Halvarras

Par signal box a few hours ago. Note the countdown in the window, and base for the new signal. If you look carefully you can see the up signals in the distance through the framework (yes I did that on purpose!) Sobering to think this building controlled Broad Gauge trains for the first 13 years of its life! I must call in and take some finial photos (see what I did there?!) - if the rain stops over the next 6 days.....er, 5 days!

Re the two-tone green ones - D1526's No 1 end faces right - D1969's No 1 End faces left......so why are the BR emblems both to the right? Answer - D1526's emblem has been printed on the wrong end! (There was a batch around D1552-7 which did have their emblems applied to the wrong end from new for some reason - but D1526 was 'conventional' (I checked.....just in case!)

I hope Colin M is looking down and watching all your builds Darius - he'd love this! He was a real character - gotta like a bloke who called his own O gauge kits 'El Crappo'!!

Looking back at the decoration sample we had every reason to expect that this had been corrected: So it's likely that Hornby themselves were disappointed at this upon opening the boxes containing the first production batch - assuming they even noticed it.......some of us have been dealing with BR liveries for enough decades to spot a right-facing emblem straightaway, it just looks wrong (same with the double-arrow logo). I find some transfer sheets disappointing as the ratio of left- to right-facing emblems provided doesn't match reality, so the correct ones run out leaving a lot of unused incorrect ones (reminder - this only applies to the late emblem, not the early crest). It appears that the emblem on the other side of the model is correctly facing left, so both face backwards - as @cctransuk says it would have been more acceptable if they'd both faced forwards, i.e. the wrong one was on the other side, since this was seen on some early-production BR locos. Some years ago - around 15 I think - I took exception to Heljan's too-dark rendering of the lion & wheel in the emblems on a Class 47 (D1734 - renumbered to a longer-lived example....!) so erased just these features inside the circle and replaced them with those cut out of waterslide transfers. I was very pleased with the result but it's not something my eyesight is up to these days! Nevertheless I thought I'd mention this possible correction for those with younger eyes and bothered about it on this model.

I never thought for one moment that you'd leave it alone! However losing the crest is probably just as well since, according to the photos I have in front of me (MLI 222 page 11) Hornby have printed this back-to-front (right-facing late crests did exist, so I had to check, but only briefly and were an incorrect application). Other than that it looks very smart. Even if the bufferbeams look like they've been dipped in tomato sauce......which makes a change from custard I suppose 😉!

At least that's another one not available RTR (I assume this is a consideration?) You built the 4-GRI in 4 weeks so..........the 2-HAL should be done in a fortnight then. Oooh, hang on - no interiors.........12 days. No pressure........😁! (Only kidding, as that wouldn't achieve the stated aim of taking it easy!) As always I'll be following with interest. It's another reminder of just how many oddball subjects CM managed to cover in his MTK range.

When I got interested in Cornwall's railways in 1966 the only diesel-electrics around had six wheels and moved wagons around in goods yards. I was in a scout group at the time and during the last week of July 1967 Cornish scout groups were booked into the scouting centre at Gilwell Park, the railhead for which was Chingford. A special train was provided which took D827 'Kelly' around London to reach that destination in the early hours of 25th July, and having woken up in time my bleary eyes saw D101, D5185, D7645, D5525, D8202/7 and D8405, with E3172 noted during a day trip. All totally 'foreign' to me of course! But astonishingly not a single Class 37 or 47 - my first of the latter, D1677 'Thor', would turn up on home turf two months later. The next time I managed to get off the WR was early November 1969, to Stafford to visit relatives, although by road. They lived within easy walking distance of the WCML south of Stafford station so the first afternoon (and encouraged by my uncle, who got me into the modelling-making hobby in the first place), I went to see the local trains at an overbridge. For some reason the 'juice' was off so only diesels were seen - by then D1709 and D1856 were no great shakes but D5015 on a slow northbound PW train was a first, then came a big green whistling thing with full yellow ends on a southbound passenger working, which increased the excitement by getting held at a signal a distance away, and when the driver had eventually finished his conversation at the post and climbed back into the cab, D218 'Carmania' whistled under the bridge and away to London. Awesome - and another named 'first'! While we were in Stafford I'd get to Crewe and Derby and go around both Works - more 'firsts', including Class 20s, 50s and 76s and a last look at D1733 in XP64 blue at Crewe - but at that time no WR Class 37s were seen there, while Derby provided D2506 and D5381 of note (the latter would be the only BRCW Type 2 I'd ever see with a pre-TOPS number). Derby station proved just as interesting that day as my first Class 37 (at last!), 6807, went through on a freight one way while my second Class 31, 5825, did likewise in the opposite direction. The infamous D326 arrived light-engine and D8000 + D8063 passed by as well. The 1960s were wrapped up in style as at the end of the following month, between Christmas and New Year, another family visit to Camberley enabled my first visit to London termini via Waterloo, so a few more Class 31s and 37s in the bag and at Kings Cross of course, my first 'Deltic', D9020 'Nimbus'. Only much later did I discover that the last green one, D9014, had gone blue the previous month, so I never saw a green Class 55 in service (other than 55002 just the once, in 1981). The 1970s were onwards and upwards from there! It sometimes surprises me to remember that during these spotting trips over the two months of 1969 I was only 16 and travelling around unfamiliar territory by myself. However the railway timetables held no fear and, well, it was just a different world back then.

Bachmann produced this as a limited edition for Kernow.....in case it's relevant. Grey stripe rather than white though:

Mainline diesel loco-wise 20007 is doing well (introduced September 1957).....

Dorian......Darius? Hmm, good point Mike, just coincidental, or........🤔? At least when I built my Class 119 kit I really was only 23 😜!! Dorian.....sorry I mean Darius (🤭), did you stock up on Hornby drive units and bogies - as well as a mountain of plasticard - in readiness for this MTK onslaught, while they were still available, possibly from Lendon's of Cardiff who sell these bogies at astonishingly low prices........when they have them? I've had a 2-BIL motor bogie on back order for a couple of years or more and I think I may have to wait until Hornby produce another batch of these EMUs to get hold of it - fortunately I'm in no rush, and by the time it arrives I think its purpose may have changed anyway!

Thread started 23rd January - model completed 23rd February. I reckon you must live in some kind of quantum realm which makes your days longer than everyone else's! It doesn't seem to matter how many vehicles are involved, or the complexity - window frame overlays on this one - all you seem to require per kit is one month (standard Earth time equivalent!) Stunning result (again) and as others have said, probably your best one yet. I get a sense that you're on a roll with your MTK stash.....!

Hopefully the Class 02 will take after the Class 11 instead of the PWM 'misfire' - purchasers of the former seem happy with it to date......🤞

I had a couple of those early metal-chassis 47s, they did run well although I wasn't convinced by the bogie pivoting arrangement and having pick-ups pushing the split-sleeve trailing bogie wheelsets apart was a ridiculous idea (variable back-to-backs?!) - I replaced these on mine with Silver Seal wagon wheels on steel axles, which made negotiating pointwork a tad more reliable!

I'm just reading 'Small Layout Design Handbook'* (Christmas present!)........and I think I'm going to have to get this one too! Certainly gets the ol' grey matter churning.......especially as I spy a 'Drinnick Mill' plan in the new one - attention grabbed! *I must pop around to Ponts Mill and have a look - I believe much of the track is still in situ but overgrown ('Abandoned rails.....' thread material 🙂!)

Economical source of logos, if of interest: https://blacksquaredecals.co.uk/Miscellaneous-Products/Generic-Decals/Generic-Decals-Shell-New-8mm Also available in 10mm and 15mm sizes. No connection, just happy customer (I've used the Gulf logos from BSD, very nice).

D1702 got its 12LDA28C engine from written-off D1908 (which was the 10th Class 47 I ever saw, in 1968 and by pure chance). D1702/3/5 were all inside Crewe Works on 3/11/69 but there was no sign of the remains of D1908 (withdrawn 8/69) which had been cut up the previous month.

Those interiors look fabulous - there are not many models out there sporting such thorough treatment, and it's great to see this in MTK kits of all things! Well done for coming up with the idea and applying if so diligently - it must keep you occupied for a few hours............er............in your case, minutes?! 😃

Another very decent MTK find - looking at all those door shutline transfers I think a new word for "tedious" is required (I thought applying these to my Class 119 unit back in 1975 was bad enough) but hey, someone else has done all that for you, what's not to like?! With a motor bogie at each end how does the whole unit run? Those old Tri-ang MBs could (and still can) be remarkably smooth-running. I reckon the steel axles and brass gears* gave them the edge over the diesels which used one-piece nylon gear/axles - any inaccuracy in the moulding could make the motor bogie run with a surging motion, so there was an element of luck involved. *I know later versions had nylon gears but at least mounting them on steel axles gave them a head start over the one-piece things.

Truro, Cornwall, summer of '66 - introduced to the real railway by a school friend (who went on to work at the ORR). The same year another friend down the road got me interested in the model side - I'd been building Airfix kits for years, mostly aircraft - now I could create stuff with a purpose!I Truro station in 1966 was of course all diesel-hydraulics - green and maroon with blue just around the corner - with what would become a Class 08 shunting the yard (D3509 may have been my first official cop) and a DMU working the Falmouth branch (usually Swindon Cross-country with headcode panels). My 1967 IA combo shows I saw all five D600 Warships but alas I only have scant memories, D600 in blue passing Penwithers Junction on an up freight being the clearest. Same with D6301 with disc headcodes - underlined but no recollection now. I probably saw these locos and a lot more besides during a week's Cornish Railrover that first summer but I have no written records for that year (if I ever get a time machine re-running that week would be a priority!) My 1966 Tri-ang catalogue had alerted me to the good looks of the Hymek but I wouldn't see one in Cornwall until August the following year when D7029 heading the down 'Cornish Riviera' caught me by surprise at Carn Brea. Many years later I'd discover that they'd been a fairly regular sight in Cornwall during 1964/5 as Laira had a small allocation, but for some reason 1966, for me at least, had been a Hymek-free zone and I've never seen evidence contradicting this. Autumn 1967 had seen D7029/88 make repeated appearances (plus one from D7017), I believe covering for the loan of D601/2/4 to South Wales, but Hymeks would become rare visitors to Truro after that, just one or two a year. Meanwhile my combo was getting heavily scored on the Warship, Western and NBL Type 2 pages....... relief arrived one afternoon that same autumn in the form of D1677 'Thor', followed a couple of weeks later by D1640 - Brush Type 4s became highly sought after and before 1968 was over we'd had some 'for'ners' from the LMR and even the odd ER example - real exotica in the far South West those were, after all they'd had to survive loco changes at Bristol and Plymouth! The down 'Cornishman' on a Friday seemed a good bet for a Brush, although WR examples were still most likely. It was the less likely ones which got everyone excited.....! I have a few childhood memories of steam but Cornwall had been fully dieselized by the time I got seriously interested. In retrospect I realised that, as I inevitably began to travel further afield, the surviving steam traction was receding at a similar rate, and I missed steam at both Exeter and in the Midlands by around 15 months. As I look back now on the fascinating railways I knew and loved, which operationally had far more in common with the steam age than do the last four decades, I get an idea of how steam fans must have felt after 11th August 1968 - and especially that feeling of emptiness which hit me on 27th February 1977....... I'd better stop here, I can feel meself gettin' all emotional now 🤪!

Sort of like this one, from a past era? (Appeared this morning.) https://elaines-trains.co.uk/index.php?cat=39235 Limited edition too, don't see these very often - suspect it won't be there for long.....

Entirely agree - I'd overlooked just how bad it got until just recently when I found a picture of a SWB wagon chassis from that period in that 'orrible flexible plastic with the brake levers facing the wrong way. It wasn't just the massive moulded-on t/l couplers that were ludicrous......that Mainline/Airfix shake-up couldn't come soon enough.

Funny you should mention 'Lord Westwood', just minutes before reading this thread I'd spotted this up for grabs at Howes Models..... https://howesmodels.co.uk/product/Hornby-railways-r765-the-lord-westwood-25555-4-6-0-hall-class-locomotive-boxed/ Loco looks near mint but the box apparently not so. I note that the wheels differ between this one and the example you've presented - perhaps the result of a chassis swap? What do you reckon though? First of three?! 😜

Newquay branch from Middleway Crossing looking towards Newquay on 1st February. This stretch always looks like this regardless of the time of year and how many weed-killing trains pass by. IETs look a little out of place on such track during the summer months.

I've never used Methfix but have used Pressfix - I ordered a couple of new sheets 2-3 years ago and find them very satisfactory. I renumbered a few locos and had no trouble aligning and spacing them correctly. For those unfamiliar with these, the sheet is placed glue side up and individual items cut around with a scalpel but with just enough pressure to cut through the tissue layer under the transfer, not all the way through the backing card*. Lift a corner of the tissue with the tip of the blade then use tweezers to peel the tissue with transfer off the card, turn over and initially press lightly down on the model. If in the correct position press down firmly, wet the tissue with water to release it and lift this away with the tweezers. * Easier said than done, but it just makes the next 'separating' stage less fiddly.

Thank you Jason, this answers the question I had about a fireless loco I saw (and photographed I think) at GWS Didcot in late 1972, before I got around to asking it!