Not Jeremy

I really don't agree with this, ExpoEM and Scaleforum are different animals and if you combined them you'd inevitably lose interest and character, in my opinion. In fact, I'd go further and say that in doing what on the face of it appears sensible, you would effectively reduce overall attendance, quality and interest. The overall market would shrink too, which is not what we want at all. Anyone remember John Menzies? WH Smith took them over, reduced the overall number of outlets on the high street and since then with no competition have arguably screwed their own retail business. I bet the combined sales of Menzies and WH Smith in the last year they were operating together vastly exceeds WH Smith's current take. Pathetic. Going back to the subject at hand, I am a trader at both events and find sales buoyant. My commercial success is much more linked to the products I bring to sell, my efficiency at bringing the right things and then displaying them properly, as opposed to fretting about just what Graham, Terry and all the other fine volunteers and participants have done or not done, the price of tea etc etc. Without wishing to appear harsh, I suspect that those with poor sales need to look at what they are doing and how they are doing it. If after doing this the show(s) aren't worth attending then pull out of them - simples. I do get fed up with the "standard traders moan" mentality that seems to affect a lot of us (in the trade). I had a bloody good time at both shows and look forward to both of them next year, wherever they are. If my sales are crap then I will be taking full responsibility for the fact rather than blaming someone else. Which is not to say that there aren't shows I think we could do without. Personally I just avoid them, rather than visiting them and then bellyaching about the experience afterwards. Apologies Mike, I appreciate you weren't suggesting most of what I'm having a bit of a rant about(!) Simon

Just for information, although it is at the printers GWJ 103 won't make it for Scaleforum but should hopefully be out in the following week. This is definitely the last ever issue of the magazine in its current format. Simon

Indeed I will. With any luck GWJ 103 will be there too. Simon

I believe issue 103 is now at the printers. Simon

Thank you very much for visiting us Mike, very much appreciated. Here's a snap of Nick de Courtais, myself and Steve Trinder, the Mayor of Wantage no less and a railway enthusiast to boot - top chap! Thanks to Gordon and Robin for supporting us with Robin's lovely "Wantage" model, the museum for their hospitality and to Chris Turner for getting the organisational ball rolling. I believe that there should be a photographic feature in the Oxford mail "Herald" local paper series next Wednesday. Simon

Hi Mike I will have a range of Wild Swan books with me, plus possibly a few of the latest titles from the shop. Also, I am very happy to say that Robin Gay is bringing his really lovely P4 model of Wantage along to the event too. Best Wishes Simon

On Saturday 16th September we are having an "official" book launch for The Wantage Tramway at the most excellent Vale and Downland Museum in Wantage town centre. Come along and meet Nic de Courtais, the author, and Chris Turner, the noted railway historian who conducted a number of interviews with people who had first hand experience of using the tramway, which also feature in the book. The museum itself is an absolute gem, with completely free admission and with extensive displays covering the town and locality including a "walk in" recreation of a Wantage tramway coach. There is a museum shop and cafe and I will have a range of Wild Swan titles with me. I'm hoping to bring a relevant model railway along too, but in the event that I fail the museum has its own model railway which will amuse you and is suitable for chilren to get involved with. Thank you very much to Suzie Tilbury the curator and Kate Pozzolli the museum manager for allowing this to take place. Books apart, I can't stress just how good the museum is in its own right. I was quite bowled over by its quality and size when I visited with Chris a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully see some of you there! Simon

It strikes me that the main difference between the mainstream magazines and MRJ, NG&IR and Bob's Finescale Review is really more one of style than content. If I were Phil Parker I might by now be banging my head against a brick wall after receiving endless advice to try doing something that I was already doing(!) I suspect that style-wise if you work for a commercial organisation then you are bound to be more or less producing things to their "style" and quite possibly have little influence in this area. Whereas MRJ NG&IR and actually Railway Modeller too do not have this "problem". (If such it be) Rotating MRJ editorwise, yes I agree if a brilliant full time editor were available, but I've got a feeling that such an individual doesn't currently exist. The rotating editors do bring lots of benefits though, and generally I try and see life from a "half full" perspective. No it isn't the same as it was under Bob Barlow back in the 1980s, but then neither is the hobby, nor am I, and Bob was also an exceptional individual in many ways. I still love MRJ though and more generally think that we are all incredibly lucky to have so many "comics" available to us in this glorious hobby of ours. What we "need" is fresh ideas and enthusiasm, and it seems to me that as a hobby we do pretty well on both counts. All that said, I do myself think there is scope for (another) magazine in "MRJ territory" as I believe Bob demonstrated before his very sad passing. I doubt such a magazine would "damage" any other though, it's highly unlikely to be on the shelves of WH Smith and as far as MRJ readers go, I suspect they'd buy both. When Finescale Review came out and I was selling quite a lot of it, I didn't notice any corresponding drop in sales of MRJ and don't think there ever would have been. I doubt very much that it touched any of the mainstream magazine's sales either. In any event, I've always bought magazines that appeal to me on browsing rather than slavishly buying all of one or the other. OK, two exceptions, I bought every Railway Modeller back in 1973 and I do have a more or less complete set of MRJs, oh and quite a lot of "Model Railway News" and "Model Railways" which I loved and I think is the progenitor of MRJ. Who knows what the future holds, I for one sure hope it isn't the same as the past - wouldn't that be a bit boring? Simon

Ahem! Editor PK Peter Kazer scratch builds some Tallyllyn Railway coaches WIP from Shipley MRS on magnum opus Clayton in EM Stephen Williams builds the Victory Snack Bar 4mm scale Shoal of Herrings from Geoff Kent 4mm scale EM Alan Whitehouse writes up "Hallam Town" 2mm FS Barry Norman shows us a 7mm dockside tram T Pott and PK each tweak cars in 4m scale And Jim Smith Wright's Brettell Road trails Scaleforum, looking very effective in the rain. A decent looking issue to me. As most of you won't have seen 257 yet and therefore can't comment on the actual contents, you may instead be interested to know that the price has increased to £4.80 from this issue - so something else to discuss other than WH Smith etc perhaps(!) Mind you, the prospects of the Master of sludge carrier MV Whippet saying anything sensible seems vanishingly unlikely. Barry Manilow indeed - I don't know what he's talking about….. Simon

No book as yet, but I met with Malcolm earlier this year to discuss the project and hope to progress it further. It is a book that I would myself very much like to see published. Simon

Paul, it's a great layout and idea, but as previously stated it is too large for the competition. The various comments about cameos being different sizes in different scales are amusing in their way but clearly (if you have read the book) irrelevant to the actual competition. And for the record, when Iain talks about "Frecclesham" in the book, he says: This just might be the largest cameo I've met so far but then goes on to add Whether you could ever describe Frecclesham as such is a moot point But as I said, it’s a great layout idea and theme, so I wouldn't let that stop me building it! Simon

Issue 257 of MRJ has been printed and is being sent out from Amadeus tomorrow. A batch are being sent direct from Amadeus to Guildex at Telford this weekend, therefore visitors to this excellent Gauge O bunfight will be able to purchase copies this weekend from both: Wild Swan Books Ltd Bill Hudson Books I have as yet no information on the contents, no doubt subscribers copies and deliveries to other stockists will go out next week. Hopefully see some of you at the show! Simon

Well it's funny you should mention that Paul. I do have a cunning plan in this regard and conversations are underway with Peter. I would (for myself if no-one else) dearly love to see The Portersfoote Bunting Light Railway in print and although I haven't (yet) mentioned it on the website it is a definite project as far as I am concerned. Peripheral to this, but related, I am just about to pick up another one of Peter's own models of the PBLR from my late friend Dick Dorton's widow. (Dick had motorised it while he had it "on loan" as he used to run it on his nice 16mm portable layouts) This will mean I have a nearly complete collection of the models that Peter built, all of which are very worthy of display and would form a good promotion for any new book I would like to think. More generally, I'm hoping to expand the website with more information around the books. First to get this treatment will be the new Bridport book, Gerry has sent me as nice additional memory of the line from Peter Squibb which I will post up soon. Thanks very much for your kind comments! Simon

I don't think a straight reprint would really cut the mustard, but that said I would really like to re-visit this subject. If you are or you know someone interested in and competent to pull together good images and write something then I'd be very interested to hear from you or about them. Please feel free to follow this up with a pm if you have any ideas or suggestions in this regard. Thank you for the suggestion! Simon

Isn't it just. I'd like to know who did it, I'm afraid I shamelessly lifted it from Facebook! Simon

I have just added more information to the Wild Swan website, showing covers of books that have been produced since I took the business on, and also featuring a page which gives some information on forthcoming and future Wild Swan titles. I will be endeavouring to add content to this website that will complement the books and also provide a more "content rich" experience. http://wildswanbooks.co.uk/index.html Simon Castens

Calm down dear, or else you'll find your entry in danger of being disqualified under hastily drawn up pedantry rules...

Slaters introduced the 41mm back to back in order that their "fine" wheels would operate through Peco trackwork, reason being that the gauge of Peco G1 track is just below 45mm. As to why that is, I have no idea, but it does effectively introduce a third set of standards as you are discovering. If you are contemplating modelling in G1 then building to finer standards is a great idea, but will mean that your stock will not be able to run on most G1 tracks. Cliff Barker's track is the best moulded track in G1 and is what I use myself.

How about having the Reverend John Skinner (1772-1839) cogitating as he walks along your towpath? If you are modellling operations on a Sunday then he could be seen berating your drivers for not observing the Sabbath. He wasn't a happy man, suffering the loss of a young wife and his children to consumption and taking his own life with a pistol to the head in 1839. He was also a very learned man who had to contend with the harsh realities of life and death in the mining parish of Camerton. His "Journal of a Somerset Rector" is no easy read but full of fascinating aspects of life in the period. In 1820 after losing his his favourite daughter Laura he wrote: "I could not help thinking how differently this morning was to be spent by myself, an obscure individual, on the desolate heights of Mendip, and the Queen of these realms in the midst of her judges in the most splendid metropolis in the world. Yet when half the number of years have rolled away which these tumuli have witnessed how will every memorial, every trace, be forgotten of the agitation which now fills every breast; all the busy heads and aching hearts will be as quiet as those of the savage chieftains which have so long occupied these hillocks" Something to bear in mind perhaps, as we each wrestle with our own cameo daemons? Simon

I am not making any "distance" as you put it between myself and MRJ. On the basis that you are genuinely not understanding the situation rather than anything else here goes: Wild Swan books Ltd (Me) is an entirely separate legal and trading entity to Cygnet Magazines Ltd being run by Paul Karau. We trade with each other. We also talk to one another, meet from time to time, share ideas and drink tea. I do this with many other people, some of whom are also contributors to MRJ, some even editors of MRJ, but also many, many people who have no involvement with MRJ. I make no distinction and like to think that I am equally friendly bolshy irritational eccentric compassionate interested encouragiing infuriating tolerant towards everyone I meet in life, both in person and on the Internet. I do endeavour to apply maximum effort to making a success of the ventures I am involved in, with varying degrees of success, and yes the Cameo competition is born out of a desire to promote and maximise sales of a book, together with all the ideas, aspirations and jolly things listed somewhere near the beginning of one of these threads. I am, needless to say, very far from perfect in any of these areas. So truly, I do not recognise the suspicious sounding situation which you seem to be convinced exists. As far as Western Thunder and RMweb goes, the cameo competition is featured on both courtesy of and with many thanks to Adrian Cherry and Andy York who run each forum respectively. Of the two I would hazard a guess that RMweb is the most "useful" in terms of promoting the whole idea and so again I don't understand just what you think I "haven't been able to do" on RMweb. I'll not be commenting any more on this. Back to cameos? Simon Castens Edited for grammar

I'm not at all sure that I'm not going to regret asking this, but why would you or anyone find this disappointing?

You are indeed labouring under a misapprehension regarding ownerships, but to be fair you aren't alone. I "am" Wild Swan Books but not Cygnet Magazines. Cygnet is a completely separate and different entity, effectively the "old" Wild Swan Publications crew carrying on with the magazines. This happened because Paul Karau wanted the Wild Swan name to remain with future book publishing. Hopefully everything is now blindingly clear(!) Simon And I have just checked and I don't think I am Trainman 864 either, it is quite an amusing thought though. Nor am I Spartacus before the first mate of MV Ferret starts piping up….

It is 2 metres for all entries, irrespective of scale. We have made a couple of exceptions as noted on the welcome to the cameo competition thread (neither of which exceeds 2.1 metres). Simon

Tsk, what a lightweight - a fourth entry surely!! only joking……..

It really is most excellent to see that our latest announcement has enlivened the cameo competition to such a marvellous extent and brought forth so many splendidly entertaining contributions - thank you all so very much. Returning to the substantive aspect of our latest announcement: Given that Iain quotes "Longwood Edge" at 2.1 metres long in his MRJ piece, and also in the light of other "extenuating circumstances", we have as of this morning made a couple of exceptions to the "2 metre rule". For the record, these are: Josh Courtney's 7mm scale "Easton Mills" Geoff Nicholls' Gauge 3 "Aldeburgh Wharf" Apologies to all for the apparent confusion, but both Iain and I are very concerned to keep entries both physically manageable and within the spirit of the book and original concept. In this context and talking about the size of cameos more generally, when Iain talks about the Newport MRS's superb 7mm terminus Frecclesham within the book, he says: This just might be the largest cameo I've met so far but then goes on to say whether you could ever describe Frecclesham as such is a moot point Best Wishes Simon Castens