Wheatley

Mask off the brickwork leaving the bit you want in stone exposed, smear on any old tube model filler so it's just proud of the masking tape, and sand back with a sanding stick or similar just far enough to not remove or damage the tape. Takes longer to describe than do. This is a concrete lintel rather than stone but you get the idea: This is Revel Plasto.

Back in the shed after a few weeks off distracted by a nice warm indoor workbench and decorating. The crossing is now plumbed in: The bridge over the Whithorn branch which forms the scenic break at this end is also temporarily in place; nowadays this is a two lane road forming a link between the main A75 and the A714 to Barhill, but in the 1960s it was apparently an occupation road and the bridge is only 12 feet wide between parapets. There a description and a useful drawing in Swan but the stonework is a bit of a guess and based largely on a distantly view in a Derek Cross colour pic. Structure gauging coach (Dapol 12 wheeler) in the foreground. And this is the main line view looking into Goathland tunnel: The black paint is because everything behind the tunnel and the Whithorn branch road bridge / backscene will be covered over with the crossing in the tunnel. Although it will be hidden you'll know it's there - everything makes a very satisfying noise clattering over it !

The BR Design Panel.

The indoor layout is a good 4ft off the floor, so for a long time he was too short to see it, let alone do any damage. Once he was tall enough to reach it it acquired a perspex screen about 8" high but in truth that was more to protect it from me squeezing past (it projects out into the study doorway, consequence of having a 9ft layout in a 6ft room, and I'm not 18" wide anymore.) Since then I've done more damage to it than him. He's 15 now and still runs it for ten minutes on weekends before he goes to bed. To be honest the greater problem was getting into the habit of not leaving edge tools lying around between sessions, and religiously clearing up bits of swarf etc. And finding every single dropped track pin.

Now that I can see the point of, it was the same reason breakdown trains were painted red once the modern 75ton cranes arrived.

The former LNER was still split into ER and NER in 1956. Maybe they'd got more forward-thinking things to do than embark on a regional vanity project (or two). I must admit I thought the devolution of coaching stock livery to the regions was an odd thing, especially when the two regions involved showed a spectacular lack of imagination and just regressed 10 years instead of thinking up something new. I'd love to know too though, it's not something I'd ever thought of before.

It's there as part of the pre-planned (and long advertised) centenary celebrations. https://mechtraveller.com/2023/07/flying-scotsman-trips-in-2023-100th-anniversary/

First one requires you to create an account but no payment required, second one is a dead link for me ("Sorry we couldn't find that page").

How difficult is 4 switches ? And a 5th for front or back.

If the best future need that the Parish Council can come up with is a hope of maybe some sort of footpath, or possibly cycle path or maybe a greenway or somesuch at some indeterminate time in the future using funding that they may or may not have, or be able to get, or maybe think about perhaps getting , then that doesn't sound like much of a plan. HE should have just let it fall down or close it as unsafe and let them all enjoy the 4 mile detour.

Can't remember having any issues with them at Skipton on the Tilcon trains, and the only issue we had with them on the Kirby Thore gypsum was the train being too long for the loop at Howe & Co Sidings. I nearly got to use one to assist 60532 Blue Peter after some bit of pipework burst on a northbound CME once, but by the time we'd found a spare Skipton man on a Saturday afternoon the NELPG crew had whittled a new whateveritwas out of a bootlace and a pair of Val's old knickers. The decision to seek Trainload Freight's forgiveness rather than ask permission had already been taken.

Not only pre-nationalisation but pre-1936 (I think), when they changed to the smaller lettering. If you don't want to do the HCC lettering then no doubt somewhere there is a photo of a plain bauxite wagon mixed in with HOUSE COAL CONCENTRATION ones, attempts to keep rakes together by painting things on them were rarely railwayman-proof. If you do then Cambridge Custom Transfers do a sheet.

The staircases have been replaced by some with a rather gentler gradient, but remarkably (considering the 1990s electrification) the bridge deck is still the 1922 rivetted girder. This 1965 picture also solves a long standing mystery for me, namely "what are the metal hoops on top of the Up side wall for ?" (they're still there). Gas pipe supports it seems ! I think there are some at Guiseley too.

Heljan have in fact done this on their Hunslet (Class 05), not only are the lamps to scale but they are suitably dim (40w bulb rather than oil lamps). One day I will work out how to make them 1 red/1 white at each end rather than both the same but that's a long way down the 'to-do' list.

The down platform is step free, but the gradient must be about 1 in 7 - check your brakes ! At least it has lighting now, until the late 1990s the down side lighting was a Wipac spotlamp on the up side lamp post (singular) !

Point timbers are wider, and longer. Peco bullhead is a generic representation of UK practice from roughly the Grouping (1923) onwards*, so sleepers were generally timber, 8'6" long and 10" wide, and point timbers were generally timber, 12" wide and as long as necessary (there was a limit but I forget what it was). The use of 'timbers' to describe those used on points was simply to distinguish them from plain track sleepers, initially both were made from timber. From the 1930s the LMS especially began to use concrete sleepers (still with bullhead rail) then from the 1950s onwards there is a general tendency towards wooden or concrete sleepers with flat-bottom rail starting with the main lines. Sleepers were still 8'6" long and point timbers were still timber, even where all the track around them was concrete-sleepered. Modern (post-2000ish) practice uses concrete sleepers for plain track and also concrete 'bearers' for point work. Concrete bearers for point work have to be made with all the rail fastenings in the right place to start with and are usually pre-fabricated and moved to site as complete units, the reason timber stayed in use for pointwork after concrete became almost universal for new plain track was because it could be assembled on site and the holes for the fastenings drilled on site if necessary. *(Although it is an accurate representation of none, either in track gauge or geometry. It can't be, because OO track is a scale 7" too narrow and the prototype doesn't use set track Radius 2 for pointwork. All OO track is therefore a compromise so, depending on the manufacturer, you will find different sleeper lengths and sleeper spacings used to try to disguise the narrow-gauge look of OO. If you want super-accurate - or even accurate - you're looking at P4).

The goods lift was the only disabled access at Leeds until the station was rebuilt in 1999-2002. The current 'Access for All' initiative is a very modern phenomenon.

What Bernard said, point timbers are wider than sleepers. The reason (I believe) is because at least half the chairs on a pair of points are on the squint and not parallel to the sleepers.

https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/NR_GN_CIV_100_02_Station-Design.pdf Doesn't mean any of them have read it.

Nothing to do with the original question, but a good way to revive a slightly clogged paint brush is to use it as the mekpak / liquid poly brush for a bit.

If it brought the RRP back down to 60 quid (adjusted for inflation since roughly 2010 which I think was when I bought the Bachmann Ivatt 2-6-0 for that price) I'd agree. But I bet it wouldn't. (£89 on the BoE Inflation Calculator if you were wondering. Not £189).

Some more easily broken sticky out bits were moulded in ABS, the buffers and door brackets sprue in the Pavan kit for example, and the door springs in some of the newer open kits. I don't think I've found a whole chassis in ABS yet but I haven't built all of them (yet). Any old polystyrene cement will do, but some will give neater results than others. Revell Contacta personally.

From your list on page 1 I make that 48 out of 78 classes available, not necessarily in the right livery. It would be interesting to see if any other era in history has 61% of its potential motive power available off the shelf - BR Blue might for mainline locos but there are still a lot of EMUs missing. Interesting that the three main lines (LNER, GWR, Avanti) have 86% (12 out of 14) available. There can't be many current freight locos missing either - maybe people don't buy enough everyday MUs to make them worth tooling up.

D - Dock R - (loco) Release 4 3 2 1 C - Carriage Multiple other ways of doing this are available, the only 'fixed' conventions I can think of are Up, Down, Main, Branch and platform numbers for platforms. Expecting a driver to remember that route 4 goes into platform 3 is asking for a read-across SPAD. You could do with a sub under the main arm on S5, the non-platform roads would all be shunting moves as would half the moves into the platform roads. There are probably a dozen ways of doing this too.

Most of the whizzy spinny Caprotti bits were in between the frames. The last two were built with them on the outside (as per DoG) where the fitters could actually get at them.