NCB

Allan Docherty (Worsley Works) does steam railmotor no 93 in 3mm and 4mm (sides, ends, etc). He's currently working on the valve gear in 3mm. Could be worth asking him if he'll do it in 4mm. Nigel

That's the beast!!!! Thanks a lot. This has been bugging me for years. It's a tad later than I thought it would have been. Always thought it was an attractive layout. I remembered it as having a road bridge at the bottom of the layout and hadn't remembered the stream, so obviously I was wrong. Cheers Nigel

Hi David Had a break from modelling in the summer and apart from the trying out the transfers haven't really got around to doing much since, although I do have nearly finished baseboards in the railway room to complete the existing layout. The big thing on the M are the boiler fittings, mainly chimney and dome, and at the moment I'm looking into Blender and Turbocad to see if I can produce 3D prints. I have somebody who'll do them for me if I wish, but I think I want the challenge of getting the hang of 3D printing! I'm hoping to get things sorted over the next couple of months. Other than those, the M is close to being finished; I've been running it a few times and it certainly goes nicely. Cheers Nigel

Chris, Thinking about your route from London. If it's the LNWR to Shrewsbury, have you thought about LNWR continuing to Welshpool, thence Cambrian all the way to Traeth Mawr? Nigel

Today, Devil's Bridge in the snow. Station closed until scheduled trains resume in February.

Turns out I only have a couple of MRCs of the period, rather more MRNs. But no sign of the layout. Wonder if I have more somewhere; I used to have the RM which had Leo Pearson's North Midland in it but can't find it. Nigel

Interesting stuff, locomad. However, that wasn't the layout. It was a lot smaller. The short side at the back of the layout with the tunnel had a village (some houses, terraced I think) above the tunnel. A road ran from the village down the centre of the layout and eventually crossed the track at the front of the layout by a bridge; the road provided an effective scenic break between the two long sides of the layout, each of which had a rather different station. I think the track between the stations was double. The impression it gave to me was of a minor South Wales valley line. I'll recheck the (few) MRCs I have of that period. Nigel

Found MRN indexes for 1957 and nothing there. Found a few MRC indexes for 1957 and there is some TT stuff, at least one by Edward Beal,

Definitely not Pint Pot. Thanks for looking. If it's not RM then it must be MRN or MRC. The track itself was all on one level. Nigel

The TT Superquick station kit is a nice one. Don't think they did a version of this kit in OO. According to Wikepedia they also did a TT signal box and goods shed, but don't think I've ever seen these. Nigel

Just a note to say that I've added a topic to the Railways of Wales special interest group, describing some Cambrian Railways transfers in 3mm/ft scale for the 3mm Society. The link is: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/128791-cambrian-transfers-and-some-wagons-in-3mmft/

Here's a snap of some Cambrian wagons I've built in 3mm/ft: The brake van and 2-plank dropside wagon were scratch-built by me; the latter utilises a modified Slater's 9' wooden underframe. The coal wagon has a body from Coast Line Models, together with springs and buffers, and an etched underframe done by myself. The transfers come from a sheet which I drew up for the 3mm Society. Last year I was investigating possible ways of obtaining Cambrian transfers in 3mm, and found that the 3mm Society was investigating routes for getting low volume waterslide transfers done in 3mm at an economic price. Put the two together, and I ended up spending last winter happily drawing up the artwork for some Cambrian wagons, to use as a test of the favoured route. The result was a set of transfers, as much as I could cram onto an A6 sheet, covering 2 and 4 plank open wagons, the 15T coal wagon, inside-framed brake vans, covered vans and timber wagons. I'm fairly pleased with the results; given the small size I wondered if some of the artwork would be too fine, but it comes out OK. Nigel

Had a look through my somewhat depleted collection of RMs for that era; no sign of it. Think March 1956 RM, of which the cover has the banner "TT3 is here" might be a good bet, or the immediately following months. Ed: correction; should be 1957 not 1956

Interesting how small and simple layouts can linger in the memory for a long, long time. When TT3 first came out one of the magazines (RM?) built a rather nice compact scenic layout on a solid baseboard to show the possibilities. Interesting thing was that you viewed the baseboard end-on, i.e. a short side was nearest the viewer. This meant that you had good views of both long sides as well as the short side. The line at the far end was in a tunnel. Think it was partially double track and had two small but different stations. Probably only had a couple of Jinties to operate. I've yet to track down the magazine. Nigel

Never managed a journey on foot there, but in the early 60s when steam still reigned, and for a time after, I used the Stroud- Paddington trains a fair amount. There were various landmarks on this bit of the line which marked one's progress up and down the valley, and St Mary's Crossing was one of them, although it was always gone in a flash. Good pictures. That box cries out to be modelled! Hard to believe there were a couple of platforms tucked in there.

Here's a pic of one of the chair sprues: Here's a point being constructed, with plastruct 1mm thick strip used for the point timbers: Here's the bit of track, with plastic plain track bases used for the plain track, under test:

Mark The price list can be downloaded from: https://sites.google.com/site/3mmpublic/products/price-list Track is on page 22. The chair sprues each contain 10 standard chairs, plus one slide chair and one check-rail chair. These are for code 60 bullhead rail. Nigel

Nasty! Hope you're recovering OK. Ears are capable of producing copious amounts of blood. Came to a conclusion a long time ago that anything hidden is almost certainly destined to cause trouble! Cheers Nigel

Fascinating building. Cries out to be modelled! Couple of thoughts. The station house doesn't seem to have anything resembling a bathroom; did the scullery do duty as that? Also, no sign of a station master's office; would the ticket office or porters' room provide that function? Fourth pic down; think the chimney on the right can't serve the refreshment room, but maybe the kitchen? Cheers Nigel

There is acrylic and acrylic. Some acrylics don't work under enamels because the acrylic never really dries out, so doesn't form a suitable base for the enamel. Some acrylics are OK on top of enamel. Virtually all my 3mm scale GWR locomotives are sprayed with Railmatch GWR loco green. Later the black is picked out using Polly Scale Steam Locomotive Black, which gives just the right sort of finish. There's probably a few days in between applying the colours. Never yet had a problem.

Remember once visiting the Liliput UK shop on Bala industrial estate. I was looking to see if some Kibri buildings fitted my purposes. Fascinating place. Had its own exhibition layout which he ran for me; think there was a £1 entrance fee. Now alas no more.

The next stage of Lydney was described in "Like Lydney", RM November 1971. There was a further extended version, Lydney continued, of which I have the track plan but not sure of the issue; I know something about Lydney appeared in the January 1972 RM and think that's it. An empire indeed! The first model railway empire I came across was Theo Pearson's North Midland, inspired stuff, possible the first such layout in OO. RM October 1957.

What happened to GWR trains once they reached Dolgelley? Presumably the engine came off, but did the coaches also stop or did they carry on to Barmouth, or even points north?

I have the old Airfix model, a good one for when it was produced but these days expections are a lot higher. I'd go for the A27; covers most of the grouping era onwards, and different enough from later versions. Nigel

It's possible. Was it somewhere around then that the BoT decreed that brakes needed to be operable from both sides of the wagon, with the handle at the right hand end of each side? Maybe the Cambrian was looking to see how the GWR did it, although as I said the drawings don't show brakes. Alternatively, if a number of outside contractors were starting to build the O11 maybe the Cambrian thought of getting them to build them a few! Nigel