Dave John

Many thanks for the explanations. 

Sad to see, but I'm sure it will get fixed. 

Anyway, enlighten me, What does the CHN just behind the buffer beam stand for ? 

An odd chassis with a nebulous chopped up brake coach on top acting as a tool /riding /brake sort of thingie ? I like it. 

Now, oddly I have a generic brake coach purchased as a scrapper for a few quid from a box shifter. Clearly been dropped. all the bits were in the box , but bent and in ( an Eric Morecambe moment ) not in the right order. 

So when I stick it together and you all get to laugh at it I can refer back to here ...... 

They are sitting very realistically, I agree about sheets being a bit ignored by modellers. 

Good film clip too. I think there was one van in that train at the end, all the rest were sheeted opens. 

Interesting. 

I'm sure lots of folk on here might have bits of genuine GWR stuff for comparison. So with that in mind here is an unused GWR pencil which I believe to be genuine. It was in a drawer on an old family writing desk, I remember it as a child in the early 1960s so much closer in time to the actual GWR. 

It does beg the question;  did the GWR paint their pencils to match their coaches, or were the coaches painted to match the pencils ? 

🤫

If each coat of paint is a very slightly different shade then it is easy for the paintshop foreman to see that the whole thing has been properly painted and that by the end of the job the correct layers of paint have been applied.  A method used widely, not just for railways. 

Mind you , I bet a few fly painters knew how to get round that one. 

Very fine modelmaking as ever Jim. 

For an urban location, Partick Central in its later years long after it closed to passenger traffic. 

Really johnsy, entire trains of cupboard door wagons trundle through the threads of RM web on a regular basis, but I suspect they get less attention than all they posh passenger trains..... 

I have ordered directly from the archers usa site in the past. Delivery was fairly fast and postage reasonable. 

This was about four years ago, things may have changed. Worth a look if the stuff you want is not available in the uk. 

I have just had a search test with Duckduckgo. ( I don't use google) . 

I see that some links still include "community/index.php" which throw an error, whereas others have been corrected. The corrected ones seem to be those where the photos have been replaced manually or by the site itself. 

As has been suggested , I think it depends on how often the search engines look at the site. Might well sort itself out over time. 

Cowells sell parts that will fit the Perris, the spindle and tailstock are MT 0 sized. 

I have now fitted it with a Chinese made servo motor having seen Snitzls conversions. Makes a huge difference , they are very controllable. 

As supplied the speed control is a lever operated hall effect device designed for use with a sewing machine treadle. It can be replaced with the following simple circuit with a nice rotary knob and a fast stop switch. 

Careful how you use the brake switch, it is a servo motor with active brake and stops so fast the chuck can unscrew. 

Just a lateral thought . Why would it need to rotate 360 Deg ? If you want to run a train onto it , turn it and then run back could it not be 180 clockwise and 180 deg counterclockwise ? 

If so then any fairly flexible wiring would suffice ? 

Many thanks Andy and team, all getting back together bit by bit. 

So for folk with blogs I'm posting a solution, not a problem.

I have been replacing pics from last years blogs a few at a time. If you replace the pics then re-publish then the blog entry goes in with the present date. This means that the entry is out of logical order so for instance a blog about coachbuilding ends up in the middle of a group of blogs about something else. Not a huge issue but I am a logical order sort of person. 

Anyway, if that happens go back into the edit mode for that particular blog entry. Down the bottom is a box which allows you to publish now , or on a specific date. Click on that and a wee calendar pops up. You can select a previous publish date there which sets back the entry date so that it ends up in the correct date order when the blog is viewed as a whole. 

Many bloggers may well have already found this feature, but I hope it helps anyone that hasn't. 

Very nice. 

Saddle tanks seem to be in fashion this year . 

There was a thread a while back about engines passing over wagon turntables. I wonder how the section past the tt was worked ? 

That is a gem of a picture montyburns56.

I am pretty sure that the van is an ex CR Dia 101. Build dates vary from 1912 to 1920. The lower section  of the end doors folds down for loading of motor cars or similar from an end dock. 

Full details pp 205-206 of "Caledonian railway wagons " by Mike Williams. 

Note also the crossover is sitting on its original interleaved sleepers. 

Some of the early PO grain hoppers were built as vans with a hopper inside. For  example ;

http://www.srpsmuseum.org.uk/10042.htm

http://www.srpsmuseum.org.uk/10099.htm

I have always fancied building one. 

Hi Bob, I can recommend These kind of etched brass road details. They are very thin so can be added to the scene with just a bit of surface scraping. Useful in station yards too. 

https://www.langleymodels.co.uk/awd1/index.php?route=product/product&path=190_191_198&product_id=5208

Saddle tanks are in fashion this year Mikkel...... 

Making things well is not expensive. Some initial outlay on tools and material may be needed, but you get into a rolling situation where the incremental cost of the next build is lower since you already have most of the stuff needed. 

An example ;

Wheels, 2 pair , £6

Bearings , 40 p 

10 thou styrene £1 

4 W irons, axlebox castings 1/2 a pack, £ 3.0

Couplings, 50 p

Transfers , 1/50  of a sheet. 40 p 

Rivet transfers , 50 p 

A spot of paint, say 20 p

Paper and printing for number plates 20 p

Adhesives , perhaps 20 p 

Tool wear and blade costs , say £1 

To be really bean counter ish I'll throw in £1 for light and soldering .... 

Bits of copper wire from junk electronics, free. Smash it up, collect the shiny bits. 

A bit of crushed coal. Several million quid if the environmentalists get their way, but the few lumps of coal I got half a century a go will fill all the wagons I ever need, so nothing..... 

So, about 16 quid in total. Lets say 8 quid a wagon . For a pair of historically accurate wagons and 3 weeks of pleasant model making. 

I think folk are looking at things the wrong way. 

My attitude is ; I have this much money what can I make, not what can I buy. I accept that I'm a bit odd. 

I look through many threads on mrweb. I love what people have made, not what they have bought. 

The thing that I find particularly interesting is that Lidl ( and maybe other supermarkets ) now consider that it is worth stocking many items for people that enjoy a wide range of craftwork hobbies. Many of these items would previously have only been available from more specialist shops.

It may be that as a result of the changes of the last two years many more people are taking up craftwork compounded with so many small specialist shops being forced off the high street supermarkets will start to stock a greater range of these products. WH Smith tried it with modelzone, but perhaps the time wasn't just right. 

Either way I welcome the development, to my mind folk taking up any sort of constructive hobby is a good thing. 

Oh, I bought one this morning. Fell into the trolley by accident as I walked past. Had a play with it after lunch. 

The 0.5 bits are ok, not as good as a full spec hss one but they do drill plastic easily. The rest look ok. 

Machine vice looks useful. Those soft  jaws hold tube nicely. I also like the small red roller bits that screw onto it for larger round sections. 

The drill holder has sprung jaws and is surprisingly concentric, a lot of base pin chucks aren't. 

8 quid, nae bad.

Dammit , forgot the milk............. 

" Realistically - would anyone see or care? Would anyone know that a Stirling R-class in SER lined black would never have been seen alongside a Wainwright locomotive? Or that the LCDR/GNR carriage trucks were all gone by the 1880's? I doubt it... "

Hmm.

The thing is Lacathedrale you would know. Attention to detail is the addiction that pre-group modellers tend to end up suffering from. It is nice if other modellers appreciate what you are doing but the biggest critic is always your own eye. 

It took me three layouts to be able to lay track that I would consider to be a reasonable representation of the real thing, and I still spot (usually on photos)  things which are not quite right. So, like the real railways the pw gang chops out the offending bit and replaces it.

The same is true of rolling stock. Many of my blog entries are about things I made years ago but now need rebuilding because new information has emerged. 

Another thing which is hard to define is period style. You get an eye for it after studying many period phots of your chosen subject. So when looking at model scene in an overall sense it is hard to say just why it looks right, but it can be very obvious why it looks wrong. 

Anyway, I welcome anyone having a shot at pre-group modelling, so have a go and see how you get on.