HonestTom

I'll be watching with interest. While I'm very grateful to manufacturers for their recent interest in industrial prototypes, no one does any of those classic mid-Victorian locos, so I'd love to see a bash of one.

Many thanks. The red came out rather brighter than expected, so I might tone that down with a bit more weathering. I also need to do something about that awful plastic coal load. The Austerity is actually the version Hornby did in Longmoor livery a few years back, which I dug out to act as backup to my Janus (which incidentally arrived this weekend - I am most pleased with it). It's not one of the ones actually loaned to the PLA. My justification is that since my layout will be set in a fictional part of the docks, it follows that the docks are larger in the world of my layout, so the PLA borrowed an extra loco.

I really ought to pop down there. It always inspires. I actually quite like it, although I'll admit that my sartorial taste can be questionable...

I model in what might be called 1:1 scale, in that my other great hobby is working backstage at a local theatre. I specialise in set, props and costume, which basically amounts to real life model-making. You have to create something that isn't real, but looks it. Actually, the last show I worked on featured a couple of actors dressed up as mice, and I had to figure out how to make models of objects larger than real life for them to interact with.

I find modelling is a good stress reliever, but only up to a point. If I've had quite a stressful day, then it's helpful. If I've had a really stressful day, it only makes things worse. Yesterday I had one of those days where everything seems to go wrong, and I figured that a bit of modelling would calm me down - actually, it was exactly the opposite, and minor modelling setbacks that normally wouldn't bother me at all had me swearing like a sailor.

According to Pat Hammond's book on Triang, one of the major reasons for the choice was that they already had the Jinty chassis. Apparently the design bods initially considered an LNER engine because they already had the Jinty and Princess.

Challenge accepted!

They're really serving modellers of the modern Lynton and Barnstaple Railway well. First the wagons, then the coaches, now Axe...

It's a shame Roco didn't produce that double Fairlie they talked about a few years back. I wonder if Bachmann could be persuaded to produce Duke (Prince) or Mighty Mac (a double Fairlie) in their Thomas range?

Palvans would be a nice addition, as they're quite distinct from other vans and could also be produced in BR or PLA liveries and so would have widespread appeal. Heck, they could produce a die cast forklift truck as a tie-in.

Man, I wish I'd thought to look for a thread like this yesterday. I was weathering a 16-tonner and flicking through book after book looking for a decent side-on colour photo of one. Oh well.

I recall there used to be a Thomas set (I think in the Take-Along range) that did pretty much this, but mechanically. The platform was full of people, then when the engine came in you could push a button and the top of the platform would flip to be replaced with an identical-but-minus-passengers version. Unfortunately, the engine it came with was Mavis the quarry shunter, who in the stories literally never pulls passengers.

Good news about the PLA Janus. As a fan of the East London railways, I've been anticipating this one for months. There's a photo here showing a PLA brake van: https://www.flickr.com/photos/blue-diesels/5929510697. Unfortunately I don't know enough about brake vans to identify it. Also of interest (to me at least) are the mineral wagons in the background carrying crates. I mentioned this on the thread about Hornby's Pecketts, but in 1954 the PLA loaned a few Austerities from the War Department, including at least two in Longmoor Military Railway livery, so that's an extra ready-to-run loco for those wanting to bulk their fleet up.

For London, Ian Allen has a pretty decent selection these days. It's primarily a book shop, which means it's also a good place to stock up your library. It's on Lower Marsh, right outside Waterloo Station. I'm a big fan of Jane's Trains, which is in Tooting and about a half hour train ride from Blackfriars, City Thameslink or Elephant and Castle. It's about a minute from the railway station and is great for second-hand stuff. Seconded on Harburn Hobbies, it's an easy walk from the city centre in Edinburgh and has some neat exclusives.

Kind of makes you wonder how people reacted to some of these things at the time. When Rocket was built, did the spectators think it was absurd compared to the then-conventional Sans Pareil or the then-futuristic Novelty? Did people think internal combustion railcars would never catch on?

I love the entire concept of this entry. It's something I've never seen done on a model railway before, but it's such a great idea.

At the time, he'd turned down both the Harry Potter films and the Lord of the Rings, so having missed out on two massive moneyspinner franchises, he decided to take the next one that came along. As it turned out, the League did not spin off into a multi-movie franchise. The film is pretty dire, but I do like some of the design work. The comics are also brilliant - they don't bear much resemblance to the film, but there is a bit in the first volume where Fu Manchu and Professor Moriarty get into a gang war over East London while an aged Artful Dodger sends forth his gang of pickpockets, which consists of the ancestors of Eastenders characters. There's a later volume set in the present day (well, 2009) which features a truly horrifying take on the Hogwarts Express. My favourite steampunk artist is Professor Elemental, who raps about such diverse subjects as time travel and tea. Also worthy of note are Steam-Powered Giraffe, whose whole schtick is that they are Victorian singing robots.

You hold the key in your fingers, so I guess that's digital?

If I had unlimited space, I'd just wind up filling it with micro-layouts.

At the moment, I'm working on a layout based on the Port of London Authority railways. I love exploring the Docklands and finding the remaining artefects from when it was a bustling port. Sadly, much of the old abandoned industry has disappeared under redevelopments. I guess the reason I model that area is because it's one I have an attachment to, but I'm also nostalgic for the place as it used to be rather than as it is.

I'm fine with most humour on layouts - even if it's not your kind of humour, it's the kind of thing that gets you looking more closely at the layout. I've got to say that I don't find the proliferation of Sexy Scenes models funny. I don't find them offensive, I just find them a little bit witless. To me, they're the equivalent of those people who endlessly repeat jokes from sitcoms back at you because they can't come up with any of their own. Sexy Scenes are a joke devised by some anonymous Noch designer in Germany that endless modellers repeat on their own layouts and expect viewers to laugh at. After the third coastal layout in a row that features women getting changed behind a rock and oh look you can see everything, I find myself praying for someone to release a 4mm scale Beeching figure. To me, they also have that slightly uncomfortable vibe of those awful 70s sex comedies, the ones that pretended to be all about the jokes but were ultimately just a censor-evading excuse for showing naked women.

Many breweries also had horses for local deliveries (Young's retained them into the 1990s), so that means you've got feed coming in, manure going out and even an excuse for the odd horse box. And then there were odd loads like machinery. Basically, a brewery offers an insane range of traffic for a small space. I keep thinking I'd like to do one myself. Maybe one with an internal narrow gauge railway, a la Guinness...

For a light railway in the North East, depending on period, NER Y7s tended to get about a fair bit. A J72 is also a pretty good bet. A Sentinel shunter, such as the Dapol/Model Rail one, is a good bet - they often wound up on light railways all over the place.

The layout's looking great. Hope the GCSEs go well!

That's a very attractive conversion. I've never considered the idea of drawing pin buffers before, but they really do look the part.