TimOrTom

Saw on Facebook that Hattons donated a load of their remaining stock to the Bala lake railway which they will be selling to raise funds for their extension. Mainly various kits and modelling materials.

My 56049 has arrived and I'm yet to remove it from it's cradle but I must say I'm very impressed with the template and adhessive strips included to aid the placement of the photoetch parts. Hope other manufacturers take notes.

I must admit that I said yes to more of these than otherwise, I guess I'm a sucker for odd locos. Would 3ft gauge prototypes be 4mm scale on 12mm track or some other scale, is this an established scale? I would definitley love an Aveling and Porter loco but think one of the 0-4-0 with a cab style engines would be more achievable than the open 2-2-0 "Blue Circle" type. Would have to have the fly wheel spin though, I wonder if you could have the motor worm drive the crankshaft and have a functioning gear train.

I can imagine that in an alternate universe, where the class 89 was widely adopted, one being painted like a badger and perhaps named "The Wildlife Trusts"

My 7820 arrived thursday from Hattons and I got around to fitting the details today, no headboards but not sure if this variant is meant to have them anyway. Only slight issue was that there were two right hand cylinder ends so I had to cut the back part of one slightly to fit the left cylinder. All said it is a beautiful model and worth the wait, the matt smokebox really does add something to the overall look.

My NCB Liveried 1509 arrived from Light Railway Stores, the chimney was loose inside the plastic sleeve and the drivers side shutter fell out. Chimney popped back in with a spot of superglue and I found the shutter had a bit of a tab sticking out the bottom which was preventing it from sitting in the slot properly, a quick clean witha craft knife and it's now in nicely. I like the clever thinking of the body screws under the water fillers, and the equally clever inclusion of spare water fillers in case the originals get lost. Thought the steam lance valve had snapped off as others had found at first but upon looking at photos it seems that these were removed in NCB service. Overall amazed at both the weight and level of detail on this thing.