather nice body rather let down by the old chassis.

Probably not original. The prologue of that film was set during the war (hence the shelter 'kits' on the back) so most likely it's a studio repaint.

An island that used to export railway locomotives to just about every country in the world at one time and was still capable of designing a heavy haul loco that is more fuel efficient than the new 70. Still, in my model world it's 1991 and such travesity is still avoidable.

As the last BR diesel class (and for the time being, the last British-built large main-line diesel locos) they are part of this country's heritage. At the very least 60001 should be donated to the NRM.

Wow! That's a tower of power for your thrusting Young British Executive of 1967! Groovy.

Mabex also do advert transfers, though their 4mm range was always much larger - must get a new catalogue! For your circa 1990ish period you would probably want d, the London Buses roundel. IIRC this was a sort of beige and red affair in the same overall shape. At around the same time a mid-grey band near the base was being introduced.

Very nice!

The Minitrix coaches are also to (1:148) scale and interestingly represent the slightly earlier design of Gresley with a turnbuckle, rather than angle truss, underframe. All three ranges basically stick to the earlier door-to-each-compartment design (except for catering stock) rather than the 'vestibule' open stock; these have only been available as etches. IIRC the CaveNdish Gresley's first came out around 1976 (the range having started with Stanier coaches in 1974). The printing was done by PC Models and is still outstandingly good thirty-odd years later.

Orville - with cheeks like that and green it's Orville the Duck.

Either a late Marina or an Ital, very difficult to be sure from this angle. Late Marina vans had both black bumpers and (very, very late on) the Ital style door handle before they got the sloping Ital grille (later than the car models).

Having done some research on the similar but slightly later H39/H40 sets I know a few of lingered on until the very early '50s with the old windows; I don't know whether that was the case for your 70 footers, so I wasn't going to say for sure that they were wrong - they look good anyway! As for the early post-war BR/WR livery, there are quite a few pics in Jim Russell's OPC books showing the post-war waist lined GWR livery with LH BR running numbers. You rarely see this livery modelled, but quite a few Hawkesworth's must have been turned out in it when new. I remember seeing a version of the 'Clifton Downs' set done from Triang clerestories by Brian Fayle for his Harlyn Junction layout featured in the January 1970 issue of RM, but looking at the size of the First Class compartments, I can't help thinking the Ratio GWR four-wheeler sides might be a better starting point. They are available separately, though the roof is the right shape too (3-arc).

Dapol do a scale length one in N; you're just modelling the wrong scale

Is someone opening up a taxi repair shop in one of the arches?

Yes, correcting the Compo did require quite a bit of work to allow for the extra compartment length (i.e. the difference in length between a First and a Third) As far as I remember I took it off the ends but as I used two shells it wasn't necessary to take the sides off of the roof. Incidentally, I made the join lines down the door lines which saves a lot of filling if done right.

All of this generation of coaches shared a lot of components, particularly when they first appeared. On introduction in 1977 there was a Compo and Brake Third for the LMS, GWR and SR and a Compo and Brake Compo for the LNER. All shared the same bogies (a clip-in variant of the BR1 still used on their current Mk.1 range), floor unit, metal weight, glazing and two patterns of interior, a composite and a brake, the latter arranged to 'sort of' fit all the brakes despite the varied number and types of oompartments modelled. There were also some components shared over parts of the range: the GWR & SR shared coach ends and the lower part of the bodyshells (the roof part of the shell was different so they must have had interchangeable roof detail tooling). Later the LNER coaches gained Gresley bogies and after that the GWR coaches were given 7' bogies. Incidentally, both the new types of bogie slightly lowered the ride height compared to the old BR1. The GWR Restaurant car and Gresley Sleeper obviously had new bodies and interiors to suit, but the other parts were still standard (and both gained the better bogies later).

Sorry Alan, I mistook it for the Ultima roof conversion as there were no top edges to the taller windows. My mistake! What's the shell you're using?

I absolutely agree that creating the surface imperfections would be very, very hard, added to which such a model may well not conform to the usual expectations. Given that when you look along a glossy Mk.1 coach you can see lots of mainly vertically biased ripples, I sometimes wonder whether you could get the effect by brush painting, keeping all the strokes vertical. Perhaps even if you achieved that sort of finish you would have then to force people to look at them through a periscope or something so they're seeing the model from a perspective closer to that which you would observe such things on the prototype. The fact that it's probably easier to view a larger scale model this way is of significance.

I'm afraid you've missed my point here; the coaches that Farish have (approximately) modelled are the narrower Restriction 1 type (though not the narrowest 'Hastings' Restriction 0) which didn't have duckets on the brakes. For the Restriction 4 stock your need to widen the passenger accomodation, leaving the brake section at the width it is. It is the R4 coaches with the wider passenger sections that have duckets. The R4 Thirds and Composites were simply wider all along their length.

One of the things rarely modelled in R-T-R (or in models as a whole) are the surface imperfections, often there from new. A surface will be rippled where a metal skin has been attached by welding, screwing or rivetting. On a preserved item there is also likely to be further surface distortion caused by the odd bump or scrape down the years, particularly where such a skin is non load-bearing over a frame; witness the 'Peaks'. One reason given by British Rail for (briefly) adopting the airless spray was that the reduced surface reflections given by the semi-gloss finish against the traditional full gloss made the surface look smoother. Of course, vehicles built using extruded aluminium can have a really smooth finish so, in theory, should look more 'right' in gloss than a model of a welded steel coach would, where the prototype is naturally rippled.

The old Farish 'mainline' stock scales out the right width for Maunsell Restriction 1 stock which didn't have duckets. The wider Restriction 4 stock had the narrower Restriction 1 width at the luggage end, but was wider at the passenger section end. These are the brake coaches that had duckets.

The error is a mystery. It couldn't have been have been to suit the LMS coach as LMS Compos were longer so that was never going to be right anyway. Back in the late '70s/early '80s I had a go at correcting some of these coaches for a friend (around the time they introduced the correct 7' bogies). I made a third by combining the composite and brake third (the fact that the guard's compartment is basically the same as the normal compartment was handy!) and then used the left over parts to correct another composite. I think I modified the incorrect side of the brake third with left-overs too. Three coaches for the price of four... Still, a spare pair of 7' bogies that went under an older restaurant car model that i never did get round to updating.