Guy Rixon

Concerning the modelling of Hill's brakes, thanks go to John Arkell for a facsimile of the contemporary article showing how they work and to John Lewis for photographs showing how the SECR adapted Hill's patent.

Stone's ventilators for MR and LMS coaches are now in the shop.

I don't need too many more mineral wagons, but a few more colliery wagons (of the right pits) would be good and there's a few specifically local ones to do. Problem is, in respect of upgrades to specific kits, it's the 6-plank end-door kit that most needs the upgrade and that's the less-appropriate one. Six-planked 10-ton wagons seem to have been most common in the Forest of Dean, which is not the target coalfield. However, I personally get much satisfaction out of simple, quick builds with good results. So maybe...

Due to work commitments and family disasters, I've made almost nothing physical since last autumn. Here's the warm-up exercise for getting started again: This is a POWsides/Slaters kit with RFM chassis-plate and brakes, Bill Bedford springing, Exactoscale wheels, brake Vs and brake lever, and 51L brake-guard. It's the 6-plank wagon from the Slaters range and this time I took slightly more care when replacing the rubbish moulding for the end-door hinge-bar. Building this took a lot longer than I'd have liked. So much has to be added or modified or replaced and it all adds up. I am considering a printed upgrade-pack for this kit, to include end-door hinges, interior ironwork (self-jigging) and a complete new chassis (one piece with solebars and brakes; just add BB axleguards and wheels). Not sure if it would be worth the design time, but it would knock the build time in half.

For oval heads one needs some way of keeping the long axis horizontal and the self-contained kind of ram/spring doesn't do this. It might be worth springing these behind the headstock s.t. the spring keeps the alignment.

Further to "doing it the easy way", there's a difference between first painting and repainting. When the vehicle is first built, the ironwork is possibly painted before fitting to stop it rusting: the assumption is that it's made in batches ahead of assembly. When repainting ironwork on the body, it's clearly easier to go over in body colour.

Etched drop-lights are a curse. They are hard to fit in most kits, too thick (most wooden stock I've inspected has only about 1/4" of frame on the outside of the light) and complicate the glazing. I'm adopting a strategy of replacing them cut paper that is glued to the glazing.

I'm curious about the carpentry of this one. I understand the single strap-bolt at each end of the solebars, but what are the two fasteners with the washer plate below it? It's hard to see what they connect.

My view: inform, yes; educate, typically no. There is a legal duty to provide enough information that a customer can determine whether the product is fit for their purpose. There is, IMHO, a moral duty to provide enough information to head off gross mis-use of the product, but not to turn the customer into an expert.

I rest the plastic on a thickish cutting-mat and hold the square to the plastic by pressing on the blade. This also keeps it level.

This SECR modeller is thinking that he'd prefer a class for which there isn't a kit. The F (and associated classes) is available as a printed kit. If anybody wants to go weird and Kentish, the LCDR A, A1, A2 classes need doing, and also all the Kirtley express engines (not that I personally need the latter). None of which stopped me from ordering a D.

The point of the rule is that the circular end of a cask, inside the chimb, is only held by friction against the staves. If the cask is empty and the end is struck it can easily be driven in, at which point the cask collapses.

I suspect that such a short line would have been worked "one engine in steam", so no signals needed at the time of the model. The original signalling would suit the through station before the branch was truncated. Since there's no loop, it's not a block post and existed in the middle of a section, protected by possession of a staff or tablet. Therefore, again, no signals and the sidings would be worked by a ground frame unlocked by a key on the staff. If BR resignalled it as a terminus, then you need to think what two-train movements are enabled by the signalling. As drawn, a goods train might arrive while a passenger train is held in the platform, but it would be outside the home signal, so outside station limits and in the section. Therefore, that train has to shunt and go back to the junction before the passenger train can depart. Further, no passenger train may arrive while a goods train is present, because the section is occupied. My view, as a non-expert in signalling, is that you'd need another home signal, outside the sidings, to govern goods trains to the junction and probably you need a home signal for trains arriving at the station. Both these are likely to be some distance away (on the same post?), probably outside the layout. A fixed distant 180 yards from the box seems too close, unless the the line speed is unusually low.

It's likely that the designer is employed by the company making the tools and physically moulding the models. Such as person knows how to design for making moulds, but they would know nothing about brakes on extinct, foreign wagons. The commissioner of the model should be checking the CAD for things like this. We don't know if they've checked and missed this, or if the CAD has been put onto social media before checking. Of course, getting it snarked at here may be the checking process. Has anybody informed Oxford that they have a problem?

An industrial railway in Pembrokeshire. It connected mines (coal, iron) inland with ironworks (one of which still exists as a ruin) and with the small port at Saundersfoot. The approach to the port was along a ledge at the cliff's foot, through rock-cut tunnels and finally along a street of the town. It would make a cute cameo-model.

The likely outcome depends on the stresses and left in the plastic when it was moulded or pressed. I've subjected Evergreen strip, which is made of HIPS, to boiling water and it worked: took and held the desired shape, didn't otherwise distort. Conversely, I used a hairdryer on a plastic wagon with the sides braced out slightly (trying to remove bowing-in of the sides); before it softened enough to take up the outward bow the tops of the sides melted and shrank. I think they were moulded with volumes of lower density near the in-gates and then shrank into these volumes when softened. Consider also what plastic the bogie is made from. If it's not made of HIPS, the softening and melting temperatures will be different and probably higher. If heating works, it works quickly - seconds to minutes, rather than days.

Apart from braking variations within the P7 diagram - and I'd guess that the operators considered them interchangeable if they were classified in one diagram- there are many later diagrams in the NER diagram-book. The numbers go up to P22 IIRC.

There were four or more lines out of London Bridge from quite an early date. This is not just the station throat as there's a mile of widened track to the first junction.

It looks like their refrigerator van painted yellow. The refrigerator van, IIRC, was based on a SR-designed van (so was not very accurate when painted up for the LNER); it may be that the SR banana vans were similar externally. I don't think Peco have ever made an accurate model of any wagon.

The first imports for which the LNWR deployed vans were by Elders and Fyffes into Manchester via the ship canal. Later - IIRC 1912 - they moved the terminal to Garston.

I think the GNR also had some. If I've remember this right, they were actually assigned to traffic from Southampton; presumably the LSWR didn't have enough vans to have them tied up north of London. There's pictures in the GNR Society book about fitted and special vans (which of which I'm sure I will eventually find my copy).

In my edge-case, the layout will include a ripening facility within basket-carrying distance of Covent Garden, next to a cross-London line with the LNWR at one end. Therefore, I presume that the block trains came from Manchester to Camden, were split, and a portion of 8 to 12 vans went on to Strand. Where the rest went is unclear; Stratford market is one possible destination.

For the oil traffic, the block trains started in 1939, by government dictat. All seaborne oil was redirected from east-coast ports to the west coast and the products then moved to eastern distribution centres in block trains. The rail tanks of oil were not allowed to stay in the "Red Zone" overnight, so had to be efficiently managed; hence the block trains. Prior to the war, oil products more often moved in single tanks or small groups.

On my list of stock to build for my own layout is a train of LNWR banana vans. I may do them in resin as a printed kit. If so, I'll make the prints available for purchase.

Why was the hole in the axle cut with a burr rather than a drill bit?