Andy W

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.

Very long wheelbase four-wheelers and lines that have very tight radius curves and additionally weave in between the supports of the Overhead Railway and the road traffic of a big city just don't work together well.

Surely all they are doing is taking advantage of a perfect occasion to announce the new model - they'll get more publicity by launching it at the Collector's Club annual meeting, with the real thing on view, than they would have had at the catalogue launch. And as there's no intention of it being ready during the lifetime of the 2014 catalogue, why include it? In fact it's Andy Y in the very first post, quoting Bachmann's Dennis Lovett, who told us it's due in 18 month's time.

Whoops, quite right. Must have tender locos on the brain. My apologies to all. OK, Fowler 2-6-4T. I've got an R2637 example. The detail is not up to L1 standards, but then not much is. Moulded cab handrails, for example. Still looks a good model to me. The tooling is quite old now, first appeared in the 1980s I think but good for the period, the chassis design has been updated somewhat because the original motor is no longer in production. I believe there have been some updates to the body as well such as separately fitted smokebox door handle, but no longer have my original one to compare.

It's the Airfix body from the 1970s on a new modern chassis, so no longer tender drive. The body was a market leader in its day, and is still better than some older models in the Hornby range. Unfortunately the new chassis also introduced what posters here have described as a lump under the boiler, next to the firebox. Strangely Bachmann's Midland 4F which is meant to represent a slightly earlier built version of what is basically the same loco (leaving aside detail such as LH and RH drive) doesn't have the lump (though posters have found other things to criticise it for) so it is clearly possible to design a chassis that doesn't necessitate it.

And then in 1964/65 when Douglas Gasworks closed a lot of the waste was used to reballast the Port Erin line. It was blue in colour, and no weeds grew anywhere near it. I often wonder what side effects it may have had on the P-way staff.

It's generally reckoned that the 1963 winter killed off most, but not all, of the remaining traffic on the narrow canals, including the BCN. This was because they were blocked by ice for about 3 months. I can remember the odd horse-drawn narrow boat working on the BCN as late as 1962 (there were contracts for moving household rubbish which wasn't exactly time sensitive), so "hoss" might need a decent set of shoes if BCB gets dated that far backwards. On the Spamcan front, I'm sure somewhere in a thread we have a mention of the FA Cup semi-final played at Villa Park in 1963 which produced 12 Spam-hauled specials from Southampton and surrounding area, into Snow Hill. From memory 9 ran up the logical route (Reading-Oxford-Banbury) but 3 went up the OWW via Worcester and Stourbridge and gained 8F pliots at Stourbridge because of Old Hill bank. Not quite the right bit of the Black Country, but Black Country nonetheless. Of course you'd need green stock. http://www.sixbellsjunction.co.uk/60s/630427br.html Admittedly some were rebuilt Spams.....

For the first question, the 4 coach sets would have had non-gangwayed brake third or brake composite coaches at the outer ends and non-gangwayed full thirds or composites as the two in the middle of the set. The actual BC (not BCK which was the BR code for gangwayed brake composites) would not have been the same as the one modelled by Airfix and Hornby, but this isn't an accurate model anyway. The Collett 1938 gangwayed stock wasn't normally used with non-gangwayed stock on suburban workings, but at the end they did form part of gangwayed sets to entirely replace the non-gangwayed stock on some Birmingham area workings, the ones that had/t already gone over to DMUs. The 4 coach autotrains were usually 4 separate autotrailers coupled 2 each side of the loco.

One of the Euston-Northampton "Cobbler" Mark 1 sets had the table tops in the TSOs re-covered with game board designs (chess board, snakes & ladders etc) specially so it would be useful for excursions at weekends. In the early years of the 321s it was not unknown for them to venture north of Birmingham. I once saw a 12 car formation of them at Preston on a summer weekend relief to Euston, complete with destination labels. I wonder which depots had traincrew who signed 321s and the WCML as far north as Preston in NSE days?

Since Hornby used the L1 mouldings to produce an LMS 2P back in the day, would it be appropriate to use a recent production loco drive 2P chassis to revive your L1? It is at least already inside cylinder so less lopping required.

I don't think anyone ever stated clearly which solution Bachmann were going to adopt: Get replacement parts made and fitted to the existing bodies in China The same but fit the parts in the UK Get complete new bodies made to be fitted onto the existing chassis in China The same but fit the bodies in the UK I imagine the "new bodies" option would be the preferred one since from what I understand there would be a high risk of damaging the paint finish in attaching replacement parts. Don't forget the original Hall models due to be released this year turned up having been made with some bits of the Modified Hall tooling and this can't be resolved other than with new bodies. So Kader need to find a slot to make runs of new bodies for both original and Modified Halls plus shipping time.

If you read halfway down the page the link takes you to, all will become clear, John.

Well, while roundhouses were common enough in British practice, they are usually disguised by being a rectangular building with the whole structure including the turntable roofed over. Off hand I can only think of Guildford, (along with Portadown and Clones in Ireland) that had the stabling radiating from the turntable enclosed but the turntable itself in the open air, apart from St Blazey. So I can see why this model is perfect in Kernow's specially commissioned Cornish series, rather than a mainstream release. The water crane though ought to be applicable right across the LSWR territory from Waterloo to Wadebridge unless someone knows differently.

Do Canadian railroads have the same common carrier provision as US ones? In any case the situation for cross border railroads, such as MMA must be a little less clear cut. You could imagine Canada prohibiting railroads from moving crude oil in the type of tank car that was involved at Lac-Megantic if the car design is eventually shown to have contributed to the disaster as some allege. It would be difficult politically not to. At this point, since the refinery the cars were consigned to is in New Brunswick, a US railroad would surely have grounds for refusing the traffic as it is undeliverable?

The Stationmaster's comment is definitive, if an adapter wasn't available the gangway doors were supposed to be locked to prevent passengers trying to cross between the coaches. I believe that some Stanier coaches ran in BR days with adapters permanently fitted, especially those allocated to Scotland where the ScR had inherited a mixture of LMS and LNER design vehicles.

Presumably one of the two Saturdays is a typo and Sunday is meant, but which one is the error?

But they wouldn't need a total retool would they - the body and some underframe details yes, but the class 42 chassis was upgraded to modern standards and would surely be reusable in a 43?

Based on the rather limited info from a single photo, can any Modified Hall experts tell us what if any improvements apart from a conventional chassis and DCC socket have been made on the previous version? I don't think Bachmann ever said there would be other improvements, just interested to see what has been done. Pat Hammond's writeup isn't really a review of the new model, more a history of the prototype and previous model versions, as is his normal style.

Neville Hill looks after the HST fleet - the far more numerous Meridians are maintained and serviced at Derby Etches Park, to the extent that an HST arriving at Sheffield from the South wiith no return working normally continues in traffic to Leeds and then runs onto Neville Hill, whereas Meridians usually run ECS (occasionally in service) back to Derby. It would be surprising if the side of the triangle that allows Nottingham-Derby services wasn't electrified at the same time as the rest of the route as the mainline sets ending their service day at Nottingham use it to run ECS to Derby Etches Park for servicing, and the reverse happens in the morning. Only the 153/156/158 fleet overnights at Nottingham and the depot there isn't big enough to handle mainline sets.

Thanks for that, 10800, and for the link. I'd also forgotten that the 16's had spoked wheels which makes it even less useful for this project. So unless Heljan decide that their collection of prototype diesels could be increased with just a body moulding to commission, it's Alexander or do without.

Does anyone have a view as to how backdateable the Class 16 is to produce its ancestor 10800? I've seen a photo of 10800 at Birmingham New Street in the early 1950s so I know it got into the part of the world I model. I also know Dave Alexander did/does a kit for 10800 but I'm not the greatest at producing good results from white metal!

I can remember arriving in the bay at Taunton on an Ilfracombe portion while going home to Birmingham from a family holiday, and also waiting for simply ages there while a Large Prairie was sent to rescue the failed D63xx on the Minehead portion. Could a vague memory I have of being banked past Bristol Stapleton Road by a Hymek be linked to this trip? A couple of decades later, there was a working I used a few times on a Sunday evening where a single Mark 2 TSO was removed from the back of the last Glasgow-Birmingham of the day at Crewe by a Class 08, and shunted (complete with passengers) onto the last Liverpool-Euston. This provided a later service from the North to several stations - I could certainly leave Preston about an hour-and-a-half later to get home to Milton Keynes Central by using it. Quite a jerky ride being propelled by the 08 as I remember.