Major Clanger

Tittering, surely?

The vans aren't for Retford's papers alone, but go on to Lincoln. What happens to them there I can't recall, but it will be in the carriage working book. The main portion of the train which went to Cleethorpes returned to Manchester via Doncaster. I remember the 1970s version of the Red Bank train well, as it came through Castleford around 1400. Often a Class 40 namer, and lots of (filthy) vans. I think the local coal wagons were cleaner!

A lot. But all have their roof ribs trimmed down. A start hadn't been made on renumbering, as there are quite a few with an M prefix, and probably some still with the same number too.

Yes, that's the one. The obvious thing to do would be to just drop them in the platform, then the loco which takes out the train they are attached to (first one to Lincoln IIRC) could do the necessary. But Roy's info suggested otherwise.

Eventually, yes.

A start had been made on fitting Sprat & Winkles to trains requiring to shunt, but some tweaking was still required, particularly to the newspaper train, as this had a tendency to divide on curves. There is also a mystery to the prototype operation of this train. It is advertised in the public timetable as a passenger train. When it arrives at Retford, it is required to back from the up platform to the up yard to detach or attach (possibly both), over a points that do not have a lock. Did all the passengers (probably not very many at 0430) have to get off? Were the points clipped and padlocked? Were blind eyes turned? I suggested to Roy that the train stayed in the platform and a shunting engine did the work, but the old railwaymen he had talked to said this was not the case, as no shunters had yet come off the shed at this time. Any ideas, anyone? Lamps - pins are not required. Use tiny neodymium magnets instead. The hand of God will be involved though.

Definitely not! Do you even have underlings?

Tony, Some comments on various aspects of Retford: Point rodding - I started with the "easiest" set, at Babworth. That to the north of the box is finished, as are the signal wires. I started the southward runs but couldn't go any further until the gantry is installed, as the west end post baseplate and the rods will be fighting for space. Once the gantry's in, I'd love to carry on. I didn't move elsewhere as none of the rodding at the other boxes ought to be started until the permanent platforms are installed, to prevent the fairly serious woodwork and climbing about required from damaging it. I also started the cattle market area - all the metal pens are in, but none of the wooden ones yet. I couldn't decide whether 3D printing would be the way forward, or to just make them from wood like the real thing. Telegraph poles - a prototype pole was produced, made from two Airfix tops glued together to give the right number of crossbars, mounted on a piece of brass tube to give the height. It might still be kicking around somewhere. Again, 3D printing might be the best way forward here. GC fiddle yard - a few more trains could be accommodated here without any rebuilding, as some of the roads are appreciably longer than the trains currently in them. They could be split electrically like the six centre roads in the GN yard. Operating - I have had my thoughts on this in the past, as Tony Gee is well aware. One thing I will say in relation to another layout mentioned in the thread - I have seen it in operation, it looked very professional, but none of the "underlings" looked like they were having fun, and the fat controller seemed a bit officious.

No.20 is just west of Dun Laoghaire, here: 53.296100, -6.156660. I don't know the area, but the D/L mentioned on the print and what looks vaguely like a ferry near the LH edge were enough to persuade me to have a look on the internet.

Etches have just been ordered... I did add a note to Mike's chassis order asking him to let me know if he intended offering the bodies for sale, but this has crossed with today's announcement.

And arrived. No photos of the stand (or van/trailer) - I just never bothered taking any. This will be my first year since 1974 (possibly even 1973) of not going to York as a visitor or trader, apart from 1995 when we were on holiday.

Wizard Models just setting off for York now...

The competition winners were: EPARM Shield (best layout voted by fellow exhibitors): Burdale Quarry MK Memorial Trophy (best atmosphere): Stamford East A1 Models Trophy (best modern image layout or feature): Roberts Road Morill Cup (best layout voted by the public): Wardwood

The repair (a broken wire on the outside wall) has now been working for over a day, so it's probably safe to say things are back to normal. Whatever that is.

Update - we thought it was fixed on Friday, but it soon failed again. Back to the back up system, which takes about twice as long to process an order as normal. I'm about to finish off Friday's orders, and should have everything cleared by the end of today.

Our phone line is down (probably just wet rather than adversely affected by gravity). This means that although you can place and pay for orders on the website, we will only intermittently see them or be able to process them using a back up system until it is restored. BT haven’t yet told us when this might be. Our apologies for the inconvenience.

My last show IS Railex 2020 - list of remaining shows here: https://www.wizardmodels.ltd/show_dates/. There were quite a few visitors to Scaleforum who were under the impression that that was my last show - presumably some confusion between Aylesbury (Scaleforum) and Aylesbury (Railex). Let's hope we don't get the same between Wakefield (Expo EM), Wakefield (Wakefield) and Wakefield (Scalefour North)!

I've just had them too - played them along for two minutes then they got bored and hung up. Call was properly ended. I still owe Suntrail Marketing a lot of money though...

They're all costing me a fortune in blue string pudding though.

Now there's an idea...

You may need to clear your browser cache. It's working fine here, and other customers are placing orders.

The Wizard Models site should now be working. Detailed post mortem with the host now required to find out what went wrong.

Thanks for letting me know - the webmaster is on to it. At present none of the search facilities appear to be working, including typing the product code directly into the search box.

The website is all fixed now... The windows aren't... Andrew

We are aware of the problem and the Webmaster and host are working on it. You can still place and pay for orders, but it is more difficult to navigate around the site. There may also be some disruption to mail order later this week due to the installation of new windows - the uPVC kind, not the Microsoft kind! Andrew