cessna152towser

As a member of Hawick and District Railway Society I learned today that the committee took a decision yesterday evening to cancel the Border Rail 2020 exhibition which would normally have been held at the August Bank Holiday Weekend. With so much still to organise, and the extension made to the government lockdown, it was felt that time was against us, and particularly when our age group is likely to be the last to be 'released' from the gradual easing of the restrictions.

"Fake Bachmann", and almost as expensive as the real thing. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hachette-Partworks-Ltd-British-Railways-BR-Mk1-Maroon-OO-Gauge-Coach/264658925377?hash=item3d9ee6b741:g:AfEAAOSwBpteYo41

I was very disappointed with the Bachmann Ivatt 4. Sold mine at a loss on eBay only a few months after buying it brand new.

I sold an item yesterday and handed it in at the post office this morning on my twice weekly journey to buy foodstuffs, my first time out of the house since Friday. I have an item listed to sell on Thursday, and will make a similar arrangement to get it posted at the end of the week. Our nearest Post Office is also a Spar grocer where I can also buy food, and is still open, but selling stuff on eBay is hardly an essential activity for a private individual so there will be no more eBay selling by me for the time being.

You gain nothing. I did this last time because I had already attempted to end the auction and then been prompted by eBay which suggested doing so, but I won't do it this time. I'll hold my nerve in anticipation of last minute bids bringing the price back up.

Yes indeed. I missed the deadline by a few minutes for bidding the start price on an item which was three times listed and unsold. It had already been re-listed so I got my bid in quick and actually bid slightly above the start price "just in case" someone else might bid. Within minutes another bidder entered the contest, at just below my maximum. Nobody else bid and I ended up the proud owner a week or so later, having paid a few pounds more than I could have had the item earlier from one of the unsold auctions.

Yes, you can end item early as "item no longer available". This can be done easily if there are no bidders, but if there are already bidders eBay send a prompt discouraging you from doing so, "in order to not disappoint bidders" and say that they can restrict your account.

Is anyone else having problems with bidders withdrawing at present? I occasionally sell privately on eBay and on a recent transaction, the high bidder withdrew about a day before the bidding ended, resulting in a big drop in the now highest bid. Knowing that folks would have been deterred from bidding when they had viewed the item and found it already bid up to the higher price, I tried to cancel the auction, but found that the only way to end the auction early once there are bidders without myself falling foul of eBay rules was to agree to sell to the now highest bidder at the current high bid price. I therefore did so, and the buyer got a seriously good bargain. The same thing happened again last night. My item was sitting on £31, with six bids. The highest bidder withdrew his bids, which had stood for several days, resulting in the price dropping by around £20. The reason for withdrawal was given as "unable to contact seller". The seller could easily have messaged me. If he had been truthful, maybe messaged to explain he had been laid off from work unexpectedly or some other good reason, I would have agreed to cancel the bid and we could have parted amicably. However I reported him to eBay for inappropriate use of the bid withdrawal process and messaged him that I had done so. This morning I woke to a reply "Ha ha ha jerk" which I have also reported to eBay. This bidder alcl-7154 has a feedback score of 5 and a bid withdrawal record of 5 in the past year. I have blocked him from further bidding on my items. There are too many nosey people just bidding to find out what the other bidders are prepared to pay and then backing out. The whole experience of withdrawn bids is putting me off the idea of doing any more eBay selling.

Came with an eBay job lot. Two part diecast metal chassis. Kind of similar to early nineteen fifties Pyramid Trackmaster or Farish Formo but not quite the same. Body appears to be wooden and is decorated with a printed paper as a J.R. Wood & Co coal wagon. I think the print may be by Merco. Wagon appears to have been well assembled in its day but unfortunately had lost two of its original diecast axleguards and part of its brake gear. The wheels are a trial fit of old Lima which has shown that one of the replacement axleguards is out of alignment. Can anyone identify the make of wagon?

This is not the first of these which ahs come into my possession but I have a mental block in recalling the name of the maker of this chassis kit. Solebars are metal and the floor is clear plastic with diagonal ribs. Can anyone identify please?

I no longer pre-order stuff. Waited five years for the Bachmann RFB ordered in 2013 and it finally arrived in 2018 just as I was on the point of cancelling - and meanwhile the price originally quoted had almost doubled. I am not getting any younger and a lot can change in five years.

I suppose it had to be only a matter of time before one of those axleboxes fell off. Second time out of the box, and "Madge Elliot" returned to the fiddle yard minus an axlebox from the centre axle of the trailing bogie. After some considerable searching, I found it lying by the edge of the track at a tunnel mouth. Would I ever have found it again if it had dropped off inside the tunnel? How it ever managed to come off is a mystery as trying to re-attach it proved extremely fiddly as it was a very tight fight over the axle stub. Indeed it took several attempts, and several shots of super glue had gone dry before the item was eventually successfully re-attached. Here's hoping for no more problems!

Hattons Warwell with Dinky Toys DUKW load

Mine arrived yesterday while I was away in Edinburgh. A neighbour took the parcel in for me and handed it in today. Loco was minus a buffer, however I found this had dropped out of the box during unpacking and it was easily re-attached. Otherwise all good. Only one "photter" at the lineside to record the arrival of 66 528 Madge Elliot here in her home town of Hawick. Facing one way Madge coped well with all of my track. The other way round disliked the Peco Setrack second radius curved point at the station throat. This is no real problem as several other locos are similarly left or right handed. It is easy to tell which way round is which by keeping the coupling on one end only and standard operating procedure will therefore be haul train from fiddle yard, shunt the trailing sidings and return light engine. Indeed this is a vast improvement on the Bachmann class 66 which I quickly sold on due to banana bogies. Very pleased with Hattons' offering!

Just received a short time ago an e-mail from Hattons that they have processed my order - and checked my online banking and the card payment is now showing as a pending transaction. Looks like "Madge Elliot" could be here by Christmas!

Whether or not the reviewer is on the payroll or doing the review entirely voluntarily is not really our business. All I will say is, put yourself in the position of being the person who has been privileged with a loan of a pre-production example for review. If you are over critical of the product the maker won't send you any more products to review so you will lose that privilege. Not to say reviews, whether in a magazine or on youtube, are in any way dishonest. However I tend to be wary that sometimes the review is presented through rose tinted spectacles. Many of us do not live near a model shop where we can see the item in the flesh, so we need to be able to rely on the accuracy of these reviews.

I took our Mod's advice and contacted Paypal and it seems you got it right, Crosland, the problem is with my bank's new Fast Payment system which has been rejecting the payments and returning them to PayPal within a minute or so. I can either sort out with the bank, or use up the funds by paying for future modelling purchases from my Paypal balance (already spent part of it online with Hattons).

Nice gesture from Widnes Model Centre, with that attitude they deserve custom. My nearest, and "local" model shop is C & M in Carlisle which is over an hour by bus, but as a senior I can travel there for free on my bus pass. I had considered Harburn Hobbies in Edinburgh, which is only ten or fifteen miles further from my home and which I also visit occasionally would be my next nearest. A Google search came up with Hadrian's Hobbies in Brampton, Cumbria, which I had not heard of before, so that would be the nearest model shop which I have not yet visited. I must put that to rights soon!

Anyone else having problems with PayPal today? I tried four times to transfer my Paypal balance to my bank account and each time the money failed to appear in my bank and came back a short time later into my Paypal Wallet as "Refused". Then I remembered I had a couple of outstanding "pay after delivery" transactions so decided to use part of my Wallet to pay these now. These transactions are now no longer showing on PayPal as pending but my Paypal Wallet is still showing the full original balance which I had wanted to use.

The buyer had been successful bidder on three lots comprising some twenty wagons. He was interested in buying a fourth lot and I agreed a buy-it-now price with him and added this option to my listing. Within minutes he messaged that he had clicked the buy-it-now option and the top of my eBay page also had the little message box "Paid - Post Now". Everything was carefully packed yesterday evening and ready to post on Monday. I then find this morning that lot four was paid by a different person and has to go somewhere else. I checked with my buyer and it seems he clicked the buy-it-now on lot four but apparently did not instantly follow through with payment or "request total". Someone else must have clicked buy-it-now a few moments later and paid immediately. So I have spent much of this morning unpacking everything to find the lot four items, then re-pack them all, lots 1 to 3 for one buyer and lot 4 to the other. Thankfully I have an understanding wife who helped with the unpacking and re-packing. I'd hesitate before agreeing a buy-it-now option in future.

I recently purchased a second hand Hornby BR Freight Set, dating from 1978 and which had obviously seen very little use. The loco, D7596 initially moved off enthusiastically as soon as power was applied, but then it stopped on the first curve with the motor still turning. I identified the problem as excessive sideplay in the axles of the power bogie, causing the gear train to disengage from the gears on the drive axles. Easily fixed by affixing plastic shims to the inside of the bogie to reduce the sideplay. I wonder if this was a common fault with this model and may explain why this set was soon laid aside by the initial owner. One can imagine the disappointment of the original purchaser.

Hawick and District Railway Society will host their annual exhibition in the Auld Baths, Hawick on the Saturday and Sunday of the English Bank Holiday weekend, 24th and 25th August. Club Members' layouts, guest layouts from Scotland and the north of England, refreshments, electronics demonstrations from MERG. Campaign for Border Rail, Waverley Route Heritage Association will also have stands, display of prototype train photography by Steve Crozier, traders including Durham Trains of Stanley and The Model Tree Shop, etc.

I bought a new Bachmann DCC D11 a few years ago because it was on special offer from Hattons and cheaper than the DC version. I never fitted the DCC chip but used the blanking plug instead. The local was always difficult to control on DC - took a lot of power to get it moving, then it would pull away very quickly, so I re-sold it after a few months.

I recently acquired a part built 00 guage Siphon G as part of a job lot. The bodywork is brass, with beautifully etched sides. Only clue as to maker is a logo "CbA" and date "1972" on the underside. Does anyone know what make of kit this would have come from?

The correct call, I think. The Hornby Dublo 3-rail tinplate was all packed Thursday night and ready to be taken to the venue on Friday till we learned the disappointing news that the show was off. Woke up this morning (Saturday) to a covering of snow here in Hawick. While it later turned to rain and is now all melted here by late afternoon, I could envisage much worse up there at Romanno Bridge where the venue is higher above sea level and further west.