MyRule1

What have the Quirky Poll team against the bank accounts of those of us who model the East or England. There are 7 loco's in this list which fit this area, in you allow Beckton as being in the East. Of these I have a personal link with three of them. However the poll does say which would I purchase? So I have only voted for one of the three and another that is a must have for my 1939-45 period layout.

Shoeburyness MRC used to run a show which included other modelling genres. It wa a great show to take children and the family to. We could split up and, with an adult in each group, spend time spending time in the areas that interested us. I went to view layouts while others spent time on RC cars. The show was on the same weekend as Warley but that did not seem to be an issue. They have now changed to a summer show which is a pure railway show.

As @grahame is in the pub for the afternoon. An internet search indicates that they are from Freestone models accessories but their web-site is under reconstruction at the moment, http://freestonemodel.co.uk/ Some other resellers had them but they seem to be out of stock.

Although I agree with most of what has been said above. One issue that has not come up is space. The prototypes for smaller layouts are now few in number. Yes there are some branch line terminus's around but in general who wants to model a DMU hourly service. Yes I am aware of a model of Cromer that has been featured in magazines. In the main if you want to model the modern day you need space, in 00 a four car EMU is around 1metre long so you need a large space. With few customers with space for layouts that big there is less scope for profits. The problem is less in N gauge where many have the space to run 11 car sets.

As I have been purchasing loco's for over 60 years and many were bought 2nd hand (as we used to call it) and I have never pre-ordered my answer is currently zero but I recognise that times have changed and the current method of manufacturers tending to order batches to meet estimated demand. Therefore my answer currently for 2024 is 100% with one loco Accurascale J69 on pre order. Most of my purchases now are wagons as there are few loco's for my era/area have not been produced.

In his book "From construction to destruction" on the Colne Valley Rail Ted Willingham, who was a signalman/shunter on the line says that although the line was RA1 and should only be worked by loco's no larger than J15 ,0-6-0's during the war it was expedient to send "WD" loco's over part of the line.

Thanks for reminding me of the the reverse image facility and for Phil ( @Harlequin ) for saving me the time to look it up. As to "does it... need to be British?" I consider a story about strikes in the UK should have a picture of a UK station but more generally with the fall in journalistic standards and the use of computers, including AI, in producing content for the web use of inappropriate images seems worthy of a thread as well as ongoing issues over continuity errors and incorrect rolling stock etc on films and on TV.

This is a two part topic: Firstly this page is on the BBC web-site and is a story about the Aslef dispute: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67436365 it uses a Getty image to illustrate but where is the "heavy" rail station shown? Is is even in the UK? EDIT as mentioned below the picture has now been changed to Paddington station and is no longer the Dutch station that appeared this morning. The second is just to get people to post web sites that have railway themes and use stock images that are not "correct".

Well Dresden's the place for that. We were fortunate that we were in the city on their Museums at Night event next it's on https://museumsnacht.dresden.de/ It was a great experience. Which may not match your dates.

A left field option could you build a ramp out of epoxy filler and embed the tube in it?. The ramp could need reinforcing with some aluminium mesh.

There are two key elements to the question @LACastellon1946 asks which are missing. What is his budget and is he willing to fly? With the Highland Rover ticket the Scottish element can be done in the four days on the ticket and the Hartz system in the others but this would require flying for various links. I have used the Highland Rover three times and much part of the Hartz system. If it was a choice I would go for the Hartz for the scenery and heritage trains. One feature of Scotland in June are the long daylight hours but a week on DMU can get you down. The midges have never bothered me. Apart from budget and flying, the other question is what other interests do you have apart from trains. It's a waste to go so far and miss out on other attractions. ,

Next stage will be one these two boards and will be a model of a real location that played a key role in the WW2 bombing campaign.

May depend on the condition but there is a collection of Good Show scripts for 87p on Abe Books

This is probably the last post on this particular part of the Never Ending Diorama. After smoothing out the field it received a cost of green acrylic paint but had a rather uniform colour as did the first attempt as using some flock. The next picture shows the revised field colour. I also let some grass grow in the cracks in the concerete. I decided to use a cheap hairspray to fix some of the bushes down but the can I purchased from Lidl was scented! It took a few days for the smell to clear the air. Some "completed" shots A sheep's eye view and one from the engine

The next stage was to start ballasting. Up until now I have used washing up liquid to improve the flow of the diluted PVA glue. I recently read about putting drops of IPA on the ballast first so tried that. The ballast was put in place using an old strainer and after the IPA was applied the entire trackbed was subject tot he dilute PVA glue and I was happy with the outcome. As I wanted to experiment during the build the sidings were to be in the form of hard standings made from Scalescenes papers. The surrounding level as built up using some expanded poly' from the packaging from a freezer that we had recently purchased. The fence was placed there to be measured for a future step. Lastly for this update the ground level at the rear was built up using yet more freezer packaging and cereal packet. I could not resist placing some AFV;s and Nissen huts on the layout. And here we have the biggest failure in the build to date. I have an amount of air dried modelling clay which I decided to use for field at the front. Firstly it would not adhere to the base and then as it dried large cracks appeared which need covering in plaster.

One aim on this diorama was to improve on my previous attempts at track laying and ballasting So the first step was to cut the track bed from foamboard and lay it out. At each stage I re-laid the track and tested. The entire board was then sprayed with, the pre tested, Halfords undercoat. Also a fiddle stick was added to hold the old style Peco loco lift. This would be long enough to hold the engine and two wagons that the track layout could handle. The next stage was to add two Peco point motors and test again. This was where the only expense to date was incurred as even a 14v AC supply does not deliver enough power to reliably so I purchased a CDU off Amazon which worked fine. As I currently have a free Amazon Prime account it was delivered within 16 hours of ordering. Next I will work on the ballast.

A perfectly good question. Those of use who knew TOP's in the early days will recall that the 9x series was reserved for special items: Steam, Departmental, training and ships - I guess the reason for the comment. The training items were imaginary loco's that you could send around the country in an early version of a virtual world.

@TrainMan2001 has already said that they have looked at a number of photographs and the picture of Brigg supplied by @Dunalastair fits the bill exactly, so we should turn to the other parts of the original question and other issues. These are related to the parts of the diorama and the fact it is set in "winter". But let's return to the signal box as the geographic location of the diorama will be set by which signal box you have chosen. Presuming it is a Ratio kit, they make two, GWR and Midland. In general if you have chosen the GWR you will need lower quadrant signals and for the Midland they would be upper quadrant. As to Winter - own would you like it depicted? The common feature in the UK is that most trees, except conifers loose their leaves in winter. The grass is not so green and there are no flowers. You also have the spaces in the diorama that are not railway. If these are going to be "the country" then cultivated fields might be just ploughed land. Then we come to the weather. This varies if you are modelling the GWR in Cornwall then it might need no particular attention but the Midland in Cumbria and the GWR in Wales might have significant snowfall. Rather than spend time in this post about this perhaps you would address these points in a reply and you could then be given the appropriate advice. My next project will be a very similar one to yours in that it will be a level crossing diorama but in OO gauge. It will be set at a very specific time and location. I am lucky in that, although the site has changed I have pictures of the location and for those elements that have not changed I can drive there, take photo's and get home in under an hour.

Although I have a number of wooden baseboard units ready for this project my starting point was this: An A1 sheet of 5mm foam.board Having used this before I am aware of the big issues regarding this medium.1) Warping, 2) the surface can be affected by certain glues and paints. 3) The need to use a sharp blade to avoid tearing and 4) Cutting to a 90 degree angle. So even before setting off I used a small off cut to test out the paints and glues that I intended to use. Following the success of that I then started bracing the main sheet. There was no particular science applied here as the braces were the width of the ruler I used for cutting. The full cross sections were evenly placed but the diagonal braces tended to be the size I cut them to. Anyway the final outcome seemed to be strong enough. After a few iterations the track layout was a simple shunting puzzle. which was wired up and tested.

The Never Ending Diorama (NED) has been an objective of mine for over forty years! and it is finally being built. The NED is a series of working dioramas (micro layouts) that would depict the railways on the Home Front during the Second World War. Part of the reason for not building it to date has been that until now we have lived in a series of houses linked to my wife's work (as a Vicar). When she retired her wish for the house was a large garden and mine was a space to house the elements of NED. In 2020 we achieved the first and last year the second. Generally various circumstances seemed to stop me modelling during the summer. Some was modelling fatigue in that I have worked on a number of “group builds” in one Forum but also the size of the task I had set myself in the never ending diorama (NED). Although the overall concept remained sound to me the execution seemed to have too many pitfalls. Everything was on hold until Rails of Sheffield has this on offer. The Bachmann Warflat with tank. When it arrived I quickly resolved to build a suitable element of the NED to display it. The two criteria I set myself were a) that all the elements would come from item I already had stored somewhere. And b) that I would try out different modelling techniques during the build. As it turned out some worked and some didn’t. The other criteria was that I would not post the build on RM web until it had reached at least 80% completion. In the past I have been as guilty as others in starting to document a build on a forum only for it to complete. So I will post this as a series of instalments rather than the end product.

I was going to suggest this but @WilltheMechanist seems to have already covered this as he has given examples from https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en in his posting. In the 30 or so hours since the opening post was made the request seems to have changed from the original request, which has been well answered, to a much more specific one regarding a small power station that could could be modelled. My original answer would be about Rye House in Hert's ot Brimsdown in East London but these are far too large for @WilltheMechanist 's current requirement. What might be better in one of the numerous factory sites that had their own small generating plant. I don't have one to hand but a sectional appendix covering a line would usually give wagon lengths and working arrangements.

You could say that for many costal towns in the UK but it does not stop then hosting successful visitor attractions and attracting short stay holiday makers. Margate is actually moving up in attracting visitors with the Turner Contemporary art gallery and the revamped Dreamland amusement park. The only time I went to the old Hornby Visitor centre was when we had a short break in Sandwich during which we visited many of the attractions in Kent + a day long coach trip to France via Eurotunnel.

So we now have a Wonderlab at the NRM and Hornby have WonderWorks from Hornby. Neither seens particularly relevant to the main offerings.

Most of the suggestions have been for a terminus but @iamwill mentioned in his first post that the layout was being designed so that the station could become a through station in the future. Therefore I feel the original plan as presented is actually the optimum for his initial requirements. The EMU can run into the bay leaving the other platform for imaginary through services. It's a pity that you are restricted to a four foot board as this does not allow the unit (at around 16ins) to arrive and depart from the station at both ends it yo could add another foot then I would suggest using your lengthen plan with the station in the centre. Having taken another look at your plans, have you worked out the design of where the buildings etc are going. I only ask that because the micro layout I am working on at the moment has given me a problem. I designed the track plan and laid the track I then found I had too little space in some areas and too much in others. Your road layout could lead to similar issues. You are planning a diorama of suburban London with a railway the street scenes need as much, if not more, attention and planning as the railway.

Firstly it's your layout so build it and enjoy both the building and running, If what you are aiming for is a Suburban London scene diorama with a small length of running railway then leave it as it is. My only query is that the station looks a little short. I cannot find online how long the 313 is but I would guess around 15 - 17 inches. However there has to be a but.. In N gauge I would go with a double track line as there are plenty of prototypes of high level lines like this - most of the line from Seven Sisters to Edmonton Green fits this description, although there are no island platforms. There are two other things you might like to consider. Changing the layout from a high level line to one in a cutting. if you do extend the line it will allow for scenic breaks. As this will be a freelance layout I would consider looking at Chesington South. This is a terminus as you require but the line extends beyond the station as a freight only line serving an aggregates terminal. This would allow you to additionally run a Class 59, Class 66 through the station light engine. You either do this with a singe line of add a trailing crossover to a double line from left to right. If your line is low level then Chessington has a scenic break via a bridge at one end and lots of trees at the other. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.356436,-0.3084423,244m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu