HerbertHopkins

Stuck Behind The Popemobile - Man, seemed appropriate somehow.

I think you've done very well, much better than my first attempt. Like James Hilton, I'd be interested to know what materials and techniques you used. I'm also curious as to why you've weathered it before applying transfers, after all, the real thing would have come out of works all squeeky clean with running numbers, tare weights and such like neatly applied before any road grime ever became attached. All in all a very good effort.

Homebelly Groove - Live, The Spin Doctors. They were quite big in the early nineties then seemed to disappear without trace. Good grundgy live album, particularly if you ignore the, frankly, silly chatter betwwen some of the tracks.

Down by the River - Neil Young

Rocky Mountain Way - Joe Walsh

Hole in my shoe - Traffic

Golden Brown - The Stranglers

Just been listening to 'Back Into The Future' by Man while trying to get my head around a Mailcoach Coronation Twin First. The live portion features some great guitar by Micky Jones who, sadly, died earlier this year.

I think you make some interesting observations here Gilbert. I take your point about Little Bytham, but think there might be more operational potential to this than there might appear. I occasionally get roped in to operate our club layout at shows. This a simple through station with a goods shed on one side of the main line and about three sidings on the other. Very similar to Little Bytham in fact, except that it's not on a section of four track main line. We also run it to a sequence which is not that much different, i.e, up and down pick up goods, a few stopping trains and a good few non-stoppers. Believe it or not this can be quite challenging, particularly when shunting the pick up goods which often requires much forethought. Imagine that you have to drop off three wagons for the goods shed but, before you can do this you have to move other wagons already in that road out of the way. Where do you put them? Again, you have to collect several empty wagons but need to move other wagons out of the way in order to get to them, again, prior thought is required before you actually begin to move anything. Having done all of this you then have to put all the wagons you have moved back where they were so that loading/ unloading can continue. I know from experience that trying to work all this out can sometimes really make your brain hurt! Little Bytham will, I imagine, work in a similar fashion (I believe Tony is planning to operate the layout to a sequence based on the late 50's working timetable) and will present the operators with the same type of challenge. Shunting wagons and vans across four tracks, over that beautiful ladder crossing that Norman Solomon built, should, I submit, be quite good fun. Based on my experiences, I've come to the conclusion that you don't necessarily need a complicated track plan for a layout to be interesting for the operator(s). In trying to make a layout operationally interesting there's always the danger that it could, in fact, become operationally frustrating (David Jenkinson's 'Little Long Drag' from the 1970's comes to mind), which rather defeats the object.

I wouldn't worry about changing it. At least I know the name of the thread and can have a look, from time to time, at some really first class modelling. By the way, did you manage to find details of the interior of the 6 wheeeler?