dick rowland

Peco should take a leaf out of MIBA and Eisenbahn Journal's book, and produce archive DVDs. To see what I mean, and check out the very reasonable prices, go to the VGB website. I scanned my 1979-2008 Continental Modeller collection, initially just intending to cover pure German material and produce .pdf files for my own reference. In the event, about the only things I did not scan and archive were some of the Australian and African prototype material. Some of the Aussie layouts were fantastic, well worth keeping a record. I freed up about three metres of shelf space, the original magazines went to the club, and articles are much easier to find.

Layouts that I remember from The Railway Modeller in the 1960's: Ken Northwood's 'North Devonshire' Jim Russells 'Little Western'

'The Great Eastern' is one of the recordings released without sleeve notes. If anybody is interested I found this on the web. Locomotives of the former Great Eastern Railway at work in Eastern England. Track One Lineside recordings on the Haverhill - Long Melford Line. A Journey with a J.15. to Bury-St-Edmunds. Track Two At Ely Station. Track Three A journey with a Claud from Newmarket to Kennett. Track Four At Brundall station and a B.I2. on the Southend line. Track Five A journey with a Claud from Cantley to Yarmouth. Track Six At Cambridge Station Track Seven At South Lynn station.

Nothing seems to been released for over a year now. I'm waiting for 'Engines in Germany'and 'Steam on the Bundesbahn' but nothing has appeared. I submitted a (positive) review for 'Great Eastern' a couple of months ago but this has not appeared as yet.

I always found it strange that the Remagen bridge was not rebuilt after the war.

'Heimdorf' by David Cox, featured in Continental Modeller about thirty years ago. The trackplan was Heimbach in the Northern Eifel region of Germany but the buildings and other features were from all over the Eifel. Excellent scratchbuilt buildings on a totally believable layout. Unless you look at some of the very much more recent Nfine layouts (which I suspect are not built by mere human beings!) this is German N scale as it should be.

You can count me in for a substantial batch of short, medium and long clear couplers as well.

I remember that a Model Railway Constructor review of a Kings Cross wooden coach kit was less than enthusiastic! Basically their conclusion was that a total scratch build would be a better proposition. To give the dear old MRC their due, they published the response from Kings Cross. The gist of the Kings Cross letter was along the lines 'we would expect a competent modeller not to have a problem building this kit'. The MRC response to this piece of snotty-ness was 'a competent modeller would not need to waste his time with this kit.' A reminder of the old take it or leave it attitude that we can all do without.

I still have the rake of N scale Minitrix 2-axle Deutsche Bundesbahn hoppers that I bought from Chuffs in north London around 1971. One day soon I'll finally get around to replacing the horrible oversized ladders plus some decent handwheels. Around 1977, I was in the RAF at Honington. I heard that Chuffs had a shop at Sudbury. I made the trip but the atmosphere had changed markedly: by that time the emphasis was more on dolls houses. Back in the 1960's, I remember EAMES at Reading, right by Reading General station. When I first found EAMES, Southern steam still ran into the old South Eastern & Chatham terminus at Reading. I still have the Peter Handford 'Castles in the Chilterns' and 'The Atlantics and the Terrier' vynil recordings which were some of the few things my pocket money would run to in the 1960's. They are beautiful recordings but, as so often with Argo Transacord, the actual quality of the pressing was terrible. Producing a good digital copy is a priority, now that I have successfully hooked up a decent Technics deck through my computer and have discovered the program Audacity.