BernardTPM

Our 1890s house has single panes per sash, the same (at the front) as when we moved in in 1959, though they might be post WW2 replacements, I suppose. Mind you, they've never been painted white; usually maroon or (in the '80s/90s) orange, with cream stonework. Your recolouring noticeably improves them.

As you need flat sides for the 4DD you may find that the Tri-ang/Hornby Mk.1s are easier as as the sides are separate rather than moulded with the floor on the Lima ones. IIRC the 4DD units had non-standard low bogies to bring the floor height down. Really quite remarkable trains; for such a non-standard design they lasted surprisingly well.

There was a good article on the NG railway with drawings in the June 1996 Railway Modeller.

Very sensible. I'd be tempted to leave off even the two thin horizontals you've already got.

Handsome trams, them!

Found a good comparative shot of the 47 and 37 together from a low level, showing how different the body/bogie relationship is between the two classes. Hope it's useful Link

Be sure to check the 47 carefully, Pete, they don't sit as low to the bogies as the contemporary EE types. Not saying the Farish couldn't be improved, but there's no point in going too far either.

Great improvement here, though.

Heh, I've got a couple of undecorated E bodies I aquired for that just that purpose - a smaller, more accurate Tri-ang Double-ended Diesel. I wasn't planning on gnurling the wheels though, I'll need something else to create all the sparks

The N Soc. kit is an overscale model of a slightly longer van in a slightly larger scale, so don't worry - and don't use them together!

The Farish A4 body is pretty good, but there are two alternatives: the old Minitrix A4 (which, being plastic, will be much easier to cut and shut, though it doesn't quite capture the look, even ignoring the kinked hardrail) and the Foxhunter A4 (whitemetal, but a very good shape and not quite as tough as the Farish body to cut).

An old Farish Mk.1 roof is 133mm long over ends. Filing the rainstrips off the edges (replace with new, thinner ones underneath) improves the profile.

On a 64' coach the scale difference makes the N gauge coach 4mm longer!

It's probably not worth putting too much fine detail on these 'printed' bodies as they usually need a lot of filling and smoothing to get rid of the stepped effect. Better to make the basic shape, smooth it up and add the detail after that.

Looking at that shell, an FR 'Barn' body in 1:200 scale looks tempting.

Looking good, Pete; I agree the vertical joins should be just paint/weathering lines. Well done!

The thing is you're actually trying to model a very small diference in thickness, 152 (or 148?) times smaller. I certainly think you've got the right approach with the 'butting' method. You do need to ensure the corrugations line up (I think they mostly do!) as the real sheets can only properly be laid that way.

I think you've made a very sound decision on the seats. In my opinion putting in a seat base that is far too high (like the Dapol Mk.3, 153 and 156) looks worse than none at all, especially if passengers are then plonked on it!

I have great difficulty with this too; it's a race between the enthusiasm for starting and the inevitable newness of the next idea.

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!

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...

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!

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.

Thanks J,

I have to be honest and say that most of the scribing has been fun to do - however it can be a bit(!) tedious and scribing on curved walls is very time consuming as you've got to be so careful - especially marking out the horizontal courses.

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

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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.