Andy W

When bricks were hand-loaded into open railway wagons they were anything but loose loaded - the objective was to wedge them in as tightly as possible so they couldn't move about in transit. If this wasn't done a load of broken and scuffed brick arrived at the destination station. So you would barely be able to distinguish individual bricks, and scribed lines would work very well to show what was carried. You'd really only need a few loose bricks if you are modelling a static scene with a partly loaded or unloaded wagon. At the end of the railborne brick traffic palletised loads appeared - hence the Palbrick wagons. Here the palletised bricks are still very much around and you can see them in any builders merchant's yard. In the rail traffic years they wouldn't have had the shrinkwrapping, and the straps holding the packs together were steel rather than today's black plastic.Note that there usually isn't an actual wooden pallet, the pack of bricks is designed to have holes for fort lift tines built in. You couldn't see these when loaded on a railway wagon as they were below the top of the wagon sides, just as they are on road vehicles today.

Well, up to a point. The 94XX class had a heavy axle loading, the GW gave it the Red route restriction code, which was the same as Castles, Counties, Halls and Granges. It simply couldn't go to a lot of places the 82xxx tanks went. And - inside valve gear, no hopper ashpan, no self-cleaning smokebox. The GW/WR employed shed staff on firecleaning duties, everywhere else in the UK loco crews did it, at loco crew rates of pay. If only such a large part of the building contracts for 94XX hadn't been placed with private loco building companies, I'm sure the orders would have been cancelled and something more useful - maybe even diesel shunters, maybe some development of the 15XX, produced instead. Then the cabs - a lot of 3MT locos both tank and tender worked in the North East of England, where they replaced pre-grouping locos built by the NER - the railway that almost invented large and comfortable cabs and built locos with them by the hundred at a time when the GW was producing designs that were cramped and barely kept the rain off the crew.

All depends which Ivatt 2MT of course. The 2-6-2T is exactly as you say and will appear, eventually, with a new chassis in 2016, the 2-6-0 is much newer and never was split chassis. Then there's more than one type of Patriot too. The Rebuilt Patriot used the same split chassis as the early Jubilees, and hasn't reappeared retooled yet. The Unrebuilt Patriot was a completely new model and never formed part of the range in the split chassis era.

The only reason the Gala Day lunchtime dining train was top and tailed with the class 31 and N2 was line occupation on the single track Rothley-Leicester North section (saving the run-round time at LN). There are two types of Santa train - Santa Specials are top and tailed with a diesel at the south end and steam at the other, while Santa Deluxe services are steam-only with a runround at Leicester North. For the next three weekends there will be 4 Specials and 4 Deluxes each Saturday and Sunday, plus the lunchtime diner both days and a Saturday evening diner, so 3 steam locos and 1 diesel in use. Midweek for the next two Wednesdays there are 3 Specials, and an evening diner, and in Christmas week itself lots of Specials and Deluxes right up to 4pm on Christmas Eve.

The Great Central has two 127 power cars that normally run coupled back to back. On special occasions, such as Bonfire Night shuttles, they are mixed and matched with 101 vehicles to make a five car rake. It's normal then to either couple a 101 vehicle on each outer end to avoid the non-changing gears problem or provide two drivers so the 101 and 127 units then effectively don't multiple at all but the driver in the leading cab does the braking. Of course the maximum speed of 25 mph does reduce the potential gearbox damage.

But unless printed catalogues are only produced after the final livery samples have been approved, or the actual production run of models have arrived in the warehouse, they are always going to be useless to everyone as sources of information on this basis, since the images can only possibly be of the prototype, or pre-production samples, or computer generated. If you read Simon Kohler's blog, you'll see that even when the models were manufactured in the same building that he worked in, he had problems getting accurate samples to photograph on occasions in time to produce the annual catalogue.

And there wouldn't be a communication problem since DJM Dave actually knows how to tell prospective customers what he's making and where to buy it from.

No connection with the David Jones of DJM Models as far as I know, though.

I actually found an unbuilt example of this kit in a box in my garage recently that had been untouched since I moved house. The instructions are probably in another box somewhere nearby, as is the Airfix donor coach. Like Chris I can't remember what it sold for, I certainly bought the kit new. I've been waiting for my skill level to be sufficient to make a good job of it, but so far it hasn't happened, so my desire to have a model of "Wren" which I once travelled in from Stourbridge Junction to Kidderminster behind a 64XX pannier will give Bachmann a sale. I think I will need to alter the seating to produce an accurate model, apart from sourcing the name transfer.

"Not invented here" I expect. Hardly uncommon amongst steam locomen right across the UK, And lets face it the cabs of pannier tanks are hardly masterpieces of ergonomic design so the crews will have started off disgruntled

As we're already half way through February, and Chinese New Year is on the 19th, I think we can assume that they have been produced, as otherwise by the time the workers return after the New Year holiday, and new starters are recruited to replace those who choose not to come back (always a problem in China) there wouldn't be enough time to make the parts, assemble them, and get them to the UK. Possibly the two models that are totally new production, as opposed to just needing new bodies for the chassis that were returned to China will need completing as they show as arriving up to a month later. We could assume that the bodies were all moulded at the same time though as this would keep costs down.

R6678/A and R6679/A, LMS design horsebox, both TAL05

One fairly obvious solution was to have two vehicles in the train equipped with pickup and drop off gear,, with the gear on opposite sides so one vehicle would always be available for use. The vehicle not being used for drops/collections in a particular direction could still be used for sorting and bag stowage so not dead weight. Of course not many trains required multiple sorting carriages so triangles would be needed for those that really could only justify one coach. In the pre-Mark 1 era postal vehicles had offset gangways so turntables wouldn't be a viable option, it would take too long to turn several vehicles so the gangways would still line up. I do wonder what they did with odd vehicles detached and attached en route.

LNER hoppers - 2015 range new tooling - TAL05

Yes, Preston Corporation on the station entrance side of the bridge, and Ribble on the other side of the road heading into town.

When propelled, these coaches were used for track (and sometimes signalling) inspections and necessarily these were done at slow speed so that the engineering staff in the saloon could actually look at what they were inspecting. Special signalling arrangements, or an engineering possession, would be in force as the saloon might need to stop in section if something problematic was spotted. When being pulled by the loco to or from the section of line to be inspected, normal speeds were achieved. The saloons were also used as mobile meeting rooms from time to time so finding one, with loco attached, in a siding for a few hours wasn't unknown if a major civil engineering project was being planned.

I too would be surprised if Hornby didn't retain ownership of the moulds all along. However if you look back in this forum you'll see discussion of a financial settlement in January this year between Hornby and Kader in which Hornby paid Kader in excess of £600,000 in exchange for the release of moulds, components and stock of completed models. Prior to that settlement, Kader were obviously refusing to hand the moulds over until they were paid what was owing to them. http://online.hemscottir.com/ir/hrn/ir.jsp?page=news-item&item=1680758141878272 is the official statement by Hornby. At least some of the moulds would have been required by Kader to complete the production referred to in the document, and couldn't have been transferred elsewhere until then. There has also been a lot of technical discussion here with informed comments from people involved in the plastic moulding industry, and it appears that it is not a simple matter to transfer production from one factory to another unless they are both using similar moulding machines. In many cases adapters can be made and fitted so the mould can be reused on a different model of machine, but this is itself expensive and takes time. In a hard core of cases even this won't work and a new mould is the only option. There is also the likelihood that it would actually be more cost effective to replace a mould now that was nearing the end of its useful life, than to invest in an adaptor and still have to replace the mould in a year or so.

It is known that Hornby, as part of the drive to transfer production away from Kader-controlled factories, had new tooling made for quite a few items, either because Kader wouldn't release the original tooling until a final settlement was reached (which happened in summer 2014), or was actually still using it to fulfill delayed orders from previous years, or because it was cheaper or quicker than modifying the existing tooling to work with different moulding machines. Given the lead time new tooling may have been essential to have any product at all to sell. Not surprising really that errors were made, but they should have been corrected before the product went on sale.

That's easy, run an enthusiasts' Brake Van Tour. I also have a vague memory of seeing photos of trains of several brakevans, with a caption explaining they were being moved from one yard to another to deal with seasonal traffic flows. I'd amend rule 2 though - It is not possible to have too much NPCCS and the more different designs the better.

In fact the municipally-owned seaside open top buses weren't that common. Southport, Morecambe, Bournemouth (open top trolleybus even),and Southend are the ones I can think of. Blackpool did it with trams, of course.But the resorts with open toppers from the local Tilling or BET company operator included Torquay, Paignton, Brighton, Weston Super Mare, Llandudno, Rhyl, Colwyn Bay,(these three replacing the coastal tramway), Hastings (a weird trolleybus converted to diesel power), Bognor, Worthing, Littlehampton, Ilfracombe, Scarborough and various spots in Cornwall where there have never been any municipal operators. You might have expected municipalities like Great Yarmouth or Grimsby & Cleethorpes to join in the fun, not to mention Brighton Corporation but they didn't. This does make it slightly easier for the modeller as models of some have been made by the various diecasters as offshoots from the roofed designs they were based on.

Certainly, it's the shortest route, and Saltley men signed the road the whole way to Tyseley making deliveries easy to roster without remanning. Derby-Loughborough-Leicester-Nuneaton-Saltley was and still is the recognised alternate for trains needing to get onto the Bordesley route. Knowing Saltley I suspect that some of their crews signed the road between Derby and Leicester, they seemed to get just about everywhere else on the Midland and beyond, and obviously routinely worked into Leicester from New Street or Washwood Heath. Anyway, since I can't model WR lines in the West Midlands in the green diesel period without a 116, I'll be after some with speed whiskers myself.

More than that, some 116s were built with all-second trailers, and others with composite trailers. Someone who has access to drawings could perhaps tell us if there was any difference in window spacing or just in the seating fitted. Then some trailers were fitted with gangways later in life, while others weren't. Quite a minefield.

As the 116s were built at Derby over a period of 4 years different delivery routes to the WR must have been used from time to time and the odds are that at least one of the units passed through Leicester Midland when new. Given the complicated route necessary to get from Derby Works onto the GC main line perhaps Leicester Central would be less likely though not impossible. Another issue Clive might find is that these models are to be through-wired so you wouldn't just need to cope with any differences in the bodies of 117 or 118 trailers compared to 115 or 127 ones, you'd also need to modify the electrics, assuming you wanted lighting (with or without DCC). A 116 trailer has no toilets so would be even worse as a starting point.

Can anyone who had the opportunity of discussing these models on the Kernow stand at Warley, or has info that's no longer embargoed, say exactly what the plan is? A 3 car 117 set in which liveries, with or without internal gangways between cars, future plans for 118s or 116s?

Well that would depend mainly on which railway/region was in charge of the civil engineering function on the S&D at the time you're modelling it. In the 1930s the LMS and SR dissolved the previously separate S&DJ organisation and each took over some of the departmental responsibilities for the whole line. The LMS ran the loco department, for instance. I suspect civil engineering went from Southern Railway control throughout to Southern Region and finally WR in the north and SR in the south. This explains the Hawksworth inspection saloon. Of course it is the Civil Engineer's staff who used the inspection saloons most, to examine the condition of track and structures, but other departments such as S&T used them too. Maybe on your version of the S&D an LMS-design one is being used by Beeching's hatchetmen to decide which lines and stations should be on the hit list, or by someone from 222 Marylebone Road to decide where to draw the SR/WR regional boundary. Even, maybe, an LMS design but BR built one could have been allocated to the SR, but then I assume they'd have painted it green.