MatP

Hello Again, Here is some more layout news from the Bala Model Show organising team, which I am putting up partly as a displacement activity to stop myself from buying any more 00 Gauge industrial tank locos... The news at the moment is about the smaller scales, standard gauge and steam, but there will be future announcements pertaining to larger scales and/or narrower track, and diesel and electric traction too. The first layout I have for you today is 'Boulder Falls', an American N micro-layout. This was built from mainly recycled materials by the same gentleman who exhibited the 0-16.5 layout "Gorsaf Maes-y-Gof" at our 2022 Show. Indeed, "Gorsaf" will be making a return appearance as well. The second layout is a model of a now-disused station on the Bala to Dolgellau line, not far from what is now the Bala Lake Railway. It is "Drws-y-Nant", in 2mm Finescale. This layout is continuous-run and 16 feet long overall. The Bala Lake Railway possesses several relics from Drws (some of which might be on display at the Show). Indeed, for many years we used Drws' old signal box windows in our own box at Llanuwchllyn. Video footage of Drws-y-Nant can be seen by following the link below to You Tube and fast-forwarding to about 14 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24MK-Cq_Sgw&t=9s

Dear All, I'm now in a position to start announcing some of the layouts for the 2023 Bala Show (16th and 17th September 2023). First of all, a pair of N gauge ones: Llangollen and Sandside. UPDATE 26.3.23: the owner of 'Sandside' is no longer able to come to our event. We would like to thank him for supporting our event in the past and to wish him the very best. Mat P (Bala Lake Railway Society Secretary and Bala Model Railway Show Organiser)

Hi, Here are a couple of shots of a newly-acquired Alice visiting my model of Llangywair (Llangower) station, on the Bala Lake Railway. The crew have clearly nipped off to the facilities in the car park. Alice has also had a quick run on a test track oval with 9" curves, a couple of set track points and a couple more Streamline ones - all fine. In fact, she was better than fine - straight out of the box, running round at '20' on my Gaugemaster 'Combi' without a hitch. I bought the loco from Bure Valley Models and they tested it in advance, as, I believe, they're doing with all the Bachmann Hunslet releases. Do think abut visiting Bala Lake in 2023 - it's the 50th Anniversary of the BLR Society (the Company's was 2022). We have several gala events planned, a Model Show in September (in 2022 there were 21 layouts, including 'Llangower Fach' depicted here, and 9 traders) and then there's the Extension to think about... Plugs Over - Happy Christmas! Mat (Bala Lake Railway Society Secretary / Bala Model Show Organiser)

Dear All, The Bala Model Railway Show will be returning for 2023 after what (we think!) was a very successful 2022 Show. In 2022 we had 21 layouts and 9 traders. There was an approximate 50/50 split between narrow gauge and standard gauge layouts and we also had 16mm NG live steam. The Show will be open from 10.00 to 16.00 on both Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th September. There will be a vintage bus shuttle from the venue to the Bala Lake Railway and back, and the BLR will be running special extra trains. We are hoping to put on a similar-sized show in 2023. 9 layout owners and 5 traders have already expressed their definite interest. Offers of layouts, other exhibits, trade or society stands are welcomed: please email me at modelshow@bala-lake-railway.co.uk. We are sorry that we can't afford to cover accommodation costs but we do pay travel expenses as you would expect, and also offer a free campsite / caravan site, food and a complimentary 'Exhibitors' Special' train on the Bala Lake Railway on the Saturday evening. We've had to move our Show forward by a week from its traditional date, due to the Stafford Model Show's move to September. Although we survived - better than survived - the clash in 2022, we thought it best not to repeat it. The only other possible dates available to us were 16th-17th but that means that in 2023 we will still have a clash, this time with a 009 Society anniversary event. With all due apologies to 009 modellers, the 16th-17th clash seemed like the lesser of two weevils, and it's only for one year. We are expecting there to be fewer 009 layouts available for our Show in 2023 which will mean that other scales and gauges will have to step up...! 2023 will be the 50th Anniversary of the Bala Lake Railway Society (the Railway Company's 50th was in 2022) and we also have grounds for hoping that some significant steps forward with a certain 3/4-mile long, 1:1 scale, narrow-gauge layout will be made between now and the Show. Best Wishes, Mat P. (Bala Lake Railway Society Secretary and Bala Model Railway Show Organiser)

Hi All, There's a small boo-boo in the advert placed in Railway Modeller. It says that the Show closes at 17.00, it's actually 16.00 (as it says in the first post at the top of this thread). Best Wishes to everyone, Mat (Show "Organiser")

A couple of extra layouts have been added: Indian Hill Railway (16mm live steam) and my own layout "Llangower Fach" in 009. As I'm no doubt going to have plenty of things to do as Show Organiser, the latter will be a static exhibit only. I also have to announce that the O-Gauge depot micro-layout is no longer going to attend. That makes 21 layouts, assuming nothing changes in the next week! Please see https://bala-lake-railway.co.uk/events/model-show/ for the latest information.

For more information about the layouts and traders at the Show, please see the following web page: https://bala-lake-railway.co.uk/events/model-show/

The Bala Model Show had to be cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to Covid-19. But it will be taking place in 2022, the 50th Anniversary Year of the Bala Lake Railway. The venue is Ysgol Godre'r Berwyn, the Secondary School in the heart of Bala, by kind permission of the School Governors (full address: Ysgol Y Berwyn School, Ffrydan Road, Bala, Gwynedd LL23 7RU). Opening times 10.00 - 16.00 both days. Ticket prices: Adult £6, Concession £5, Child (3-15 yrs old) £2, one free child ticket with each adult ticket, children under 3 years old: no charge. There will also be reduced rates for Bala Lake Railway volunteers and Society members. This event will support the regular work of the Railway and its planned extension into Bala Town. For more information, please email modelshow@bala-lake-railway.co.uk. Layouts attending (some others not yet finally confirmed): The Depot (O Scale Standard Gauge); Squaw Falls (N); Puffin Colliery (OO); Gorsaf Maes-Y-Gof (O-16.5); Port Wynnstay (O-16.5); Porth Kernow (N); (Irish) Diesel Depot (OO); West Ridge MT (Hon30); Crossharbour (N); Millhouses (N); Goodley Lane TMD (OO); 5.5mm Scale Modular Group; Wickhambreux Road (OO-9); Ddraig Gwarel (OO-9); Llandyrau (OO-9); Crosby and Peel RD. (4mm Scale, 12mm Gauge), Neath Pines and Druids Ferry (N), Trix Twin Railway 1935-1965 (4mm), Llyn Neath (N), Mikesbiltom and Fredby Depot (OO gauge). Traders attending (some others not yet finally confirmed): John Sutton Models; Sawyer Models; North Western Models; Frizinghall Model Railways; Martin Ellis Railway Art; John Parkinson Art and Books; Andrew McDougal O-16.5; Culcheth Models (Holder Collectables); Port Wynnstay Models. For more information, please email modelshow@bala-lake-railway.co.uk (or of course, use this forum). We still have a little bit of room if any traders or layout owners would like to get in touch! Please use the above email address for that. There will also be trains running on the Bala Lake Railway, both days.

I see that the N gauge OTA kit is slated for reintroduction - great news. I have just finished scratchbuilding an N gauge OTA (admittedly not the same type of OTA as the Chivers version), as detailed in my little layout thread... … which is proof that the Law of Synonym-For-Turf is alive and well! Anyway, I wish this new venture every success. Mat

Hi All, Not much to report at the moment, apart from an awful lot of fencing going in. But having just finished scratchbuilding my first OTA, I've seen a report on the N Gauge Forum that the ex-Chivers OTA kit (and many other such products) is slated for re-introduction by the following company: http://five79.co.uk/ There's also some discussion of it on this Forum, I now see: I have no connection with this new venture (unless there is a strange astral connection that caused this announcement to come just after I had scratchbuilt an OTA) but I wish it every success! Mat

Painting of the OTA has taken a while, using a range of disreputable brushes, but the wagon is now finished. I tried putting a full range of transfers on, but without success - for instance, not having any actual OTA transfers I tried cutting the CTA out of a sheet of RECTANK transfers, hoping to be able to overlay an O onto the C. But the things were so small that trying to move them into final position on the wagon caused the transfers to scrunch up (even with loads of liquid). As some of the numbering on an OTA goes behind one of the brake levers anyway (meaning I'd have had to cut the Farish brake lever off and then fabricate a new one), I decided to give up. And as for getting THAMES BOARD onto the end, life is just too short. It would require positioning 11 0.5mm square letters at each end of the wagon and would only be legible under magnification anyway. To my knowledge, nobody makes a one-piece transfer. So I decided not to bother... However, one distinctive feature of these light blue wagons was a big advertising panel on each end with various contact numbers for the timber company. I have added a representation of this sign - using the bottom half of a red-circle-STOP-board transfer. On the bottom of these signs are several lines of text, which in N gauge is far too small to read. At least this put some sort of signage on the wagon. You can't really see the solebars on the wagon anyway when it's on my layout - a benefit of having the layout height at 3 feet, meaning you look down at an angle (and from several feet away). Here's the finished result - the photo's a bit blurry but I am pushing the limits of my camera. I have a second one to finish off - I might build some more but not straight away. The even more blurry loco shunting my prototype OTA is 37423 in Railfreight triple grey (or "New Railfreight" as my friends and I called it at the time). In this guise, the loco is anachronistic for 1987, when my layout is set. 37423 was not repainted into Railfreight Metals or named "Sir Murray Morrison" until well into 1988, by which time the miasma of Sprinterisation was already starting to tickle the nostrils of the West Highland Scots. In fact, you might even say that putting a loco in mixed-traffic livery into a freight colour scheme was a portent of the end of loco-hauled passenger trains on the West Highland. That's why my layout is defiantly set in 1987, when the 37's were unchallenged and unthreatened. On the other hand, I saw a Farish 37412 in Transrail livery for a very modest sum on eBay (back in the days of yore when unfashionable 37's were quite cheap secondhand), and 37423 was a straightforward conversion. Admittedly, 37423 did have numbers on its headcode boxes and I have not replicated this: as with the OTA numbers, their tiny size meant that they were beyond my skill to apply. I got rid of the Transrail logos, names and numbers with T-Cut, added new numbers (this took hours for some reason, they just wouldn't go on straight...), Shawplan nameplates, double arrow symbols and Metals logos (but not Eastfield depot plaques, I don't think they were ever applied). Or, in effect, I renationalised the loco Best Wishes, Mat

Hi, Alas, of my two 45xx's, one shredded its valve gear to pieces and one is so jerky I'm afraid it's about to go the same way. However, there are also good ones out there - and ones that are good runners now have probably stood the test of time and are therefore worth seeking out (a bit like classic Minis?). What about cladding the building in very thin brick plasticard? IMHO the N gauge plasticard from Slater's doesn't look very good, but I have recently made a few small buildings using Expo N gauge plasticard (Hattons still have a few sheets in stock). It's nice and thin, unlike (e.g.) Peco brick sheets. I'm looking forward to the 56xx with great happiness - I have a Welsh Valleys layout that I built 15 years ago (there are a few photos of it in my "Jardine Junction" layout thread. Alas I never got a Langley 56xx kit to cope with the tight curves. Also, given that its price is very reasonable for a loco of today, I would be very happy if it was a success and more tank locos resulted. I think a 4575 would be more suited to a Valleys layout but they're all good! Best Wishes, Mat

Here's an update on the OTA wagon project for "Jardine Junction", for your amusement and possibly edification. I've finished construction on the first wagon. I've added the remaining stanchions, the anchor points for strapping the logs down, the lamp irons and handrails on the ends, and the four central box-section brackets that hold the wagon to the chassis. The real ones also have a myriad of little reinforcing gussets on the solebars, but they are so small I think there is no point trying to fabricate them. Also, the base plate of the Farish chassis is a bit wide, so there's not really room for them anyway. Here's a picture of the first wagon, taken on my Welsh layout, because the lighting is better than on JJN and it's a gloomy old day. The wagon looks rather incongruous in the 1950's Welsh Valleys though, and the lady in the yellow coat is clearly shocked. All sorts of other bits and pieces can be seen lurking in the background behind this little Eden, including Jardine Junction to the top right. The photo has exaggerated slight deviancies from vertical in some of the stanchions, making them look worse than they are. There are some which are going to get a tweaking, all the same. The chassis I have used is a Poole-era 20'9" WB one, as seen on the Farish OAA open wagon, VBA van and single-container wagon. I could have used the more recently-designed and more accurate one that's on the current OBA and OCA models, but decided not to, because: a) the couplings are more co-operative (the ones on the OCA are particularly stiff and unyielding) b) the wheels don't have a tendency to rub against the underside of the floor, as on the OBA c) the Poole ones are cheaper d) by using the Farish container wagon as a basis, I didn't have to throw anything away. I just took the container off to use elsewhere. e) a homemade superstructure would never be as finely detailed as a modern RTR wagon. Using a simple chassis designed 30 years ago means that the wagon has approximately the same level of detail across the board, drawing less attention to the chunky bits. I would love there to be a ready-to-run OTA in N gauge (never mind the full range of variants!!!) - but given current production costs and the desire of the majority of modellers (or just the most vocal and influential ones, maybe) for ultra-detail, the RRP of such a wagon would surely be £30-odd. They'd probably be sold in a single, minuscule batch which would disappear overnight and then reappear on eBay a couple of years later for the same cost as a return ticket to the Moon (each). This wagon cost less than £10 to make, including the chassis, though it required 179 separately-cut plasticard components, and took A Wee While To Make. But I'm in no hurry, and do feel a small sense of satisfaction. It's now time for paint - light blue "Thames Board" livery, as seen on the West Highland in (e.g.) 1986. My second wagon is only part-built, but I think I will need to de-cross my eyes and get a serious neck massage before attempting any more stanchions. Best Wishes, Mat

Hi, Would it be possible to clad this building in brick? That plus the big sash windows might give it a slightly Georgian feel. Regards, Mat P.S. May your 45xx locos run without demur! I wish mine would!!

It's a muggy old day. Fortunately, I have air-conditioning. Unfortunately, I don't have it in the hobby room. Anyway, first of all, I built the ends and floor for a second OTA. Now I have two of these 80's wagons, I'm going to try leaving them alone with some Wimpy Burgers and Spandau Ballet on the radio, to see if they'll breed. I don't currently have any donor chassis to make more. The loco, 37403, was originally a Farish 37408 (a special edition released about 20 years ago). I changed the "8" to a "3" with some T-Cut on the end of a cocktail stick, and also removed some of the original printed nameplates as the new name (Isle of Mull) would be shorter than the original (Loch Rannoch), again with T-Cut. A bit of matt varnish disguised the shiny patches left by removing the nameplate ends. I also added some Scottie Dog transfers as the Farish originals were a bit anaemic, and painted the headcode boxes black. I then started adding stanchions to one side of one of the wagons, along with a representation of the pockets they sit in and the triangular gussets that reinforce the pockets. It took a VERY long time (though that includes several false starts). I also really wished I hadn't stuck the edge strips to the floor, so I could have worked on it separately. At least I'm modelling the type of OTA that only had 9 stanchions per side, rather than 12... All best, Mat

Thanks Steven - that gives me 'closure'! I've edited my original post about the repair, accordingly. To be honest, I'm not that bothered about lights working or not, so it's no major loss. On the other hand, the lights (and everything else) still work just fine on the Minitrix 27 that my Dad bought me over 40 years ago - but then it is a rather simpler machine. Best Wishes, Mat

Prynhawn Da... Lots of little bits of progress to report on today... the chapel is finished, the warehouse is in place and I have made a start on a scratchbuilt OTA timber wagon. First, Y Capel Methodistiaid (the Methodist Chapel). This photo was actually taken on my other N gauge layout, "Ffynnon Garw", which has a Welsh Valleys, 1950's setting. Those of you whose eyebrows go up at the predominance of a certain type of building on this layout should be assured that I bought most of them in a discounted batch when they first came out, to celebrate the start of a new job. A few I bought cheaply as they were damaged, needing repairs to damaged brickwork, guttering etc... Anyway, the chapel now has some gates (made by hacking about some more Ratio spear fencing) and a scratch-built noticeboard. If you look at the back yard of one of the bay-window fronted houses, that shows the Auhagen walling that I also used for the chapel, but unmodified. But this thread is really about a 1980's layout called Jardine Junction. Here's a photo of the warehouse (with Shakin' Stevens-approved colour scheme) in situ. The loco, 37043, which looks amazingly long at this angle, is a model of a 37 that stayed in West Highland use well into 1987, making it one of the last of the split-box West Highland 37's to give way to the 37/4's (though it had lost its name to 37412 by this stage). Like several of the Eastfield large logo split-headcode locos, it has data panels under the cab side windows for some reason. Unlike its Eastfield 37/0 large logo brethren, it has a grey roof and very few stickers / symbols on its nose ends (faithfully left off!). I have also modelled the Scottish "rally-style" extra headlights. As usual, I haven't got round yet to adding snowploughs. This loco was bought from eBay as a green-liveried non-runner, a couple of years ago when such locos didn't sell for silly money. The buffer mountings were cracked, but that was OK as I was going to put scratch-built 1980's style buffer beams on it anyway. The loco also needed three gears replacing and, of course, a repaint. A few years ago now, I was part of the team that repainted D6732, the 37 on the North Norfolk Railway. This loco was returned to as-built external condition, with newly-fabricated cowlings around the buffers. So, here I have taken a 1960's-condition model 37 and brought it into the 1980's. Karma rebalanced... Finally, here's the OTA wagon that I have started fabricating. It's going to be a model of the 2+5+2 stanchion type, in light blue and white livery. The ends are 20 thou plasticard with various bits of 20x20 and 20x40 strip added. The floor is 1mm-spaced planked plasticard, with some 20x40 strip edges. The chassis is a Poole-era one that I happened to have lying about. It is unmodified apart from reducing the size of the moulded mounting plates for the buffer shanks, so that the vertical struts would clear them. The first end took about an hour to make, the second a mere half an hour. But time is a readily-available commodity at the moment... Best Wishes, Mat

Here are a couple of photos of progress in the buildings department - firstly, the warehouse for Jardine Junction has now had some paint. I've also been working on a little something for my other N gauge layout - no point in starting a separate thread for it. It's called "Ffynnon Garw" and is set in the western Welsh Valleys in the late 50's. I built the layout about 15 years ago and it's been in storage for ages, but with the RevolutioN 56xx on the horizon, I dug it out and have been sprucing it up. Years ago, I bought a Lyddle End, Methodist Chapel. It's a bit small by the standards of Welsh chapels but fits the space available (FfG is a very small layout). To make it a bit more believable, I thought it could do with a fairly ornate enclosure, as many Welsh chapels have. I started out with some Auhagen factory walling, which is 12mm high and has panels between wider brick columns. I cut out the top half of each brick panel and replaced it with a section of Ratio GWR spear fencing, again cut in half horizontally. I also needed to make some half-length panels to fit the site. There's a small gate at the back for the minister to make a quick exit if necessary; I still need to find some suitably ornate gates for the front, and maybe make a noticeboard. Best Wishes, Mat

'Afternoon all! The warehouse now has its guttering and is in the paint shop (that's the same disreputable board as in the above photos, just the other way up). I've also been trying to flatten and re-glue the card surface of the goods yard. A segment of it is currently being squashed under a big jar with about a fiver's worth of 1p and 2p coins in it. On the layout, meanwhile, here's a shot of 26038, fetching out a Poole-Farish long wheelbase chassis for conversion into an OTA timber wagon. I'm going to attempt to scratch-build one or more examples of the 2+5+2 stanchion type that were originally painted blue and white and worked from places like Arrochar to Workington. You will be forgiven for thinking that the general concept of this depot resembles Buxton more than anywhere in the Highlands... Anyway, 26038 is a standard Dapol loco which I bought about ten years ago. Unlike a blue 26 which I bought at about the same time, and which has never put a foot wrong, 26038 has never been a very reliable runner. Recently it started smoking and refusing to move (reminds me of when I was a teacher). In a fit of bravado, I stripped the loco down, and after about half an hour I came up with this: The problem was the tiny white component, circled in red. I'm guessing it's a capacitor providing RF-interference suppression. [EDIT - it's a combination diode that forms part of the lighting system - see Steven B's post below. That explains why the lights no longer work on that end of the loco]. That was the cause of the smoke (and perhaps the main cause of the loco's general unreliability across the years). Having unscrewed the PCB and spread things out, I connected power to the loco to see if the smoke was in fact coming from the capacitor. But having exposed the capacitor, there was now enough oxygen around it for it to burn out completely (and fairly spectacularly). Since these things are usually in parallel with the motor, I hoped that the loco would still run, and it did - in fact it now runs better than it has ever done. The burn-out was therefore very good news. All I had to do was to reinsulate some wires that had melted insulation due to having been in contact with the capacitor. I did this by thinning down some Humbrol model filler with Liquid Poly to produce a thick paint. After another half an hour's fiddly reassembly, the loco now runs fine - though for some reason, even though I detached and reattached the lighting plug-socket very carefully, the lights on that end of the loco now don't work... Sigh! Best Wishes, Mat

Och, here's another update from my little Scottish Utopia.... In some of the previous photos in this thread, there's a mysterious white building in the background. This is the one-piece moulded shell from the old pre-Bachmann Farish engine/goods shed kit. I picked it up at the very first Leamington Spa N gauge show for a couple of quid. This being the 80's, the goods yard is mainly now used as a distribution hub by MacArcady Construction and they needed some more storage space. I decided to use the Farish shell to scratchbuild a small warehouse. The shell is moulded in translucent plastic, which I was able to use to my advantage by including some skylights. Basically all I've done is to clad the shell in 2mm-spaced planked plasticard, to represent a modern steel-clad industrial building. I found some roller doors and a plain steel door for human ingress in the spares box (from a Walther's factory kit). These are let into slots cut into the Farish shell, to give them some depth. I also found a couple of spare Pikestuff window frames, for the skylights. The window frames on the back of the building are scratchbuilt from microstrip to resemble the Pikestuff ones. It still needs some guttering and of course painting. I'd show you pictures of the building on the layout but my attempt yesterday to paint-weather the card "concrete" surface of the goods yard went a bit wrong, and all the edges (which I thought I'd stuck down hard) have curled up in a most immoral manner. Bah. I have been doing so much modelling since the lockdown started that I now have a permanently sore neck, from spending hours craning over my modelling desk. I hope that nobody else is suffering from similar symptoms, or from excessive exposure to Liquid Poly fumes, or indeed, spending too much time in online modelling Fora. Regards, Mat

Hi again, Here are the final photos - the first shows hoses added from different diameters of wire. Actually, I didn't have any thin black-coated wire so had to paint some... The hoses sit on tiny brackets on the structure, made from 1mm x 2mm pieces of 10 thou plasticard. (Also in this shot is an experimental piece of decorative chapel walling for my other layout, which is 1950's Welsh Valleys - it's Auhagen factory walling with chunks cut out, and sections from the top half of Ratio GWR railings glued in). The second photo shows the completed installation in situ. The locomotive is, appropriately, 37425 "Concrete Bob" (like a lot of my locos, it desperately needs snowploughs). The bridge and surrounding scenery in the background are also of fairly recent construction. The last is a close-up which, if you squint, shows the pipework going up into the hoppers. I guess I should paint the hoppers grey but they are quite expensive nowadays (not when I bought them!) and at the moment I feel I'd rather keep them in mint condition. Bestest Wishes, Mat

Hi, (I thought I'd send the photos of the cement unloader one or two at a time). At Bletchley, the compressed air comes from some way away. For my model, I thought I'd build a little compressor house. This is made from Expo brick plasticard, which appears to be vacuum-formed. The good news is that the material is thin and easy to cut. Less good news is that it doesn't take paint particularly well, I have found. The louvred doors and panels were actually cut out of an old plastic kit for a GWR 'pagoda' waiting room... The doors have 10 thou x 40 thou frames, which look not half bad I hope but will be almost impossible to see when the building's on the layout. Best Wishes, Mat

Hi modellers, I've been doing some work at the other end of this N Gauge layout, including a cement terminal (for unloading PCA powder wagons). This isn't exactly a common Highland feature (Inverness notwithstanding) and to be honest was inspired by some photos of the small facility at Barnstaple. But a rapidly-growing new town might need a lot of cement.... What I wanted was to add a full set of plumbing to a pair of Hornby "Lyddle End" cement hoppers. As I said on another forum, you don't seem to see this modelled very often, and indeed detailed pictures of cement unloading facilities are difficult to find. As far as I can tell, a lot of cement storage silos had loose pipes that dangled down from the structure - Syston, for instance. I wanted something a bit more permanent-looking. I found a few pictures of the cement terminal at Bletchley (next to the Bedford branch platform), enough to proceed. These installations aren't particularly complicated, all they need is an air pipe to force the cement powder out of the wagons and a second pipe to carry the air-blown cement powder to storage. Anyway, here's a photo of the pipework under construction. The two pipes are 2.5mm and 1mm diameter. The bottom pipe is actually just a strut (but made from round rod because at the time the only photos I had made it look like there were two air pipes...). The take-offs for various things are made from bent bits of rod; the flanges on the 1mm pipe are made from the 2.5mm pipe, and the flanges on the larger pipe are made from wrapping 1mm wide strips of self-adhesive paper round and round and round... On the right hand side are two upward-pointing pipes, which hook underneath the Hornby hoppers. Best Wishes, Mat

Hi Nick, Thanks for your comments. It's a little bit of a reach to the fiddle yard, but the whole layout is only 2'2" wide and about 3'3" off the floor (I'm 6'), so it's possible. I don't do a lot of rearrangement of stock in the fiddle yards either, just loco swaps and run rounds. There are three separate fiddle yard areas (representing Glasgow Queen Street station, Glasgow Mossend freight yard, and Inverness. I generally use the front track in each as a reception road - a train will enter this and be uncoupled. Then another loco will remove the stock. One thing I certainly can't have, given that the layout is up against a wall and under a sloping ceiling, is any kind of backscene. Instead I've just made a firm line with the scenery to try to emphasise what is model and what is 'backstage'. Regards, Mat