Wheatley

I just built the wall up against mine and boxed in all the sticky-out bits as per your own later idea. I screwed it shut from the inside first and built the stud wall on a couple of courses of engineering brick with DPC on top. I hadn't thought about wasps nests though - I didn't seal the door to keep some ventilation (no chance of stopping water getting under the door so best to make sure it can get out again) - time to find some sort of wasp-proof breathable filler !

That. Concatenating unit diagrams to reduce dead time. See also Huddersfield - Lincoln and Leeds- Hull via Harrogate.

The seats fitted to Northern's 195s and 331s were specced by Northern. The refurb units will get them too eventually rather than just re-covering the originals.

We kept one in the box specifically because it was isolated and on an unofficial shortcut from the town centre pubs to a housing estate. The only thing I ever saw it used for was poking a dead dog out from the brake rigging on a 110.

Although it can technically remain in service it will be going (from Northern at least) along with its bretheren. The 144e conversion was completed by Porterbrook just before the DfT announcement that they were all going, and as that's a franchise commitment it stands. They will all go off lease. I was on it last week. The seats are awful, the disabled loo takes up half the space in the DMSL (Eastwestdivide's top photo shows nearly all of the remaining seats), the ceiling panels are going rusty already and half the swanky LED lights don't work. All the interior fittings are non-standard so you can't rob another one for spares, so I wouldn't be surprised if it went first.

All the extra noise (as distinct from the existing built in noise) and a lot of the new lightong is part of the PRM requirements. The regs assume that all passengers are likely to be partially sighted and hearing impaired. The soundproofing on 185s was better from the beginning than the existing 15x fleet so the auto announcements are quieter and less intrusive.

That, for me at least. Not only does it take an age and make me think I'm suffering from deja vu, on an android phone, once you've read the post and gone back to the list it doesn't go back to the same place so there's more scrolling up and down trying to find where I started from. Having the same thread appear multiple times in the list just makes it worse.

As well as the very obvious yellow and black DR posters on every platform at Northern's penalty fares stations, and the slightly smaller metal notices screwed to the fence at each entrance to each station, the newer glass panel machines have either the same black and yellow penalty fares instructions or a yellow and black "No ticket ? No problem !" message covering almost the whole of the screen explaining how to get a PTP out of the machine http://ltjournalism.com/penalty-fares-hit-yorkshire-trainlines-ready/ http://penline.co.uk/promise-to-pay-notices/ The Harrogate and Wharfedale lines are festooned with them, they're really quite hard to miss.

And elsewhere on the forum, in more than one thread, there are complaints that if a manufacturer is doing XYZ loco/coaches, then where are the coaches/loco to go with it ? Damned if you do ...

Do you have a bin ?

If it's one of Northerns new machines then the system knows whether it was working or not at the time of travel and the appeals people can check. If there's a machine and it's working, even if it's on the 'wrong' platform then you're expected to use it either to buy a ticket or to obtain a PTP if you're cash only. I really don't see what's difficult about it.

So far I've found 12 major variations on the BR 'standard' 1/208 12 ton van, without starting on different buffers, axleboxes, disc/spoked wheels and liveries.

This. Refocus so your OCD is channelled into reproducing the prototype in all its untidy but operationally practical messyness. It looks chaotic and random at first glance but it isn't, there's a reason for everything in a traditional goods train, even if that reason was the shunter avoiding doing unnecessary walking. As well as the full size rules there are any number of systems devised by modellers to decide which wagons are going where using everything from dice to playing cards.

Depending on ow you define "big" and "long lasting" that could either make no difference at all, or restrict them to BR Blue. Even that was only dominant for 20 years. To take the railway's most settled period as an (admmittedly historical) example, LMS loco livery (25 years) was essentially red or black with yellow lettering, yet David Jenkinson's book on the subject runs to over 200 pages and listed so many variations that an alpha-numeric code was required to keep track of them all. In the same 25 years a single LNER class of 35 locos had (at least) 4 different liveries (A4s - grey, garter blue, apple green, black), the Southern went through three different shades of green and even the ultra-standardised GWR managed several variations of crest/shirtbutton and lettering. They'll make what they think sells, just like they always have. And what sells isn't necessarily what is/was typically seen, especially if it's pretty.

Railway Modeller and Hornby Mag - second Thursday of the preceding month. There are five Thursdays in January this year, hence it's 'early' appearance. Model Rail - 13 times per year (so nominally 4 weekly). Model Ralway Journal - 8 times per year (ish). Dunno about the others.

Thank you all very much gentlemen ! Richard is bang on the money, that is the very site. However, I must confess I'd never considered Google Earth, I use Google Maps all the time but I've never bothered to download the full GE, and Ade's results look like they might extremely useful if the 3D mapping extends to Galloway :-) (I bet it doesn't !).

About 3 or 4 years ago one of the mags, either MR or RM, ran a small article about a web site which converted maps into a digital panorama. You clicked on a point on a map and told the widget which direction to look in, and it drew an outline panorama showing what the hills etc would look like from that position. Essentially, in it's simplest form, it could sketch the outline of the backscene for a real location without all trees and buildings getting in the way. Does anyone have the faintest idea what I'm talking about, and know what the site was please ? I had it bookmarked a couple of laptops ago but of course now I need it I can't even think of a suitable search term to Google to find it again.

If the "other" was near Walmgate then I think it's closed. Monk Bar and P&S (RC shop) don't duplicate much apart from plastic kits and paint, both have their specialisms.

In my case I'm using the LNWR brake/Mk1?/Mk1?/DoE's 12 wheeler/LNWR brake formation used when Alberta worked it back from Ripon in 1966 (?) because that's the only shortish formation I've seen where I could make a reasonable stab at the vehicles used. Exactly which Mk1s were involved I'm not sure but I've guessed at the dining salon and equirry's saloon. The Gloucester's trip to Stranraer in 1960 is far more appropriate for me. I've no doubt that when I visit the NRM to look at the records (now I know that a) there actually was a trip to Galloway and b)which file to ask for !) they'll have gone in something else entirely, but it's my trainset...

Agreed. It's hardly a covert mode of transport, and those bits which need to remain covert will still be covert even after the other records are released. As modellers we have the advantage of only really being interested in what it looked like - the fine detail of how and why is interesting and useful but not (usually) absolutely necessary. I suspect the reason it's not often modelled is that it requires some effort as it has never been done properly RTR. There's one sleeper (Bachmann Collectors Club) and some Hornby comedy saloons for the modern version, but that's still only a quarter of a generic train. I have the etches for one of the LMS armoured saloons and the ex-LNWR power brakes safely stored in a Round Tuit box, but I'll still need to scratch build the other 2/5ths of 'my' particular working.

Superb. Thanks 'Chard.

At least both ends of the train are equally ugly.

Sensible though, when you consider that the thing most likely to be coupled to that end is Longsight's pilot.

I suspect the reference to 'chain pockets' on the Hattons advert is as accurate as the grey livery. It's certainly misleading in the context of this discussion.