jrg1

The fish trains from Grimsby deserves a book, they were so varied. apart from the Grimsby-Whitland service, there were 9F hauled trains to London, various trains via the LDEC, and single vans behind DMUs. I once saw 61038 Blacktail on the Grimsby-Whitland Fish. The Immingham Brits took over on this run in the sixties.

LMS engines were quite common in Lincoln. The Grimsby Fish trains to the Midlands could be headed by 0-6-0s, such as 44120 of Aston. 4-4-0 40419 was shdded at St Marks along with 0-6-0 41686. LTSR 4-4-2 41962 was shedded at Lincoln briefly for LDEC services. Compounds, Crabs, Black 5s and 8s were regularly seen in Lincoln

If you have difficulty folding etches, run an Olfa P45 carpet cutter along the fold-it gouges out a sliver of material, and makes the folding easy.

The railway today does not have the stock for the operation, even if the people prefer to go abroad nowadays.

I enclose a Photograph taken c1900 of an LDEC locomotive at Lincoln Central. In the background is a Presbyterian Chapel, demolished pre-WW1. This is on the station boundary. Among items of interest concerning Lincoln's railways are the summer holiday excursions to Cleethorpes, Mablethorpe and Skegness, plus cross-country trains to Great Yarmouth. This was a logistical exercise carried out every year, that the rpesent railway would find impossible to do. Alos the GN/GE joint from Doncaster to Lincoln was used for plant testing of locomotives from time to time. Any information regarding the subjects would be most welcome.

Just found this topic and am impressed with the model of the frontage. If the proposal for a link from Horncastle to Spilsby had eventuated, instead fo the New Line, I think the Lincoln-Bardney-Horncastle-Firsby route would still be there. I would like to see a description of the construction of the portico-an excellent rendition. In the menatime, I look forward to more posts.

Are you thinking of the Nocton Estates Light Railway? Built with war surplus equipment, it was one of the largest systems, and was in the Nocton-Dunston area of Lincolnshire. Some of the equipment was salvaged for use on the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway. Oakwood published a comprehensive history of it and other potato railways.

To straighten etched components, I have a Paper roller with the original roller replaced with a 20mm diamemter silver steel rod. Roll over the etch each side to flatten.

Like the trackwork, love the weathering on D5579-is there a description anywhere?

To summarise, the first consideration must be reliability-without that, everything else is pointless.

I wish I had simply gone to EM, instead of P4-the saving in time would have been enormous, and allowed me to concentrate on other aspects. I would never have considered P4 if I had known of the problems of poor wheelset quality. There is no reason nowadays to put products on the market that do not perform.

The GNR Society produce a publication dealing with all GNR tenders-a really useful reference work for GN modellers.

I used to see the Blue Pullmans at Cardiff, just before they were withdrawn. I understand that the Schlieren bogies were not very good as power bogies, and the ride was suspect. I was surprised that the coaches were scrapped after a short life-it seemed to me that the the coach sets could have been either downgraded for general use, or had AC installed and run as first class. i think the rule that BR preferred to hide it's problems in the scrapyard applied here.

I remember the Blue Period as very interesting, with much variety. Still basically a steam railway, with mechanical signalling quite common, stations not yet dreadfully rationalised, and much motive power variety-Hydraulics, Deltics, various shunting classes to name a few; that's before looking at the trmemndous variety of goods stock.. Also Mark 1 and 2 coaching stock, including Pullmans. Journeys were still interesting for myself and my friends. I find nowadays there is a bland uniformity, not mitigated by flash paint jobs, and compared to the Blue Period, an unappealing sparseness in the railway itself.

I understand that the raising/lowering mechanism was designed to be operated by the lorry compressor. Very impressed with the long RR train. I am not surprised that they performed well on Retford-the vehicles conformed to 3-point suspension, and should run just as well on P4 track, with no springing or compensation.

A excellent build, with first class metalwork. I look forward to seeing the project finished.

Three cheers for outsourcing, offshoring, sub-contracting, destroying continuity, and voila-lousy product, rotten reputation. I thought it was just me having such poor results with Humbrol.

I wish I could build a four-wheel shunter that walks away with 24 wagons and a brake van. Bravo!

The jackshaft rod should be jointed-and the difference in height should not matter. I suggest measuring the jackshaft rods with an LED vernier caliper and also the rear axle and jackshaft axle holes, as there may be a discrepancy.

The Windcutters were the most effiecent use of resources from freight movement on BR-and made money. Closing Nottingham Victoria instead of Nottingham Midland was a disaster for the city.

The L1 class were used on the Grantham-Lincoln service in the fifties, so I would not hav ebeen surprised if they were also used to Peterborough.

I believe that JN built a number of dioramas for a museum, and they ended up dumped outside his door. I am very pleased to read that they were saved and restored. I saw the Edge Hill diorama at the old Clapham Transport Museum in the sixties-an extraordinary example of a forced perspective diorama that was an example of what could be achieved by an expert.

I am surprised that the posts regarding backscenes have not mentioned Jack Nelson and his LNWR dioramas. His drawing skills in LNWR Portrayed-including architectural perspective are unsurpassed.

I recollect the Airfix magazine had an article on how to convert the dock crane to a gantry crane and motorise it-about the time the Beatles were starting to make a name for themselves. Pity we do not see ambitious pieces like that nowadays. The etched crane really looks good. Keep up the posts!

A nice job on the coaler-a difficult kit to assemble. The U-girders for the tub guides being the main problem. I had added extra detail to mine, including extra ladder access and chequerplate floors. These coalers appear to have been repaired and modified locally to suit. For tub wheels, I used 2mm wagon wheels with replacement axles.