Arun Sharma

In the attached photograph of 45632 Tonga at (I believe) Stockport Edgeley around late 1964, the signal gantry behind it has both semaphore arms as well as electric light signals. Does anyone know why these were both in place on the same gantry and whether this was a common occurrence?

Personally I like the effect and think the end result is pretty accurate and realistic.

I would like three of the 7mm S-F single arm pantographs for my stable of 3x 309/1 (Maroon of course) EMUs please Mike

Tony I like the 'Flying Pig'. I do have a question though - If that is an M&GN one wouldn't its tender have had the cut-out for the tablet apparatus?

This is one of two survivors of this type. The other (1283F) was last seen residing at the Canvey Island Bus Museum some years ago. This one pictured has lost its original LT registration of 580 EYU.

I had an idea that Chiltern wanted to extend their Marylebone to Oxford service by having trains continue past Oxford to Kennington Junction, Littlemore and Cowley. That would have involved extending the present Platform 1 running line through the present booking office(!) so is the remodelling of Oxford really now considered finished?

This arrived today - It looks pretty unequivocal to me.

The two main reasons for any form of privatisation of any industry are: 1. As a method of gaining private i.e., non-taxpayer funding for capital infrastructure refurbishment/investment. Often this might be after a long period of insufficient taxpayer-funded injections of money. 2. To remove or reduce the public liability for pension provision of current and new employees of such industries in the future. The reasons for not privatising relate to whether the industry has a strategic or military importance which shouldn't be compromised though in some cases (if not sold to non-national agencies) that can be solved by compulsory renationalisation. It really is as simple as that.

At that price, I would suggest that getting these printed parts cast in resin by say, CMA-CSL would make you a profit if you sold three or more sets. Their mould charge for what is in the photograph would be about the same as the price you paid for the 3D printing with each subsequent set of castings being say, £20-30 per set.

I have produced a 7mm kit of the DMBSO for Radley Models but this TSO is a 4mm one. There will be a 4mm DMBSO once I complete my Bedford RL lorry [a 7mm one]. My recollection of the blue and green colours was that the appearance was almost a speckled glittter. Almost as if a lacquer finish had been applied on top of the base colour. There again, I never saw these cars in anything other than artificial lighting conditions and the normal early fading of blue would probably not have occurred to cars devoid of sunlight.

For large production runs, it is true that injection moulding is the sensible way to go. But, if your aim was to say, produce runs of 500-1000 units of something, then a 3D printed master subsequently cast in polyurethane resin would be the simplest and most economical way to go. Given that the major manufacturers already have 3D CAD files of their 4mm models, why do they not enlarge or shrink them to 7mm and 3mm [or S scale even] and have them printed as masters and then cast in resin? It would open up a whole new market and change 3mm and S scale from being scratch-builders scales to having 50% of the work in making a model done already. It would also potentially inject [pun!] a whole fleet of modern image locos and rolling stock into 7mm scale. There is no technical difficulty in rescaling this type of CAD file. I've done it several times with the models that I've designed for Radley Models such as various LT underground cars, Bulleid-Raworth electrics, Waterloo and City cars and some odd road vehicles like LT's Leyland PD3A breakdown tenders. The only thing you have to watch out for really is wall thickness as resin casters prefer a wall thickness of around 1.5mm but that's easy to do. Regarding assembly, it seems that we already have brake gear, air/vac pipes etc., to attach to so-called ready to run models so measuring and fitting handrails etc., shouldn't be all that much of a problem. The other element of this, is that such assembly need not take place in China or Vietnam - It could be just as easily done in Chirk or Beer or Brighton. That would have a major effect on reducing the lead time for a new model to come to the shops - perhaps we might even get modellers building things again!

I remember Midland Counties with their enormous exhibition stands and their glorious retail warehouse in Hinckley. They also did a very reasonably priced magazine binding service. Fortunately, getting papers and magazines bound in Oxford isn't exactly a problem but it is in many other areas of GB.

Thank you

This is probably one for Stationmaster's expert knowledge. Pre-1968 when firemen would be regularly shovelling coal in a hot environment, where did they get their drinking water from? The reason I ask is that there is a well known condition that used to occur in steam ship coal bunker stokers and coal trimmers called 'Stokers' Cramp'. This was caused by sweating water and salts but just replacing the water by drinking so depleting the body's Sodium and Potassium and leading to painful muscle cramps and, in the worst cases, kidney disease. Did BR loco crews have drinking water on board their locos?- I am assuming that the stuff in the tender or picked up from troughs wasn't potable. If they did have water on board that was fit for drinking, did they also have salt tablets? I am guessing that today's steam loco footplate crews are in a completely different environment as their duties are much shorter.

Currently in the Radley Models development pipeline are two 7mm scale 1953-1980 military vehicles. The first is a Bedford RL double dropside 4x4 lorry. This still requires some work doing on chassis detail such as differentials, leaf springs and gearbox bits but should be ready to go to the resin casters in a month or so. The second is a Mk5 Northern Ireland 'uparmoured' 6x6 Saracen Ambulance. This latter still has much work to be done and wont be ready this year. The Bedford RL was commissioned for use as a Warwell load on Chris Klein's 'Tonfanau camp' layout but will now take its place in the general Radley Models listing. A view of the RL CAD drawing is attached.

Down on the old Test Valley Line between Fullerton Junction and Stockbridge [now an unmade cycle path] there are still the odd platform and a half dozen platelayers' huts and their associated toolsheds. Like so:

I did the test build as well as designed the conversion kit so am arguably biased. However, I would say that if you can build a small Airfix kit, then you should have no problems with the 97xx. The two Christophers who run Minerva used my instructions to each build one and found no problems. I would always advise that when in doubt, contact the manufacturers [Minerva in this instance] and ask for a partial or full set of instructions to look at.

If you want a kit of 7mm scale JCB3, Radley Models sell one. It makes a pretty realistic model.

London Transport used to have a couple of road-rail Unimogs

Just to change the subject for a bit - It seems to me that there is a rush to get to page 2000. The rate of filling pages [with interesting stuff, mind you] seems to have accelerated in the 1900s! Is this the thread on RMWeb with the most postings?

!938 stock trailers 4929 [012392], 4927 [012229] and 4921 [012366] were converted to run with 1960 stock between Feb 76 and Apr 78 though four trailers of converted pre-1938 standard stock still existed in 1980 when they were refurbished. These survived until scrapped in Aug 83. In fact, given that various physical bits of lines on the system have changed their line names from time to time, it is still true to say that the 1938 TS is the only stock to have operated on all the named tube and surface lines - with the exception of the W&C line. Remember for example that part of the Northern City line physically became part of the Victoria Line and the bit north of Wembley Park to Stanmore was originally built as part of the Metropolitan Line. The lines from Acton Town to Hounslow West and Uxbridge were also originally part of the [Metropolitan] District Railway.

I am torn between asking Peco to scale up their 4mm ones or designing my own to go with my 7mm class 309/1 unit. At the moment I would probably prefer to produce my own as LW castings and 'H' section brass . However, for general use I will happily speak to Peco regarding this when next we have a show.

Personally, if I had to choose something, I would suggest 7mm GB-style OLE bits - which may then encourage manufacturers to start producing 'Modern Image' AC locomotives and EMUs.

Not 'more important' - more 'My opinion is more valid than yours'. There has been much discussion on the G0G forum about this in the past. The membership number is part of the default setting that identifies the poster. It is rare now to find the membership number also quoted as part of the signature block and those who do it are often laughed at behind their back - They are seemingly generally unaware of this of course!

Have you considered a modified Ian Kirk-style coach? Since Mk1 coaches consist of modular sections based around a passenger door, double guard's doors and basically two types of windows, why not just 3D print these bits and the duplicate them in resin. Then whatever type of coach you want [with a few exceptions such as some restaurant cars/sleeping cars/bullion coaches] can be assembled from the relevant bits onto whatever length underframe you want.