lonesome_whistle

I'd agree with this - I certainly think that the King isn't as gracefully proportioned as the 4-6-0s mentioned although, conversely I do think the Manor's smaller boiler suits it quite well (aesthetically anyway, they weren't the best of steamers as built!) Having said all that, in my opinion the best looking of all the Great Western 4-6-0s were the Saints. I do also like the functional brutishness of heavy freight locomotives whether they be a 9F or, as already mentioned by Zunman, SP Cab-Aheads and big sixties US diesels. There's something rather striking about a matched set of F-units in Santa Fe warbonnet colours too.

Regarding the battery boxes, it might be worth looking at the accident report for the West Ealing derailment as there is a sketch of the offending item contained within. It can be downloaded as a PDF from the Railway Archive website. The same website contains an image of the damaged battery box after the accident.

The Book of the Castles is probably your best bet and although it doesn't give livery details it's a fair bet to say that most Hawksworth tenders attached to Castles in 46 or 47 would have had 'G crest W' branding. Each loco has a page dedicated to shopping dates and tenders (including tender number). 5022, for example, had two different Hawksworth tenders between 2/10/46 and 2/3/48 before reverting to a Collet tender. It again had a Hawksworth tender from 7/5/53 to 17/1/55 according to the book. Pre-5013 Castles that had Hawksworth tenders prior to nationalisation were 4083, 4085, 4092 and 5000 (just for one month!).

Those that know me will be more than aware that this is one of my pet moans. There never really was much light from a headcode blind or, for that matter, the marker lights that replaced them. Early headlights weren't a great deal better and even today you don't see much from the front of a class 90 or HST during the hours of darkness (and, yeah, I know the lights are there for the benefit of those not on the footplate!) Ironically, probably the first locos in the UK to have anything like any kind of decent illumination were the Pyle headlight-equipped class 59/0s which, it is said, got their looks from the 'Thousands'. As can be seen in the attached picture even they didn't look anything like a model with LED lights. Sorry to go off-topic, the Western looks very promising, I wish the project well.

I'll take a set in P4 too -this could be the start of something big!!

4037 did get a fire iron tunnel at (or before) the time she got her new front end (straight frames, box type inside cylinder casing). Photographic evidence in the already mentioned 'Book of Castles'.

I'm not sure anybody said that railway modelling should be just for the better off. However, if one puts a cost on one's time, then the time used to save that £15 could probably have generated more value had it been used differently. If, though, you're sat at work getting paid to surf (as I am now*) then it might be worth the effort. *And, no, I'm not going to tell you the name of my employer..

I suppose twenty years isn't bad going for a specification that the then customer didn't really want. BR would have been much happier buying class 59s but that wasn't considered a politically expedient option at the time even though hindsight proves that it may well have been the correct decision.

The Beeson-Reynalds-Marsh tool available from Lee Marsh - click on the for sale page - is a machine with quite a pedigree and well worth consideration particularly for 7mm modellers.

Is the building in question the one shown at 00:32 in this youtube video?

I think that's actually the steam heat pipe so if it does continue to get in the way it could be amputated at the valve and the loco could be represented quite accurately in Summer condition! Very nice work by the way.

According to "The Book of Castles", it had a Hawksworth tender for two periods, 9/53-6/54, and from 12/60 until withdrawal in September 1962.

Am I right in thinking you might struggle (like me, it has to be said!) with a Malcolm Mitchell Castle? Nice pics BTW.

Ah, 5818. A long term resident at Pontrilas and much photographed by her long-time driver, Charlie Smith (see "The Golden Valley Railway" by W.H. Smith and published by Wild Swan). She returned from a general overhaul at Swindon in the summer of 1948 apparently painted green but without any mark of ownership on her side tanks and it is this condition that I plan to model her eventually. It'll be a high level chassis with, unless something better comes along, an Airfix/Hornby body shorn of its top feed. Has there ever been a 1400/5800 available as an etched kit in 4mm? I seem to have a vague recollection of something being available.

I've just done a bit of googling and this text does a much better job than I did of describing how North American freight trains are braked - note especially the section on "Successive Applications".

The big difference is that almost all North American freight cars are equipped with triple valves so there is no graduated release - as soon as the brake valve is moved towards release all the brakes on the train will release. Obviously with 150 cars a slow release is going to get in the way of efficient train handling but the big drawback of this system is that any further application that takes place before all the reservoirs are fully recharged will require the engineer to drop the brake pipe pressure further than he did previously. Thus it is quite possible to (in US parlance) piss away all your air; not really that desirable if you're dropping down Cajon pass which is why North American locomotive engineers rely so much on their dynamic brakes.