Captain Kernow

It's probably easier to just phone Brian on the above number. Try again if it doesn't get answered first time, but as far as I know, Branchlines are still trading OK and should have stocks of the kits. I was considering getting a 2021 kit myself and if I had done so, I would have phoned Brian with my credit card number to hand. More expensive from Canada, I grant you, but probably an effective way of communicating with him.

Yes, that's true and I've seen my fair share of cabs illuminated by the firebox at night, which it will be, provided the main firehole doors are at least partially open and it's dark enough to see the glow. But how many of us operate our model railways with a night time scene? It's very effective, if done well, but for the majority of us, for the majority of the time, it will be a 'daylight scenario'. Great video, though.

Yes, we have no bananas.

Can't argue with the above, expect that personal opinions do control access to our wallets (well, they do here).

I may struggle with the frivolity, being a miserable old g1t, but I am always friendly. Just ask my panniers. Corbs has reminded me what I can do tomorrow, if it's raining again - buy an example of the new wagons and support one of the few remaining actual model shops in my area. And shortly I shall return to tinkering with a 50 year-old whitemetal kit of a pannier tank, which is proving to be an utter delight.

I am just very careful when spreading the glue and depositing the ballast. If there's not much room where the tiebar goes, between the respective sleepers either side, I tend not to ballast that, but simply paint it a track colour.

And tea! Lots of it! Don't forget, to paraphrase that wonderful BTF file 'Snowdrift at Bleath Gill', 'the railway runs on tea and bad language!'...

Well, I have never been one for 'Emperor's new clothes' and I stand by my comments. I have made no comment in all of this about the price of models. The model will cost what it costs and you have to make some kind of a profit. No one (well, certainly not I) disputes that. I appreciate that the current price of some new models with lots of detail is above what some might be comfortable paying, so I agree with your comment about competition leading to models of the same prototype being offered at different prices. I have always made it clear on this forum that I am happy to pay an appropriate premium for quality. But that means 'quality' as I measure it. What I don't consider 'quality', is models that have so much additional, delicate detail, that said detail becomes extremely vulnerable to handling in everyday use. Also, some people (in some cases, the vast majority of modellers) may consider any given model to be of 'quality', but if the model doesn't run properly, then any perceived 'quality' simply evaporates in my eyes. I have had such poor experiences with the running of recent, so-called quality models (which granted, look lovely), that I now have virtually zero expectations that their future releases will run smoothly and slowly, unless by virtue of the alchemy of DCC. Some of the longer-established 'competitors' are capable of producing good models that run smoothly and slowly under DC control. I fail to understand why any of the newer companies are not capable of selling me a model that does the same. It remains an abiding mystery. One newer company that has managed to produce a consistently smooth running, slow-speed loco is Planet Industrials. I have not heard of anyone complaining about their loco. That, to me, is an example of 'getting it right first time'. I have at no time asked any manufacturers to desist from commenting or communicating. My personal opinion, for what it's worth (not much, I appreciate) is that there are some manufacturers may like to comment too much, whereas others maintain a more dignified silence. Again, sorry. Your original statement : ...sounds (to me) like one of those company 'buzz phrases', couched in 'corporate speak'...

Well, I normally spray Halfords red oxide primer on the track first and rub the rail tops clean when dry (I use cellulose thinners for this - takes no prisoners). I then spray (from another rattle can) a generic 'track colour', from the likes of Precision or Railmatch. After that, it's brush painting most, if not all individual sleepers and also the rail sides, if a different hue is required (brake dust etc.). Once all that has fully hardened off (I use enamels, as they are in my comfort zone), I start the ballasting. I mix the appropriate shade, mixing different colours of 'N' gauge ballast (much more scale appearance in 4mm) from the likes of Carrs or Woodland Scenics. Then, neat PVA (not the quick drying kind) is brush painted with an appropriately small brush in each sleeper bay and either side of the track. I can normally manage about 3 or 4 sleeper bays at a time, before the glue starts to go off too much. I then immediately sprinkle the ballast mix onto the wet glue and leave to dry (usually overnight). I can normally manage about a foot of this, before I start to go mad... The excess ballast is vacuumed off next day, hopefully saved for reuse by a bit of old nylon tights or similar over the nozzle of the vacuum cleaner.

Sorry, that sounds like a rather trite and meaningless platitude, but one which also seems to have a hint of self-promotion lurking under the surface.

Yes, I thought I'd spied that you'd done that - well done!! I think it makes a major difference, once the track is ballasted. As you seem to have used the thin sleepered kind of track (which is what I use myself), will you be adopting the 'paint the neat PVA between the sleepers and then drop the ballast onto the wet glue' approach? Although very time consuming, I find that the much higher degree of control over where the ballast goes makes for a much more convincing scene...

One of our previous cats - Dill - managed to catch a live squirrel many years ago. There was such a commotion outside the back door that my wife went out, saw what was going on and said, 'Dill, drop it!' Dill dropped the squirrel, which promptly made off and scrambled up to the top of the neighbours roof, from which he delighted in screeching taunts at poor old Dill!

It's great to see folk upgrading the Bachmann pannier thus, Tony: The extra detail definitely adds to the overall effect. Hopefully Geoff is aware that the number and position of the spare lamp brackets is subject to variation, depending on the individual loco concerned. Swindon and the other GWR/BR(WR) works did not arrange these things to suit the needs of future modellers!! There is one thing that I tend not to do, when upgrading Bachmann panniers, though and that is to replace the rear cab window grills. The real things are much more 3-D that the etched brass detailing component can provide (is that from the former Mainly Trains range?). When studying prototype photos, depending on the angle, the moulded grills that Bachmann provide are more effective, in my own mind, anyway. In fact, the whitemetal grills on the Cotswold (now NuCast Partners) 16XX pannier that you built seems more convincing, to me, at any rate: However, at the end of the day, it's a personal thing as to what you find acceptable. Here are a couple of photos of one of my pannier projects:

I have recently taken to soldering my own version up from three components, two bits of thin brass strip and a small piece of chamfered 0.4mm brass rod on the underside, which is then glued into a corresponding hole on the bunker rear. Very time consuming but they tend not to fall off, if accidentally struck by a shunting pole!

I can't remember the issue number of that MRJ or the author of the article, but the colour 2-D printed passengers created a stunning effect in what were, if I recall correctly, some kind of suburban coaches. If enough 2-D passengers were available for modellers to put in at random in their own coaches, then we would not have the unfortunate effect of everyone's excursion trains featuring the same passengers in the same seats in the same coaches (but probably not going to the same destinations, certainly not all at the same time...) If the light catching the mirrors made them visible to a few folk, then I would concede that the effort was probably worth it. But that's fine, it's 7mm and there's much more chance of people being able to discern details within. I won't disagree, provided that the extra effort is worth it. I don't count flickering fireboxes in that, though. That's only marginally more irritating than diesel locos, where the red rear taillights still come on, even when the loco is running in the opposite direction and hauling a train. The driver would have received a telling off for that and it might even have confused some signalmen enough to warrant the implementation of certain Emergency Signalling Regulations... No, we don't want 'Design Clever' to make a come back, but neither do we (I) want so much detail that it habitually falls off in transit from the supplier to the customer, or is included 'just for the sake of it' and thus ends up being overscale (some - most - RTR lamp brackets fall into this category). I don't want factory-added detail that falls off at first handling of the model by a human bean, either... If I were World Oligarch, I would ban all detail that cannot be seen when the rolling stock is right way up, on the track. If you aspire to show all the gubbins under a wagon that cannot normally be seen, then perhaps you also aspire to derailments and other rail-bourn catastrophes, which show off the underside of said wagon. No railwayman aspires to that kind of accident! Having mentioned lamp brackets, if Rapido or Accurascale are wondering what to wow us with next, how about scale sized lamp brackets, made of metal, which are securely fitted to the model and on to which the modeller can deposit the correct configuration of lamps for whatever train the loco is working? That would get my vote.

DJH got it right with kits like the BR Standard 3 2-6-2T, where the boiler and footplate etc. were whitemetal and the side tanks and cab area were etched brass - best of both worlds.

Lovely layout and very professionally presented too.

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree, Robin. I'm really sorry to say that, but there it is. I can't say that providing tiny reproductions of already small frames illustrations is pushing the boundaries, especially when you could buy such things from Tiny Signs back in the 1970s... If Spams did add such detail on Treneglos, then that's entirely his own decision for his own edification. He's such a talented chap that we can excuse him anything (except masterminding the international anti-pannier conspiracy from the underground bunker in his island home). It's like certain other things that some folk do in this hobby, it pleases them to do it, but I personally can't see the point, because I literally can't see it!! Not everyone has Superman's X-ray vision! No doubt I waste some of my time, doing stuff that others think is pointless. That's the way of the world, I suppose. If Rapido want to wow us, if they want to impress us, then why not add detail that is going to be more apparent in passenger stock, such as passengers?! I take my hat off to anyone with sufficiently good eyesight, that they can actually see the tiny pictures inside the coaches and even recognise where it is meant to be. But people, the absence of them is much, much more apparent in coaching stock. Even if it's just two-dimensional colour printed figures (as per a recent MRJ article), the effect could be breath-taking. How many of us baulk at the thought of dismantling coaches and painting sufficient 4mm figures to make it look as if our model train services might actually be making some money?! As for the pointless (but attention-grabbing) interior detail on the Toad, why not instead provide a nice, painted, 3-D printed guard on the veranda? Maybe one that you can remove, if you want to stable the Toad at the back of a siding for a long, wet weekend? Rapido already produce some of the best 4mm rolling stock, so it's not as if they have much room for further improvement, to be honest, those products are already very, very good. Putting such inaccessible and tiny detail inside a very small space, that hardly anyone is going to notice (except through the lens of a digital camera, and how many of us have one of those grafted to the front of our faces?) smacks of wandering up a cul-de-sac, because there isn't anywhere else to go.

Sorry, Robin, I consider this to be on a par with the totally unnecessary interior detail on the Toad. No one is going to see it, except Superman, with his X-ray vision...

I am shocked, Sir!!

I didn't realise Ginsters exported to Australia.

Upon reflection, I honestly don't really know why I am motorising these gates in the first place. It would be operationally much easier to just leave them closed to road traffic, as they are located right where the double track emerges from the fiddle yard... On Bleakhouse Road, I have two sets of manually operated gates (both operated by linkages under the board) and completely non-interlocked with anything else. In other words, the operator has to check the position of the gates each time. Once, at a show, one of my operators forgot to check and ran the train straight into the gates. These feature MSE whitemetal frames and scratchbuilt Evergreen strip 'innards', which took a Saturday morning to rebuild... But I will motorise the double gates (on Callow Lane), so thanks for the continuing suggestions and information!

Interestingly, my plans featured just this very thing, although I hadn't got so far as to work out exactly where it would be positioned.

Thank you both. The gates in question are MSE whitemetal onces, to which a piece of brass rod (approx 2mm diameter) has been attached at the base and it is this brass rod which will descend through matching brass tubes to the underside of the baseboard, where the servo activity is to take place. Thanks for the kind offer to send me some servo mounts, Ian. I do have the necessary servos, mounts and other alchemy, bought at a show a couple of years ago, so hopefully these will suffice, but I am struggling to see how the servo can be directly attached to my brass rods?...

Maybe, but for now, the more accurate description may be 'not yet available '.