Caley Jim

I thought treacle came from the treacle mines at Knotty Ash and was mined by the Diddymen! Or have I been watching too much of the recently departed, and much lamented Ken Dodd? Jim

I have no experience of Gibson wheels (or any other 4mm ones for that matter), but the following is an article I wrote for the 2mm Magazine some years ago outlining the theory behind quartering and how I acheive it with Association wheels, which come with integral half-axles and are fitted into insulating muffs. Coupled Chassis Mechanics.doc HTH, Jim

Like Regularity and Chris I'm pleased to hear your news and wish you a speedy return to main line service. Having just recovered from a bout of the vicious 'Australian Flu' I can vouch for the benefits of some modelling as an aid to recovery. Jim

I stand corrected on both counts. Jim

Compound2632 is right, but, just to be my usual pedantic self, the wagon turntables should have two tracks on them at right angles to one another. Only trying to ads to the authenticity for Lady T. Jim

Shades of Katie Morag and the Post Office on Struay there! Jim

Depends what's being ripped! Jim

Should that not be properly called a quadracycle? Jim (off to the pedants thread)

To paraphrase Don, aren't we all (or at least some of us)! Jim

I think I've only met Phil once and that was at a committee meeting in Coventry in the mid-80's when I came down to discuss suggestions I had made for holding member's interests data on computer.(and look where that got me!) That's the image I have of him in my head and I've been struggling to reconcile it with his avatar! Jim

It did indeed. CR 903 'Cardean' class No 907 was on such a running-in turn on a local when she met her end in the Quintinshill disaster. Jim

Of course I've never used transfers on account of there being no suitable ones available. If I started using them now they would just serve to show up the deficiencies in my hand lettering on all the rest of my stock! Jim

Nice job, Nick. I've always used satin black from a rattle can for spraying, but maybe you need the gloss surface for the transfers to adhere properly. I can't detect any sign of the carrier film. Jim

Honestly! Turn your back for an afternoon and this thread has moved on two pages! I heard a talk recently on German spies in Britain during WWII. Early on in the war three were landed from a seaplane on the north coast of Moray. Their boat having overturned on the way to the shore, thus losing their bicycles, they arrived, soaking wet, at a small station, manned by the station master and a porter. One of them asked for a ticket to, I think, Aberdeen and was told it would be 'five and ten'. He then drew out a wad of notes and proffered a £5 and a 10s note. After giving him his ticket, a quick phone call was made to the local police station and he and his colleagues were provided with free (escorted) travel to the MI5 headquarters in London! Jim

The Caledonian ones were varnished mahogony Jim

The Caledonian Railway blatantly stole the Scottish Royal Coat of Arms and seem to have got away with it and not incurred the wrath of The Lord Lyon King of Arms! The double headed eagle is also the coat of arms of Lanark, its use having been granted to the 3rd Earl of Hyndford by the King of Prussia in 1742. Jim

I think I've posted this before somewhere, but I once read that each time they relaid the track at the North end of Preston Station they imposed a pretty severe speed restriction for several months until the trains knocked everything into alignment! jIM

So have we. Not lying on the roads and paths, but the grass is white and it's still snowing. Jim

If you also stagger the rail ends and use a short length of Easitrac base then there will be no need to worry about aligning the rails accurately. On a test track all that's needed for electrical connections is to solder some fine wire to the outside of the rail, or not if you want an insulated joint. Jim

This is my version on a GE lowmac. The pantechnicon is a Shire Scenes kit. The paper overlays with the lettering were done with Auto CAD. The owning company is fictional, being named after a fellow 2fs modeller. The siding it is sitting on will eventually have an end loading facility. Edited to add that the body of the pantechnicon was painted white and the paper overlays cut to fit into each panel. Jim

Smart Models do a range of downloadable texture sheets including flemish bond http://www.smartmodels.co.uk/texture-sheets.html . These can be imported into a CAD program and used to create your own print for a building in the way that Compound2632 describes as in this post with the final result here. IMHO printed papers are perfectly adequate for brick and ashlar stone in 2mm and 4mm as there is very little texture in these materials at these scales. Jim

Installation of the point rodding has now be completed following fitting to the station end board. For this I was fortunate in that the road surface on the bridge has not yet been applied, so the bridge deck could be easily removed to get at the turnouts beneath it. A view prior to painting. the observant will note that the rod to the stretcher bar on the left hand turnout on the down main (leading to the down loop) stops a little short, but as it will be under the bridge it will not be seen and I won't tell anyone if you won't! The same view after painting. And a view towards the bridge with the board back in situ. Boxing in is again used to hide the rods crossing the baseboard joint. I note that the boards could be better aligned. The absence of rolling stock on these last few photos is because it has all been run onto cassettes and boxed in preparation for taking the layout to the Supermeet in Perth on 21st April. Jim

Or the NER knocking a hole through York's city walls! Jim

Noo, that wid be a differ'nt kettle o' fush a' thegither. Ah read a book recently (written by a distant relative o' mine) which wis a' written in Scots. Ah hae tae confess that ah wis dumfounert by some o' the wards an' hid to tak a look at the glossary as ah couldnae jalouse the meanin o them! Jim

All these ideas seem to my non-engineering brain to be overly complex. The arrangement I have on three tender locos is to have the shafts in both loco and tender ending flush with the face of the bearing. The shafts each have a slot 1.5mm deep cut into their ends. You can see that in this photo of the rear of the chassis for my 0-4-2 (I arrange the driveshaft to be out of sight under the footplate). The driveshaft consists of a piece of .008" steel guitar string (same as Laurie uses for point rodding) with a circular loop bent on each end so that the overall length is c0.75 - 1mm shorter than the distance between the inner ends of the slots. Seemples, Igor, and works for me. Jim