Wheatley

No. Either replace with a new drawbar with the holes close together, or reposition the tender 'peg' a bit further back. Beware of the tender cab roof 'lip' catching the cab roof proper though, you might have to doctor the front corners a bit. Mine goes round r3 curves (just) with a 4mm gap.

Yes, they're only correct for some of the numerous variants, it may be necessary to shorten bogies or make new ends for others.

The Airfix or Dapol roof will be closer than the BR MK1 roof. Some of them were built with a flatter roof, more like a LNWR cove roof, not quite as flat as a NBR one, but not all. They are a nightmare group of coaches for detail differences, multiple diagrams built in penny numbers for specific bits of specific services. Vacuum brake arrangements seem to have depended on what was lying around on the floor when they were converted, those done at Newton Heath used recovered ex-L&Y horizontal vac cylinders for example. For underframe arrangements, it's basically a 4 bar truss as my pic above but with much variation of detail fittings. I can't remember now if I guessed the position of the dynamo or took it from Jenkinson's drawing. If anyone wants a 'proper' one, Caley Coaches do rather nice etched kits for several of them. Edit - here's a real Tri-ang one in 1953, it's the same diagram as mine (I think) but the battery boxes are in different positions: https://newtonabbotrailwaystudies.co.uk/portfolio-item/20389-grampian-bck-brlmr-ex-cr-grampian-full-brake-at-bolton-great-moor-street-26-07-1953/

Indeed. There aren't any on Dent Head viaduct, half a viaduct is a frighteningly long way to run with one coming in each direction.

Hopefully TSE will correct me if I'm wrong, but Ratio do these or something close as kits. Their ref 714 for the 4 compt brake third, and 711 for the composite (which is actually a first with the third class compartments reduced in length by internal partitions according to Jenkinson). The kits represent the 8'6" wide version with 10'0" bogies, others were 9'0" wide and/or with 8'0" bogies. It's quite an attractive set and I like the Ratio kits, I wonder if any ended up in SW Scotland ? :-)

Except where the Brittanias were too heavy. They were barred from the Port Road because of weight restrictions (the timber viaduct over the Cree I believe), which is why the Clans were used. The alternative was usually two Black Fives.

There's a fairly recent thread on here covering Clan performance. Short version - they were well thought of by the depots which used them in Class 6 (eg Jubilee) diagrams and didn't try to use them like Brittanias.

8I'm going to stick my neck out and say Midland, based on the duckets and the fact that that it's a BT/C/BT set, it appears to be close coupled and it matches the description if not exactly the actual drawings of the various Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Metropolitan and Nottingham sets on pages 98/99 of 'Historic Carriage Drawings'. 4 compt BT matches as does the 7 compt composite, although it shoild be 4 first 3 third. They're the Ratio coaches, exvept the layout of the brake compartments doesn't quite match the drawing. Jenkinson gives extinction dates around 1957-9 for most of them.

Standard CR/GSWR/Stevens practice would have the facing points locked by depression bars with the signal close to the points, so it looks as though you do need 12/13 (your numbering). If you decide the LMS modernised it and locked them with track circuits you can do away with them and turn 9/10 into splitting signals. You've only got one signalled route off 1 and 2 at the moment.

Try this, there is more than one way of skinning this particular cat: This assumes there is a reasonable length between the end of the loop and the branch, if not it's going to look crowded. Numbers are for reference only, I doubt the frame would be laid out like this. If you want to simplify it delete 14/15 and replace 12 and 13 with signals similar to 14/15. You could also decide that branch to yard is not a signalled route and delete 11. I have assumed that the points into the yard off the loop are worked from the box, or you could have them as hand points released by the box and delete 8.

I don't think we have missed the point. The legislation is not restrictive, we still operate petrochemical plants, nuclear power stations and a myriad of other quite dangerous things in this country, but some of the policies imposed by those with insufgicient understanding, a vested interest or an axe to grind are restrictive. Risk assessing picking up a box should take you about ten seconds. You do a risk assessment every time you cross a road, has that ever taken you so long that you've given up and either gone back home or just run into the road and hoped for the best ?

Still wiring up, this is so much more civilised than trudging out to the shed in two coats and three pairs of gloves. It does rather limit use if the living room by the rest of the household though. This (above) is the west junction, the three boards forming the lifting flap in front of the door and floozy cupboard on the left, and the first couple of station boards on the right. The ply and mahogany box sticking out houses all the track section switches, the mahogany plank next to it (on part of the lifting flap) will be the lever frame for the West box. All connections are via 15 or 25 way serial connectors. These core boards are all plugged into each other, the plan is for the rest to plug into a ring main around the outside of the layout, separate from all the boards rather than running a lot of through cables from board to board to board. Thanks to John Isherwood (CCtransuk) for that idea.

They are certainly more memorable, there was much more variety of shape between them before computers got involved in reducing co-efficients if friction and we all finished up driving a jelly mould or a wedge. Also we were young and impressionable and it seemed to matter far more that you could recognise them. One of my mates could even tell different models apart in the dark from the layout of their rear lighting, not so easy from the front when everything had Lucas 7" round headlights !

Exactly. Think about what you want to do, work out what could go wrong and do what needs doing to avoid that. Do it diffrently, use more people, get a bigger crane/jack/hammer etc. Youtube is full of cranes toppling over, people felling trees onto houses and skateboarders landing nuts first on bollards and handrails. Even my 12yo can usually guess what's going to go wrong before it does. Some years ago one of the TV channels here showed a series following a military rescue helicopter. You would think that this was exactly the sort of situation where extreme risks would be justified and they did take some pretty hairy ones, but even then a dynamic risk assessment was done. A Sea King won't hover on one engine so once they'd found the casualty there was always a brief given as to where the captain would attempt to go in the event of a single engine failure, usually the beach or the shallow water. There was only one occasion I can remember, trying to winch a child off rocks against a rising tide, that the brief was along the lines of "No recovery option for this, everyone ok with that ?".

Don Rowland built a successful P4 layout in his conservatory so it can be done. His choice was based on the fact that a conservatory was permitted development on his new build whereas an extention would have required a full planning application. The only issues mentioned in various MRJ articles over the years were steel track going rusty (not necessarily anything to do with it being in a conservatory) and having to have two lifting sections to maintain access to the garden. It sounds quite pleasant to me, you can always cover it over when not in use to stop it fading.

It's a brake composite so it's the ideal through coach.

That. (Apologies for snipping it). H&S legislation essentially says you must identify risks, control them, and tell your workforce and anyone else affected about them. It doesn't mention anything about banning conkers, extension leads, bare feet in soft play areas or home made school packed lunches. However, it has spawned a whole side industry, some if which is very useful and some considrably less so. We've just got ISO 45001at work, we don't need it but its predecessor, 18001, was someone's vanity project ten years ago and now no-one dare drop it. One of the requirements is that our safety management system must 'consider the needs and expectations of stakeholders and interested parties', no-one from BSI, including three sets of auditors so far, can tell us exactly what that actually means in real terms. In the end we put a two page list of train operators, user groups and government agencies in an appendix to the risk assessment process and they seemed happy with that.

Legislation designed to stop employers killing and maiming people in the name if profit is not the same as the legal profession then using those same laws to make a very fat profit out of twisting the detail of the legislation (or lack of detail) and exploiting it for their own ends. Neither is it the same as insurance companies playing both sides off against the middle by providing liability insurance to employers and 'no win no fee' insurance to claimants (you didn't really think the lawyers were taking the financial risk did you ?).

Agreed. There are very few compromises in the layout of the sides compared to the real Grampians, the waist panelling is a bit shallow and they're a bit slab sided (but not actually Mk1 profile) but thats about it. They can be cut and shut into most of the other Grampians with varying degrees of wastage, some are easier than others. The similar styled 57' coaches include the two preserved ones, the major difference is that the top panelling on the real ones was painted on ! Coopercraft Thompson roof, scratchbuilt bogies and ends, I kept the Tri-ang chassis and added trussing to it. The other one is a proper Caley Coaches one with some indifferent painting by me.

This was Huddersfield Junction, Penistone after the Woodhead closed. As well as the redundant points on the right the Manchester bound lines leading off lower right were still in as far as Penistone Goods but disused. The facing points were secured with clips padlocks and fishplates, and were still detected, it was not unknown for the signalman (me, but it's not my photo) to clear a fault by knocking seven bells out of the point ends to jolt whatever it was back into contact. In the distance the formation snakes across from the up main onto the former Up Goods / Up Barnsley alignment (top left pic) https://twitter.com/WoodheadRoute/status/1249793418039091200?s=09 And here's the 'before' pic and a long after one: https://twitter.com/WoodheadRoute/status/1158752784788930560?s=09

I was at junior school from the mid 70s, the teachers cars were parked at one end of the playground and were, from memory, mostly Minis, Morris 1000s, Triumph Dolomites, Allegros etc. The floaty bohemian one had a VW Beetle which was about as exotic as they got. The headmaster had a Cortina Mk3 which was always immaculate. My dad was a headmaster, we ran Ford Escorts, always second hand, all through the 1970s. These were professionals on reasonable money and there was nothing flashy. Most railway staff (and artisans generally) would have had second hand cars if they had one at all, the size usually being dictated by the number of children required to be transported in them at weekends (no seatbelts, you can get 4 small ones abreast in the back of an Escort). Even then most would walk or go on the bus if it was convenient, especially during/after the oil crisis. Almost no-one had second cars, they were too expensive as occasional runabouts. The only railway staff I ever knew with with posh cars were relief signalmen, think second-hand Rover, Austin Cambridge etc. Parked next to the box so they could washing it while they were working your Sunday.

The pits weren't closed because of their environmental impact, they were closed because it was cheaper to transport coal halfway across the world than to mine it in this country where the seams are generally thin and inefficient to work. By the time environmental factors became a thing the damage to the industry was done.

Handle is the wrong shape for a tail lamp surely ? And the lamp looks round. My first thought was notices too. Presumably they'd be in the way on the footplate.

Heljan's 05 does exactly that - not on a bogie but on a full depth buffer beam.

But prior to the introduction of high intensity headlights you couldn't see marker lights on the real thing in daylight half the time, and you certainly couldn't see whether the headcode blind lights were on or off unless it was dark. So they're not important for me either, to the extent that I usually disconnect them if they can't be switched off (DC), especially if they're 'cool white'. Just because you can fit a particular feature doesn't mean it's realistic or even correct.