Hroth

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...

I'm always wary of April magazine issues. Editors feel duty bound to slip in a jokey article/review in honour of the season, and they're mainly the most atrociously cringeworthy efforts possible. Its enough to make you want to bin the things unopened when they come through the door!

A Q1 is all very well, but where do you put the key? Nods to WA Stanier and leaves, pursued by a (Great) Bear......

Hmmm - perhaps you're right. I'd interpreted "foam" as the thin soft flexible stuff, rather than expanded polystyrene. Perhaps the solution is to loosely wrap the model in whats called "archival, acid-free" tissue paper before placing it in a expanded polystyrene cradle, or in one of those wrap-around plastic clip/sleeve assemblies that are popular at the moment. As for dinky tyres, they're just exhibiting prototypical behaviour. Perhaps in line with modern practice, they ought to have a "discard by" date code embossed on the side? Now back to GBL. I've fitted a Lima motor bogie/trailing bogie to the diecast GBL Western chassis, after a bit of drilling, grinding and fitting. Had to remove some of the roof stiffeners for clearance, though with no external modifications... It goes like a bomb, but stopping from full chat is fun, especially if there's something in the way like a wagon or a buffer stop!

Foam is unreliable stuff. Its also used as light-trap material in all sorts of (mainly) 35mm cameras. There's nothing more depressing than opening the camera back to find strings of sticky mush where the foam used to be... I suppose its possible that the failure mode is when the material is under compression. I've also experienced it with a Zenit UPA5 portable photographic enlarger where the case was lined in the stuff to hold the enlarger components in place. What a mess! Foam for long term storage: just say NO! edit: (Just found a link to a pic of a typical UPA5 foam disaster ! http://www.submin.com/general/collection/accessories/zenith_upa5m.htm )

Popped into my local Sainsburys this lunchtime and snaffled their sole copy. I don't know how many they get in, but there's always only one when I visit! (the card backing is usually sadly mangled too...) It looks a bit better in the flesh, though it still seems subtly wrong, no matter how you look at it. And the cylinders need gluing into place! Anyhoo, its going to be a 1963-4 vintage loco, minus nameplates, as dirty as hell, weeks away from the scrapyard. Static diorama fodder, naturally. OR Stretch the firebox, stick a pony truck under the cab and, voila! Hawksworths "Pacific".......

Whooeee!!! Is it just me, or is the cab/firebox relationship completely out of whack? I had a look at County of Chester on wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GWR_1000_Class#/media/File:Bristol_Temple_Meads_2_geograph-2423243-by-Ben-Brooksbank.jpg) - they look completely different locos. Is this one of the worst GBL renditions so far? It looks like they pinched the boiler off a Manor!

Possibly, if you weren't too fussy* - having had a look at the images offered by goggle when I searched for "Western diesel golden ochre", its as good a stab as any! * Blind man on galloping horse caveat......

Yep - I was going to reference the "egg yolk yellow" that was on my fathers Morris Marina, it was L reg so that pins it down to 1972-3. My mother HATED it! I think the tin of "touch-up" paint has long congealed, if its still at the back of the garage..... Just googled the Marina - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Marina The second pic down on the r/h side of the article IS that awful colour!

To keep your list tidy, each time one comes out, use this command to lop the current issue off the list and create a new list. awk '{if (NR!=1) {print}}' currentlist.txt > newlist.txt You are using Linux???? ( I know its using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but thats what computers are for! )

Yes well, begins with "S", doesn't it! As for the livery, I think it was blue (and another company) when it was in the old transport gallery in the basement at William Brown Street.

Its a Sentinel steam waggon. There's one on display in "The Museum of Liverpool Life" at the Pierhead, along with Lion, a Liverpool Overhead Railway carriage and other stuff of railway/transport interest. (It may even be in Criddles livery, at least its a blue livery if I recall correctly...) Edit: Always check before posting..... The one in the Museum is a "Criddles", but its a green livery! http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/mol/collections/transport/sentineltractor.aspx

Considering the variety of locos the Triang "Jinty" chassis has appeared under (especially the Gronk), the "misalignment" of wheels and splashers with the J39 is a minor inconvenience. I'd also hazard a guess that a complete modern Hornby jinty based model as a donor would work out cheaper than a discarded Bachmann split-chassis. All I've got to do now is select the victim for the butchers knife/saw/drill.....

Perhaps it was meant to read A2/1 at one point, and got sub-edited to complete incomprehensibility? In any case, there is a point of view that that class was an awful hybrid created by a certain CME. Treading on eggshells, to try and avoid starting off a religious war..... Then again, they might just be doing a copy of "Tornado"...

Dunno. But it keeps shrinking!!!

Exactly what I was thinking. A sort of "Homage to Margate", along with a nifty rename to "County of Kent".....

At least with the County there's no faffing with valvegear! As for the livery, just carefully scrub the GW off the tender and apply a BR totem (Unicycle or Dartboard to taste). I wonder if I could cram the Triang B12 chassis in there.......

Perhaps Hornby are looking into using the Pug as a basis for a Y7? Something a bit less Tobylike..... Back to matters in hand, WHAT a pretty engine the J50 is! Hornby are coming along nicely with this one.

Its possible to collect the whole set so far on ebay at £19.99 + p&p each. wonder who buys past GBL issues at silly prices? £9 for a single model to "play" with is a convincing proposition, its cheaper than buying moribund Triang/Hornby locos to cut&shut and experiment with livery changes and weathering effects. Anything more is madness. And if you want to collect the things, you'd have taken out a subscription,,,,,

Heavier, yes. But next time it'll be the other loco/floor that comes off worse!

Just broken my GBL Western down. Do my eyes deceive me, or is the cast chassis essentially a reproduction of the Lima chassis, even down to the correct size/shape "hole" for the motor bogie? A bit of drilling and cutting, and I can drop in the bogies from a Lima Western that had a nasty accident a while ago..... (Just have to fish the bogies from the spare parts box - they'll be somewhere near the bottom!)

The South Devon, a GWR constituent, used broad gauge saddle-tank locos on express services, admittedly they were 4-4-0 designs, but not quite a world away from Percy (apart from being approx 2'3" wider across the wheels and having 4 more of those). In "Railways in Camera", a collection of Public Record Office photos, there's a picture of one, called "Leopard" derailed near Camborne in March 1891, whilst working "The Flying Dutchman"!

And yet Percy and the Mail Train (An 0-4-0 hauling a mailtrain? hmmmm.... Although Hornby also did R1144, a Jinty-hauled "Night Mail"! ) contains some objects unsuited for the 3+ age group. I admit that the sharp wires that lock the mail coach mechanism would be removed by doting parents, but the mailbags themselves are ideal objects for nasal re-location! Did you read that story about the man who sneezed up a rubber sucker from a dart gun? ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-32710540) And HE was evidently 11 when he inadvisably inserted that item! Changes for mucked up link, misplaced punctuation and strange capitalisation!