St Enodoc

Not so! I've been a member of CRS for just over a year now, and I believe there may be at least one other in Australia. I find that being a member is a great way to get access to sources of information for my layout project.

Am I the only one to think that at first glance this photo seems to show a nice plume of smoke/steam coming out of the loco's chimney?

Rick, you could add: Mozzies Brush turkeys Next-door's dog Next-door's kids Pollies Gunzels and there was a report in today's paper about feral pigs (up to 100 kg each) encroaching on the Sydney suburbs. Thank goodness we live in the Lucky Country.

Nigel, these diagrams look as though they were originally drawn by the late George Pryer.

Excellent Rick. Enjoyable, entertaining, educational and above all evocative - although when I heard the music for the first segment I was expecting a 4-SUB EMU to appear!

I can imagine who that might have been. Probably the same person who uses a hammer to adjust the vertical alignment of rails at baseboard joints.

Jeremy, if I read this right you are planning to use 0.5 mm strips along the edges and then infill with 0.5 mm sheet. Why not use a single 0.5 mm sheet to cover the whole width then just scribe the edges of that where needed? Alternatively, if you are looking for a tarmac finish then lay your edge strips and infill with fine grade emery paper. If you rub two sheets face to face a few times you will get a very nice finish. This is not my idea; it was suggested to me by Graham Plowman, another BRMA member in the Sydney area.

That is correct Jeremy.

Well I had two days in Melbourne on business last week. As a good Sydneysider I took a thick sweater and raincoat with me. Neither came out of the case.

An interesting idea Rick. I haven't got a Hornby class 58 and have no intention of getting one within the next four weeks, but I suppose I could renumber the Polperran branch engine from 1419 to 58 something. Nowhere to run it though at the moment until the builders finish the new double garage railway room.

Tony, a dab of bathroom sealant can make a neat flexible and noise/vibration absorbing way of fixing a motor and gearbox combination in place. Those K's D-shaped axles take me back a bit though...

I can sense some holier-than-thou attitudes creeping into this conversation, which I find disappointing. I make lots of things, and I also buy lots of things. I make points (but not plain track), buildings, signals and the memory wire actuators that make them work, couplings, electromagnetic uncouplers, landscapes and trees, not to mention baseboards and wiring. I even make wagon and coach kits, and occasionally loco kits too. I buy locos, coaches and wagons where they are available, which gives me time (as I said in post #616 on this thread) to make the things I can't buy. I buy DCC systems and decoders, electrical switches and lamps as well. Just because I choose not to scratchbuild locos, does that make me some inferior kind of railway modeller? I believe not.

Very nice Derek. Charlie's mate looks a bit like Norman Wisdom to me. Is Emett's flying machine still in the Merrion Centre?

What a splendid new adverb Coachmann! I can think of several people in the model railway world to whom it could be applied...

Jeremy, don't worry about the Turbots. It was very common for the sides to be bowed out. This was due to an unofficial (but prevalent) method of unloading, where a front-end loader would be used to pull material towards the side then up and over. The design of the sides, with the drop doors and removable stanchions, was too weak to withstand this. We measured some at Duddeston once that were over 10 ft wide in the middle.

That sounds like Colin Boocock's Weybourne, RM June 1977 and February 1978.

I don't recall the Corfe layout, but "Watching the trains go by" was by Alan Gibson (not the wheels and kits man, a different one) in Railway Modeller February 1972. The WCML layout sounds like the "Wardleworth Lines Committee" - RM December 1972.

I was going to suggest putting another elephant in the left hand end, but I won't...

Heavens to Murgatroyd! Did all 7 go back or was your pining assuaged?

From the photo, it looks as though the elephant is at the right hand end. Being pedantic for a moment, according to Russell volume 2 only 580 was specially strengthened for the carriage of elephants. 580 was given diagram P20 and coded Python A, whereas 561 - 579 were to diagram P19 and just Pythons.

Iain, if you haven't already done so you should take a look at derekarthurnaylor's blog on this site.

Well well, it's not so many years since the standard of a bought model was judged by whether or not it looked as good as a kit- or scratch-built one.

I love the chemist's - apart from the window displays the photo could have been taken at any time in the last 60 years - and it looks as though it still has a traditional canvas awning as well. It's started me on a nostalgic train of thought beginning with Leddra's, then Rodda's clotted cream, Kelly's or Martin's ice cream, pasties for lunch at Portholland, surfing with a plywood body board at Trevone, fishing from the harbour wall at Charlestown, paddling a wooden float at Polkerris... Wonderful.

Who will be first to model the Seadog?

Tony, have you considered Peco loco lifts or a similar home-made mini-cassette? I know you would need rather a lot though. A friend of mine near Melbourne, Victoria, has a similar shelf for loco storage, but with a steep access track up to it and a Fleischmann (I think) turntable on the top, with locos stabled on the radiating roads.