MrWolf

If it were in a more accessible spot I would suggest attacking the surface with engineers Emery cloth. 120 or 80 grit. It has no respect for the piddly sort of rock ballast is made of and would smooth the surface if it's as hard as you suspect to a worn compacted look. But you might well have to apply option A also.

It will certainly go faster than a standard Airfix 14xx. Having been lightening for speed by the removal of the autotrain gear, handrails, tank fillers etc etc. A true hotrod. I'm still laughing about Rare' probably meaning 'not well done '.

£3.99 with most UK suppliers but out of stock. Good to know what to use though and as it's not desperate, I will file the information for later use. Thanks again Mr Hell.

There's an amusing bidding war on flea bay at the moment for some of that stuff. £23 and climbing. I'll have a dig round for a supplier in the UK.

Never heard of that! I will have to have a look online and find some. I have a couple of locomotives that need backdating to about 1938.

Looking good! I too was thinking about what I have been spending online, but my other half pointed out that we aren't doing anything else. Normally we would be tying our gear onto the old BSA and heading off to festivals, vintage motorcycle rallies and WW2 events, for which this was going to be a big year. So we have been able to justify buying a few more goodies for our hobbies than usual.

I have had a similar problem with an over textured road surface before. I thought I could put up with it, until I thought how a scale bicycle or motorcycle would get down that road? So I mixed up a very thin decorators' filler and some grey brown artists gouache paint and applied it carefully across the surface with a small stiff brush, making sure that I didn't overload areas too much, although areas seeing heavy traffic would be smoother. I also didn't get too concerned with the very edges as this is where the loose and heavier materials get thrown by passing traffic. When it was dry (and importantly no higher than the original surface, I went at it with more paint of varying shades.

Put it down to running repairs. The real thing ends up like the proverbial woodsman's axe over time. How did you manage to get the GWR transfers off without damaging the original paintwork?

Thanks for the information here. I too have an old Mainline Siphon H, I always assumed that it was running some generic bogies. Now at least I know they are GWR, but still the wrong ones. The body is a nice moulding however and I do have some 9' American bogies in the spares box made from white metal. 247 Developments IIRC. I think it will be headed to the workbench soon. It's Mint In Box to some. More MIBASNEV - Mint In Box And Still Not Exactly Valuable.

Sorry I can't get the link up here (as it's still 1963 in our house) but if you go on eBay and type in 333191003215, you will find your idol Gostude has for sale a KIT BUILT Oliver... Actually a poor old Airfix 14XX painted shed green with a face stuck on it... For the bargain price of £99.50! Hurry up and L@@K chaps, it's KIT BUILT and probably RARE!!!!!

But we all know that turning the tables and having the cheek to ask what she spent on something non essential will result in a night sleeping on the couch, right?

Just as an addition to the discussion about setts, very often they only extended along the platform outside the station buildings, the rest of the platform being cinders. In the Midlands for certain those diamond pattern setts were known as Staffordshire blue setts. The backyard of the entire street where my grandparents lived was originally paved with them. The houses were constructed privately in ones and twos between 1888 and 1896 according to the stone name plaques at roof level. My first house was built in 1889 and that had the same setts in the backyard.

Your points operating system makes perfect sense, I've worked on that setup for other applications, simple and reliable.

Back on topic: Wow. Can't beat a Dean Goods IMO. What were the alterations that you made to control and point operation? Apologies if I missed it way back in the thread.

Probably from Russian supplied bullets fired by terrorists? Nicking lead off the church roof shouldn't be a problem either. (along with robbing the shed they store the food parcels and donated clothes in)

Thanks, she would be genuinely flattered and I wasn't kidding either. 1959 Raleigh Sports

Just typing "where can I buy depleted uranium?" into google gets you into all kinds of trouble. If you can catch a jobbing builder, they can often supply enough old lead flashing to last a lifetime and is will cut neatly with tinsips.

It often surprises me just how much some people spend on their hobbies. Not just the ridiculous price that some model railway items command on eBay (just seen an old Hornby half cab pannier make £60) when people are moaning that "There's no money about". Someone I used to know got all his designer bicycle parts sent to work so Mrs didn't find out and I remember him telling me that he had spent £800 on a pair of wheels. I wouldn't / couldn't do that! Also a lot of my rusty bicycles tend to be free. I wish I could say the same for the motorcycles!

I know that not everyone feels the same way, but if we are creating a model railway, rather than running model trains, the railway itself, the infrastructure and the immediate surroundings are just as important as the trains themselves. Joe Average (you know, those weirdos with no interest in railways) looking at a model railway is seeing a complete picture, just as they would in real life. He has the advantage of not being distracted by the trains and sees far more to impress him than an enthusiast would. It's rather like the reaction of someone who claims that they can't draw to a good painting, rather than that of some art critic.

It's getting difficult. Waif and stray rusty bicycles are like wagon kits. You HAVE to have a stash. You just daren't count them. A small selection, from back to front: 1985 MBK, 1940 New Hudson, 1949 Rudge, 1952 Raleigh. The difference is, I can bribe 'er indoors with old bicycles.

Very true. I generally ignore unsolicited offers, because there are so many wannabe dealers out there and general chisellers. Last year I sold some early 1950s Vauxhall parts for a mate. Starting bid £95. Within minutes a dealer offers £75, then £85 as there were no bids in the first two days. When the clock ran out, they were at £245.00 plus £21.00 carriage. 'Nuff said!

I seem to have the same problem. I bought a gear cable set for a vintage bicycle that was in the queue for restoration and put it somewhere safe until I had time to do the job. Could I find it? No. In one of those moments when I had clearly got far too "in touch with my feminine side" I had made like a girl and tidied it into a parallel dimension. I have just found it in the bookcase about two weeks after a replacement arrived. I haven't the foggiest why I thought that was a good spot to stash it or any recollection of doing so. Miss Riding Hood denies any involvement and as I am sure you all know, it is wise to take her word for it and drop the matter entirely. The upside is that I am sure I could acquire another 1930s bicycle in need of some fettling.

I would have a sniff around the locomotive shed (literally) for the smell of frying bacon. You may have an Oh Mr Porter situation, where the farmer thought that Harbottle had put the pigs on a freight bound for Belfast.

Some water tank release valves worked the opposite way so that you didn't have to swing on the chain. The operating chain hanging down to floor level with a counterweight attached to the end, a two foot length of old sleeper in one prototype case. The fireman would swing the hose over the tank and lift the weight onto the locomotive. All he then had to do was wait until the tanks brimmed and simply kick the counterweight off the footplate. Easy.

Very impressive progress and I'll second the opinions on the sweeping curves to the bridges. I have done the same thing on a much more modest scale with my own layout, a single line curves before crossing three girder spans ten feet above a river and a single span over a mill leat before curving the opposite way into a small through station. I am at about the same stage as you are with construction. I really ought to get some pictures posted! I will be following progress here with interest despite our layouts being very different, the build philosophy is much the same, especially about not trying to cram too much in. Less is more, so people keep telling me!