Hroth

I see the dev team are asking for livery ideas. How about one in works lined grey? They could do another in early-60s deep grime and a couple in actual/possible company liveries. Personally, I think the "Huntly and Palmers" livery takes the biscuit! And a collection of Edwardian workmen to go with the loco would be icing on the cake... If they can bring it in at the same price slot as the Sentinels, then it'd be snapped up so quickly that they'd hurt their fingers!

Looks a neat little loco, whoever made the 1:1 prototype! I should imagine it would be a companion piece to the Sentinel shunters, though I'd like to believe it would be a replacement for the basic 0-4-0 "locos" that infest the bottom of Hornbys loco list. Its about time old "101" was pensioned off, along with the other monstrosities like the re-released QE2 and its ilk, and those square-fireboxed thingies! On the other hand the Caley Pug/Old Smokey is a useful little engine which isn't quite as terrible as the others... (Must be down to the length of the funnel!) Oh well, lets see what turns up in the Engine Shed!

Yep - just the post-whatsit-wind-down.... Alternate Wednesdays aren't just the same anymore! As for PC desktops, here's my current view. Hornby Fowler 4P just hanging around. Just to remind myself to get it finished and go back to re-engineering the big layout...

Wasn't the latest story that the gold would now glow in the dark? But good for nighttime running!

What it is, just as someone picks it up to buy it (according to the well known "trousers of time"), the Tardis referenced in the partwork moves it back to the point when it was first put on the shelf as the purchaser walks off with their copy. You may well think its still there, but its not the same thing...... I think I need to sit in a darkened room for a little while.

Not so far away from the pricing quoted by those happy souls offering back issues for "only" £19.99, and at least those include the mag.... But Polish? I thought the models winged their way from the far Orient! Its the usual blend of the "like for like" ebay pricing spiral, opportunism and Del Boy misrepresentation. Truely Buyer Beware!

You could always take the chimney off and model one with a more correct appearance! However, at layout-viewing distances, why bother.....

The problem is that HO and OO are two scales that share the same gauge. HO came first, but was impractical as far as British outline was concerned - the motors then existing wouldn't fit in a typical British loco body, so breathing room was introduced by adding that extra 0.5 mm, but to save having to introduce another track standard (ie bump the gauge up to at least 18mm), the 16.5 mm of HO was retained. A pragmatic compromise, which we're now stuck with after nearly a century of OO. THAT puts things in perspective, eh?

In't good owd days, before we scrutinised wagons to see if they had roundhead or squarehead bolts inside the wagon, you used to get printed sheets of paper with all sorts of private owner wagon sides printed on them, in OO and N. Glued to a simple cardboard box and popped on a cheap wagon chassis, they made perfectly adequate rake fodder. It might not work nowadays, there's be complaints about lack of detail, and even wagon chassis are expensive! Hornby Magazine often includes printed building kits for glueing onto card and making up. The current issue has a bus garage to add interest to a present day layout. BRM has a DVD with varied material relevant to the issue it comes with, and sometimes includes a printable building kit in the "extras" section on the disk. It would be interesting to see if these mags would print wagon or coach kits for making up and then see how many made it into the wild! An inexpensive model glued to the cover might be an interesting treat, especially for a Christmas issue but we might end up paying a premium based on if the mag had a model or not. Perhaps a mag could do a deal with Dapol for one of their unpainted wagons (not the kits but the RTR ones) which sell for about six quid. You'd probably end up paying partwork prices for that particular issue, but if it were a one-off or infrequent offer, then the takeup might be quite good. They could then also have a "Paint Your Wagon" competition.....

The "young lady" is, of course one of the celebrated Eadweard Muybridges studies in "locomotion". A series of cameras were triggered by shutter strings as the subject moved along a path. He studied movement of all forms, including racehorses and bison! Given his name, you can tell he was a High Victorian asthete and so any human figure would naturally be "undraped" for the camera. Male or female, if he took your photos, you got your kit off... May I refer you to his wikipedia entry ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadweard_Muybridge), which includes an animation of the sequence "boys playing leapfrog". Ahem! He was also notorious for getting off a murder rap in the USA. Right. Got my "Locomotion Number 1" this morning, and was struck by the tinyness of the model. Its obviously not going to be a runner, unlike others in the series, but I thought a diorama of "Coal staithes at Stockton" would be a suitable tribute to such a delicate loco. As for the overall colour of the loco, if you've ever seen the working replica at Beamish its clear that the overall "grey" is how it probably would have looked in service. DS notes that its like the Bachman "pewter" tone, but that's a fair represention in my view; just tone everything except the motion down with a dirty black paintbrush! can't spell. Hmph!!!

I've most appreciated the models that have been useful in terms of easy motorisation and body swapping, despite dimensional niggles because of the base models! So Mallard, the J39, the Western and the 47 have been my "favourites". The other ones I've bought are/will be used for background stock and exercises in livery changes, renumbering and weathering. Locomotion will probably become the subject of a small diorama.

Wonder if it would be possible to separate the drivers from the chassis? Careful drilling out and mounting on plain axels might be a possibility, and move it using one of those under-board moving magnet systems. Its a pity they didn't do a special plinth with fish-belly tails..... "fish-belly tails", I ask you. Could have sworn I typed "rails"....... Obviously my mental spell-checker decided that "tails" was more appropriate!

Excellent! Definitely going to get at least one of those!

Nothing at my local Sainsburys - I'll keep a close eye on the situation over the next couple of days! Lets have a photo! (Stick a more usual sort of loco from the GBL range beside it for scale - Evening Star perhaps? )

The Lima model, definitely! Either that ot they'd got stone dust in their eyes..... (I believe the "Class 52" story lies in the layout of the controls in the cab, though Wikipedia attribute that to the class 58. The idea being that although built in the US, the cab would be familiar to drivers and require less retraining.)

Naughty darrel! You can't have an emu as its not a loco. Look what happened with the HST issue - one power car..... Otherwise I'd also add classes 503 and perhaps 502, for their historical importance!

Time for a "not likely to appear" second series wishlist? How about some Modern Image locos: Class 08 Class 20 Class 25 Class 31 Class 76/EM1 Class 77/EM2 Class 81/AL1/E3001 APT-P And for steam: Princess Coronation (unstreamlined) Fowler SDJR 2-8-0

The 16th now? It was the 9th a few days ago! Oh well. *sigh* As for the run length, I'm surprised that ithe series has gone on for so long, with reasonably wide availibility, to this point. Most "partworks" move to a subscription only/definite preorder basis very rapidly and disappear the shelves, never to be seen again. Its amazing that we can still go into many branches of WHSmith/Asda/Sainsburys and independent newsagents and just pick up a copy on spec. One wonders what demographic the buyers inhabit? Are we "collectors" who want a range of models to display, do we want spares for other projects, seekers of replacement bodies for damaged locos, or modellers looking for subjects for weathering and detailing? Whoever we are, we've obviously made it worthwile for Amercom to keep publishing for this long! However, I suspect that the ratio of sales/returns has now slumped below the profitibility point and that IF the series makes a return in a couple of years time, the last 7 models will make an early appearance. But its been (mostly) good while it lasted!

Its a nice looking Aberdare - certainly large chunks of City of Truro in there! I like that Midland 2-4-0 too - looks like a Kirtley "800" class loco.

Should have left that for the end of next month!

Body Swap!!! After cutting back the interior webbing on D1562, the body slipped perfectly onto the chassis formerly belonging to Hornby R3287TTS 47 401. Very nice! All I need do now is paint the cab inserts and lightly glue them into place, then reinstate the buffers! (Popped 47 401 onto the GBL chassis for company...)

Happy Dance!!! D1562 crawled smoking, coughing and grumbling into Sainsbugs this afternoon, long after I had given her up for lost. Naturally, she went straight into the workshops and is currently completely stripped down for internal modification.... Such indignities!!! (Its a shame that the cast chassis isn't as suitable for motorisation as the one fitted to the Western was)

Some nice models in the pipeline! Even though it looks like the GHOST of a Merchant Navy, I'm impressed by the "stereo" model. I'm just glad I don't model Southern! Especially with the 71 looming on the horizon, another impressive looking loco. That red "livery" took me a bit aback, it makes it look like a Metropolitan loco..... However the Collett rake looks just up my street, or pahaps I should say track? D'you think they'd sell them in installments?

It was a "motorised" model of the Trevithick Penydaren loco - in the Museum Model series, along with a model of a Newcomen beam engine.

Looks like I've missed the train on the 47 issue - none of my local pushers have had it, and deny all knowledge of it. Oh well, its only a toy loco!