Wolseley

Just to be different, I use Mr Sheen, an aerosol furniture polish spray, containing silicones and waxes. As long as there aren't any bad scratches, it usually brings things up as good as new. Early on in the piece, I thought Windex might work well in removing dirt and stains, but discarded that idea when I found that, yes it did effectively remove dirt and stains but, unfortunately, it also sometimes (but not very often for some odd reason) removed paint. Jim

I use Gaugemaster Combi controllers for my layout. I suppose it might be better to use a controller with an output of more than 1 amp but they work for me and, to my way of thinking, if a loco starts to draw more than 1 amp, it's time to take it out of service and give it a good clean and overhaul.

I recently picked up, relatively cheaply. a Wills Finecast LMS Stanier Class 4 2-6-4T body (yes, I know you can still get it from South Eastern Finecast, but this. old Wills body was too good a bargain to pass up). It is pretty well put together, but badly painted, so I'll have to strip it back to bare metal and repaint it before I fit it to a spare Dublo 2-6-4T chassis I have. It wasn't the only kit made to fit a Dublo chassis, but I'm not sure what other ones there were other than an MR 0-6-0T (can't remember who it was by, maybe K's but, in any case, that was for the R1 chassis, and I'm interested in three rail). I was wondering if anyone could advise what kits from what manufacturers were made to fit Dublo chassis.

Dublo pickups will not work on stud contact track, as the collector shoes or plungers (depending on which locomotives we're talking about) will drop into the spaces between the studs. If you want to use stud contact track, you might have to fit Marklin skates to all your locomotives. I remember that, back in the 1960s, Peco sold individual rails and spikes so that you could convert Streamline track into three rail, but I would be surprised if you could get that today. David (Il Grifone). would be able to confirm, but I think Dublo rail would be somewhere between code 110 and 120. There is an American brand of track, Gargraves, that has a blackened centre rail (they call it a phantom rail) and has sleepers not unlike Peco Streamline in appearance. I have never seen any of the track myself, but I have seen photographs of it, and it looks quite realistic. It does, however, appear to be rather expensive. In any case, isn't one of the major attractions of HD three rail the sound that the trains make when they run over the tinplate track? Jim

I really should check what I have typed before I post it. That should have read bacon, lettuce and tomato..... There is also another sandwich you see on menus that is called a BLAT. The same thing but with the addition of avocado.

It took me a while to realise what BLT meant in this context. Here it's a term used in cafes to describe a toasted sandwich with bacon, lettuce and tomato as a filling......

Same here. I'm a bit of both, I suppose, but more the latter than the former. I have a handful of mint and rare items, but I buy them to run them, not to put them on display or stick them away in a cupboard. Jim

The dictionary gave the English equivalent as "brake van" but didn't go as far as to say what sort of brake van it was. You're probably right, but I'm afraid my knowledge of Italian is not up to taking this question any further. Also, unfortunately none of the Italian speakers I know are railway enthusiasts.

They are an endangered species, aren't they. There are a few that I can get to, none of which have anything much to do with vintage equipment and what they have in stock for British outline is mostly confined to the well known RTR brands. One shop is about 25 minutes away but the staff are not very helpful; another (Hobbyland in Hornsby), my preferred destination, is almost an hour away and staffed by a friendly person who has time to discuss matters with you regardless of whether he will get a big sale out of you or not, and can be quite helpful; the largest shop is in the City, but is more like a toy shop with a hobby section which includes model railways; another, which I will not name, cheated me out of a couple of hundred dollars when I sold some items through them on consignment - they probably have the best selection of British RTR in the country and a good second hand section, but I'm never going back there. There is also another shop at Blacktown that I keep meaning to check out that has mostly DCC odds and ends but does have a comprehensive selection of landscaping materials. There are a couple of other shops, but as they concentrate on Australian outline, they're not much use to me. I asked my wife, but she didn't know (but then her interest in railways is fairly minimal) however the large Cassell's Italian-English/English-Italian dictionary we have has it as "furgone".

I have an SD6 LMR brake van in a similar box:

I bought it from someone in the US of all places about three years ago. I was going to fit any old GWR safety valve cover but found someone who was selling replicas of the Dublo ones made from turned brass when I did an internet search to see where I could get one (it's not the sort of thing you can go down to the local hobby shop and buy over the counter here). Unfortunately I can't recall his name and he seems to not be trading any more.

I have fitted Dublo wheels to a couple of rakes of Trix Crimson and Cream coaches and Trix Pullmans without any problems. I never noticed the difference in diameter before (the monster flanges on the Trix wheels probably make the wheels look bigger than they are), but I just measured a Trix "steamroller" wheel and it came out as 10.3mm against Dublo's 12mm. On the subject of changing wheels, I have converted three Tri-ang streamlined Coronations to 3 rail (dead easy - the tenders have the old Dublo chassis complete with mounting points for Dublo "plunger" style pickups). The only problem I found is, that without the benefit of magnadhesion, Tri-ang locomotives of that era are rather gutless things, and can barely shift more than one or two Dublo coaches without slipping violently. I am in the process of modifying a rake of four Dublo LMS coaches to run on Lima short axle (24.5mm I think) wheels running in Alan Gibson brass pinpoint bearings. It's taking a while, as it involves filing some metal off the bogies and I have too many other projects on the go at the same time, but the one that I have finished rolls very freely. Hopefully at the end of the process I will be able to have my streamlined Coronations pull a four coach train (anything longer looks a bit ridiculous on my layout, as it is only 8'x4') with ease.

As far as GWR coaches are concerned, I thought that my GWR liveried N2 (it's a replica made from a cheap playworn BR N2 rather than a rare and expensive genuine one) would look better with coaches than with goods wagons, so I got my hands on two badly rusted Dublo SD6 suburbans and a pair of Airfix B-Set coaches, shortened the Airfix coaches by almost 2cm and fitted the bodies to the Dublo chassis. The result was quite effective, although I don't have any photos at the moment, as I still have to finish painting the roofs. Here's my GWR N2 though:

It depends on the quality of the finish before I start. Sometimes I strip the body back to the bare metal using the strongest paint stripper I can get from the local hardware shop (which takes two, sometimes three, applications to get it all off), other times I touch up the chips and go over the touched up bits once the paint has hardened with fine emery paper or a Swiss file to even up the surface. When I paint them sometimes I brush paint (with a sable #4 and #6) and sometimes I spray paint them. Then the transfers are applied, followed by a final spray with semi-gloss clear. The paints I use are generally Humbrol acrylics or Tamiya spray acrylics - not because of any preference for them, it's just that they're the best of the limited range of paints available here. If I was still in the UK I would probably be using nothing but Precision Paints. I know that there should be compatibility problems when spraying acrylic semi-gloss clear over the transfers, but I spray it at a distance and very thinly and wait a day before giving it a second coat and I've only once had a transfer wrinkle up on me. As far as the photos I posted go, the Duchess, N2 and Thomas the overweight Tank Engine were brush painted, and the City and the tank wagons were sprayed. Thomas started off (obviously) as a Dublo N2, then I bought a Thomas face as a Hornby (present day Hornby company that is) spare part, filed off the smokebox door and drilled a hole so that the face slotted into the front of the body. My grandsons love that one. Regards. Jim

Some more of my old slides. I'm not sure but I think I took these in 1974, this time in Sydney, Australia.

I've just been going through scans of some old slides and thought that these might be of interest (there are more, but I need to tidy up the images a bit). I took these at the Strathmore Vintage Vehicle Club's Transport Extravaganza at Glamis in 1975). I drove there in a 1963 Ford Cortina which, these days, would probably be something you would put on show rather than leave in the car park. So here we are, a couple of general views, a Singer roadster and a Dennis fire engine. There were supposed to be balloon rides on offer, but it was too windy and they were cancelled.....

Or moisture inside the distributor cap - a problem I recall from an Austin 1800 I used to drive many years ago. A can of WD40 was an essential piece of equipment to keep in the boot.

At least they didn't call their 0-6-2T an LXVIxx.

I have used Fox Transfers for almost all the locomotives I have repainted. The only catch is that the lining is noticeably finer than that on the original Dublo transfers. Not a problem if it's a total repaint but, if you're just touching up some damaged paintwork, you would be better off seeking out some Wrenn transfers. I am almost finished my restoration of a Dublo Ringfield Castle, and I ended up removing all the transfers, even although two thirds of them still looked OK. Acetone based nail polish remover does a good job of this. The Briggs tank wagons in my last post used transfers from Modelmaster Jackson Evans. They began life as a mixture of Esso Royal Daylight and Mobil tank wagons, all either faded, rusty, or both. I'm going to redo the transfers on the N2 because I think they would be better in white rather than gold.

I bought a "Bristolian" set a few years ago, with the intention of maybe adding one or two locomotives and maybe a handful of items of rolling stock. I now have 45+ locomotivs and I haven't counted how many coaches or goods wagons I have. A "slippery slope" indeed....... I don't see anything wrong with repainting or modifying locomotives or rolling stock as most of what Dublo made was made in large numbers, so is not rare (there are a handful of exceptions though) and playworn and, consequently relatively cheap, items are not too hard to find. Also, the monetary value of it is mostly well below that of new equipment, so it's not like you're reducing the value of a rare antique. Here are a few I've modified: And, if you want still more variety, there's always Trix Twin - the later 3 rail models have wheels that are compatible with Dublo. Models that come to mind are the ex-GWR 0-6-2T, Warship diesel, Britannia and Standard Class 5 (Trix called it a Class V for some strange reason).

I was putting out the garbage bins this evening and a Morris 1100 drove past. It's been a while since I've seen one of them.....

I chucked mine in the bin about 25 years ago, together with an MG 1100, Austin Maxi, Ford Zephyr, Ford Escort and a Morris Marina

Seeing as how we're digging out some old photos, here's one my father took in December of 1958, of Auburn Street (which back then was part of the Hume Highway) about 3 months after we arrived in Australia, on a trip to Canberra: And a trio of shots in Canberra (that's me in front of the Hillman Minx):

I wonder if the coaches in the "Rovex" set are going to be bent like bananas.....

I think I'll probably get the VW van, Scammell Mechanical Horse and the Palethorpes Sausages wagon (I'm not sure why but Ive always wanted a Palethorpes Sausages wagon).