Wickham Green

No sign of anything ''NEW'' on the Cambrian stand at Chatham so I didn't investigate further ! ......... if I remember rightly there have been a couple of D1410 vans on the market before and I've got a resin body ( from, I think, Martin Finney of all unlikely suppliers ) and an etched/whitemetal kit in the 'To Do' drawer : the latter is probably from the late lamented D.&.S. stable which - to get this almost back on topic - also did the D1545 brake in both widths ( was the S.R. Diagram number the same for both ? ). If I remember rightly, the D1410 kits both have wide planks as built rather than whatever combination the vans ended up with and I never found a picture of one I was happy to reproduce : might have to invoke Rule 1. Not sure, off hand, whether Gramodels do an L.S.W.R. van - they certainly do a selection of opens but they never quote diagram numbers so I'm not quite sure what they are !

......... by which time they wouldn't have been a very attractive advert for Steel Plates !

...... and, of course, cattle DID have to be detached e-route as they had to be offloaded and watered at prescribed intervals ..... without the Appendices in front of me I'm not sure whether feeding was necessary - nor mucking-out ! ( I suspect the latter was left 'til final destination.)

I think you're confusing yourself with the Mad-Hints rebuild you referred to earlier .......... yes, not very accurate as they left it at 17'6'' long ( Now why does that remind me of a certain family of model cattle wagons with L.M.S. pedigree ? ) Oddly, I've never found any note in the General Appendices about coupling loaded cattle wagons at the head of the train - but it was certainly common ........... cattle wagons did appear further back at times - but were they loaded ? probably not.

"In Production" is exactly the sort of report I was hoping for - no more detail's necessary, just confirmation that something's actually happening ....... so where did you get that valuable info from ? - did I miss a reply to my original question ?

Isn't it fair to expect production reports when the manufacturers choose to announce their goods in advance - most non-model-railway products are only advertised when they're actually available on the shelves but this industry doesn't seem to work like that ! { You'll note that I refrained from saying THREE AND A HALF YEARS in advance ! - er, until now .... oops.)

Didn't expect them to be finished and on the ship half way through the month - but, to my mind, "manufactured in June" means that there should be progress to report by now. I would expect all the moulds to be ready and the CNC machines fully programmed already so "manufacture" commences when the button - sorry - keypad is pressed ......... and all the bits will be spewed out within a couple of days. THEN the slower processes will commence ( painting / assembly / testing ) - but, with the relatively small volumes involved, it SHOULD be possible to complete within a month if sufficient resources are put into it ! ............ I only asked whether there was any news from the factory !

............ well, we're well into June now ......any news from the factory ? - has the ship been chartered ?

it's no good just having enough preserved examples around - you need enough preserved examples capable of making steam loco-like sounds ! ....... and I think that's only one at present : which should be enough ! Latest availability guesstimate was manufacture in June, if i remember rightly ......... so, add a slow boat from China an' you might just be OK for your date in September.

........ erm .............. isn't it a USA Tank prototype this thread's all about ??!?

Sorry to hark back to September '14 but I'm catching up with a few things and I think the matter of tail lamps needs a little clarification. What phil-b259 says is perfectly correct ( Rule 120 ) - EXCEPT ON THE SOUTHERN ! : from the 1933 Rule Book ( 1st January ) Rule 120 had a footnote stating "Southern Railway Goods trains must carry on the last vehicle two side lamps only, which will serve as tail lamps, viz., one on each side of the trailing end of the vehicle, each showing a white light forward and a red light at rear." - so from 1933 a third lamp was NOT carried on the Southern. This certainly still applied in 1945 when the Rule Book was reprinted ( my copy ) and may have lasted until the B.R. Rule Book was issued in 1950. When originally built, these L.S.W.R. brake vans ( and those of numerous other Companies ) carried fixed side lights which shone fore and aft - with a red slide fitted to whichever was aft at the time. Clearly these could not be used as tail lights to denote the rear of the train as a van marshalled in the middle of a train still carried them and they'd look exactly the same in daylight - so a ( third ) tail light WAS carried until the fixed lights were removed early in Southern days ........ and three lamps would have been carried until ALL side lamps had been removed and the Rule Book revised : unfortunately I can't say whether this changed with the 1933 Rule Book or earlier. ( Rule 107 was the equivalent number in earlier Rule Books - the previous edition dating from only 2nd February 1930 : "All copies ..... must be ..... sent ..... to the Waste Paper Depot, Longhedge" ! ) Anyway, to sum up - a) L.S.W.R. and early Southern days ; fixed side lights + tail light : b) transitional period ; loose side lights + tail light : c) 1933 ( or perhaps earlier ) to 1945 ( at least ) ; two side lights ONLY : 1950 ( or, perhaps earlier ) 'til the end of unfitted freights ; loose side lights + tail light. ( Different rules applied to fully fitted freight or passenger-rated trains, of course.)

Well, if Chris is wondering what livery to put on the next batch, Great Western is bound to sell ........... complete with copper-capped stovepipes, of course !!?!

Going back to the Meldon question, for a moment, the General Appendix ( Mine's 1960 edition so was probably current at the time - though details wouldn't have changed very rapidly, anyway ! ) stipulates a 25mph MAXIMUM speed for hauling dead locos in freight trains : I don't think the Southern would have been keen for their nice efficient, fully braked bogie ballast hoppers to be loitering at that sort of snail's pace so transit in the local pick-up goods ( or whatever S.R. terminology was ) would have been far more likely. Of course nowadays they' not dream of taking it by rail and would stick it on a ( road ) low loader - er, probably at somewhat more than 25mph ! ............ mention of 350HP shunters reminds me of a story of such a beast that was sent from - if I remember rightly - Three Bridges to Selhurst by road not very many years ago ....... and then it went back the same way once they'd filled the fuel tank !

Yes, Bradley say Dec.1962 ....... I don't know about days - more likely weeks running slowly 'cos the driver knew they tended to run hot or weeks sitting around somewhere waiting for repairs 'cos he didn't !

IF 'Gauge Correction' is designed-in at the start there's no reason it should cost ( much ) more than 00 ....... Bachmann MIGHT have realised this with their wagons already : I've just converted one of their ( Southern ) brakevans and the brakes are perfectly aligned for EM without any mods whatsoever ......................... and when you think how many zillion quid 'the trade' have poured into creating decent models rather than the TOYS we used to have to put up with - surely they don't think they're just catering for the kiddies' trainset market any more ??!? - if they do, they ARE grossly overpriced. ( cue Railroad ............... ) No, there isn't a mainsteam EM/P4 market out there - but, like everything else, if you bring it within reach it can flourish ................. think how many coffee shops there were in your local High Street fifteen years ago - now you can't move for them ! ( Moderator : can we have a site that accepts the English spelling of realised, please !!?! )

Maybe one day someone will cotton on that there are people out here who don't model 4'1½'' narrow gauge and who really would appreciate a wheel-change facility being designed in .......... I think the first batch of ( Dapol ? ) Austerity saddle tanks actually came with EM wheels though the model was let down by other factors ........................ and then there's Sutton Locomotive Workshop’s Class 24.

Is that 3mm ? ........ there have been some weird 'n' wonderful diameters over the last few years ! - in fact, didn't Bachmann change the size of the dub-dee axle ? ..... or am I thinking of something else ?

In theory Alan Gibson do the right wheels for an EM ( or P4 ) conversion - but probably only with 'bog standard' 1/8'' axles ........ but what size ARE the axles on the Model Rail Yankee Tankee ?

Sorry for the cynicism but I think the latest guesstimate - on one of these parallel threads - was 'First Quarter 2016' and that seems to have joined all its predecessors in the Recycle Bin ! .......... anyway, I shouldn't be complaining : my 'investment' of £114 in December 2012 is theoretically worth £124.95 now - that's almost 10% in 3½ years ......... obviously my USA qualifies for a better rate than my ISA !

" .......... well into the summer ......" of 2017 or 2018, I wonder ....... ? ..........................................