Caley Jim

Or a Scottish version - '-9°C? that's T-shirt and shorts weather!'. Or, if set in Aberdeen 'Aye, 'snae bad the day'. Jim

Takes me back to English lessons at school where we had to do 'Comprehension'. I never could understand that! Jim

Or a private platform for the ghost of St Aiden? Jim

And here was me thinking that Caledonian Blue was the only one over which there was a debate. What Jol says is perfectly correct. Add into that the effect of aging on the varnishes of the day and the smoke filled and sulfurous atmosphere that locos worked in and the colour of a newly painted loco might be quite different to that of one which hadn't seen the 'shops' for a few years. Blue was a rather unstable colour in those days as I recall and faded over time. Jim

Might this be what she has in mind? Jim

The rodding on the board at the colliery end of the layout has now been fitted and the board returned to the layout. As can be seen, my ploy to disguise the joint between the baseboards has been quite successful : From right to left the tracks are up main; down main; down loop headshunt; colliery branch; access to interchange sidings. The station end board is now in my study to start on it. Jim

I trust you mean the 'wealthy' bit and not the 'dodgy ticker'? Jim

In that case, right click on the photo and select 'open with', then chose 'Microsoft Office Picture Manager'. this, of course assumes that you have Microsoft Office installed. Jim

When I click on the 'picture' button I get the options 'Auto correct / Brightness and contrast / colour / crop / rotate and flip / red eye removal / resize / compress pictures'. Try clicking on the 'tools' menu and select 'Customise' (only choice I get) and under the 'Options' tab see that the 'Always show full menus' box is checked (has a tick in it). I tried to take a sreenshot of what I get, but when I open Snipping Tool the menu disappears. Jim

In that 'picture' menu, bottom two items are 'resize' and 'compress pictures'. You will have to close any other menu item you have open first. Jim

I my book, having a loco (or coach) with the motor intruding into the cab/windows is better than no loco/coach. The Faulhaber motor in my 2-2-2WT pretty much half fills the cab, as does the minitrix one in my 439 class 0-4-4T, but there was no other way to get a motor in either of them at the time. Jim

Clicking twice opens it in Microsoft Office Picture Manager and it's easy to crop and/or resize using the 'picture' menu in that (as well as doing other things). I use it for all my pictures. Jim

Or not, as the case may be! Jim

Wow! does not do it justice! That is one superb loco, Tim. You'll need to bring it up to Edinburgh (or as some of us refer to it 'that city in the east whose name shall not be mentioned') and photograph it on top of its namesake. Jim well impressed)

Work on the point rodding suffered a bit of a hiatus as I was struck down with a bad flu and spent a week or so in bed. Recovering since then has allowed me to make progress, however and the run down the 10ft between the down main and down loop has now been completed. The run starts with 9 rods :- And goes down to 4 rods which cross under the loop to then go to the turnouts on the far side of the bridge. Again, all the cranks are boxed in. This board can now go back out to the garage and one of the end boards brought in to fit the rodding on it. Jim

Well, er, not quite! I decided that it would be nice to have some lighting in the box, but wanted to keep it 'self contained'. I tried a couple of grain of wheat bulbs powered by a 1.5v button battery, but, while this gave a nice yellowy illumination, the battery died after a couple of minutes. Nigel Cliffe kindly sent me some LEDs and resistors and rigging a couple of them up with 3 batteries (the LEDs need 3.5v) works well, although the light is a bit on the blue side. i tried to correct this by painting some cling film yellow and covering them with that, but that just gave a rather insipid green colour. I replaced this with a more orange colour which is better, but still a bit green. More experiments required, methinks! Jim

This was the one to which I was referring in post #8. I got the date wrong, though, it was 1722, not 1772. Some of the artillery were moved on the waggonway, making it the first military use of a railway. Jim

I built one of these kits many, many years ago! The first Scottish railway was the Tranent and Cockenzie Waggonway, built in 1772, horse drawn on wooden rails. Jim

When the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway opened in 1842 they had 1st class (upholstered seats and glass in the windows), 2nd class (bench seats and no glass in the windows), 3rd class (no roofs) and 4th class. I'll leave arrangements of the latter for you to work out for yourself, but there was handrail round the edge for you to hold on to! Jim

I've used a similar technique in the past, applying a thick layer of white enamel to sellotape stuck to a tile, drawing black lines across this and then peeling off strips. Fixing was by dipping the lining in a 50/50 mix of varnish and thinners, then applying to the loco. If you leave the strips in the mix for a few minutes then soften sufficiently to allow them to be manipulated into curves using the ubiquitous cocktail sticks. LP is looking good, Tim. Jim

We've got about 1 1/2" lying here and blowing about so that some parts are almost bare. Jim

Pardon my ignorance, but what are rooves? I thought coaches had roofs. Jim (or should this be in the pedant's thread?)

As long as he is not intending to nail the BoT inspectors between the uprights! What defence would Our Learned Friend offer in that case? (Extreme provocation? Insanity?.....) Jim

I've now been able to trace the article which was in the February 1971 issue of the 2mm Magazine, p17. It describes making both hooks and links out of soft stainless steel wire, however now hooks are etched and, as I said, I use annealed p/b wire. One benefit of the latter is that it tarnishes to a nice dark, rusty brown colour as you can see from the photographs here. Jim

Iphones and ipads seem to have a habit of doing this!! jim