Clive martin

I use railmatch rattle can rail blue ,i think this is a very good match for rail blue with a slight greenish tint it is not flat matt and has a nice silk like sheen,i have tried useing humbrol railway colours rail blue but this is a very dark shade,i use the humbrol rail blue as an undercoat before spraying with railmatch!

Talking about rural hinterland i purchased my siku tractors from the Halesworth toy shop in suffolk a delightful little market town just a short walk from Halesworth station on the east suffolk line!

I watched hornbys own 2023 product announcments on you tube ,it was interesting to note they are aware that people detail railroad models ,i think they have missed a trick not producing any railroad 31s or 47s in basic rail blue,i also think railroad plus defeats the object of a budget range,as an example body shape issues aside i would much rather purchase a pre owned Bachmann class 25 a much higher spec model for a lot less !

These siku models are well worth checking out they are 1.87 scale their seems to be 2 levels of detailing a lot of the tractors have glazeing i have some john deere examples and they are superb,some of the cheaper examples dont have glazeing ,for british layouts they did or might still produce a JCB fast trac !i hope this information is of some use!

Me and my wife have been watching the latest series of the crown guilty pleasure! Their has been quite a few bits of royal train footage filmed on the west highland line depicting the late 1960s early 1970s often filmed from a drone useing a rail blue class 37 and maroon coaching stock as a representation of the royal train,in one scene a brief head on shot of the class 37 it looked like the producers had computor generated headcode discs and doors on the 37 to make it look like a class 40,quite a good bit of reasearch on the part of the tv production team as 40s did often haul the royal train in the late 60s early 70s!

Am i correct in thinking that these c class locomotives donated their engines for fitment into some of the 121 class GMs to make them higher horsepower,i guess the c class units that went to vic berrys could have been empty shells,i always thought it was a shame the national railway museum could not have paid the scrap value for one of those c class at berrys ,as an example of a British built export diesel something to this day they have not done!

Just to get the ball rolling again Re older layouts Carradon Junction model railway constructor june 1987 is a nice example.this layout had a very nice fleet of detailed locos the star for me being a Hornby class 37 that would still look good beside some of todays super detailed rtr models!

I too remember some great layouts from the early to mid 80s that had some fantastic detailed lima Hornby and mainline diesels, i will have a look through my classic layout files for some of these layouts ,looking back at some of these older layouts has inspired me to start detailing locos again i am working on a fleet of eastanglian rail blue diesels useing the Hornby railroad 31and older Bachmann 37 0s as the base models for this fleet and enjoying every minute of the work i am doing on these models!

As a stand alone depot Hanging Hill was perfection ,correct operation and all those scratch built locos,i think depots work best as part of a larger layout the depot on Hornsey Broadway is a good example ,their seems to be to many post privatisation depot layouts about as their are not lots of depots on the network like the good old days of BR also these layouts with a few exceptions seem to have locos from multiple companys on shed although it could be said that Leicester LIP blows my observation out of the water!

And now for the mammoth task of ballast!

Hi Andi i did notice your splendid 309s,i really think those were the golden years at Ipswich we still had

Sorry to ask you more questions is the layout going to be a roundy roundy and do you intend to do loco change overs in the station ,i guess as its your layout you dont have to and you could run the class 86 and intercity sets through i seem to remember an evening servie to stowmarket formed of class 309 units that came back to Ipswich ecs and stabled in the yard this was before through electric services to Norwich , your photos of the station trackwok with all those locos on the stabling point looks fantastic it already looks like Ipswich!

This is going to be awsome,are you going to include the ramp down the lower yard ?

Jackass a real guilty pleasure the first time i watched this this show it made me cry with laughter grown men launching themselves of a pier on kiddys ride on toys!

That 101 is fantastic i could just imagine it swaying and rolling through the point work under clouds of exhaust smoke ,you are a very brave man fadeing a brand new class 20 but the result is superb ,in the last years of the 20s on BR the depots seemed to clean them a bit more often once the dirt was washed of the engine compartment doors these often looked very faded but the cab sides and frames could still be quite bright rail blue something i would like to have a go at myself,

Hallo Kelly you have put forward a very good point about RailExpress modellers very honest reviews although you could say that this magazine has bit of a niche place in the market place being a prototype based magazine for people with an interest in diesel and electric traction, if my memory is correct rail express did ring some alarm bells with the body shape of the pre production sample of bachmanns first class 37/4 models,i think DEMU can be very candid with their reviews as i guess they dont have to worry about advertisng revenue like the mainstream magazines do,this week You tube has been fantastic with all the footage from the national exhibition at the nec,most weekends i look forward to seeing content from the shows the recent Spalding show footage has been fantastic.

I also made it into sams trains latest video ,i just hope his girlfreind read my reply to my first post about being annoyed about trains running on carpet,i did feal a bit guilty ,i think sam haveing his girl freind on his channel works a treat ,the in your face bit made me laugh it was like a spoof death metal video ,a type of music i am a big fan of ,i do enjoy sams very honest reviews of products something the model railway press has never done ,a subject that sam talked about in his video,whilst on the subject of you tube i am also a fan of Walls rail i find a lot of his projects very inspirational ,

Hi Robb another great layout report i have always enjoyed all your layout updates i used to love reading about Pallet Lane , that was quite sometime ago now. how time flys ,will you have a space for your wonderfull Leyland national on the layout!

Great work so far ,even if you have to spend a couple of quid on this coach you still have got yourself a bargain ,it will look great with the flush glazeing you are makeing,i look forward to seeing the finished coach.

I have just been reading about the problems people have been haveing with the couplings on these wagons ,i run a set of 5 that i have removed heljans couplers and fitted my own hook and loop couplers made from paper clips ,i got the idea from Everard junctions big wagon project when he used this system on a rake of Hornby mgr hoppers ,my cargo wagons are now very reliable they no longer uncouple or derail when being pushed through point work ,this method of coupling works very well for me as i run all my trains as fixed fotmation sets,i also have rakes of old Hornby vda and oaa wagons that i have coverted to hook and loop couplings that are now very reliable ,these once ran so bad i had put them in a box later and had given up on them! I hope this is some help if you are haveing problems with your cargo wagons.

Fantastic layout it really captures the character of the railways of the fens ,your locos and stock are spot on,i look forward to some updates when you use your mid 80s stock railfreight grey 31s blue cravens blue and grey 101s and the then 150 sprinter units will look well at home on your splendid layout,brings back some great memorys of the times i spent as a young man from 1984 to 1986 rideing behind class 31s on the Norwich Birminghams, i love the railways of the fens even today despite the fact that the loco hauled passenger trains have gone i still describe the trains and railways of this region as fenland magic!