Guy Rixon

The big step forward, which America took for the wrong reasons, was to limit each president to two terms. Even if the Creeping Orange Blight can swing a second term he can't go on forever.

Could you tell us about the gearbox you are using? It looks unusual.

Simon, would you consider doing the loco in SFDP?

I've recently acquired a jeweller's mitre-vice for squaring up cuts in small sections like this. It's an expensive tool by modeller's standards but gets a good result.

SER kits do etches, but not castings, for a Q in 4mm scale. Provisionally, I expect to buy this kit and print the missing bits. The price is £30 for the etch if ordered on long lead time. Falcon did etches for a Q1 but not the original Q. Did Westerham have the rebuilt kind?

Yes, that's probably how I'll arrange things. On Strand, it's important that the main-line trains not be turned, as the through coaches have to stay at the proper end. The point of reducing the fiddle yards from 60" to 48" for home operation is to fit the layout into the house, not to tame the unwieldy size of the cassettes.

Ten coaches is 303'6" of train, bearing in mind that they are close-coupled. That's 48" rounded to the nearest inch in 4mm scale. Add 35' (5.5" in scale) for a tank engine, and a bit of dynamic space and it fits on a 60" cassette. That's OK for exhibiting, but for home running I would probably limit the cassettes to 48", so only 8 coaches. The big question is whether a model of an SECR tank-engine (Q class or larger; no runty LCDR engines) can drag the train up Bedford Street bank. I would like to know this before committing to the track plan, but that requires me to break precedent and finish the train. Plan B is the other history where the line climbs away from Strand going north and crosses Seven Dials on viaduct. That brings the gradient down from the wrong side of 1 in 50 to maybe 1 in 80. I'm almost minded to go for viaduct over tunnel anyway, despite previous plans.

Yes, those are they. I have enough in store to complete the train and some over (which I may sell, or I might make up two shorter trains). I've examples of most editions of the kits from first to last. For rather early kits they're not too bad.

Much brass, very train. This is an audit of the train that started my whole SECR thing, back in the '80s. It's been a long time coming, but things are starting to accumulate. The painted coaches are early work from the '80s and need to be stripped and sprayed properly: the paint finish isn't very good and the colours are too inconsistent. The ones with brass roofs I bought from eBay and are rather nice. They need detail adjustment before painting. The brake on the right is new build during lockdown and would be further along already if I could get the materials I lack. If I complete these and add one more 4-compartment coach (so as to have both 1st and 2nd class seats), then the train is viable for running. Ultimately it will have 9 or 10 coaches. Since I can't progress the 27' stock until the new brass bits arrive, I diverted to one of the Grand Vitesse vans built by Hurst Nelson in 1901. This was stalled for a time while I sought suitable axleguards. I've recently discovered a cache of Bill Bedford parts that seem applicable, but I can't build the chassis until I get a drawing to show where to add the solebar fasteners (missing from the kit) and HMRS are closed during lockdown. I'm building the body meanwhile, and I note that five years ago I wouldn't have coped with soldering the louvres and overlay-doors. One does progress, however slowly.

There's also the matter of wooden ends vs. pressed-steel ends and wooden solebars vs. steel solebars. I forget whether any fitted vans came out with wooden underframes but I do remember that the trade-built vans were appearing with metal ends while the company-built equivalents still had wooden ends. The Cheona book LNER Wagons Before 1948 is good for these details.

I don't have a WTT. The steam services were MDR (inner circle and branches), Met. (inner circle), GWR (middle circle), LNWR (outer circle) and LTSR (Whitechapel and Bow stock with MDR locos, IIRC, unless things went really sideways, when LTSR locos helped out). From electrification of the inner circle in 1905, all public services were electric with the middle circle excluded and the outer circle worked by MDR electric locos. I don't remember exactly what happened to the LTSR contribution then, but probably some of the MDR-pattern EMUs were jointly owned. C.1911 the LTSR were back with through trains of modern stock hauled by the MDR electric locos. The outer circle was cut back to Earl's court c.1907 and killed completely in 1908. C.1909, the MDR pulled out of inner-circle working and left it to the Met.

Also Mansion House, which would make an interesting model with its intense timetable, multi-company service and ultra-tight curves. But one would have to cut away the ground and buildings over to see anything.

I'm considering printed transfers (on white decal-paper) applied to aluminium foil. The decal paper is due in tomorrow and I'll let you know how it went.

Mk 1 coaches evolved from Bulleid coaches, so one could also assume that one of the southern companies produced the Bullieds.

I think the point is that there's 2 years' worth of planned production, not that the whole program ends after two years, nor that extra and good ideas absolutely have to go on the end of the queue.

I've always tried to maintain a scale of darkness with {MR, Cambrian, Met.} < {SECR (Wainwright), GCR, LNWR} < {GWR, SECR (Maunsell)}. This satisfies the principle of least astonishment and seems sufficient.

51L brake levers and guards are very good for this. You get enough for many wagons in one packet. But Stephen's scratch-built lever is very good too.

The "big nut" is not a nut. The end of the brake shaft is square in section and passes through a square hole in the lever, the latter being retained by a pin (either a really chunk split-pin or a solid cotter). Still, it's nice to see the square end represented. I should go back and add this detail to my wagons.

I have an aversion to freelance and hypothetical rolling stock, so aim to stock my layout with real trains of the correct period. In general, I like to be strict about the dates, so coaches built in 1911 won't appear on my 1909 layout. This is all well and good if the hypothetical railway is an insignificant addition to the historical network. If the hypothetical bit is important enough then it starts to warp the engineering histories of the associated companies. "Strand" just reaches this threshold, being an important cross-London link and an early electrified railway. Example 1 of dissonance: the line from Euston to Strand (and possibly on to Cannon Street) was electrified c.1907. Clearly, the LNWR, who are the senior partner, want some electric trains to run on it, but their historical EMUs didn't arrive until some years later. I shall bring forward the introduction of the LNWR "DC lines" stock to 1908, but shall (try to) model them in accurate condition as historically introduced. I shall probably also have some MDR EMUs contra-historically "on hire" to the LNWR. Example 2 of dissonance: given the line through Strand, one might expect freight and through coaches to appear off the GCR, either via the Met at Baker Street, or via the connection to the inner circle at Marylebone (for which the GCR had powers that they never used). But the GCR historically had no condensing engines to work the service, and their modern, main-line coaches are too tall for the Met loading-gauge. Probably they would have fitted a few goods engines for condensing and built a few low-roofed coaches for through services...but I don't want to build hypotheticals. So far, I'm letting the Met handle the transfer freight-trips and ignoring the through coaches. Example 3 of dissonance: Strand is rich in LNWR through-workings to the SECR, but the latest and best coaches available in 1909 are too wide, as are most of the older brakes. Probably the LNWR would have built a dedicated pool of narrow coaches for this work ... but hypotheticals again. As it is, I'm using older stock and picking from the few brake diagrams without awkward duckets. Through services to Hastings are a particular problem regarding brakes. I plan a weird shuffle where a LNWR guard rides in a PBV from Willesden to Strand and that van is then put away in a siding at Strand because it's too wide to go on to Hastings when the through passenger coach (a luggage tricomposite without brake) is attached to an SECR train. It's fun, sort of, to work these things, but more complicated (and possibly less "accurate") than building some un-historical trains.

All greys in the Pheonix-Precision range seem to be rather dark. I think this may be because they are designed for larger-scale models. One's eye sees them as a darker shade on a smaller area. I find that varnishing darkens a model, so I mix my greys a little lighter than I need to offset this.

These chaps, who I found today slacking off in a storage tub, are my complete modelling-output for the last two months of last year. They are ModelU figures for GWR staff: on the left a guard and on the right a stationmaster, who will eventually become the GWR Goods Agent at Bedford Street depot. Compared to typical figures in 4mm scale they are superb. I find painting figures a nice change from building wagons and coaches and I need to dig out the Stadden figures I have in store somewhere. The guard has now been chivvied into his van. Visible in this shot is how I attach a roof when I've been dumb enough not to include proper fixing brackets in the soldered build. Strips of card are glued to the sides with CA glue, then bent down to the roof profile. The roof (rolled brass in this case) is then stuck to the card with Deluxe Card Glue which is a posh kind of PVA and highly recommended. It holds the roof firmly, but when I have to remove it (guess who fixed it with the chimney over the verandah?) the glued card is the weakest point and it can be sliced out without wrecking the model.

Point of detail: the P4 standards say "The tyre profile is based on BS 276 contour A." Possibly it's the EM standards that use a thicker flange? P4 standards decrease the check gauge (and therefore the maximum back-to-back) below scale dimension. S4 standards use the true-scale check-gauge.

I used POWsides transfers on my kits but I think I bought them separately. IIRC, the lettering on the brake is chopped up from POWsides' sheet for the drop-side open.

Deluxe card-glue has the magical ability to glue acrylic glazing-strip directly to brass, provided that the brass has developed a patina.

I tried liquid-PVA glazing in an N-gauge coach. It worked moderately well for the small windows --- door drop-lights and lavatories --- and very badly for the large, picture windows. In the latter, the imperfect transparency was more noticeable and there was an ugly meniscus. I suspect that the maximum, practical size of aperture is around 3mm square for PVA glazing.