johnarcher

No, I think they still haven't. One emails (sales@branchlines.com?) to enquire, they will supply lists for specific types of things (eg 4mm loco kits, or motors and gears) by email. So I'd email and ask re wheels, and for the relevant price list. Good luck.

Yes I've just had a motor from them (Mashima 1020 still in stock) so they're still functioning.

It looks pretty good. Thanks for the re-assurance, if I do go for one I'll PM you for more information on the smoke-box wrapper! Otherwise it goes together well?

I suppose that is so if exhibiting isa big interest, part of the reason for building the layout. Personally if I am going to put a lot of time, money and interest into making something the only demographic I'm aiming at is me, if others should also want to see it that's nice (I think Iain Rice wrote something similar about his high-level viewing amking it difficult for children at an exhibition).

I wouldn't have done before, but now.............

That's probably true, but is it assumed that flashing lights etc are necessarily all that appeals to a non-modelling (or non-railway fan) audience? I don't get to exhibitions much now, but when I did I noticed that one thing that appealed to the 'wider' audience was a layout with a good scenic aspect. They may not notice if your Dean single is in the wrong livery, or pulling those generic coaches, but they do know what a tree or a river or a house look like, and often appreciate seeing them well modelled. (A good many non-railway fans seem to go to Pendon for that sort of thing). I recall once hearing about a local show (don't remember where), where the main attraction was a model of the local town station as it was about 50 years earlier, with a reasonable amount of surrounding area, buildings etc included. Apparently that got a lot of attention (including arguments about what that building used to look like), interested many people who weren't much fascinated by the railway side of it, and not a flashing light in sight. Basically I'd agree, build what interests you, if others want to see it, great (and there will probably always be a fair number who will want to see something that's well done). On a personal note I go to an exhibition to see good modelling, I don't care whether it's pre-grouping or modern, trains or buildings, landscape or track or ships, I just enjoy seeing well-modelled things. I'd probably spend more time looking at well-modelled landscape or buildings than at less well-made things that move.

Maybe it would be simpler to just keep calling them exhibitions then. My late, lamented, mother-in-law was a pretty good amateur painter, her local society of amateur artists put on quite successful exhibitions, people turned up just happy to look at paintings people had created. Can it not be so with models?

Can anyone tell me, is the Churchward 45xx kit, which seems now to be available again from Precision, the same as the now absent Mitchell kit, or was it some sort of earlier version?

Thank you, it looks very good. The join is certainly better disguised than usual, it's not at all easy to see. The whole thing looks very good in fact.

What structure is it on? I can't see obvious joins, is the backscene in a single 14ft piece?

Actually I agree with you, I only had that thought because people were talking about these maybe being used as a basis for conversion. Really is chopping up, re-assembling neatly and repainting one of these that much easier than assembling a coach kit?

If people are thinking of these as a basis for conversion I wonder if there would be any point in someone producing something like the etched sides (and ends?) that Shirescenes do for the Ratio GW kits for these? They'd still not be dead right for a prototype probably (underframe?), but a good deal closer.

You are unaware of all the thousands of climate scientists whose work is the real basis of this (not a schoolchild)? Hardly comparable with religious nutters proclaiming the end of the world, or things that were a genuine danger but were averted by humans responding to that danger (millennium bug, nuclear war), which is what needs to be done now.

Thanks for that, I hadn't heard of those bead things. Actually I had a sort of similar low-voltage mini lathe many years ago, turned tuning pegs for a lute I made on it. In fact I've had more experience of wood turning than the engineering sort, I wonder about boiler fittings turned in a hard smooth wood, like box perhaps. Might be a bit messy in a little flat, but it's a possibility I'll look at. Thanks again

Thanks for the lathe suggestions. I will consider both, the Unimat I know of course (though not used one), the Fonly is new to me and interesting. As I said where to use it is as doubtful as cost, with the prospect of a small flat in sheltered accommodation looming.

I do wonder about this aspect that some have suggested. Maybe these will stimulate interest in pre-grouping (or, as some have suggested, my own favoured area, light railways), but is it really feasible that there will ever be a time when anyone could actually model a pre-grouping company realistically without at least some kit-building? Surely there's too many of them, over too long a period for manufacturers to supply the necessary stock for that r-t-r? (Unless, maybe, a big maker or two decided to concentrate specifically on one company)

The Awdry BG book gives a fair bit of attention to liveries (as far as possible), but has no more to say than "B&E wagon livery appears to be grey". He doesn't say but I suspect it's based on the same photo Miss Prism mentions.

I'm not making a point, I wouldn't want these carriages but if others do that's up to them, but I do wonder (genuine question, not a sarcastic point) would that be as OK for people if the locomotive were not an LNW coal tank but a 'generic' tank engine in LNW livery (which you see at exhibitions in many other liveries)?

Yes, and six ex-LSW four-wheelers too IIRC, other Stephens lines had some too.

Some may not think it old enough to be classic (though it is very classic to me) but, while Lydham Heath is no longer on permanent display in Bishops Castle, it does still get to shows. The next appearence date is in its thread in the S scale section.

Yes, though I think maybe LSW ones would be useful too, just on the basis of how widely they spread second-hand. A great many minor or light railways seem to have had at least one or two ex-LSW coaches.

Why would the market be more limited for a coach that is right for one company than for one that is right for none? Does the fact that it is actually right for one company make it less usable for others than a freelance one?

Aren't models of real coaches modifiable? Especially if a 'representation' of something else is all you want (and all you'd get from the generic ones anyway probably). Would the Triang clerestories have been less used as other things if they had been slightly better representations of GW coaches? It's just I don't see the point of not getting whatever market there would be for them as an actual prototype as well as the modifying or just paint in other liveries markets.

I at least hadn't seen the other thread, so just reacted here. I wasn't intending to criticise any buyer either (or get into the toy/model thing). I just don't see the point of making them freelance. If people are happy to use 'near enough' carriages then fine, that's up to them, but why is it better if said carriages are freelance, would it be less acceptable if they were actual models of real other company's vehicles, whether just repainted or a base for conversion? Is a freelance model in, eg, GNR livery any better than an LBSC or LSW coach in that livery? (Actually LSW ones would have been quite good, they went all over the place secondhand, there was hardly a minor railway that didn't have one or two ex-LSW coaches). Then as well as the 'freelance' market they would have had at least some 'accurate' market as well.

That's a good point. If they had been that (something by Metropolitan perhaps) they would at least have been accurate for some railways. I really don't see the point of wholly freelance models, if people will accept that, why not coaches accurate for one (or a few) railway, but offered also in other liveries? They would be no more inaccurate for those other lines, and at least would be correct for some. It does seem odd that when threads analyse the accuracy or otherwise of RTR locomotives in great detail that freelance coaches seem a good idea.