Ben B

I got my copy of the Wales book in the post this week... very, very dangerous books these. Every page a modellable prototype! I ended up getting the whole set of these books over the last 12 months, Gordon Edgar is to be praised for these very accessible and interesting volumes as they're fantastic glimpses into this vanished world. The thing which has surprised me is that even into the 90's and early 2000's there were still quite a few industrial locomotives in use; I only wish I'd realised at the time and sought a few out to photograph myself.

I feel like I'm missing out with my job... I don't need to do Skype etc for my work. I'd be tempted to make it a bit theatrical out of mischief, lots of bookshelves, flickering firelight, leather armchair, smoking jacket; basically looking as if the caller was conversing with Noel Coward reading the Book At Bedtime Has anyone thought of taking a shot of their model railway and digitally inserting it behind themselves, so it looks like they're commuting from a Triang station?

Would you mind sharing some details about that rather nice converted Matchbox diesel shunter please, the one in the last pic?

Mine had a go at a Lego Double Fairlie… until it became a spaceship/flying car/science lab. Still, I suppose that's the point of Lego Is that rather nice 03 an Ace Trains product please?

"Railhead" by Philip Reeve is a good book, I tried it before passing it onto my eldest. Interestingly he lays the groundwork for the concept in a "Mortal Engines" book, where he mentions a train controlled by a reprogrammed human brain inside it.

A very atmospheric underground line there, prior to the Olympics rebuilding. I used to use it to visit a mate who lived there, it was like transfering to a branch line

Crossley Evans is a fascinating place; still linked to the mainline but for various political reasons between the local council, Network Rail and so on, hasn't seen a train in a long time. There are still about 5 shunters there, blending in with the scrap piles. Something that might fit with your model are the two R&H 88's which are in use as buffer stops, rusty, overgrown, and battered; I've got a photo somewhere, I can try and dig it out if you like? Might be a use for one of those old unpowered Knightwing kits and some scenic materials

I had a Lima 0 gauge diesel from eBay a couple of years ago, which the seller had packaged very well, but My Hermes left it outside the front door... which wouldn't have been too bad, were it not torrentially raining. And they hadn't left it actually IN a puddle. Bravo. Luckily once I'd used a hair-drier on the mechanism it worked about as well as Lima 0 ever did, but still... Quite often I find My Hermes deliveries sat on top of my bins down the alleyway beside the house, which means the delivery driver has either climbed a 7-foot gate and trespassed, or tossed the parcel over and hoped it would land on the bins. To be honest though I've had good experience in general with Ebay purchases lately, and decent packaging. It think the record being some Kato track I bought the other week which was in its own packaging, wrapped in about 10 layers of bubble wrap, in foam pellets, in a shoebox, in a plastic wrapping.

Keighley and Worth Valley was used for the railway scenes. Saltaire was used for some town shots, it was odd spotting an old workplace suitably disguised And we saw the start of Half A Sixpence too, that was a bloody odd journey... bit surprised to spot the VoR.

One with a zoom lens from my drive in front of the house, one standing on a chair in my back garden

If I'm not too bothered about matching specific colours (br blue, midland crimson etc) and just want 'general' colours, I go for citadel (games workshop) acrylics personally

Impressive bit of mass production, but I don't envy how big a filing/sanding job you've got there. Not tempted to leave it in Bertie Basset/ Liquorice Allsorts livery instead?

Having posted some pics a few weeks ago of the KWVR's cut-cab 08 "Ashburnham", it put in a surprise appearance a couple of weeks ago on the Valley. This was when the line were clearing the work site at the under-replacement "Bridge 11" and retrieving equipment for the lockdown... Height comparison with 20031 And lest I be accused of being selfish and going out to take photographs when I should have been staying at home, the shots were taken from my front and back gardens

I reckon a tinplate hst would look brilliant! Particularly in original blue/grey/yellow. I wonder if the more rounded shapes would be easier or harder to produce than a regular carriage?

Found these whilst hunting for some Keighley and Worth Valley Railway pics for the Class 25 and 31 prototype threads. Got a load of model locomotives from different eras, but want to run them all together? Preparations for the Small Engines gala back in 2017. Bachmann 25, Kernow Beattie Well Tank, DJM Austerity, but would need to scratchbuild the experimental/prototype EE shunter "Vulcan". Not the greatest shot, but I was out for a walk near Damems and the convoy slightly caught me by surprise. And a couple from when the railway went pleasantly eccentric with the loco roster on the last couple of days of the 2019 gala. Back at Damems again, and we have the forthcoming 2MT from Hornby, and a custom repainted Railroad 31... ...though this is my favourite, but would need a lot of scratchbuilding. S160 "Big Jim" with BR double-arrows no less, piloting the visiting Prototype High Speed Train with correct livery, and older Virgin, Mk3's. There's even a Class 50 on the rear!

Some shots of Keighley and Worth Valley Railway resident 25059 over the last few years. Lovely loco, sadly out of use at the moment; it was suffering some mechanical faults I think, but then got badly damaged when Haworth Shed flooded a couple of months ago. With a visiting Class 33 at Oxenhope at the 2014 diesel gala. Near Oxenhope, again 2014 gala. Between Ingrow and Keighley, again, 2014 gala. And a final 2014 gala shot, this time the token arty monochrome at Keighley Last two, the loco running with visiting Mk.3's from the prototype HST set, seen at Damems in 2019.

Some visiting class 31 action from the Keighley and Worth Valley... this would have been the 2014 diesel gala but I cannot remember which line it was visiting from. Leaving Oxenhope on the Friday I think (we had our middle-foster daughter off school with a broken leg, and took her up to Oxenhope for a picnic to watch the trains). It looked good in the experimental livery... but not nearly as good (in my opinion) as; Visiting from the Chinnor line for the 2019 gala. Seen as tail-end-Charlie on the very distinctive convoy; Class 50, class 47, prototype HST and carriages, and the 31. Bingley Station. Near Damems. I really took to this loco, having not really been a fan of 31's before, and would still quite like a model of it at some point. One final oddity; March 2010 at Ribblehead/Blea Moor I'm afraid I don't have any details on the working, as these were the days before RTT (not that there's internet signal up there anyway), I was just out for a walk one weekday and it tootled past out of the gloom.

The TV adverts aren't helping... our eldest pretty much screams abuse at the screen now. "Oh look, kids enjoying themselves with their mates! Can't do that!", "What a beautiful place... you can't flipping visit!", "Hey look a party, no ones social distancing!" Or my personal favourite she hollered at the screen last week; "Ooh a nice cruise liner... sign up for our medieval plague ship experience!"

Is that YEC shunter still at the end of the siding at Skinigrove? I was intrigued reading about it in Gordon Edgars book, it seems a right veteran loco being ex-Workington...

I do respect such people as a rule; I have living family who have served in the past, and some who are serving at the moment. And if I have caused you or anybody else offence, then I sincerely apologise, it was not my intention. My issue on the day was that there seemed to be a number of older people who were making loud comments in the queue, particularly about us younger shoppers, and our buying habits, and commenting about the positives of rationing, and so on when they were youngsters. Whilst I appreciate these are unusual times, I'm a regular shopper in that Morrisons, and you don't see people in there normally wearing quite so much regalia, especially in March... I admit it's my interpretation, but there did seem to be a certain amount of people out to make a point on the day. To get this back on-track, as a pleasant surprise I took delivery of some model-making bits and pieces about an hour ago. I wasn't expecting it, being an eBay sale won a little whilst ago, as I thought the seller wouldn't have posted until after the lockdown was lifted (and wouldn't have blamed them for waiting until it was safer to go to a post office). Cheered me up a bit

It's something of a legacy from about 10 years ago, the general atmosphere on my street... we had a lot of antisocial behaviour hereabouts from a group of kids who thought nothing of deliberately kicking footballs into windows, posting dog-muck through letterboxes, and climbing into back gardens to nick things. It ended about 5 years ago when they got old enough to spread their madness elsewhere in town, but the results were that a lot of neighbours invested heavily in CCTV and are still afraid to open their doors when you knock. Even before this mess, going across to some of the homes to collect a mis-delivered parcel would result in conversations through letterboxes along the lines of "my husband will bring it to you when he gets back from work, please go away"... if you were lucky, someone might open a door on the chain on the third or fourth attempt at knocking. So you can imagine the atmosphere of paranoia when you might think anyone at the door might be some sort of plague-bearer...

I went to Morrisons last week, and it was a horrible atmosphere... I went for food, but thought I might get a few non-essentials like a couple of films for the kids to watch, or get them a magazine each too. But the entry/exit system meant the people coming out of the shop had to pass the queue of frustrated, angry people waiting to go in, and that meant an awful lot of judgement was being passed on the contents of trollies, and the time it had taken people to shop for 'luxuries' which had made the queue outside longer. There was a definite impression that you ought to be in there for bread, milk, loo roll, and nothing else. The angry comments and glares if people tried to get more than the small-sized trollies ("Big trolly? One of them panic-buying tossers are yer?"), and the less said about if you paused in the magazine/DVD aisle, the better... In the end the peer pressure of it all meant I just got food. Were the 3 Easter Eggs in my trolley essential? In the sense that we wouldn't starve to death for not having them, no they weren't essential. As presents for the kids who are scared sh*tless by this mess, and who are upset they won't get to go to Wales and see their grandparents this Easter, or possibly at all this year? Yeah I'd say they're essential for raising morale, but I don't like having to stand and argue the toss with grumpy strangers. There were older people wearing poppy badges, old medals and things, loudly discussing about when they had rationing, people wouldn't be trying to buy so much unnecessary rubbish, etc. So in that atmosphere, ordering things which aren't food but which might make this isolation more bearable, particularly for youngsters? Mail Order is the only way, so I really hope it continues. As for the curtain-twitchers effect? Definitely in force round here. I've only been out once, for my 'allowed daily exercise'. I practised social distancing, I crossed the road to get away from people... but I was glared at from behind windows by what seemed like every person on my street, and a dad who was out with his son walking their dog was giving me evils because his child was screaming in fear that "there was another person! I'm going to get ill!!!" which led to even more people appearing at the windows staring at me. It was such an unpleasant experience I decided not to try again. As soon as you go outside to even get the bins or do some gardening on the front you get curtains flicking open and people watching you. Sorry for the slightly OT rant. Guess I need to order some model-making bits and calm down

It could be their office is unmanned at the mo too, which is why communications are tricky and you're still showing as processing... I suppose you're best waiting, you might find it tricky to get another supplier in these conditions. I can sympathise, we paid a deposit for new front and back doors before lockdown. They were meant to be fitted friday... hopefully they don't go bust. Would be nice to have guarrenteed new doors for when the starving mobs start kicking them down in a few weeks...

Brilliant, this cheered me up no end today

That looks amazing, the texture from the egg box is very effective