SHerr

It all depends on the span of the bridge. Modern steel bridge decks for a span of around 10-20 meters are about 900mm so about 12mm if your modelling OO. Then there's the ballast to go on top - about 200-300 mm so another 3-4mm then sleepers and track. The outer girder top should be 300mm above the rail level so another 4mm which would need a handrail. Larger spans 20m plus would have a deck of about 1000 to 1200mm so about 16mm then ballast and track, the girders would be deeper - the Wills varigirder is a good representation for these middle span bridges. Older bridges were shallower so probably a better bet if your tight for space/height and these often sat on Long timbers rather than cross sleepers, often sat in steel/iron troughs. This allows a much shallower construction, the timber would be about 250-300mm with just the steel trough plate below - probably about 60mm so total depth under rail is probably only about 300 to 350mm so 4-5mm in OO, but would really only span up to about 10m spans, bigger spans up to 20m would have often had a trough deck (like large corrugated sections) about 300-400mm which often had very little ballast sometimes down to 50-100mm which would mean you could go down to 500 to 600mm below sleepers - 7-8mm but maybe these would have bigger girders like the Wills ones again. If you Google 'trough railway underbridge' there are quite a lot of diagrams/sketches, or 'waybeam railway bridge' for those with long timbers. In terms of headroom as posted above this would normally be about 15 feet but it's not uncommon on more rural or restricted roads to go down to 11-12 feet so you could go down to 44mm below the girder to the road.

I tried a test on a redundant Hornby DMU body before moving onto s loco. I removed the BR double arrows which are a heavier printing than numbers. They did come off, more effort than the Heljan loco. One word of caution- even with care the thinners wiping the colouring away started to remove the white lining around the blue/grey. I presume you may have a similar issue with smokebox lining on steam locos - maybe need to mask around the numbers?

Just tried this method tonight on a Heljan 47 after previous near disasters renumbering Heljan locos. Numbers come off perfectly and hardly any sheen/marking. Then took a leap of faith and had to go onto the nameplate, a lot more effort required but end result is still pretty good, definitely more visible but should cover with varnish and no worse (probably better) than other normal methods with thinners, scratching etc. Great new technique definitely easier than other methods.

Thanks guys - really good info. Was the traffic to Lugton Fertilizers? theres a photo on the Railscot site of a class 37 drawing vans out of the siding and they look like the UKF Palvans. Great if they are as i already have some. Diverted WCML trains had already got me thinking - were do you recall whether these were just diesel hauled or did they drag the electric loco?

I'm looking at 'relocating' my layout to the GSW (Dumfries & Kilmarnock) route approx 1985-87, whilst I can find lots of info about most of the trains to/from Stranraer back towards Carlisle and the obvious Carlisle to Glasgow locals - what other (if any) services regularly used the route rather than the WCML? Particularly speedlink, vans, sleepers etc - and what sort of vehicles would have been common? Any help (or better, photos!) greatly appreciated.

I presume from your comment that Hornby are no longer offering a voucher in lieu of a replacement chassis as was previously the case? I've just unboxed my weathered 31270 that's been stored up for 2 years to sell on as now modelling different area and found both chassis fronts fell out.

Photo attached with ruler - approx 215mm across top. I've read on another forum that the long Electrotren Polybulks are nearer to OO than HO as mentioned above. The short Joeuf/Electrotren hoppers are the same profile as the Grainflows but need a cut and shut to get the correct length as link below. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/4808-polybulk-wagons/ I've done one myself and not as hard as you would think with a bit of patience but need to find some cheap EBay ones as 2 at £30 each to make 1 wagon starts getting a bit steep. Fox do transfers for the Grainflows.

Thanks, but unfortunately not the same wagon. The ones you have found are the standard Joueff/Electrotren/Lima product that are very short. The Silowaggen is much longer and only made by Electrotren. Don't think its been made for a while.

I've only just found this so a bit late in replying, but I have 2 of these. They are almost identical to the Scottish Malt Distillers wagons, the Grainflow ones are slightly different shape. Paint job/Masking a bit of a test of patience and a lot of end detail needs removing but they are spot on for size - I've recently been in correspondence with those stars at Railtec Transfers and hopefully they will be producing some logos in the future. I've read elsewhere that the European ones are huge hence the right size for OO. Did you get them off EBay or from a stockist in Germany? I want a couple more but they seem to have vanished off EBay in the UK.

I was reading through this thread a couple of weeks ago pondering my own HST project, after getting a great deal on 7 Excecutive mk 3s at the Doncaster show recently. I had looked at full spec Hornby but £170 plus for something that won't see that much use seemed steep, but Lima PC's pulling 7 coaches round sharp curves into a fiddle yard didn't look promising either and they would need upgrading to DCC. I looked at some DCC conversions on eBay and fitting a BullAnt motor but I presumed new motor would need lots more weight and was still going to come out at over £100 with the prices being quoted. I then read this post. Then the next day, as if by magic, a new spec Hornby chassis appeared and was snapped up for just over £40, another £35 got a good condition Lima Exec PC set and hey presto, good body, great haulage capacity and reliable motor with DCC for £75 - with the exception of no lights that makes one great deal - and yes fitting the chassis is an absolute sinch, it just slips straight on.

There was a set about 3 weeks ago, from memory starting price was £230. You can put me down for a 101 obo car when you do one!!

Highlander set very tempting but would be useful to know if Bachmann will be producing any extra coaches to top up the sets (like I believe Hornby have done in the past). Also as suggested earlier, limited edition class 101 observation saloon for someone?? Mind you this is going to hurt those trying to sell the Model Rail 4 coach set for £200+ on eBay.