Caley Jim

'Pug' is a Scottish term for a tank engine, of any size from a Neilson 0-4-0ST to the G&SWR's 4-6-4T's. The latter were known as 'Big Pugs' for obvious reasons. Jim

Reminds me of the true tale of a lady Councillor and Justice of the Peace in the town in which I used to work who was known for opening her mouth only to change feet. Sitting on the magistrates bench one day she told a miscreant before her, who had been found guilty of being drunk and disorderly, to 'leave the town by the earliest public convenience'! Jim

When helping to man the Roadshow stand at either Model Rail or at Perth i usually spend the time assembling one of my etched wagon kits, although it often results in more conversations about soldering, from those who consider it a black art, than about 2FS! As a result I tend to have a collection of wagons in 'North Somerset Light Rly.' livery. I decided it was time to take the latest three through the paint shop. The lettering on these was done with some Railmatch matt white acrylic i bought at Model Rail last February and I have to say that it was much easier to work with than the Rowney artists acrylic I had been using . the only slight problem I found was that it tended to dry practically instantly, leaving no time to wash off any errors with water, but the addition of a little slow drying gel sorted that. the two 'Dixon' wagons will be at either end of a short raft of empties and have a semi-permanent coupling between them., with the three link hooked up. Jim

This is turning out to be a seriously good model. Northroader's suggestion hes considerable merit in my mind. Sorry i can't make it to the meeting at Tutbury on Saturday, but I think some of the Forth and Clyde group are planning to be there. Jim

...of a branch line! Jim

Can't even see the pencil line! Looks like somewhere flat, like Norfolk! Jim

Another variant of this would be to temporarily mount them on an axle from a material which will not take solder, such as aluminium or some types of steel ( or even a piece of wood dowel?). You could also grease the axle before mounting the gears. Applying solder paint to the faces first would mean that there was minimal solder and so less chance of clogging up the teeth. Jim

I should perhaps have pointed out that it was St Mungo's Parish Church (Church of Scotland), so the Archdiocese of Glasgow had absolutely nothing to do with it! Jim

Addendum to the above. Discovered on t'net that it was designed by Alan Reiach (1910-1992), Jim

Not sure who designed it, but it didn't have a stained glass window (dominating or otherwise). It was St Mungos Parish Church. what we called 'the loggia' was the bit to the left. Sorry, I couldn't find a larger photo. The building itself was a bit of a disaster, though, Flat roofs on the hall, loggia and rooms (we all know what that means!) and the main sanctuary roof always leaked. We eventually discovered that that problem was down to shoddy construction which any competent clerk of works should not have tolerated. Jim

Like Jerry, I'm unlikely to try them. My own 'system' is to have the shafts at the front of the tender and the rear of the loco end flush with their respective bearings. The shafts each have a slot cut lengthwise about 1.5mm into them. The driveshaft is a piece of 8thou steel guitar string with a ring formed on each end and this squashed or filed a bit thinner. The shaft is c1mm shorter than the distance between the inner ends of the slots. It does have the disadvantage that the shaft comes out when to separate the loco and tender, but it's simple and works well in my three tender locos. Jim

The church we attended in Cumbernauld (a 1960's building) had a wide, glazed corridor along the front linking the various rooms with the sanctuary at one end and the kitchen and hall at the other. It was always referred to as 'The Loggia'. Apologies for the incorrect spelling earlier. I too did not get very far in Latin. Jim

'Logia' is another possible description. Jim

If you're going down that route, there's Gleneagles, which had it's own branch, but there was never a passenger service, it was only for supplies to the hotel. Jim

Pitlochry can beat that! Cross the footbridge (if travelling from the south), out the station, cross the end of station road and into the garden of the hotel from where there is a door into the back of the hotel! not much more than 200yds. Jim

I recall a tale I've told somewhere on here already of an ex Darlington Works painter being asked to demonstrate how they mixed the colour for wagons, the LNER society having found a document with the list of ingredients. I'm not going to repeat it again, but the long and short of it was that he responded that they were only painting wagons and nobody bothered exactly what shade they were (and it probably differed from mix to mix). the only thing that the top brass were concerned about was the colour of the top-link locos! That NE wagon looks to me just like a dirty, well used coal wagon. In other words, exactly as it should look. Jim

My youngest daughter (aged c10 at the time) was 'expelled' from that school when we visited. You see she's left handed and when she picked up the slate pencil with her left hand she got a rollicking from the 'teacher'! Now she never was one to take that kind of thing lying down, so she set out to defend herself. She only got a word or two out when "Out!" shouted the 'teacher', pointing to the door! Jim

I've no immediate plans for more etches at the moment, but I'll put it on the list for the next sheet. Jim

My 498 class 0-6-0T was the first loco i built with a compensated chassis, over 40 years ago, and has always been a good runner, however of late its performance has been a bit more erratic for some reason, the problem being current collection. There is nowhere to fit stay-alives, so I've spent the week-end fitting skids and doing a wee bit of refurbishment (replacing cab steps which had gone awol). The skids have transformed the performance, even on less that perfectly clean track. The skids are little pieces of 8thou brass soldered to 8thou p/b wire,, which is in turn soldered to the lower edge of the frames. The brass is curved up front and rear so that it will ride over any irregular track joints. I've fitted them so that the front ones are under the cylinders and the rear ones behind the cab steps and even from almost rail level they are virtually undetectable. They are set so that when sitting on its flanges, they just touch the surface. the body is white metal, so there is plenty of weight and the loco will still haul enough wagons for my purpose. I know the loco is sitting a bit down at the rear. One of the little strips of styrene which packed up the back of the body from the frames had been lost, but that has now been replaced so it's sitting level again now. There was a risk of the buffers riding under those of an adjacent wagon when propelling. Jim

Excuse my mentioning it, but other parts of the United Kingdom were similarly affected, namely north of Hadrian's wall and west of Offa's dyke. Jim

Is that a hint?? Jim

Jerry Clifford (Queensquare) touches on this in his article on building 2mm scale Midland boxes in the latest MRJ. Jim

Like Tom, I think these cobbles look really good. I will have some to do for Kirkallanmuir and I'll be borrowing that idea. As far as cleaning the track goes, I made this little tool out of 30 thou brass and find it very effective. The idea was to be able to clean the top of the running rails without taking the 'rust' off the check and wing rails. The little prongs fit in the gap, with the 'step' rubbing on the rails. I'm not a fan of using abrasives to clean track, although I do use the very finest surface of a nail buffer on plain track from time to time. This tool scrapes off any deposit and at the same time burnishes the surface to some extent. As an aside, I feel that the most important area to keep clean is the top inside edge of the rail as that is where the cones wheel tread makes most of its contact. Jim

I find the same with their Caledonian wagon oxide, which is much darker than the old Precision Paints version. I never paint two wagons in exactly the same colour anyway, adding a touch of black or white, but I now add varying amount of yellow to get back to a more orangy shade. Jim

I use thin tissue paper glued on with cyano. Easiest way is to cover the places on the top of the chassis, or the underside of the footplate, where you think contact is likely and then flood the tissue with the cyano. Once it's set you can trim the tissue. I've also used little bits of tissue to line the insides of splashers, fixed in the same way. Another idea is to make your frames 10 thou or so shallow and then you can glue 10 thou styrene on top of them where the body sits on them. Jim