Silly Moo

B&Q can do a colour match from almost anything and make up a sample pot of paint. We once got paint to match one of my son’s T shirts. If you can dig up a bit of the right coloured kitty litter then you should be able to take it to them and get a reasonable match.

Very nice layout. I make mine removable because I sometimes change my mind about where they will go. I avoid a lot of cleaning by covering the layout with lightweight drop sheets when it’s not in use. The drop sheets are draped over a retractable washing line.

Oops! 1:43 scale

A friend of mine is a Rolls Royce fan and he spotted this Diecast model on eBay. He is intrigued by the BR logo on the car door. Does anyone know if there was a real car like this and who it belonged to? The model is made by Verem and is 1:143 scale. Thank you.

Mine had a very poorly fitting roof but was otherwise very good however the roof drove me bonkers. After lots of filing and fiddling I still couldn’t get it to fit properly so I ordered a spare roof from Peter’s Spares. I suspect that the second roof was for the first version of the M7 but for some reason it fitted a lot better on the new loco so now I’m happy.

I can’t be of much help but I am in the process of changing the livery and re numbering a Union Mills T9. It originally came in plain black and I have resprayed it olive green. If your loco has a plain livery with no lining then if the number change doesn’t work you could repaint it and use transfers in the usual way. If no one else here can help then head to Facebook where there is a Union Mills group. Some of the members have added detail to and upgraded their locos so there might be someone who can advise.

Perhaps you could return this example to Rails and try and find another retailer who is prepared to look for a better example amongst their stock? It would probably require a phone call to find out whether this is possible. Hopefully there are some retailers out there with good eyes and good customer service. You might want to hedge your bets by hanging on to this one until the other one arrives.

Hoping this may be of interest. It’s N but there are some similarities. The storage box is 320 x 400mm. The track is Kato and has a radius of approximately 117mm. I tried bending Peco flexitrack to a tight radius but needed a rail bender which I didn’t want to buy. Hence the Kato track. I can run N gauge locos that have a short wheelbase and Peco 4 wheeled wagons. For inspiration there is a company in Yorkshire called Suitcase Trains that does suitcase layouts. There are micro layouts on Small N Working’s website. If you do Facebook there is a Micro Layouts page.

Mine is good apart from the cab roof. I have seen good examples it all seems a bit random, luck of the draw. Some people don’t seem to mind about the faults, an acquaintance of mine has one with a distinct ‘dent’ in the running board but doesn’t seem to have noticed it. I didn’t want to point it out. He is very happy with his loco apart from its pulling capacity which is another matter.

If it were me I would ask very nicely for someone at Rails to try and find me a better example of this particular loco. I know that they shouldn’t have to do this but they might have a better one in stock. The quality of these locos seems to be very variable. I have one with a badly fitting roof which I have decided to keep because it runs well and the livery is applied perfectly. I foolishly thought I could rectify the roof (how difficult could it be?) but even with lots of careful filing and fiddling I can’t get it to fit properly. Something is just not just not square. A look on eBay shows quite a few others with the same fault. It’s such a pity that this loco has been a disappointment.

I think I read somewhere that they are marker lights and prototypical, I’m sure someone with more knowledge will be along to either confirm or deny this soon.

It’s the lettering in relation to the lining that’s one of the problems. Or perhaps you could say the lining is out of alignment, either way it doesn’t look right.

I too went to my local model shop (to buy paints) not expecting them to have the M7 in stock yet but they did. Unfortunately it’s no better than the examples shown in this thread. Some really bad alignment of type, a bit of a slope to the front too.

I think the downward slope might just be the camera angle. The roof doesn’t seem to fit that well. Other photos I’ve seen have lettering and lining which isn’t straight. Perhaps the photos we have seen are of pre production samples, I hope so.

There are some fantastic but often not very realistic scenes in The Polar Express and who can forget Gromit’s frantic tracklaying in The Wrong Trousers?