C126

At the risk of digressing into the ‘æsthetics of railway operation’, please may I suggest that with such a compact layout a larger van such as a VAA, especially in multiple, might ‘overwhelm’ the vista. The Vanwides and Presflos, even when in triplicate, appear to me suitably ‘bijou’, whereas a bogie van (or a Co-Co diesel) perhaps would appear monstrous. A bogie flat or bolster might look less intrusive though. Just a thought. If you have a rail blue ‘33’ to show a Southern Region exile, I would be grateful… 🙂 Thanks for any more photos. Inspiring stuff.

Your range of stock appears extensive; do you do requests...? 😀

I am not quite sure of the purpose of your Topic post, but for Kensington Olympia Inter-regional trains, the 1S76 web-site is excellent. A wonderful source of information. Hope this is of interest.

I am no expert on the layouts 'out there', but this looks stunning to me. The figures are wonderful. I can not wait to get home to-night and watch your You Tube videos. Thanks for posting this thread. P.s. I love the 'Panoramic' picture of Saturday, 21.30.

All those in favour...? Motion carried! 😀

I had forgotten this one, "park up". Associating it with the modern need to expand everything like "meet up with", I read East Lynne (1861) last month, and it has 'meet up with' in there!

As this thread has degenerated quickly into more general peeves, am I alone is disliking "report back" and "listen back"? What is wrong with just "report", "listen again", or "replay"?

I am seeing it now in official e-mail correspondence from academics contacting my employer. I had no idea what they meant until I started hearing it on Radio 4(!). Why can no-one write a polite, formal, message or letter now? "Dear Madam/Sir, I am writing to enquire of you ..." Was that so difficult? Hurrumph!

I have a phantasy of the producers of B.B.C. Radio 4's 'To-day' doing a programme where all contributing are forced to donate a day's pay to charity for every time they utter a clause thus on air.

"... proposed by Heathrow Southern Railway Ltd (HSR) which has said it could open in 2027/28." Have they learned nothing about British infrastructure projects?!? 😀

While the VIX is much appreciated, it would be good to have some 'foreign outline' wagons in OO that came across on the Train Ferry. I still live in hope. Incidentally, can @cctransuk do decals/ water-slide transfers for this 'Inter-frigo' wagon? I have a Shocvan kit awaiting construction, and was going to ask when ordering transfers for it. Do hope so. Thanks.

Sorry to pull this thread off-topic, but advertised in the latest copy of 'Private Eye' is a pod-cast that will cover old buildings combusting unexpectedly: https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/85 Not heard it myself yet, but hope of interest.

In an effort to provoke the Fates into an announcement of a ready-to-run new 'OO' wagon, instead of all these high-spec. re-releases, I have made a model of an IIB 'Inter-frigo' ferry-wagon to convey (under Rule 1) meat and fish to and from the Sussex Weald. Unworthy of close examination - owing not least to my unsteady hand and unwanted ability to glue tiny pieces of plastic to everything except where wanted - I am content with its capturing the likeness and romance of the real thing for me. I just wish someone did decals of its singular livery. Hacking the body off a Triang-Hornby VIX, picked up for a fiver at an exhibition, it took two attempts to build a plasticard 'box' body (the first, built around balsa blocks, looked too low). The (erroneously shaped) roof is balsa, the door fastenings and access steps rails plastic-coated garden wire, and the ladders Ratio signal parts. Only after clearing away the remnants of this project, did I discover some lengths of finer wire for the door-fastenings. Perhaps I will try a door with these on the other side of the wagon when feeling brave. If it can be done in 'HO', I hope someone will now release a model of this soon for us.

I forgot to mention in the original post I changed the windows to Indo-Saracenic 'cusped arches', with which I admit I am pleased. Look closely at the elevation, and you can see the changes I hope.

Dear @simon b and @russ p , Again, thank you for taking the time to help with my query and giving such useful advice. I did a quick plot of the 3'x7.5" space available last night and decided upon (from left to right) the imposing 'Concrete Grain Elevator' but rotated so the silos are on the left of the elevation - thanks for @russ p 's photos confirming there is a loading 'porch' on both sides - and the 'Flour Mill' 'doubled' using its back wall. But now I am not so sure! Stretching out the 'Greatland Sugar Refiners' building would retain my preferred brick aesthetic and a Victorian look - excellent idea of converting the central openings on the gable-ended elevations to loading doors with a beam and pulley above, as seen on such buildings everywhere. Or there is the 1930's(?) option of the 'Champion Meat Packing Plant' which retains my preferred brick. I do like the sight of watching wagons shunting under a cantilevered building, so will try and model a more 'open' porch for the grain silos by taking the side off. More choices, more decisions! Thanks so much to you both for these contributions and photos; I hope they will be of as great a help to others in the future as me, and I will keep you posted on my progress thanks to you.

@simon b Thanks for these suggestions; I must have missed them because they are not called 'warehouse' or 'factory' in the model title. Please can you tell me where you got the (six?) plain, 3-storey panels to the right of the gable-ended 'Plant No. 4'; do they come with this kit? The windows look rather better than my Skytrex efforts, although I do not think the gable-ended elevation itself looks quite right for the U.K. If the panels can not be obtained separately, I am tempted to buy a Walthers Concrete Grain Elevator and the Flour Mill to fill the adjacent three feet. The conceit perhaps being the original, Victorian, warehouse/ factory was demolished in the 1950's, bar the small extension remaining, to permit a change of use to a modern rail-served terminal. The declining 'international provender' ekes out a trade in the increasingly-derelict floors next-door with its eccentric goods-lift, soon to become a victim of the early 1980's recession. There endeth the proud name of 'Chunnilal and Malcolm, East Indies Factors'! Thank you again for taking the time to consider this post, and bringing the kits to my attention. I am much obliged to you.

Sorry to pull this thread O.T., but please can this alarming sounding statement be linked to a source (I am not doubting the poster's veracity, I hasten to add). At my work, dealing with museum-like papers as part of our work, such 'de-accessioning' would be looked on very dimly. Do I have to clear my front garden for potential storage of a loco...? Thanks also for the quote of £2,500 a month as storage costs. Always wondered, and as bad as feared...

I wondered if it it was, and hoped someone would know. Many thanks for the confirmation. If anyone has more photos of it in its declining years, please post 'em!

... and in the old 'Southdown' colours as well. Clearly an omnibus company of class. 🙂

Taking a week off work recently, I started 'the factory' as what I thought would be a quick, simple, discrete project. This monolith hides the passenger station viaduct on the left of the layout, behind the minerals yard and arrival/departure sidings, currently substituted by cardboard boxes to give an idea of the 'massing'. I can not say the modelling has been enjoyable, but have been able at last to stage a cameo dreamed of when first mooting the layout's track plan. A VIX is shunted away from the loading dock of the 'international food-stuffs' company, while the warehouse men check and move the last of the pallets, dusted with sand from the Dasht-e Loot Desert and perfumed with the exotic orient: dates, pistachios, rice, and dried fruit. Here is the complete elevation, thus : The glazing must be installed and the canopy is un-finished, but I am impatient. I must sculpt the external corner element to join to a plain wall on the right, and glue on the 2" wide brick wall on the left, as part of what will be the main agricultural warehouse and grain silos. For this, I will be hoping to bodge a Superquick card kit or three...

And such a lovely, well preserved, 'bus station near-by. Although I expect this has probably been sold, demolished, and re-developed by now.

Just watch them on the train itself! It is just me and the resident nutter who look out of a window on my train journeys now. Life is too short to spend it gazing at a screen. Sorry, just a little obsession of mine.

Just wished to add my paean to Revolution Trains' S.R. General Manager's Saloon, 'Caroline'. Arrived on Monday, and on initial inspection it looks excellent to me. Taking the precaution of un-packing it on a white napkin, only the coupling hook fell off, which I am too ham-fisted to re-attach. Here it is, arriving at Atherington Victoria upon news of an out-break of Victorians populating the platform. (Please forgive my flippancy, but I have nothing better in which to pose it.) To paraphrase someone else on the thread, 'it is a d--n sight better than I could make from any kit!' The orange curtains bring back happy memories of S.R. E.M.U.s in the 1970's.

Lovely work as ever. Please could you tell us from what it is built? Bachmann Mk Is? Many thanks.

Are you looking at one specific COY block train per day, or a mixture? E.g., cement, containers, aggregates. Hope the project is making good progress.