Guy Rixon

I'd say that anybody making this kind of change to a historic artefact has two, moral obligations. First, they record the changes, in enough detail to satisfy both historians and detail freaks, and make that record public (i.e. on the WWW). Second, where original parts, like name and number plates are exchanged, they keep the originals. Changing to reproduction nameplates and selling the originals on for cash would be unhelpful to future researchers.

The LSWR axleboxes are temporarily withdrawn. Shapeways are refusing to print the original model, saying that one of the detail elements is too thin. I'm trying to find a way to redesign it with thicker detail, but without it affecting the appearance too badly. I'll post here when I have a solution.

Shapeways have just announced a new pricing-structure for FUD and FXD prints. This includes: base fee per print reduced by $2.50; lower charge per unit of model material; new charge for support material; different, more-complex charge for machine space, heavily biased against tall, thin prints. For the items in my shop, which are all sprued arrays of small, flat-ish things, I think this means a reduction in price; but the model is complex and it's hard to be sure. The new charging model starts from 22nd May 2017. Anybody contemplating an order may wish to delay to get the new prices. No promises that they will definitely be lower! After 22nd May, I might rearrange the spruing to reduce the costs further. (Sprues under the parts require more support material; sprues joined to the sides of parts need less.) If the prices actually go up then I will definitely try this, and if they go down I may do it anyway if the savings are sufficient. Therefore, a further delay in ordering after 22nd May might get you a better price still; but again, no promises.

Up to today, D229 was the only ducket-less brake I'd found. Just this morning, I found in Jenkinson a 50' WCJS brake that looks like the D343 in your photo. I was wondering when it might have been cascaded to LNWR service and it looks like 1914 is a possible date. The WCJS brake would be allowed on the (ex)-SER as it was 8'6" wide, but I presume that it would not have been detached as a through coach while formed in a WCJS train. D229 is still important to me, as it could have worked through to Folkestone harbour when the harbour branch still has length restrictions.

For gold lining, one can use ink in a technical-drawing pen. It's at least an order of magnitude easier than a bow pen. I've used a bright-yellow ink mixed with a tiny amount of black. This gives a reasonable approximation of gold lining. The only problem is that the ink will bead on some paint surfaces instead of going down evenly.

Can anybody tell me how the guard duties were arranged on trains that changed to engines of a different company? Where company A provided the coaches and company B's engine took them forward from a certain point, did company B also provide a guard from that point? Was this matter governed by BoT rules, or just arranged to suit the companies? I'm particularly interested in three cases: Metropolitan electric engines hauling GWR trains to Aldgate; MDR electric engines hauling LNWR "middle circle" trains to Mansion House; and complete through trains that ran through London with a locomotive change. Am example of the latter is the "Sunny South Special" from the LNWR to LB&SC destinations with the loco change at Addison Road.

The D229 is interesting to me in that it's the only LNWR brake coach I've found without side lookouts. My layout-in-planning involves exchange of through coaches between the LNWR and SER, and none of the normal LNWR brakes will fit the SER's emaciated loading-gauge; the lookouts make them too wide. I think I will need to build one or two D229 myself...

You mean your mother is Norse, rather than Viking? I presume that she does not go out on armed raiding-parties to loot neighbouring communities - the literal meaning of "Viking". Of course, I don't know your family, and the way that some ladies behave at sales would terrify the UN. Concerning insularity, there used to be an odd effect in the fenlands that the men were local but many of their wives were born elsewhere. I'm not sure why they didn't marry local women (ladies leaving the fens for somewhere more comfortable at the first opportunity?), but the incoming brides often didn't last long because of the malaria, to which the locals had partial immunity. There are many cases of men marrying a sequence of "foreign" women and outliving all of them.

Hobbycraft stores stock Tamiya paints.

I would want to see a print, unpainted, of these before committing. WSF gives very poor surface finish and is tricky to polish to a better finish when there is detail in the way. WSF polished by Shapeways may be OK. I'd suggest getting them printed in FUD instead, but if they cost nearly £14 a pair in WSF then FUD would be a crazy price.

Fox do a good range of SECR transfers, for both the Wainwright and Maunsell periods. They also do some SER and LCDR sheets.

Driving wheels certainly. I wonder about the carriage and wagon wheels and associated bits.

There is a new product in the shop: axleboxes for LSWR wagons: https://www.shapeways.com/product/ZEQBFJ92V/lswr-panter-axlebox-x20?optionId=61998358. These are the Panter design which was the most common. It's quite a large box by 19th century standards and I believe that it could contain a range of bearings, with both oil and grease lubrication, for different sizes of journals. These boxes would be a possible retrofit for the Cambrian model of a LSWR van (the one sold as D1410 but is actually D1406). This kit is sold with a later pattern of axleboxes.

Autocoach: thanks vey much for buying and test-fitting these (sorry I did not respond before: I missed your post). Are you happy with them? They may be a little stiff if there are still traces of support material in the bore, and washing might improve that. Also, it looks from your photo that one of the collars - on the RH buffer - is incomplete. Did it come like that or did it break during assembly? There is scope for strengthening this part slightly.

Hmm. When were the extra reservoirs fitted to the slip coaches generally? I have a vague memory that they were a retrofit on the Dean coaches.

Concerning the magnifier lamp, I used to use one, back when my eyes were better, but found it increasingly inadequate for the really fine work. Also, the springs on the lamp failed and dropped the lamp head on a model, destroying it, so the lamp went straight in the bin. I now use a headband magnifier, which works better, has variable magnification (interchangeable lenses) and actually costs less than the lamp. Soldering with shaking hands ... I has them. Soldering jobs that I could do freehand when I was 30 are now beyond me, so I spend more time building jigs. When I build a jig correctly, the results are more accurate than the freehand soldering by younger me. I think that the hobby is massively held back by assumptions - by kit designers - that assembly should be freehand rather than jigged. It's just a bad way to make things... ...which leads me on to another point. "What's the point of kits?" could usefully be rephrased as "what's the point of kits that are not fit for purpose?". Some kits are OK, but too many are badly designed with wrong assumptions. So only build the good kits? The problem is finding out which are good before purchase.

I concur. These slip coaches were used between Birkenhead/Liverpool and destinations on the SER, initially Folkestone but later, IIRC, Deal as well; possibly the F11s were on one route and the F12s on another. At the northern end of the route they worked through to Liverpool via the Mersey Railway's tunnel under the river. They are very short because the Folkestone Harbour branch could not accept anything longer (sharp curves) and they are narrow because the SER had a restricted loading-gauge. Note that there are no side look-outs because they would make the coach too wide for the SER; I think this is almost unique among GWR brake-coaches of the period. Note also that the kit provides door hinges only for the lowest hinge on each door, whereas most coaches show three visible hinges per door. This is probably correct; I suspect that the hinges were of a lower profile to save width, such that the upper two per door do not show externally.

If I'm understanding the wagon construction correctly, there would be an L-shaped bracket between the outside of the solebar and the headstock. If this were represented by scraps of plastic, possible with rivets pressed in, it would be another way of bridging the gap. Unless, of course, the GWR put the brackets on the inside...

In London, most of the manure went to Kent, to be used on the fruit farms and market gardens. The SECR moved it in sheeted opens. Having a dedicated fleet of manure wagons saves a lot of time and work cleaning out general-service goods wagons after carrying the manure.

The situation, as reported second-hand on this site and elsewhere, is that the moulds are OK but the single moulding machine to drive them is broken. Ian Kirk's post, above, shows that moulding machines are relatively cheap in the second-hand market, so one might expect the machine to have been replaced. However, I understand that the machine is non-standard; it has been altered to work with larger, coach-size moulds (like, one of the machine in Ian's picture) and standard models are not suitable replacements. Disclaimer: I don't have first-hand information about this.

Check rather on the dates for "portable engines" - i.e. engines for working threshing gear that were towed around by horses. They were probably around before traction engines. My great-uncle had one and it was still in regular use at harvest time in the early 1930s.

In the Werret series of wagon drawings - Railway Modeller, up to mid '80s - there were notes for the rope colours of the pre-grouping railways.

Now available on a first-to-try basis: Pintsch gas-lamps for coaches: https://www.shapeways.com/product/LGP9KVLAC/pintsch-gas-lamps-x20. These suit Metropolitan and some GER coaches and may be right for other stock.

Hmm. I thought that the Rocket Card glue was dilute PVA; perhaps I'm mis-informed. PVA has a known problem of inducing lead packing to expand, by developing lead salts on the surface - and the lead balls have an awful lot of surface. Fingers crossed that your wagon doesn't swell and split over time.

New today (first-to-try status): RCH self-contained buffers for wagons to the 1906 drawings. Suitable for PO and LNWR wagons converted from dumb buffers.