Caley Jim

I have a book entitled 'The Age of the Railway' by Harold Perkin, originally published in 1970. It is not a railway history, but an account of how the development of the Railway network changed society and was the origin of many things which today we take for granted, such as GMT, package tours etc. I would suggest that anyone with a modicum of interest in the Victorian railway scene would find it of interest. Jim

Does that mean they might get their P45? Jim

Waaaaay back in the dark ages when I built my first 6-wheeled coaches I decided not to model the brake blocks as they would be hidden behind the lower footsteps - I thought. When I had finished the coaches and compared their side on view with the drawings, something didn't look quite right. The overhang between the outer wheels and the headstocks was too long. I checked and double checked all the measurements, but they were spot on. Eventually I realised that the brake blocks made the wheels look 'fatter' and filled part of the space between the wheels and the headstocks, making the overhang look smaller, so the brake blocks had to go in and they 'corrected' the 'look'. Since then I've always fitted brake blocks, no matter how 'hidden' they appear to be. Just a thought! Might be worth it to make a stunning model even better! It's like your tender front detail....... Jim

They'll be out of stock anyway. Nobody ever has them when you want one! Jim

Nothing to interpret! There are posts now, you've seen to that! Perhaps it's market day in Achingham and everyone's gone there? Jim

In reply: 1) I cut it in strips the length of a 6ft sheet. In fact this was dictated by the fact that the bottle tops I was using only had 14mm of ribbing on them. I cut them longer than I needed, but remember that corrugating them will take up length. I found that a 10cm length came down to 9cm when corrugated (I only need 81mm). They were cut to length freehand using the corrugations as a guide. I didn't make any effort to simulate the joints between sheets. 2) I glued them to a sub-roof of 20thou styrene using Easitrac glue, spread on the roof and then the strip laid on top. I applied the glue quite generously with the theory that once set it would help give the foil some rigidity. it is still very delicate where it overhangs the walls and is therefore unsupported. Results can be seen on my layout thread. The building is now fixed down on the layout, so won't undergo any more handling. HTH Jim

Probably the same folk who sell round tuits. Let me know if you track them down! Jim

An 812 would be a good idea as they lasted well into both the periods following the one in which the esteemed members of this area are interested. (note that I have not mentioned either of those periods by name in the hope of avoiding any need to do penance.) Jim

OOOOh! You are a tease!! Give me a clue and I might be persuaded to design an etched chassis for them. Of course they will be to my own idiosyncratic system of below footplate drive from tender to loco and beam compensated loco chassis. :-) The aforesaid RMwebber

I have just found this thread. As I have said on another thread (can't remember which) this is to some extent a pointless exercise for two reasons. Firstly the paints were missed from their raw ingredients on pretty much a daily basis, so the chance of wagons painted on different days being exactly the same shade are minimal. I recall heating of someone, having found the 'recipe' for LNER wagon grey, assembling the ingredients and asking a retired painter from Doncaster works to show them how the mixed it. He took a shovelful of one pigment and then a shovelful of another, at which point he was asked exactly how much of each he was taking to achieve the correct shade. He replied that they weren't concerned about that. All the boxes bothered about was the colour of the top link locos. Secondly the smokey and sulphurous atmosphere of the time had a significant effect on the paints of the time and, in the case of coaches, sunlight affected the varnish. Variation in the colour of your wagons and coaches is therefore quite prototypical. Anyway, who is around these days to tell you that you've got it slightly wrong? Jim

Having spent 38 years working for the health service as a GDP, all I would say is that 1) the Government expects a Rolls-Royce service for the price of a Mini and 2) politicians are adroit at putting someone between themselves and the general public on whom they can foist the blame for any shortcomings. Jim

Or you could go GNoS and make it Aberaching, or Inveraching. On the other hand, you could do the decent thing, CR (C&O) and call it Kinloch Aching. Jim

My youngest daughter was expelled from there! you see, she's left handed, so when she started to write with the chalk in her left hand she was told off by the teacher. By trying to explain herself she was deemed to be talking back to the teacher (she can hold her own in any argument, as can her 7½yr old daughter) so was shown the door!. She now has a MSci degree and is a researcher at the SRUC. JIM

I only have bullhead which is 1mm high with a railhead width of 0.5mm. I would imagine the railhead width of flat bottom to be the same (the height certainly is). It's difficult to accurately measure the depth of either the head or foot and i don't have access to the specs. Be aware that 2MM Scale Association products are only available to members as their development and production is financed by members subscriptions. Jim

Are you talking about bullhead or flat bottom? Both are code 40 (40thou high) and the bull head has a proper top and bottom (deeper top). Cross sections are shown on P7 of the yearbook. HTH, Jim

I don't have a workshop thread either on account of the fact that I don't have a workshop, but here's a couple for starters. CR 2-2-2WT No. 1A and Officers Saloon No 2A. Jim

I am eternally grateful that up here neither my children nor grandchildren have had, or will have, to go through any selection process between primary and secondary school. Jim

As the etches for the point rodding stools have still to arrive I have been working on another little building. This is a small agricultural building which may well have started life as the home of a cottar - a small tenant farmer - as far back as the c17th or early c18th, originally thatched with turf, but, by the time of Kirkallanmuir, is now used for storage of feedstuffs, small tools etc. and roofed with corrugated iron. A such it is not a carefully constructed building, but one which is of the 'rough and ready' school of architecture and has undergone modification over the years. I started with a shell of 40thou styrene, 20thou small all round, with a roof of 20thou which overhangs the sides and ends by 20thou. To make the stone surface I intended to use the Advanced Formula Pollyfilla Nigel showed us at the last group meeting, however our local ironmonger only had the regular stuff, of which I already had a tube. Undeterred I just used that (there was no need for it to be flexible) and spread a 20thou thick layer on each wall in turn, letting each one dry before coating the next. The filler was allowed to spill over the edges into the window and door openings and then trimmed back flush with the styrene with a craft knife. Given the nature of the building, I made no attempt to make the walls perfectly smooth or the corners perfectly sharp, though any serious bumps were shaved back and any gross defects filled in. This was the result at that stage. The roof was deliberately made uneven. I cut some templates from 20thou styrene to help me scribe the quoins, lintels and sills onto the surface and then painted them a 'sandstone' colour. the rest of the walls were roughly painted a mix of grey stone colours to simulate areas which had been repaired and/or cement rendered. Unfortunately the acrylic paint I used for this dried with a slight sheen, so I had to dust it all over with grey powder paint to flatten it. I would use powder or poster paint if I was doing it again. The doors and windows are styrene, the former with wire handles. The roof was covered in strips of kitchen foil formed into corrugated iron using two bottle tops and these were glued on using a generous layer of Easitrac glue. You need to cut a strip a good bit longer than you need as forming the corrugations takes up some of the length. I found that the 100mm lengths I cut were down to 90mm by the time I had rolled them. I only needed 81mm, so between the surplus and some trial bits I have plenty spare 'sheets' to perhaps use as a wagon part-load. Another strip of foil formed the ridging. The roof was painted with a thin coat of grey, followed by some streaks of dark rust. And in situ on the layout, though still to be fixed down and bedded in. A bit of a 'quickie' as there was no need to be too precise about any aspect of it, but it will fill what would otherwise be an open space near the front of the layout. I should add that the foil is very delicate where it overhangs the walls slightly, so the building has to be handled with care! Jim

It was snowing heavily here earlier and put an inch or so onto my nice clear driveway, but it has stopped now and it looks as though there is a bit of a thaw now. Hang on in there, James. It may not be all that bad (on both the snow and exam fronts). Jim

And there will also be the 'Angel's Share' coming out of the bonded warehouse. On a tour of the Erdradour distillery (the smallest distillery in Scotland, just outside Pitlochry) the guide started by saying that whisky making was essentially a simple process, to which an American visitor asked, 'In that case, why is it so expensive?'. I was tempted to reply, 'Because the b****y exciseman takes so much!'. Jim

Or, as Eric Morcambe would have said 'not necessarily in the right order'! I recall many years ago the Southern Region of BR had to borrow a snow blower from Inverness! Jim

I've just spent this morning and part of the afternoon digging 10-12" from our driveway. Biggest problem was where the h**l do you put it all? As I was doing it a neighbour's son was leaving in his Audi 4x4 and got stuck with all four wheels spinning! Luckily we have a grit bin beside us so a shovelfull thrown in front of each wheel got him going. A gritter came down just after lunchtime, but he had no plough on! The bins have been out since Wednesday evening (collection early Thursday morning) but, as you can see, they're still there! Jim

You'll find the track plan of Duns at top of this map . if you go to the home page of the NLS maps website, you can get 25"~ 1 mile (and other scale) maps of most of Scotland and England. Jim

But them as don't ask never get, so it's always worth a try! Jim

Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvs4bOMv5Xw Jim (almost up to his oxters in snow)