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Tony, Please let me know if & when you take the photos & where they will be published. Thanks, William

Tony, Mea Culpa! Having checked it was the BR Standard Class 3 2-6-2 tanks in the 82000 numbers series that were painted initially lined & later unlined green by the Western Region not the Class 2 2-6-2 tanks in the 84000 numbers series. As the Birkenhead to Chester line was originally a joint GWR/ LNWR line it now makes sense that there was at least one 2-6-2 tank painted green. Incidentally how did Peter Lawson model his Chester to Birkenhead/Wirral layout? Is there an article about it published somewhere? The Chester to Birkenhead part was 4 track mainline to about Hooton as far as I remember. William

Maybe it's fun to play this game? It's a bit like mine is bigger than yours (no tittering at the back, please). I travelled on the same plane (Concorde) as Steven Spielberg & had a long & interesting conversation with him & his secretary in the lounge after he had handed in my overcoat to reception while I was looking for something to read. Why was I travelling on Concorde? Firstly I wasn't paying, but the company I worked for then was. I had about 300 staff in the UK & USA who travelled frequently from London to North Carolina & vice versa & had negotiated a deal with BA for one way Concorde or 1st Class for 2/3 of the business class fare so long as a minimum of 300 round trips were annually. Apart from the saving even on the business class fare, the idea was to get people to travel back to the UK 1st class overnight so they would OK to work the next day. It didn't happen that way. I was naive. They all wanted to travel to New York on Concorde. Turning to popular music. I saw & heard the Beatles at the Cavern in the early 1960s & while at University hung out for some time with Mick Jagger's younger brother & attended May Balls where The Kinks & The Who played. William

I come from the Wirral originally (Bebington) & trainspotted on wasteland by the bridge over Bromborough Road opposite the Lever Brothers sidings. 84003 was a regular on the Birkenhead to Chester line as were at least 2 others in the same class. However, one of them was painted green & if I remember correctly it was 84003. I might be wrong & as the first in the class it might well have been 84000? I have no idea why one of them was painted green. I am delighted there were so many interested in buying the model as I could have been sorely tempted, though it would be out of place on my railway. William

A very impressive layout especially the station buildings. Is it based on a real GER station track plan? I am attempting to build a layout based on Thetford Bridge station, but in the early 1900s & am way behind you in doing so while I try to complete an 009 layout based on Darjeeling & Himalaya Railway practice. William

You are correct & it’s very helpful for someone to point that out. Thanks,, William

Well I had logged in to Wright Writes directly, wrote my question, & submitted it, so what else should I be doing. For what it's worth please see my question below - “This a a plea for help for those WR participants who are familiar with 4mm loco fittings from Alan Gibson, Markits & PDK. Frank Bulkan, who is building an HR Clan Class model from a Falcon Brass kit for me, has just discovered that though 3 chimneys are supplied (2 the same & one definitely not suitable), there is no dome, no safety valves & no whistle. Markits offer Poss-Pop safety valves (Tall), which look just right, but are not on a base, & a thin GW whistle, which by bending the support pipe could be made into something similar to the whistle on a Clan. AGW offer "Ross Pop safety valves on a round base-Belpaire", as well as "GER Ross Pop one-piece & 2-piece" The first would seem to be appropriate, but there are no photos of a any of them so, I don't know which would be best. PDK offer domes for a Gresley 02/1 & 2, an 02/3 & an 02/4 & for a B16. They all seem quite suitable & probably the one for the 02/1 & 2 would be best, but again I don't know . If anybody could advise me, I would be most grateful“. William

I have just posted a request for help with a modelling question which I expected would be placed on WR because there seem to be lots of participants on here that could help, but it is now located on another modelling musings & miscellany. This has happened before, bur why does it happen & how can one avoid it next time? William

This a a plea for help for those WR participants who are familiar with 4mm loco fittings from Alan Gibson, Markits & PDK. Frank Bulkan, who is building an HR Clan Class model from a Falcon Brass kit for me, has just discovered that though 3 chimneys are supplied (2 the same & one definitely not suitable), there is no dome, no safety valves & no whistle. Markits offer Poss-Pop safety valves (Tall), which look just right but are not on a base, & a thin GW whistle, which by bending the support pipe could be made into something similar to the whistle on a Clan. AGW offer "Ross Pop safety valves on a round base-Belpaire", as well as "GER Ross Pop one-piece & 2-piece" The first would seem to be appropriate, but there are no photos of a any of them so I don't know which would be best. PDK offer domes for a Gresley 02/1 & 2, an 02/3 & an 02/4 & for a B16. They all seem quite suitable & probably the one for the 02/1 & 2 would be best, but again I don't know . If anybody could advise me, I would be most grateful. William

Graham Nicholas has found a far better use for his ex-place of worship.............. Surely you mean it's a place not an "ex-place" or somewhere that no longer exists of former worship or ex-worship if you prefer? Posted to tease you! William

Thanks to you for your replies. Unfortunately Everything Airbrush was of no help but The Airbrush Company could be as they have 1/8" BSP adaptors, but at both ends also available from Faller GmbH in Germany. It seems these hoses would fit Iwata compressors, but is so I might have to get one or first try to source a hose with 1/8" BSP at one end & 5mm at the other. I have 2 compressors both by Revell one old & basic but still works well & the other sophisticated & more or less brand new, which I have still to use. William

I recently used the Tony Wright method (Halfords satin black rattle can) to respray my recently purchased Hornby LNER J36, fitted NBR number plates & transfers & planned to weather it yesterday because the weather was fine using my Aztec airbrush. Unfortunately the adaptor (internal diameter of the male thread 4mm) I had to fit it to the compressor (external diameter of the hose female thread 5mm) had gone walkabout & couldn't be found anywhere. Testors stopped making Aztec airbrushes in 2020 even though their airbrushes were quite highly regarded (an expert published his experience with them in MRJ some time ago) & I am stumped living in Switzerland knowing where to get a new adaptor or alternatively a new hose with suitable sized connections. The alternative is a new airbrush, which would be expensive, & the Aztec 470 is an easy to use double action brush, which I like, though I haven't used it for a year or two. Can anybody help, please? William

Fortunately Frank Bulkan has successfully built at least 2 Jidenco kits for me, which run well at least on 3' curves & mainly large radius Peco bullhead rail points. He both built & painted the HR Jones 4-4-0T & built the MR 0-4-4WT, which Warren Haywood painted. It is supposed to be in 1892 transition livery as shown on 787 in the MR loco series of books. The Jones tank runs well without derailing after we tried both trying a 2-6-0 configuration & varying the way the bogie swings as described previously on this thread. I can't remember which was finally used as I am away from home for a few weeks so can't access the loco. William

Congratulations on both the quality & particularly the speed at which you produce these buildings. I knew the area well in the late 60s & early seventies as I did my clinical medical training at Guys Hospital so recognise most of the buildings. Could you remind us of the period you are modelling, please? William

Good morning Andy, I was interested in this as I have a Peco 3-way electro frog point to wire & although the Youtube videos showing how to do it are helpful, using 2 DCC80s should involve less wiring so I looked it up on the Gaugemaster website, but I was left confused by their wiring diagram & that the DCC & DC information is the same (I use DC). It wasn't clear how the DCC80 senses what the polarity of the frog needs to be given the Gaugemaster wiring diagram. Can you explain, please? THanks, William

Thomas Moore was a well known Irish poet*, who became very popular in London in the early 19th century. His poems were quite erotic & salacious, so he fell somewhat out of favour as the victorian era progressed. I only know this because an elderly 2nd cousin of mine, who wanted to believe that we were descendants of famous people including believing that my great grandfather was the illegitimate son of Lord Roberts of Kandahar head of the UK army in the early 1900s, believed we were related to him. I investigated & showed that we weren't & we weren't related to Lord Roberts either! Lalla Rookh is the fictitious daughter of a Mogul emperor & is described in Moore's poem as very beautiful, so no surprise that the GWR named 2 of their locos after her. William * he wrote the songs "the Minstrel Boy" & "The last Rose of Summer"

This may seem a bit odd considering that I have recently been posting about MR carriages & locos, but I need some more GCR coach transfers like the ones shown in the photo attached. I bought several of them some time ago & cannot remember where from. Does anybody know or can point me to another source of similar transfers, please? I have tried most of the suppliers of 4mm scale model railway transfers without success, Quainton Road Models, which no longer seems to exist & Great Central Models also no longer trading. I do have some GCR loco transfers bought from steamandthings.com in Australia, but they don't list coach transfers so I guess I didn't buy the carriage transfers from them. William

Thanks Lezz01, The eBay example is too small. The Compounds had larger high sided tenders in MR days, the era of my model. William

Thanks Compound 2632. I have all the Essery & Jenkinson books on MR locomotives (as well as all the MR carriage books you referenced in a previous post). Plate 292 on page 232 of Volume 2 shows 1003 partially rebuilt as in my model circa 1908. It has on the tender, but it's a 6-W one. Plate 313 on page 248 shows 1004 in 1909 almost exactly as my model still with a bogie tender with 1004 on it. Plate 314 shows the same loco "a few years later" looking very similar but with a high sided 6-W tender apparently only used with these engines, but with a dished rather than a flat smoke box door & a different position for the top lamp iron. In both views it still has enclosed safety valves so perhaps I should change that on my model. It seems that changes to individual locos were made at quite different times until they all ended up more or less similar, which I guess is understandable as they would be due for shopping at different times. Sorry about the duplication of photos in my previous post. I attached 2 copies of each by mistake then deleted one of each so the post looked OK on preview, but obviously it didn't load that way. Having thought that I had just edited to delete duplicate images that didn't work either so I give up! Any idea were I can get replacement bogies or bogie sides for the tender? William

Now the 2 locos, one of which may well have been used to haul the earlier coaches & may be of interest especially as I have a question to ask & Compound 2632 may know the answer? An attempt to model a series 2 Johnson Compound from a Gibson kit & a Caley Coaches 8-W tender again built by Barry Stevenson. I think that most of the loco in post 1907 livery is OK, but by that time the tender should probably be a high sided 6-W one but I don't know if there is a kit available for one. If the 8-W bogie tender is kept it needs new bogie sides or new bogies but again does anyone make them? A Kirtley MR 0-6-0 WT. The prototype was built in 1872 & amazingly survived until 1924, but this model built by an unknown builder from a Peter K kit is probably correct for 1907-1923 as well, as it's in post 1906 goods black & numbered 1601 which it got in 1907. I included it here because it was in the same storage box as the Compound & is such a characterful little loco. Rather than start a whole new topic I can make some claim to prototypical track layout & signalling, a subject currently being discussed on WR, as the build in progress has the track plan of Thetford Bridge to scale but with the slight prototypical curve exaggerated to fit in my train room. However, not only will prototypical GER trains run on it, but also trains from several other pre-grouping companies, LNER & BR steam, but not at the same time of course. William

Just thought that some viewers might like to see some rather different MR coaches from my quite large collection - A late MR 12-W dining car definitely built by Larry Goddard from his own kit if I recall correctly An earlier 8-W dining car built by Barry Stevenson from a Branchlines kit The other coach will appear below with photos of 2 MR locos William

Not going to argue with you Compound. I bought the coaches built & can't be sure they are Larry Goddard kits or that he built them, but they certainly look like he painted them. A variant of "it what it is" might be that "they are what they are" so I was happy to buy them at a very good price. Now how about a go at criticising these _

Tony, You asked for pictures of MR coaches. I have lots but please see the attached which are Larry Goddard built kits similar to the Ratio Suburban coaches. I have several 12-W clerestories & 6-W coaches too all built from brass kits.

Tony, I would like to buy the GN van if it's still available. Regards, William

Has anyone ordered parts successfully from the Alan Gibson Workshop sine 4 June? I phoned to order quite a lot of parts at the beginning of June & left a voice message about what I wanted. As nobody phoned me back after a few days I listed the parts I wanted & a question on an e-mail, but again here was no response, so I left another voice mail & e-mail a few days ago, but as before there has been no response. People are often on holiday at this time of year, but businesses usually leave a message on their website or on their phone if that's the case. Does anybody know what's going on? William