YT-1300

He's a Caledonian Railway modeller, kit or scratch-builds all his stock but has said he'll never touch an MTK kit again!

Great work!!! My friend describes attempting to build MTK kits the model railway equivalent of self-harm!

I operate from the front so prefer no barriers, I find, like you, that people seem to keep a distance

Current generation of a@@eholes?

I have a lot of loco's and don't have deep pockets!

Taking your points in turn... 1. For a good finish its always better to at the very least remove the existing printing and flatten down the existing paintwork, most sensible thing to do is to strip the bodyshells back to raw plastic. 2. A primer is always recommended to allow the base coats to stick. Halfords/Hycote primers are acrylic and very very good. 3. There is nothing to stop you painting over the existing finish, however any printing will show through the new paint 4. British Railways green opens up a can of worms! IPA/Original Dettol/LA's Totally Awesome are all great paint strippers, and reusable. Its important that the shells are dust and grease free, and kept that way through the painting and finishing process. A good primer for BR Green is black, it gives a nice rich finish. The main thing you will need is patience!

Kader made a profit last year on its earnings...

My NHS Dentist Surgery shut down and re-opened as a private surgery, reasons given was down to the amount of abuse they were getting from some patients. I decided to stay with them as I've had nothing but great service from them. My last appointment was a check up, replace a filling and a clean. Cost me £150, generally a check up and a clean is £60 every 6 months. Its funny that some people would happily shell out £200+ on a model loco but baulk at the same cost for treatment to end pain.

Cracking looking layout, really nice scenics and detailing. Will be good to see it with some stock on it

Not wishing to stir up a hornets nest, I find Bachmann's newer tooled products to be a higher quality than Accurascale, so to me they are worth their asking price.

I know a few people like that...

That is very true, they are regarded as the 'toy' train market supplier there, although their newer releases such as the ACS-64 and Siemens Charger loco's and Venture coaches are stunning models well worth their asking price. It's great to see they are reducing loss, I've always thought Bachmann UK's products are high-quality, very well finished and robust.

My local council give you a bin for garden waste, one for glass, plastics and tins, one for paper and card, and one for general waste. If you take plastics, tins, glass and paper to the recycling centre, you get told to put it in the general waste skips! Card goes in a separate skip and they wont accept garden waste!

It would need a complete new shell tooled, from what I notice the following parts look 'wrong' to me... Bodysides too deep Engine room windows too low Cab windows too large and too square Headcode panel too large and out of place Cab windows, but cant put my finger on what I think jars The infill for non-cutaway cab sides The engine access roof panels (2 on model, 4 in reality) With Bachmann's model being much better (in my eyes) I'm not sure HJ would get the return on a re-tooled shell as they would have with the 33 as they were the only player in town with that. I still think Lima got the shape100% right!

It would be good to see, would need complete new bogie frames tooled, although could use the inner bogies and gear train from the forthcoming 60