SteveyDee68

And that sounds like they are trying to suggest to potential buyers that they are a larger and more professional operation, and are not running everything out of the back bedroom of their gran’s bungalow honest!

OMG … I think everything this Seller lists has descriptions generated by AI… 🙄

Here’s an idea - if you are not bidding because of the stupid AI generated descriptions, contact the Seller and tell them so! (Might not do anything, but allows a bit of (polite) venting! 🤣)

Non-AI generated response … Yes! 😉

A quick Google search turned up two examples on eBay … SD14 Cargo Ship - for the full ship at a scale of 1:70 and measuring approx 7 feet long in three sections - a snip at £300! SD14 Cargo Ship - this was only £75 which I thought was a bargain until realising it was just the forward section of the ship only! 1:70 is just a fraction bigger than 1:76 - but even so, those kits are huge (and expensive!) Steve S

On the subject of “the younger demographic” “missing” from the hobby… Since 1995, I have been involved in non-professional music theatre (or “AmDram” as it is sometimes disparagingly named). Now, ask Joe Public what their thoughts on “AmDram” are and they will probably trot out the media-propagated stereotypes of dodgy singing, forgotten lines and wobbly scenery. Whereas the reality is that most productions start with several £1000s of outgoings (licensing, scenery hire, costume hire, specialist personnel hire (music, lights, sound, stage) and venue hire) which by the time the show is staged runs into multiple £1000s - the most expensive show I have been involved with (to date) was a non-professional two week run of “Beauty & The Beast” costing in excess of £60k … and which ended up making a small loss of a couple of £1000!! The participants don’t get paid to do it - it is their hobby, which they should enjoy. As a Musical Director I have a responsibility to ensure the music is of as high a quality as possible, whilst ensuring that my cast still enjoy the process. It’s their hobby - if they don’t enjoy it, they’ll stop. Meanwhile the societies staging these shows are run by volunteer committees, not by paid CEOs or staff. They put massive amounts of time and very often their own money (in things like telephone call costs, postage, mileage costs etc) as well as energy both physical and emotional/mental (as there is a very real worry that the books may not balance!) into producing the shows. And there is an issue that the “younger demographic” - the twenty and thirty year olds - are not present on those committees! It is those who are retired who have the time on their hands to give. Except society changes - many retirees now find themselves as “second time mums and dads” to their grandchildren due to the huge cost of childcare. And they give that time, at it is their family, their grandchildren. Meanwhile the mums and dads - who might just be those who could now get involved - are too busy with work, too tired after work, too shattered with working and bringing up children. Does this scenario in some way sound familiar? Me oh my, it feels like some kind of big wibbly wobbly circus mirror, sort of reflecting the model railway hobby! Are the mainstream media any kinder to this hobby than they are to railway modellers? Try looking up general articles on the state of “amateur dramatics” as a hobby, rather than reviews of actual productions - you’ll find the same may-saying, doom-mongering, lazy journalism. Will AmDram die? Some societies - my own included - are in danger of folding, but others will rise in their place. Youth groups go from strength to strength, but then the kids go to university and they find life swamps them - getting a job, raising a family etc. There may be a hiatus, but in time they usually return. So, thank you to the Warley team for organising the spectacle of the Warley Show at the NEC - I understand full well the trails and tribulations they undergo through my involvement in totally different and yet bizarrely similar undertakings - and bravo for doing it for so long. To Hattons, thank you for serving the hobby for so many years. Good luck to the staff in finding new jobs. Meanwhile let’s all look to the future of Railway Modelling with optimism - things will change and adapt, but the hobby is in no danger of dying out, whatever The Guardian might say! Steve S (Written with the aid of two opposable thumbs and no additional intelligence)

Exactly what I have said elsewhere! However, should I go that route for a bit of shunting fun, I would still try to use some of my dad’s buildings but not the station or goods shed as those are way too big, and certainly forget about passenger facilities! Steve S

Thanks for the kind words - I’ve just changed and embedded the image into my second post instead of the daft pdf download, and added a PPS Steve S

Just to close this off, nobody has ever come forward with any information about this missing loco. My last conversation with my mother about it has now raised a new variable - she said she thought he’d said that the person he’d asked to look at it had been diagnosed with cancer, and so my dad was reluctant to bother someone undergoing treatment. Of course, that would have been very useful to have known earlier, except of course that if the person concerned has subsequently died then there is a strong possibility that my father’s loco would have been mistaken for part of that modeller’s personal collection, and disposed of accordingly. So unless there’s a miracle, I guess we’ll never see that loco again. Steve S

Well, I’ve been playing around with drawing software and come up with the following… Showing the end of the loop (two lines exiting under overbridge on the right), with the station platform also continuing on under the overbridge (and through the backscene). I’m guessing perhaps only a single coach might be seen pulling up at the station, but ideally two coaches (although one is half off-scene when at the platform). Incoming loco has room to run around coaches and draw train off again into the fiddle yard. Which leaves freight… Ignoring the goods shed road, the platform face to fit five wagons, the loop three and the front siding three wagons on scene in order to form an Inglenook shunting pattern. The dotted fourth wagon in the front siding is a blocker, and not used in the puzzle. Assembling the five wagons in the correct order to depart from the platform face should provide some interesting shunting moves. What is not clear in the drawing is the single slip giving access to the loop from the headshunt/turnaround spur, and to the goods shed off the loop line. Buildings above not to scale, but comprise 1) station building & platform 2) goods shed 3) cattle dock 4) weighbridge & office 5) coal merchant’s staithes and office 6) yard crane and 7) road overbridge, all built by my late father and included. The goods shed is probably too large… If not sorting out wagons for a shunting puzzle, cattle to cattle dock, general merchandise to the goods shed, coal to the back road (end of the headshunt), and craned goods served by the front siding. Now, I wonder how small a footprint this could be built in? (I am guessing more than the nominal 7 foot that a straight adaption of the 4 foot OO Inglenook would take!) HOURS OF FUN! PS I should add that he also had quite a bit of track, including unused hand built points including a single slip. Will need to check the box to make sure!

Apologies to @brynnydd - when I read this at silly o’clock this morning, it didn’t register with me that you had said you had fixed your track down! I thought you were still in the planning stages and wanted that loop if possible. Ignore my above posts (although I’ll leave them there for anyone else contemplating creating a small loop-based Inglenook micro layout). Big suggestion - as this is an Inglenook and stock doesn’t actually need to leave the board, how about recreating the ‘hole in the wall’ to disguise the ‘exit’ between two buildings as per Great Yarmouth? That would definitely give you a dockside setting feel. Fair Price Models (on eBay) have some appropriate laser cut buildings! Steve S

A picture paints a thousand words… Here’s an Apple Pencil created drawing showing the layout I described in my previous post. However, I’ve added a kickback siding to the left of the top siding to serve a dock area (to fit your dock theme) and to justify the loop’s existence, and added a warehouse serving the end of the top right siding to justify leaving two wagons there. Engine shown in green with two wagons (dashed outlines) to show necessary headshunts - the top kickback siding could have all of its wagons removed in one move if the top right siding was empty, but wagons shown in white are not part of the Inglenook puzzle so you could (if you wish) have a short top right siding in order to introduce further shunting complications. It’s an Inglenook but avoids using the entrance line as part of the puzzle track work - somewhere to leave a brake van? The arrow suggests a possible exit to a fiddlestick to allow trains to exit - which would allow new stock to be introduced. Nothing groundbreaking here - in fact, I think the track plan has more or less copied most of the micro layouts you will find under The Sheep Chronicles … which shows you what fun can be had with a small loop and a couple of sidings! You do what you want to do, it’s your layout - but hopefully I’ve shown that a loop might be included if you use the reduced Inglenook puzzle setting. Steve S PS Just realised you might just be able to fit two complete sets of 7 wagons on the board itself so you could introduce more variety of stock! Another thought - an overtrack crane over the kickback siding at top left would look appropriate! PPS Flipping the whole thing around so the dock is at the front and it could be extended all along the front edge so that the baseboard edge is the dock wall (as Graham Muspratt’s Canute Road Quay).

The traditional Inglenook uses a 5-3-3 pattern of sidings with a headshunt capable of taking 3 wagons plus a loco but for an absolute minumum Inglenook you can reduce that to a 3-2-2 pattern, with a shorter headshunt of two wagons plus loco. Reducing the “main train” length to 3 wagons might let you fit your loop in. Adding a second siding at the top off the left hand loop would allow a siding to complete the Inglenook design, negating using the lead line into the loop at the right hand side as a “siding”’ for the puzzle). Shunting using a “minimum Inglenook” according to Wymann.info (the home of “The Model Railway’s Shunting Puzzles Website” by Adrian Wymann) gives 120 different arrangements of wagons to create 60 different 3 wagons trains; okay, that’s down (a lot) on the 40,320 arrangement possibilities and 6,720 different 5 wagon trains of the original, but that’s the trade off for minimum space! That fourth siding - running parallel to the layout edge - could be serving the dock itself; finish the front edge of the board as a dock wall; rear sidings could serve industries or warehouses. When I’m not so sleepy I’ll be drawing it for you! Steve S

Another “Newhaven” link arrived via The Class 37 Group on eBay in the form of Bachmann/EFE’s latest offering, a Class 70 “Booster” (or “Hornby” as some call them) as used on Newhaven boat trains. I also have the Bulleid 1Co-Co1 diesel which equally could haul a boat train, plus Class 71 and far too many West Country/Battle of Britain and Merchant Navy locomotives to handle the same traffic. Note to self - no more flashy express locos! And thanks to Phil Sutters I can actually justify “Oliver Cromwell” at my fictional-based-upon-actual location, too, albeit incorrect by a few decades from my setting! I think the majority of the required passenger stock is assembled in terms of Pullman carriages*, BR Mk1s and various EMUs (including the obligatory “Brighton Belle” - well, it’s just around the corner!) although a major omission is the Night Ferry Pullman Type F sleeper cars, but I guess I really should simply stop now and do some proper planning. So many projects, so little time or skills! HOURS OF FUN! * Although I don’t have any 12 wheeler Pullman carriages as used on the Newhaven trains… and at recent eBay prices, I never will!

One of those coincidences that makes you go “Hmmmm” 😆 With thanks indeed to @phil_sutters for the photos! To quote Hannibal Smith of A Team fame, “Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together?” HOURS OF FUN!

One of those coincidences that makes you go “Hmmmm” My layouts and planned layouts are all named for localities, places or people which I have links to, hence … Blackford Wharf - named for a local river bridge, but happens to feel appropriate for a C&HPR location (Cromford Wharf becoming Blackford Wharf) Blackford Bridge - named for a local river bridge, which has never had a train near it (other than trams) Woodhey Quay - named for a high school I was working at when I started it! Castlebrook Sidings - named after my secondary school! DRS Engineering - named after my late father The exceptions were Burnstow Dock and this layout idea, Broadhaven (an amalgamation of Broadchurch and Newhaven) Driving past the SEN school that has recently finished being built on the site of my old secondary school, I was struck by the name of the new school … Broadhaven School. Life imitates art? Happy New Year!

Eagle-eyed Night Mailers watching “Fool Me Once” on Netflix might spot the Fat Hippo food truck serving burgers in one scene, where the main protagonist’s military police friend chats to the detective investigating the husband’s murder… I found myself going “Oh, oh! Look! Fat Hippo! RMWeb!! Wow!” And being told to be quiet and stop spoiling the programme! 🤣 I think it is in episode 3 (wasn’t sure which episode as I walked in on Mother binge-watching it!) Steve S

Never ceases to amaze me how quickly your buildings appear to come together, from an initial rough outline to blocked walls to finished elevations. Enjoy your trip on the underground Mail Rail - it came up as a question on “The Chase” a few days ago! Steve S

I’ve been told that Gostude’s entire model railway selling structure is simply an enormous tax scam, designed to reduce his yearly tax bill. Meanwhile, how’s this for madness … Bulleid Diesel Loco Perhaps not so much “madness” as “Schrödinger’s Model” … as new, “box only opened to take photos. I don’t want to unpack as it is then not original as received” but “only taken out of box to photograph” and “runs smooth/then hesitates over points” (emphasis added) So, which of the above is it then? 🙄 Also noticeable that it is priced at the same point as many of the brand new Bulleid “Boosters” on sale on eBay right now but almost exactly half of what TMC are asking for a BR black liveried version of the same loco! HOURS OF FUN!

Ah well, it would be in my interests to reveal that… It is with The Locoshed model shop in Manchester - ring Jim on 0161 772 0103 if you are interested. (It is very nicely lined out, but has had some “weathering” applied which you might not appreciate. However, it runs like a Swiss watch. The nameplate has been glued on a little heavy handedly, but nothing a modeller can’t sort!) Princely sum of £195 - yes, an absolute bargain! Perhaps get Jim to send you photos if you are a way off. He may say that someone else has already expressed an interest in it - tell him you got his number from Steve! 😉 Good luck - I shall be sad to see it depart, but my bank card will rejoice! Steve S

Checking on eBay just now I’ve spotted a brand new one (Hudswell Clark) at £265 (a cool £70 more expensive than my second hand version) and a sound fitted version for £380, so I’m happy with my sub £200 price tag and can’t see myself parting with it. Of course, assuming that selling anything on eBay will garner you a profit is a short cut to insanity but as a salve to purchasing something for the sheer hell of it I suppose the argument carries some weight! 🤣 You’ll notice I now refer to the new loco as a Hudswell Clark rather than a Manning Wardle - turns out that I misidentified my loco 🙄and only got corrected after contacting Minerva Models about the possibly of data sheets on the model! (Their near-legendary customer service standards are deserved - emailed speculatively last night and they replied first thing this morning) So, all in all, an interesting 24 hours. Steve S

Regarding scales, I’m a very simple chap at heart. OO for me. Yes, I know it is “narrow gauge” but it is readily available, with lots of choice. My late father did O gauge. It’s packed away, with an idea of a project at some point. But basically, OO for me. Steve S PS Except for the Ixion O gauge Manning Wardle Hudswell Clark 0-6-0 saddle tank I succumbed to yesterday. Oops.

In my late father’s obituary here on RMWeb, I wrote that he swapped from modelling German practice in HO to O gauge when LIMA produced British outline RTR models in the 1970s (if my memory serves me right). He built a through station named Blackford Bridge across the end of the house in the loft, using a third of the loft space and separating it from the rest (storage space) with a “cardboard wall”. On one side a single track ran off under an overbridge into a length of track “through the wall” whilst on the opposite side it ran into a tunnel with just one foot of track beyond. The track was LIMA’s finest, so he wasn’t overly happy with the radius of the curves nor of the geometry of the pointwork. However, trains ran (even if they didn’t really go anywhere) and he happily spent years upgrading his LIMA 4F until, like Trigger’s Broom, there was hardly anything left of the original LIMA model! Then came retirement, and after having the loft properly converted he started building again, this time with a plan for a terminus to fiddle yard in a U shape around the loft. What he had not accounted for in his planning was that his newly acquired kit built locomotives would not go around the radius of the curve required to reverse direction after leaving the terminus - it turned out the loft extension was approx a foot too narrow in width! He therefore settled - rather wistfully - for a terminus running straight into a sector plate fiddle yard along one long wall of the loft space. Sadly, although he had buildings and decent trackwork in place, dementia overtook him and he never sorted out power to the track - therefore Blackford Bridge (Mk 2) was a static and unfinished diorama for his locos and stock to be placed upon. The name for Blackford Bridge was not taken from a railway station - it is the name of a road bridge crossing the River Roche next to the junction of Hollins Brow and Manchester Road, on the outskirts of Bury. The nearest it ever was to a railway would have been the Bury Corporation trams running to Whitefield (where I assume one would have changed to a Manchester Corporation tram to continue the journey to Manchester). After his death, a decision was taken to dismantle the layout and store his locos and stock - in the process, I discovered that his baseboards had been rescued from his previous LIMA based layout, and that some of those had actually been part of his German HO layout from the early 1970s! I also discovered card packing above and below the boards as he attempted to get a flat surface for his trackwork - which explained why wagons sometimes lifted an odd wheel from the track! In fact, upon dismantling it was clear that much of the baseboard was warped beyond salvaging. The many loose dropper wires from the track above also indicated early signs of his dementia that nobody had spotted - I later found a full wiring diagram he had drawn up meticulously (he was a professional draftsman) and I can only assume that he suddenly found it impossible to relate his drawing to the reality of the underside of his baseboards, where of course everything was in reverse to how he had drawn it. So, why write about a layout that was never completed and, in fact, no longer exists? Try as I might, I can’t part with his models - all of his wagons are kit built by him, and his two BR MK1 carriages are the result of him super detailing some LIMA coaches. He was interested in and modelled LMR (ex MR/LMS) which is not really of much interest to me, although he does have a Hunslet 0-6-0 saddle tank which appeals to my “small shunting locomotive” addiction! I’ve long been thinking about a way of using/displaying his models in a way that uses less space than the usual O gauge station layout; my thoughts have been of an Inglenook (to allow self contained shunting) grafted onto the end of a loop serving a passenger platform, which disappears off stage under a bridge (which he had already built). I shall post a sketch of the idea here for future reference. But why write now about this idea? Let’s just say that a chance visit to my local model shop in search of my pre-ordered Hornby 88DS* led instead to the impromptu purchase of an Ixion Models 0-6-0 Manning Wardle Hudswell Clark which simply begs to be used shuffling a few wagons around! Bearing in mind that I model in OO, it’s an impulse buy that means I need to do something to justify spending the money! Of course, it happens to scratch my aforementioned itch regarding small shunting locomotives - the worrying thing is that its stablemate (in a fetching lined green livery) is also available at the same price and I am finding it massively tempting to purchase it too! There’s a sane part of my brain telling me that if I do buy the second loco then I shall have spent the equivalent of a new Bachmann 4BEP on two locomotives, in a scale I don’t model in! Therefore, I must make this layout happen! It will need to be portable in order to store it and - maybe - exhibit it! As a tribute to my father, I can best describe it as “O gauge for the average modeller” as I want to feature as many of his buildings as possible, suitably restored. This may be a long burn project - and perhaps sorting through** and selling some of his unmade EASY-BUILD coach kits might help fund it. HOURS OF FUN! * Not arrived yet, of course! ** Another facet of his dementia - he ‘sorted’ all the kit parts into boxes of like components - etches, wheels, bogies, under frames, roofs, castings, sides etc - with no indication of what goes with what… potentially £100s resale value once correctly reorganised into ‘full kits’ again!

I blame @NHY 581 posting pictures of his gorgeous collection of “P” class locos… I called in at my local model shop as my drive home had been a bit horrible and I had this idea that he might have a Hattons “P” class in one of his display cases, ripe to be purchased and buddied up with my existing example. In any case, he definitely had a Hattons Andrews Barclay, a black one if my memory was right… Ah… no, he had a “P” class but someone else bought it a while ago. And the Andrew Barclay 0-4-0? Well, it turned out that a certain RMWeb member with a penchant for small shunting locos bought that off him not that long ago, as it happens … Oops! 🙄 The thing is, I looked in the cabinet where I had seen said locos and they weren’t there, but what was there got me all palpitating and sweaty-palmed… An Ixion Models Fowler 0-4-0 diesel and - even more adrenaline inducing - two (2) Ixion Manning Wardles Hudswell Clark saddle tanks, one in plain black and the second in a gorgeous lined green livery. Now, that Fowler loco is an odd looking beast and for some reason just doesn’t do it for me, but the Manning Wardles Hudswell Clarks… before you knew it, both had been placed on a length of hastily arranged and not-that-clean track and put through their respective paces. Both ran super smoothly, silently, with crazy slow crawl speeds. Both were priced just south of the £200 mark. Pay day is a week away. M’lud, I know not what came over me. I am a self confessed shunting locomotive addict and, despite it being a month (oh, okay, 37 days) since I last succumbed, I believed I could go into a place where I knew I could purchase such items and still be able to resist. Alas, that was not the case, and my resistance rapidly crumbled. See, Rob, it’s definitely all your fault, posting pictures of your gorgeous collection of “P” class locos … Steve S PS Just to be absolutely clear, I model in OO. The loco that came home with me is O gauge. I honestly don’t know what came over me… PPS The lined green one is back on the shelf. For now. It looks lonely. It needs a home. Its stablemate keeps giving me dirty looks as if to say how could you split us up? That’s my sister, Alice, you left behind. Stop thinking about your bank balance and go rescue her, you fiend! PPPS If I had any sense I’d say which shop I visited and next time I call in (to pay the balance on my new O gauge loco - I did say pay day was a week off!) then Alice will have been snapped up and I’ll simply have to live with the reproachful looks of her sister. But then, where’s the fun in being sensible?! 🤣 Steve S Self confessed and hopelessly addicted small shunting loco aficionado

With the sad announcement today that Hattons are closing, I guess you must be relieved to have three of their lovely P class locos to hand. I’m desperately trying to remember if I pre-ordered another BR liveried example to act as a stable mate to my current P class loco … although they do say they are considering whether to do that second run of P class locos. If they do, I can guarantee that there will be plenty of Mendacious Chisellers buying them up and immediately posting them on eBay at inflated prices! In any case, resale values of P class locos will rise, as they are super little models. Personally I will be very sad not to see a second run of their delightful Barclays - I had my eye on a couple/trio/quartet of new liveries (something else to check whether I had pre-ordered with them!) having originally purchased ‘Katie’ directly from them, and then a second hand ‘Coronation’ from my local model shop. A very sad day to see such a major retailer and manufacturer decide to call it a day. Steve S