Hroth

On the occasions when I've visited the shop by car, I've found it appropriate to leave a passenger in the car casually holding a camera with a telephoto lens. Seems to work...... In the past, I've worked in parts of Liverpool where the environs were more akin to a war zone. Hattons location otoh is almost gentrified!

Just hope the 47 IS Lima based - I just want it to swap with the body on my Hornby TTS 47 - it'll fit in with my layout rather better than Large Logo BR....

Soooooo.... Enlarge the firebox - make it longer, hmmm? Push the cab back, and put in a pair of carrying wheels to support the back end? Sainsbugs back to just one GBL, I was early for the 2MT so I must have swiped someone elses pride and joy when I picked up the two... Nice looking model. Is the light green lettering/numbering correct, or just thin white with bleedthrough? AND "Blue Peter" is cockeyed.... Note. Must get there early on the 19th to get two Brush Type 4s if thats the case!

I had the Abadare 2-6-0s in mind and I knew about the Krugers (possibly the most inelegant locos to come out of Swindon?), but thought they were all 2-6-0s too, I didn't realise that 2601 was a 4-6-0! I definitely think an outside frame 4-6-0 with 7' drivers would look really good..... And here's Atbara in my fevered imagination... Oh well, off to see if Sainsbugs have any A2s!

When I glanced at the photos, the chassis standing on its springs initially had me thinking they were wheels and you were going "outside framed"... Then I thought "What if William Dean had survived to the end of the 1910s"? Might the Churchward revolution have been delayed until after the war and there had been a class of outside framed 4-6-0s, a logical extension of the Atbara class, perhaps? Or a coned boiler on an outside framed, six-coupled "City" as GJC flexed his wings? After all, the GER and LNWR 4-6-0s of the period were inside cylinder efforts! Or how about a Monster outside framed Pacific??? Perhaps I should just butcher a couple of Dapol "City of Truros" and get this abberant train of thought out of my system!!!

Certainly knocked about a bit!

Birkenhead WHS had an Ivatt 2MT yesterday when I dropped in for a "Railway Bylines". The card backing/mag was in one of the partwork bins, the loco in another - a genuine partwork!!! I didn't save it, I've two already!

If you're not going to immediately dissect the poor wee thing, check that the buffers are firmly affixed. The rear offside buffer on both of mine have fallen off. Luckily one was in the packaging, the other came away in my fingers. The other three are fine...

Hornby must have had 2nd thoughts - both links are currently 404 (not found).

Normally, there's only one dogeared example when I drop in to sample the GBL offering at my local Sainsburys. But today? TWO! Don't know if another shopper saw it and decided that it was too dull, or if the shop had a rush of blood to the head and marked 2 instead of 1 on their weekly orders.... Of course it would have been unkind to split twins..... *evil grin* One could end up looking like the photo on page 3 of the mag! (And the other as the one on the bottom of page 6.) So we've just got the Peppercorn and the Class 47 to look forward to (and perhaps a "Locomotion"...)

I'll be popping down to my local pusher Sainsburys to see if I can score buy one this morning. Its something that can go at the back of a shed scene, esp grimed up with puzzled fitters prodding about at the motion... Agreed its not as glamorous as a BGE* but it'll do, esp when you think about how much a working model, or even a "needs fixing" example costs! * Big Green Engine

And its a lumpy, buggy method. Sometimes ALL the listings vanish...... Secondhand should be categorised under its respective gauges, rather than being lumped in with new stock. It doesn't have to be done by manufacturer, just "Locos/Rolling Stock/Misc". Computers are GOOD at that sort of thing!

Well, they're pricing to the ebay standard nowadays (just like all the charity shops do). At least with Rails, they have the grace to clearly label it as rubbish ie restoration project/needs attention. However, I do wish Hattons would separate new and seconhand listings completely so you don't have to wade through the dross if you don't want it!

The plastic GBL use for their mouldings is atrocious - it can't be recycled as such, as its a homogenous colour, but it must be the cheapest, nastiest styrene they can get hold of! It was a hateful task cutting through the J39 running plate (and remove the internal boiler stiffeners) to insert a Hornby Jinty chassis.... (It lurches around beautifully now!)

Dunno what the fuss is about. If Hattons are too dear, then its your perogative as a fickle customer to shop about and buy off whoever is currently undercutting their prices.

Popped into my local Sainsbugs this AM and liberated their LN, complete in all its dogeared cardback glory! If anything, the livery application is even worse than that in the photos in post 5459. Not only is the lining a bit wavey, but the paint is missing on the top-left corner of the firebox! In addition, the nameplates are falling backwards off the splashers..... As for the bright "copper" water feed pipework, it looks as if its been pinched off a Triang "Sir Dinadan"! Haven't decided how to treat it but some sort of complete repaint is on the cards..... Perhaps just paint it black and hide it amongst the Patriots and Royal Scots?

Yes, basically a set of logarithmic rulers - far easier to use in the workshop or at the drawing table than a log book. When I was learning to use my British Thornton sliderule at school, I always remember the teacher saying that it was an AID to calculation, that you should always have an appreciation of the approximate number you were looking for and its magnitude. Not like nowadays when people punch godknows what into a calculator/computer and don't check the output! The railway engineering world was quite odd in the UK - there was quite a lot of ideas swapping and cultural exchange. And Swindon was the go-to place for innovation, especially in the period 1900-25. I'm surprised that the GWR managed to keep things going, what with all the staff poached to sort out messes on other railways and always lending their locos out to show how to do it.....

Looking at the photos, it seems that the livery application is a tad slapdash, and the boiler underfilling is reminiscent of an old Triang Princess! (I won't even comment on the strange speckled hump in the tender...) Looks like another "Last Days of Steam" repaint coming up!

Nahhhh.... It's a halfway-house to a new attempt at a detailed B12/3 - just need to stretch the boiler and add another pair of drivers.....

I suppose the point is that the model is the sum of its parts, and a view of the pre-assembly parts and the effort required to assemble them to a rtr model is essential in the development process. Incorrectly moulded parts that don't fit or are even missing essential detail can be corrected more readily at this point rather than after a completed sample (decorated or not) is emitted by the factory in China, its not like they can pop down to the toolroom and get it sorted, is it! Its good to see that Hornby pays this amount of attention to detail in the manufacturing process. Apart from all that, all those bits and bags on the workbench looks just like one of the more complicated Airfix kits - now only if they went back to the Triang CKD format... Not to reduce price, but to allow you to have essentially a rtr model that you "built yourself". Such fun!

For certain reasons (ok, a Terrier and probably Manston) I coughed up for a club membership mid-June. The "introductory mailing" arrived this morning. Not impressed! They may as well not bother as I'm sure they know that people only join for the general discount and perhaps to get access to a particular club model.

Arrivals: Platform 1: Lord Nelson - Delayed. (Frogs on line....) sowwee....

I'm popping into my local Sainsburys on Friday (today!), who always have ONE copy of the current GBL offering, usually with a torn and battered card backing, to see if they've had the LN yet. I suppose the late running of this model is an attempt to emulate the characteristics of 1:1 railway practice.......

I've been very happy with a number of the GBL offerings, mainly because they provide cheap replacement bodies for some of my locos that have seen better days and because they make excellent subjects for experiments in weathering before I attack a valuable (ie working) loco. The Western, in particular was an easy conversion as GBL almost exactly duplicated the Lima plastic chassis (though in diecast metal) and it was easy to fit a spare set of Lima Western running gear onto it. Given the inaccuracies of the base model, its a cheap enough way to double my stud of Western diesels! I've missed a couple of GBL replicas that in retrospect might have been useful, but I'm not paying ebay prices for those now! (edit for additional guff)

Thats a useful little engine! I could do with a couple of those...