Simond

it's basically three of our old English "inches", which, for you 4mm modellers, scales conveniently to one modern, international millimetre! Now, I would like a quiet word with whomever was responsible for 1/43.5...

I expect that the revenue from the hoardings would be gathered by the hoarding company, and they in turn would pay whomever owned what land or fencing they attached their structures to. It seems that the hoardings were attached to railway fences, and their butresses would be staked down in railway land, so my guess is that the railway took a fair share of the income, one way or another. but it really is supposition on my part Simon

many people say that… I was wondering if the GW received the revenue for the posters stuck to its poster boards, and the GC received that from theirs. Otherwise I could see little benefit in naming the boards themselves, other than to reinforce the company image, of course. modern hoardings in the uk are typically labelled, eg “Primesite”, “Clearchannel” and I remember “More O’Ferrall” too. atb Simon

is it possible that the receiver of the advertising revenue was somehow connected with the advertising board branding?

That sounds plausible.

I do hope you have more luck (and/or skill) than I have with my daughter’s drone. Hers is an Amazon cheapo Chinese job, and whilst it flies and obeys the commands, stable it is not!

I quite like the light and dark stone suggestion, but what seems to me to be the challenge is finding a rule; there’s a degree of diversity that defies (so far) some consistent explanation. From a modeller’s PoV, this does mean that the risk of being shown to be wrong is less concerning, but if one is aiming for historical accuracy rather than credible artistic interpretation, it’s more challenging.

I see that the putty (or whatever they have used) does appear darker, but I doubt that this is paint on the glazing bars - indeed, the front face of the bars on the nearer window appears white, although it could just be a highlight that the camera has caught. Similarly the frames of the signal box windows do not appear to me to have darker paint. This looks to me to be very different to the picture posted at the head of the previous post, in which I agree that the frames appear quite dark.

Ade, I’ve never seen the roof handrails with sharp corners at the top. All the ones I’ve seen have a semicircular curve. sorry the picture’s awful, but hope you can see what I mean it’s a crop from Russell GW Coaches 1903-1948. Pg 96. There’s a similar van on pg 88, and an almost identical picture on pg 228. I make mine by putting the semicircle in first, (bend round a 1/4” drill) then a 60-75 degree bend outboard, and then form the gentle curve by hand. Once it looks like it’ll line up nicely, I put the hard bend in at the bottom, and trim to length. hth Simon

Scale & gauge?

Interesting question. is the question of identifying a model which stands as an artistic item in its own right? I guess the modern plastic mass-produced items are very good in terms of fidelity, but they are somehow lacking in emotional appeal. I built a 7mm finescale 57xx pannier from a brass kit many years back, and more recently purchased a couple of Minerva examples (you can’t have too many panniers…) and having weathered a particularly grubby 67xx version, asked my daughter what she thought. She immediately identified the brass model as her favourite (coincidentally, it’s the same age as she is, to the day…), commenting that it was somehow less clinical, better, something. I know what she means, but I don’t know how to define it.

Jason, I could entirely agree with you if it were Woodside, any “posh southerners” needing suitable accommodation (or posh nosh) would most likely have headed across the river to the big city…. Then again, would you travel 200 odd miles without having accommodation booked? I’d be very confident that it isn’t Woodside however, but it might be one of the stations before, e.g. Rock Ferry, or that area. well, no, but presuming the hotel management weren’t daft, why would they spend their money to advertise to those who would not naturally spend their cash there?

there's not a fat lot to go on. There's a loco shed roof (or maybe goods shed, there are no obvious smoke stacks, just a single chimney) with a clerestory ventilator (is that the correct term, it's not very "clear") in the background, and I would be fairly certain that the advert would not appear within the bounds of a loco depot - so it is likely to have been photographed from a platform. I guess it might be an electric train shed, such as at Birkenhead Central, but I think the Liverpool platform would appear in shot if that were the case. But why would the good burghers of Birkenhead (of which I was one until moving to Kent some 28 years ago) want an advert for a hotel so close? Liverpool is only a quick ride on the underground "Train" (never "the tube"!) or a few pennies on the ferry. That said, the hotel would have been rather grand and presumably offered fine dining. I'm tending to the view that the target audience for such adverts would be a little further afield. Chester? North Wales? Shrewsbury area?

That’s what I do with my coach lighting. One bogie shorted to one rail and the other shorted to the other, this “American” pickup system avoids friction (not an issue for a tail light, but it would be on a rake of coaches) and I used a capacitor to avoid flicker due to poor or intermittent pickup. sorry the commentary is a bit broken up. If you want a circuit diagram I can draw one for you. hth Simon

Phil, it’s nice to know my thoughts & comments have been useful. It’s great to have the support of the hive mind when things are being difficult… I’ll be absolutely delighted if my loco comes out anything like as lovely as yours! Having purchased some bright mild steel sheet in various thicknesses, I have no valid excuses regarding the delay in making valve gear…

It’s either magic, or jif, an old toothbrush, and loads of elbow grease…

oh dear...

I suspect Madame will want to watch it, and I’ll have to translate…

how very interesting. I wonder if it is the same organisation, or the name has been sold on, or what. Well, hopefully you can get the new bits from them anyway.

You may email Maplin, but they ain’t listening, they went bust some years back.

I heard of Grahame loss this morning on WT. It is truly sad news. Grahame was a great modeller and a super bloke - mega helpful. Though we only knew each other through WT & RMWeb, we had corresponded for a while, and were looking forward to meeting at a show sometime. I had no idea he had been so ill. meanwhile, the custom GW transfers he kindly made for me are on my Riding Van, and will serve as a memento.

Ah yes, but a little contrast is always a good thing. Particularly in this case.

I’m not sure I can offer much insight, but the DCC can surely provide more juice than the analog DC, particularly at 7 or 8V. decoders have resistors on the charging leg - this is done to prevent the inrush current tripping the booster - how many locos / dmus do you have on the layout? Imagine, as you turn the layout on, all of them start charging their KA caps simultaneously, if the resistors were not there, it could easily draw more than the booster can provide. These resistors limit the charging current, thus increase the time taken to fully charge the capacitor. There’s a diode to allow discharge through the motor without the limiting effect of the resistor. I only have one particular loco, a Minerva Peckett, which just doesn’t seem to charge well. It works, but nowhere like as well as my other Zimo/KA equipped locos. I suspect it’s a pick-up issue, but I still haven’t stripped it down to sort it out. I guess there could be an electronic issue with my Peckett and your 03, but I don’t know what. do shout up if you find out the problem!

you could spring all 4 axle boxes and have a rocker unit err, no. all sprung or a rocker!

spring wire as sketched, or Slaters buffer spring as installed in that one. Or cop out, glue up solid, or equalise as I suggested. All good solutions. the spring wire can be formed like a hairpin with one leg lying along the floor, and the other bent up so that it presses just in the middle of the axlebox - I keep trying to get the "perfect" design but I'm not there yet...