Mike 84C

We were at Burrs on 12 Sept for 5 days. All the pitches by the railway were taken, but hey! its a good site and half price on the train with CC card. Yes we did have a steam fix. And sundry diesels running evening and morning! A 1250 Sulzer with my porridge, NIIIIICE!

Amazing service from shop A-pt, the mills arrived Friday am and the 0.5mm file from Metalclay Saturday am. The Japanese packaging looks really good so I shall keep the file in it for as long as possible. It says expert on the package, I rather like that!

AWS battery box on Black 5's in cab, firemans side with a crappy piece of ply wood above it for the fireman to sit on.Been there done that lots of times.

Hey Mol!, you need no Peckett temptations, there's a takeaway kit of bits down in BL that needs your ministrations. Rather good FRco photies you posted, got a little touch of "de je vue".

Thanks for the cutting info; Dave taken both routes! and hammered the pension today!

I am exploring the frustrations of signal construction and am finding my files are all a tad large for some of the slots I wish to cut. These are about 1mm width. Who would you go to for suitable tools to do what I want. I've browsed watchmakers supplies and am a little more puzzled than before. The signals were made by Courtney,Stevens & Bailey and are very distinctive! Thanks for any advice it all helps. Micl

I thought that there were almost no upper quadrant signals in Ireland. I believe the NCC used somersault signals in the main similar to the English GNR.

The brakes on a class 40 were dreadful for working loose coupled trains. If light engine ok ,unless the rails were damp,then "flats" could soon appear. I do remember leaving Littleton Coll; sidings with a EE type 1 ( I was second man) one Christmas Eve and control instructed " please clear the sidings" which we did! I was rather surprised the type 1 pulled such a heavy train to Bushbury Jct; but on the downhill from Darlaston to Bescot no way could it stop that train! But we were very lucky and the signals just kept going clear all the way into Bescot up reception sidings. Lots of blue smoke and hot brake block smell when we stopped. And Harry Cooper had let me drive! I was chuffed!

uax6 whose chimney did you use please? It looks just the job for a little Irish project I'm working on. Thanks Mick

Thanks for all the paint stripping suggestions, for the L&Y 0-8-0, at the moment Dettol is working well on the paint. Tomorrow will tell if the Araldite has survived.

Question, why is the picture upside down? Its correctly orientated on my p c file. But, the picture was taken in landscape and I could not see how to rotate it. Others taken in portrait are fine. Easy answers please. Luddite

Bought this recently, its a "loft find" how long it was there for could be a quiz question, which leads onto mine. It needs a repaint very badly and its glued together, recommendations on paint removal please? And yes it does go after wheel cleaning and a little lubrication,much to my surprise!

Those L&Y 0-8-0's always make me think of an elephant balancing on a drum, still like them though!

Nice model of an interesting prototype. If you can find a s/hand copy of Railway Archive No4 Lightmoor Press July 2003, there is a very interesting article complete with drawings and some photos of the Cooke 0-8-2t's of the Port Talbot Rly. Its worth reading for the correspondence between the PTR, their Agents and Cooke who built them. Hope this is of interest. Mick

Last night was club night at Sleaford Lincs; model railway club. One of the lads produces his Oxford Rail J 27, notwithstanding all the comments over rivets and too small cab windows, how do they do it for the money? This one was in LNER livery but I felt it carried off that classy brutishness of the class very well. As I know nothing of the variations within the class I just thought what a fine model. Compared with my Murphy Models CIE 121 class EMD, again with very fine detail and running qualities, at near half the price the J 27 looks like a steal. I hope Oxford Rail sell hundreds & hundreds of them. Very good value for money

tacking along a narrow fen road and a large tractor lurches out in front of you, an oooerr mother moment!

Well, G the only problem with cycling in these flat lands with long straight roads, is if the winds aginu then it can be a long way till you get a bit of relief! And my bike is only powered by those leg things no elastictrickery here mate, it also weighs a ton!

Murphy Models 121, handrails missing and broken, sent back to Hattons for exchange. 2nd one runs superbly on DC , lights etc; all work. Put in DCC and the speaker is defective and does not run. Pay for repair myself, not expensive but not the point. Considering how long modelers waited for the 121 and many paid up front, myself included, is the quality control as dire as my experience suggests? Just a question I thought worth asking.

One of my old BR drivers had fired and driven at Oxford. He used to say a K3 on a full digger up Swanbourne bank just shovel a load of coal on and it would blow off all the way up! I think he liked them! He never mentioned Crabs. I only fired a few being at Banbury and never thought much of them b; rough and worn out. One of our shift foremen Bert Mallard had been a driver and fireman at Saltley and thought they were marvellous. I used to tell him he had never experienced anything better.

Richard, regarding the connecting rods on 70548, I think you have them in the correct place driving the second axle. Long rods and speed would set up high reciprocating stresses with probable flexing. A rough ride is almost certain. But it does look very good and believeable. Not so sure about the 2-6-2 though could be a bit of a slippery machine!

I have pannier envy!! bike not steamy things. Glad your enjoying the new wheels.

I certainly do not agree with farmers receiving grants to build digesters and cover acres of good farmland with solar panels to grow electricity. What happened to food security? The NFU has far to loud political voice in relation to its proportion of population. I do concur with the recognised problems of storing renewable energy but grants should be given to householders and industry to put solar panels on roofs with a decent feed in tariff. Until that happens no more solar farms should be allowed to be built on agricultural land and the operators of digesters should have to use food waste and run a collection service for same. I feel strongly about this after working in the agricultural world for 35+ yrs and even though I look hard, I have not found that big factory churning out new land in GB.

I remember waiting to be loaded at Abercwmboi, hgv not rail!, ten at night and still a queue of lorries.

Johnster, you have hit the nail on the head! Two things you didn't mention, rising standards of living in China, the shrinking spending power of pensions and the other nice to haves like our old caravan, great for holidays and use as a spare bedroom. That's three! My interest in Irish Railways is suddenly getting rather expensive and when I look for that chassis on our favourite web site prices rise's of £10 from last year seem the norm. Whinge over, I'll just man up and pay or not!

Looks much better, Corbs is right about the driver spacing, tight is right or even compact! But please throw away the King type axleboxes go for ones as fitted to 47's or 53's just plain spoked. I think a Chapelon trapezoidal firebox would work best fitting between the frames at the front and over them at the back, a slightly longer combustion chamber, keeping the tube length about 14-6"/ 15' so maybe the smokebox would have to be lengthened a bit rearwards. As regards the rear pony truck, Nord Super Pacifics had them under the cab so did Pacifics for the BAGS in Argentina and a number of different types in the USA. Had a thought about where to hang the brake blocks, the Americans tended to hang them lower than GB say in the 19.30hrs/ 20.00hrs position. Must have made the maintenance much easier but then it wasn't invented here! Hope this helps.