Wheatley

Try Humbrol 93 Desert Yellow.

Ooh! One for the "I think you'll find...." brigade if e ever get back to an exhibition. More info here - https://www.focustransport.org/2020/10/rail-operations-group-assists-with-dats.html (I confess I Googled it after wondering what on earth they were testing, other than how many different traction units you could get in one train!)

Thank you. Oh yes, there's lots of freight too, and parcels stock. I'll probably wait until the boards are back in the garage to photograph those though.

Two Newcastle -Stranraer boat trains – one in crimson and cream entirely RTR from Bachmann Thompsons and Hornby Gresleys, and one which will eventually be maroon from a mixture of Hornby, Comet sides on Lima bodies on Coopercraft chassis and Comet sides on old Bachman Thompsons. This will eventually get another Thompson if I ever get round to scratchbuilding one of the round cornered window ones. Classic late Port Road – 80023 of Dumfries with a Mk1 CK and a porthole BSK. All Bachmann with a couple of Parkside and Ratio vans bringing up the rear. More classic late Port Road – two coaches and two Black Fives, the pilot added to get a foreign engine and crew off an unbalanced working back home. Comet coaches, Hornby and DJH (on Hornby chassis) locos.

While the station boards were inside for wiring up (of which more later) I took the opportunity to play trains … er … I mean check that some prototypical formations looked the part. It’s all very makeshift and the lighting is terrible but with the garage full of stuff waiting for a new shed to arrive this is the longest bit of track I have at the moment ! This is the west end of the station, the point motors visible in some of the pics will be hidden under the St Couans Rd bridge. Most of these are still works in progress in terms of weathering, couplings, fitting passengers etc. All are prototypical for the Port Road. 2P 40623 of Stranraer (Hornby) with an LMS articulated Inter-District set, an epic kit bash from 4 Airfix non-corridors. Most of these sets seem to have ended up on the ScR but this one probably has rather too many door ventilator hoods still intact for the late 50s. ‘Kashmir’ (Bachmann) with the 1963 Easter Tour. Mostly Hornby Railroad but with a Bachmann RMB. Generic 1950s 3 coach set. Bachmann’s gorgeous Compound with two Bachmann portholes and a Hornby horsebox and BTK. Half a boat train (is better than …), Hornby Clan on the Euston – Stranraer sleeper with Bachmann Mk1s. The full rake includes another two coaches plus (on the up service) two parcels vans. It doesn’t fit in the platform but neither did the real one !

You still don't need an engineering drawing for that.

Why ? Unless you're planning to tool up your own using their drawings, or you are Martin trying to fit them into a prototypical track planning tool, who else needs that degree of accuracy ? Planning - Cut them out, stick them on a bit of wallpaper, see if it fits (I'm glad I'm not the only one who still relies on this, thanks Clive) Laying - stick them together, line up by eye.

That is neat. It bugs me too but I've never got around to fixing it. "Sir Nigel Gresley" (ex-Woodcock) has been looking rather forlorn since I pinched its nameplates, double chimney and half the tender for Mrs W's SNG.

I just force a number 6 (3mm?) woodscrew into the above baseboard mounting plates. For under the board you can fold the tabs out and secure with a penny washer and any old screw rather than use mounting plates, i find them easier to adjust too.

This used to be outside my first 'box at Huddersfield Junction, long abolished by the time I got there. Four aspect with a feather, positon light and a subsidiary yellow on a bracket, possibly two subsidiary yellows at one point. It didn't quite match any of the old track diagrams I could find and it took me ages to pin it down. Years later I realised that a driver colleague used to sign Woodhead so I asked him what all the aspects meant and how they were interpteted. "Green - go. Red - stop. Owt else, go right slowly."

The one in front of me (the first new tool green one - 'Alberta ?') is 26mm - 6'6".

I did, no response.

Unless you've got tracking information. I used this for the first time the other day. No item a month after estimated delivery date, no comms from the seller. Raised a dispute, no comms from the seller. Escalated to Ebay, no comms from the seller. Refunded three days later "The seller has not provided tracking information", happy buyer, blocked seller.

Weaponess Valley Road and Seamer Road are hardly the M62. Maybe the odd taxi at 4am but that's about it. Just that and the 85 litre 3800hp marine engine throbbing away at the bottom of the hill.

They certainly seem to be rare in actual loco coal use. As well as wooden 13ton wagons the vac fitted 16ton minerals seem to have been popular in loco coal use, and very unpopular with collieries.

Likewise. I can only remember one occasion on which it was raised, one of my signalmen was accused of checking a steam charter so he could get some clag on the video he was very obviously shooting from the box steps as it went past. I wouldn't have put it past him but fortunately for him the TRB confirmed that it was waiting for the 156 in front to clear the section. My reply to "OMG are you a spotter?" questions at work has long been "Worse. I'm a modeller".

I think this problem affects all aspects of modelling that with which we are not familiar, certainly industrial subjects. We model what we see, or what we think we see, or even what we would like to think we can see, often with only a basic understanding of what 'it' is nevermind how it works or even why it's there. The example given of signals plonked in random positions is a good one, it winds me up too but I'm an ex-signalman. But the station car park on the same layout will be fine because everyone knows how car parks work even if they don't drive. Collieries, distilleries and dairies suffer the same problem. At one time it seemed like every Scottish layout had a white painted distillery in the corner where a quaint 0-4-0 (usually of a type never seen in the highlands) shuttled a couple of grain hoppers and some opens full of casks about. There were small distilleries, it's true, and some if them are very pretty. But most distillery traffic was coal in / empties out. This was Dewars in Perth - lots of rail traffic in evidence but not very pretty. Or quaint: https://canmore.org.uk/collection/1246412 And here's a quaint scene at Balmenach on Speyside. I bet nobody models the buildings on the right as derelict (which they were by this date) or the 7 story corrugated asbestos granary in the background ! https://www.railscot.co.uk/img/29/344/ Threads like this and the several now running on milk trains and dairies go a long way to addressing this :-)

I've used it to unglue stuck fingers, it works well enough for that but my recollection was that it isn't a precision tool and it left my fingers very greasy. I'm not sure what's in it, acetone rings a bell in which case you don't want it anywhere near paintwork or glazing. If you use it, try it on a bit where it won't show or can be easily repainted.

The problem is not trains going past so the argument that "the railway was there first" is irrelevent, this isn't Nimbyism. The issue is engines idling loudly in the wee small hours where there was never a depot before, the new siding (because that's all it is) is south of the turntable on what used to be Appletons oil sidings. As far as I can work out the depot has noise attenuation screening on the Seamer Rd side, and the noise is masked from the houses on that side by industrial and retail buildings. On the other side are more industrial units and the football ground. But the depot is in a valley, and the complainants (or at least the ones with their photos in the local rag) are on the other side if the valley from the depot, and above it on the hillside. Sound carries across a valley especially if there is no screening on that side. As far as I am aware there have been no similar complaints from Leeman Rd in York. The fuelling point there is fully screened on both sides and movements take place throughout the night. The 68s were in and out of there in 2019/20 as they were stabled there for route learning.

They're certainly impressive. But like I said, I wouldn't one parked outside my house all night.

Failing that, go over white lettering with a yellow marker pen which is what we use to do with the old Woodhead transfers.

You can't, that's one of the joys of relying on research largely carried out by enthusiastic amateurs. Some of them are (much) better at it than others but at least the fruits of their labours are there to pick over and correct later if necessary. An awful lot of the primary sources we rely on were rescued from skips. In fairness it's only the capacity of the wagons on the HMRS captions which is wrong. The diagram information is just missing.

I used to work up there in the 1990s. At the time, there were a few very active, very committed local railway enthusiasts. Most of their energies were either channeled into supporting FoSCL which is where I crossed paths with them, or into making British Steel keep its limestone traffic from Redmire on the rails by objecting to any suggestion to switch to road. I have absolutely no idea who is involved with which bit of the former NER route, but knowing the personality of at least one of the above mentioned quite well (i.e. having once been hairdryered by them), it doesn't surprise me at all that there are two groups.

The River Eden might prove more of an obstacle. It's a nasty bend.

In what is now the pub (York Tap) in Tea Room Square between the station entrance and the hotel.