Les Bird

Might I suggest you consider Marklin Catalogue number 7218? Unless you're a stickler for originality, it makes a reasonable replacement for the EM2. It is available from a number of sources, for example Peters Spares in Middlesbrough are advertising them at £11.13.

Northampton Corporation garage is still in existence and still had tram tracks inside last time I looked. First Group have now closed the garage and it is to be sold to a shoe factory. Hopefully, they will convert the building rather than knock it down although I doubt they'll find a use for the tracks!

Now that would have been interesting!

I should have known that. I used to travel on them regularly when they worked Transpennine services.

Thank you all for the replies. An Ivatt 2-6-2T would have been nice or, better still, an M7 but I suppose that's "progress"!

On the way back from Bournemouth on Monday, I took the opportunity to have a quick return trip on the Lymington Branch. I noticed that the track at Lymington Pier is equipped with a conductor rail and I assume this applies to the whole branch. Does anyone know if this is so, and, if it is, why is the service run with a DEMU?

My favourite is the LNER C13 (ex-GC 9K) 4-4-2T. I'm having trouble justifying one on an East Anglian layout but I don't care, it's there anyway!

Thanks for the tip John, I'll have a look at the socket

I have now concluded that the derailment problem seems to be associated at least in part with the weight of the train. I have reduced the formation from six coaches to five and the problem has gone away. If longer trains are required, perhaps a little extra weight in the leading coach may be the answer.

I've checked it against another Hornby Gresley but not against anything else. I'll try lowering the tender couipling and see what happpens.

I've recently acquired a Hornby B1 and am duly impressed by its quality. However, when test running it with a rake of Hornby Gresley coaches, there is a tendency for the leading bogie of the first coach to derail. Close inspection shows that there is a small but definite height difference between the tender coupling and that of the coach. The tender lifts the coach and, despite the fact that the coach coupling is attached to the floor and not the bogie, there is enough lift to cause the flanges on the leading wheelset to ride over the top of the rail, epsecially when exiting from a curve. Has anyone else experienced this?

I have read all these posts with great interest. While some have welcomed this development, others are somewhat critical of various apsects (no pun intended!). On the assumption that you will never please all of the people all of the time, I think Dapol can only hope to please the majority. Unfortunately for them, it's usually the happy majority that fail to speak up so, in the hope of redressing the balance, I would be more than happy to install these signals on my layout just as soon as the LNER versions appear.

Good point Bernard. Most of the models I've seen aren't quite right. I've got one that is exactly right but that's in twelve inches to the foot scale!

While we're on the subject of wishes, how about a Mark 2 Cortina 4-door? Every diecast and kit of Mark 2's in all scales have been 2-door while the 4-door was much more common in real life. .

Unlikely given that the Leyland National (love it or hate it) was one of the most corrosion resistant buses of its time.

There's a small discrepancy even within the railway nomenclature on the Saltburn branch. Towards the end of the branch is a station called Longbeck. The adjacent signalbox is labelled Long Beck.

The Dapol Stove R is clearly marked as being made in China.

Just returned from Barrow Hill where several traders had the L1 in stock. The cheapest price I saw was £66. It looks very nice indeed and the only reason I didn't buy one is because they were all green and I'm waiting for the black one. It looks well worth the wait though.

Definitely some food for thought there. I have three EM2's (and ten Trix EM1's!) and, having seen the results of other peoples' efforts, I'm very tempted to upgrade mine.

Both Gresley and Thompson variants used to be worked into Liverpool Street for servicing. I recall seeing both types in the centre road between platforms 9 and 10 on a fairly regular basis. Somewhere I have colour slides of both.