NCB

Update: the new 3mm Society website is coming along nicely, now comprehensive, covering nearly all things 3mm. A few of the more involved areas such as the illustrated catalogue are still developing. For anyone interested in 3mm scale, in any gauge, it's worth looking to see what's there. See above for the link. Nigel

Seems like there's plenty of material for a GWR tenders book Nigel

As I said. Probably using too much imagination as to what the station would look like if I actually saw it. But the trackwork at the station throat looked superb. Wonder if there are other pics around. Had a look for the one I remembered but it seems to have gone. Might have been RM rather than MRN.

At last I know what Dudley Dimmock's layout looks like! At the time I saw a pic in MRN of it being built and thought it looked pretty impressive; the pic was of the right hand end and included a Jinty on a goods train climbing the gradient towards the station, but there was nothing of the station itself. The track was all hand built, and in the raw; as I said, impressive. Must have been one of the first TT3 layout pics ever. Having now seen the above pic of the station, must confess I'm a little disappointed. Rather expected something with more presence.

Theo Pearson's North Midland was mentioned in another thread fairly recently. Remarkable stuff. The water in the harbour was real. And it all started pre-war. That 1957 RM magazine was the first one I had, remember it well. Also remember the RM with the Bristol Castle announcement in it. It was another year before I managed to get my hands on one, as a combined Birthday and Christmas present. A few years later I converted it to 2-rail myself; in retrospect not sure I'm too happy about that! By 1957 I'd taken over the 3-rail HD stuff my brother had, and still have it, plus stuff I added to it. Keep meaning to give it a run out. Probably hasn't been used for 50 years. There were a few things I wanted but money was a bit tight, like the 2-6-4T. Keep on being tempted to try an Ebay purchase!

Hornby had good products but had no idea of marketing. They were churning out way more bodies than they could sell, and one partial solution was to turn out a model with different numbers, or even different liveries; after all, they had the basic castings already. Hornby had a fixation on sticking to the latest prototype livery whereas there was a lot of interest in the modelling community for the older liveries. Sydney Pritchard approached Hornby with an idea for turning out Duchesses with near-scale wheels for modellers and they turned him down. Hornby's prices looked too expensive, but they didn't know what to do about it. I think Triang seriously thought about incorporating the Hornby stuff with their own, but the figures didn't add up. Wrenn showed what could be done with a much leaner operation.

This month's (Feb 2018) has a review / build article on the 3mm Society's new Parkside GWR N13 horsebox kit. Worth a read; includes some informative pics of the build. Pics of the initial Society test build can be seen part way down this page: https://sites.google.com/site/3mmpublic/a-3 The Society has many Parkside kits available. With Parkside having passed to Peco, this kit might be the last, if so a fitting end to an excellent series.

This month's (Feb 2018) Railway Modeller has a review / build article on the 3mm Society's new Parkside GWR N13 horsebox kit. Worth a read; includes some informative pics of the build. The Society has many Parkside kits available. With Parkside having passed to Peco, this is likely to be the last, a fitting end to an excellent series.

Mike, we (Geograph members) wondered about that. However, think we've solved it. It appears to be a viewing platform built by Lothian Regional Council about 1990, to provide a view over the Bawsinch Bird Sanctuary. Cheers Nigel

Not quite sure where the Sharp Stewart drawing came from, would be either NRM or HMRS. The HMRS web site has changed slightly and it seems a bit less obvious as to the origins of a drawing, as opposed to the prototype, but it's likely to be the Cambrian 2-4-0 listed. I'll bear Sparkshot in mind. Current intention is to do etches, certainly the chassis will be etched, but I'll see how it goes.

An Albion in 3mm/ft is on my to-do list. Re cylinders, I'd planned to make these part of the chassis. I've a copy of an original Sharp Stewart drawing of the Albion type; for what passes as draw-gear it shows the rear of the hook being simply a bolt passed through the buffer beam and secured with a nut and washer on the rear.

The cutout is a clear rectangle as you thought. As far as I can tell, the front of the rectangle is formed by the wooden buffer beam. The vac pipe runs behind the valence on the right hand side (looking forwards) of the engine. So, looking at the locomotive from the front, the vac pipe is to the left of the coupling. When it drops below the buffer beam it turns horizontally to the left. Then when near the end it turns horizontally under the buffer, then up behind the buffer beam, finally to turn horizontally to the rear to run behind the valance. That's say around 1910 after rebuilding. How it was in earlier condition I don't know. Nigel

On the subject of the Innocent Railway, has anybody any ideas what this structure is: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2276825 It is on the route of the railway, which is now a cycle path. There has been some discussion on Geograph on whether it is a railway structure, or maybe something which appeared after the railway was closed. Whatever, nobody knows what it is for. Nigel

Could be a mistake. Or rather, a corridor comp brake has replaced a non-gangwayed vehicle, the documents updated accordingly, but someone has forgotten to revise the number of seats, or perhaps they didn't have the information. .

Brings back memories; summer of 1961 I caught the Killin Junction to Killin train. Not sure about this, but had the feeling that the ex-Caledonian 0-4-4T engine was still in charge, and maybe 2 coaches rather than 1. The sensation as it left the junction platform and promptly plunged down hill was very memorable!

Looks as though the lower side of the V has a bit of a lump projecting into the flangeway. May not matter. The acid test is to take a wagon which has the wheelset set to correct gauge, shove it through the point while keeping it biased towards the V and see if it bumps the V. If it doesn't you're OK. Alternatively if you have the right sort of gauge check that the distance from the check rail (outside face) to the face of the V is within tolerances. Looking at the pic it seems both rails in the V reach the point of the V. It's more normal to have just one rail at the point, and lay the other rail along side that but further back.

Can remember in the early 60s went from Paddington to Stroud in a parcels train, just like an ordinary train except maybe more capacity for parcels (not sure what). The noticeable difference was the piles of parcels being loaded and unloaded at each stop, so of course the stops were longer. This was late at night, so it was quite atmospheric looking out of the window at dimly lit platforms with a fair amount of activity going on. Worsley Works does a toplight K22 full brake in 4mm, probably a good candidate for a parcels train. Etchings only, I believe, but it's an ex 5522 Models kit so is a bit more complete than Allen's usual scratch-aids. I built the 3mm version. He also does K1, K4 and K15 Dean brakes in 4mm. He does K14/15/16 in 3mm, as built or as later with some steel panels and guards' lookout removed, and would probably do them in 4mm if asked.

Modelling mainly 3mm/ft I have no incentive to buy things directly for the layout. But the stuff available commercially in 00 and N these days is so good I sometimes buy things for the hell of it. Usually but not always GWR. There is an indirect benefit; if I'm thinking of building a particular prototype then having a good model in another scale can be a help!

Very sad, only just came across this. His railway interests extended to having a 3mm/ft model railway of his own, quite large with some great scenery (as one might expect).

Just had another look at the Cambrian 1904 timetable. The working timetable looks fine. The passenger timetable looks complicated! Would help if they used a 24-hour clock but nobody thought of it then. Just come across the through carriages bit at the front. It'll be interesting working out what actually went into each train. Nigel

There's a wide range of finescale wheels. The price list can be downloaded from this page: https://sites.google.com/site/3mmpublic/products/price-list Go to pages 19/20 and look for finescale wheels under the heading Stapleton. They all come with the appropriate axles; for driving wheels you'll need to specify 13.5mm or 14.2mm when ordering. For track supplies and gauges, look under pages 22 onwards; the gauges are listed on page 24. By the way, there was a slight error in formatting the price-list (a few blank pages inserted near the end), but this seems to have been corrected today. 13.5mm or 14.2mm? Of the two, most people use 14.2mm. 13.5mm has advantages in tight situations such as when crossheads of outside cylinders pass in front of the coupling rods, or prototypes where the distance between the inner faces of splashers are tight, but otherwise 14.2mm is fine. When you say the Society web page seems very out of date, which page were you referring to? The current Society website is a new one and most of the stuff in it is new, although it's currently work in progress so things are still being added. The address is: https://sites.google.com/site/3mmpublic/3mm-society Diesels aren't my thing, but I do have a Taurus chassis (very nice). From memory for things like class 25s I think you just need to chop bits off the end. However, I gather any such mods are not easy due to the metal used. The chassis is 12mm gauge only. There are other possible solutions, such as motor bogies from Hollywood Foundry. By the nature of things, some products appear or disappear. I think the current price-list is up-to-date as regards what is available from the Society. The two main vendors are Worsley Works and 3SMR; with either you need to check what the stocks are before ordering. Wasn't aware of any bickering in this sub-section :-) Cheers Nigel

I can remember house price inflation of the 1970s. In 1971 I ended up in my first permanent job and financially on the verge of being able to buy a house. I delayed a year while I thought about things. In the meantime, the Heath government's "go for growth policy" caused house prices to rocket way out of sight. It took 10 years of financial turmoil in the country before the downturn under Thatcher's "strong pound" policy enabled me to get on the housing ladder. My father sold our house in North Wales in 1957 for about twice what he paid for it in 1940. Much more reasonable.

Didn't know 3SMR did chairs, so can't tell you what TOC1 is or what rail it needs. For the Society chairs you need to be a member of the Society. The cheapest bundle, TPP1, is £6.65 for 20 sprues, each containing 10 standard chairs, one slide chair and one check rail chair. They need to be used with Code 60 bullhead rail. Would the prototype for HOm or HOe have used bullhead rail and chairs, or would they have used flat bottom rail? Cheers Nigel

Nantyronen snoozes. This part of the Vale of Rheidol is closed for the season.

Try: http://inflation.stephenmorley.org/ Gives £3.50 in 1895 as £420 today. https://www.moneysorter.co.uk/calculator_inflation2.html#calculator yields £321.76 Inflation over the years has been a lot more variable than is sometimes realised.