neilkirby

Lovely work so far, can I suggest a dirty miner walking one way & a clean miner hurrying in the other direction, as late for his shift regards, Neil

Hmm, interesting subject. Presuming the internet didn't exist. If you could have just one 'Licenced dealer' per area/town, and you would have to pay premium/RRP as there are no other alternatives. this sounds like 'Protectionism'. But go the other way into a free for all which could result with a number of shops with expensive stock sitting on their shelfs and not selling enough to stay in business because the shop down the road sells the samething. You end up with neither. but as Robert says, the real killer is the Internet. Regards, Neil Ps another school maths story. I was probably a member of the last of the generation that learnt logarithms. One one of my class mates challenged the teacher with, 'why bother when there are calulators' the teacher replied 'Ah but what happens if you don't have a calculator with you?' the pupil rightly replied 'the same as if you don't have a log book with you!' there was no further answer from the teacher.

I read a few years back now about a farmer who rather than spend 50p on a 13a plug, made his own out of bare wires wrapped around 3 nails and put through an offcut of wood! Neil

Hi Chris, I know you posted this last year, but I have just found it, A work colleague of mine who's family come from Staines showed me a photo a while back of some of his family by a 63xx Mogul, which he told me was taken in Staines. From memory you could not see enough background to know where it was taken. and I think I looked up the locomotive allocation and found at times it was a Reading engine, so may have been at Staines Central? Regards, Neil

Off topic warning! Don't mention AVREs! About 6 years ago I built a lovely AFV club kit of MkIV AVRE in 1/35th, I have the same make Bobbin still in the the box. But what really sends shivers down my spine is the 70's memory of my attempted a conversion of a Tamiya MkVII to a MKIV AVRE bridgelayer, by following an article in Military Modelling magazine. The actual conversion did not go too bad for a 15 year old. I also attempted to build the SBG bridge, which ended up in a warped and tangled mess of plasticard! I still have the bridgeless conversion up in the loft somewhere. The bridge eventually went in the bin, but still gives me nightmares! Regards, Neil

Hi, Seeing this thread reminded me of a question with these that I could not find an answer for 30 odd years ago. So without wishing to hijack the thread (too much!) You see a lot of photos of GW autotrailers with a white stripe across the cab front windows. Does anyone know what purpose is of these? I built Roxey Clifton down set when they first came out and added the stripe, but wanted to know why. I have asked a guy in the cab of an autotrailer at Didcot and he didn't know. About 5 years later my dad told me that he worked with a guy who used to drive them for a living down the Staines West branch, and he didn't know/couldn't remember either! Regards, Neil

Hi, I believe that on a Churchill the air intanks on the side of the hull would be out of gauge, they were either swung up onto the top of the hull or completely removed for rail transportation. I cannot remember which. Regards, Neil

Any chance of an updated Layout / Trader list? as the first post lists 1 layout and 3 traders! regards, Neil

Hi, Anyone know the reason for the delay on the NCB version, and/or the new ETA? Regards, Neil

Went to look back at MREmag earlier and it seem the website is either down or gone? Regards, Neil

Hi, whereas when I look at the same pic, I think I can see daylight just by the back end of the spring over the front wheels!, I think a similar question came up on either the 'W4' or the Hatton Barclay thread, and the counter question was then, "can you see daylight under the boiler on the real thing?" Picture below for discussion purposes only. regards, Neil

Can any one share a successful method of removing the markings off these? I tried my normal product, which works fine on Hornby and Bachmann, but it took the paint straight off, luckily I had tried it first on an outside cylinder, which I will be repainting black anyway. Regards Neil

No comment needed !

Hi, Interesting reading the different opinions expressed so far, I have no horse in this race. But something that may be of interest to those that do is WayBackWhen. This is a webpage that takes snapshots websites over time, and can reveal what was said in the past. A quick look at the APT page, just shows the options to buy, and does not mention crowd funding. However if you look at the bottom of the page there is a link called 'Pre-Orders' where it does say this: Pre Orders Please Note: Any ‘pure’ crowdfunding venture is an investment with no guarantee of return, and your invested capital (All payments) are at risk. Please consider carefully whether you wish to partake in this venture before ordering. Pre-orders at this time can require either an ‘expression of interest’ with no first payment or a first payment which will be invested in design, cad/cam, advertising, tooling etc, and as such will be spent to develop the model accordingly. End of my lunch break now , but for those who have money lost and have more time, take a look here: https://web.archive.org/web/20190628114010/https://djmodels.co.uk/product/br-class-370-apt Regards, Neil

Hi, I know i am very late to this party, I am interested in purchasing the crane tank, but it seems that is now unvailable from Shapeways, but strangely the accessories are? was it withdrawn for a reason? are you updating it? Regards, Neil

Hi Stu, They are from Skytrex, they are resin poured, and have solid windows, but I am thinking abut milling them out and may get some laser cut frames to fit. If you look at the end of the boiler house you will see one I did as a test, still waiting for a frame though! Neil

Hi, I thought I would give an update on this project. I took delivery, and built the baseboard, I then designed my own version of a sliding fiddle yard, using drawer runners and a sprung ball door catch indexed to a piece of brass strip with holes spaced for the track. so far so good. Having been too tight to buy the matching set of legs by the baseboard supplier, I then went to build some legs, I've got to say the first attempt was a bit of a disaster, the idea was to have slots in the underside of the board to drop the legs into. This proved as about as stable as a jelly in a hurricane. The MK2 version meant adding a piece of ply to the leg, which took the weight of the baseboard along the bottom edge of the board. this is far better. but I suppose that is why I am building this layout, to make the mistakes now, before the big one. After cutting the top surface for the canal basin I have laid out the track and buildings to check the design, after a few tweaks, I am fairly happy. I may not use the short siding as a loco shed, I may use it to store the privately owned brake van that is needed to get trains up the off-scene incline to the mainline (well, when you are dealing in munitions, runaways can have explosive results!) Please see the attached photos: And last but by no means least the current motive power: The original plan for 2 locomotives somehow became 3 when Hornby announce the Peckett B2, then became 4 after I bought a Austerity. I have since decided that the owners of the canal company who built the original line to the wharf retained their running rights and will on occasion run their own trains down to the wharf using a nice blue W4 named after the real Charles Kirby's newly arrived great great grandson Isaac. Regards, Neil PS does anyone know if I can move this entire thread to the 'standard gauge industrial' section under the Layouts heading?

Hi all, I have started on the layout, and since the theme of the industry is military / munitions, I have changed my mind and think that a small ex-MR 10t brake would be good for getting certain loads up and down the steep incline (off scene) otherwise a runaway could have explosive results! Thanks all for your interest. Neil

In my youth, I had a few minor commissions for the model shop I worked at, then one saturday A 'real' modeller who had done a big commission for us dropped it off at the shop. He carefully unwrapped some of the finest PO wagons & tank wagons I have ever seen, The liveries were fantastic, I politely enquired whos transfers he had used to do them, thinking HMRS, Woodhead etc, to which he told me he had hand lettered them. That was the day I knew I had met a modeller 'who had made it', and also knew I never would! I also recall an 0 gauge model he did where certain parts were bolted together using 20 Ba nuts and bolts, as 'Nothing else looked quite right' Met him a few more times while I worked there. He was a lovely guy, to whom it all came so easily to, never seem to have a problem with any of his models. I hated him! Neil

Hi, I bought 3 out of the 4 on Saturday, (Strange how Hornby could not supply all 4 at once? ) I have noticed that on the brake coach, the centre of the chassis has been bowed down giving a distinctly banana looking shape to this one. Now is likely that the middle clip holding chassis to to the body Just isn't in correctly. Normally I would look to sort this myself, but I think it will be going back, as at £44 per coach I cannot afford to stuff it up. Neil

No Decorum, Thank you, but I got the two types mixed up, i have that one, it's the cranked I need. Regards. Neil

Hi, Does anyone know where I can get a service sheet, for the cranked version, I have managed to lose the chassis bottom, and then bought a spare based on the part number for the geared version, which was the only one I could find on the Hornby website. Turns out they are different! Neil EDIT: Got the two types back to front, now corrected

I will be going ahead with this project, but since the initial track plan it has somehow grown to 6' x1'6" as below: Also will be adding a Peckett B2 to the fleet Which will be named either Normandy or Amiens, which carries on with the tank battle theme.

That Bulleid pacific could be Dorchester which was still in this livery when first allocated. Neil

Hi, I believe it is way over length as well. I'm fairly sure that someone on here has shown the process they used to correct this issue and others. Neil