F2Andy

I have used Osborn's six times since lockdown started, and found them excellent for price and service (all mail order, they are several hundred miles away from home). They have become one of my top three shops for model railway stuff.

I think the tank is smaller than that, both diameter and length, but you have inspired me to take a look, so we will see. I will use it for something else if it is not right for this.

Just found this thread. I am kind of having a go at the "anti-knock" wagon in N gauge; also Octel and on the same page on Paul's site: https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/associatedocteltankwagon I was basing it on a Fleishmann wagon, that looked like a good match on Ebay, but the dimensions turned out to be wrong, so it did not get that far as yet. The logo looks a bit different on the Anti-Knock wagons - looks blue to me for a start - but it is useful to see the writing round the outside. I had no idea what that was, and was relying on it being unreadable.

Here is Bamber Bridge signal box. I was passing on a walk this morning, and a train was coming through, heading for Preston. It got a mention on another thread, with a link to Google view, which shows it before all the steelwork was put in place. This was necessary, I believe, to keep it upright. I guess it must still be in use, otherwise it would have been demolished, presumably to look after the level crossing, which is on quite a busy road.

Just read this on Wiki: The tank container concept was also employed in Europe by Bob Fossey, an engineer who worked for Williams Fairclough in London. They improved on the 1950s framed American elliptical container tanks, oft noted carrying specified USA engine oils for the UK’s MoD aircraft built in Preston, Lancashire. Does anyone know anything about this? I guess it may not even have been on train; there are two BAE sites near Preston, Warton and Salmesbury, and I am not aware of a rail link to either. Or was it tanktainers because it was brought part way by rail, then by road?

That is a nice station... But think that should be a diamond crossing east of the station from the down line to the siding north east, rather than a cross-over and points into the siding. That does not help your loop at all, which does seem odd, and very small compared to the one at the other end of the line.

Thanks for the comments so far. I am most interested in the BR TOPS era, by which time I suspect they were being phased out, but were certainly still around on older wagons.

I am trying to learn about the stars that appear on some tank wagons, and failing to find much at all on the web - in fact my best source is another thread here, but it only discusses one star. I believe a single star indicates the wagon is rated for 35 mph, and was introduced in 1913. That seems to be an average speed, which seems odd. Two stars are for faster rated trains, but I cannot find anything about how fast. Were they introduced later? There may have been three stars too, for passenger rated, and I would guess that was only for milk? I would guess they fell out of use as TOPS was introduced, and though they were still around for years after, it would only be on wagons that had yet to be updated, i.e., without the TOPS data panel. If anyone can confirm or correct me, it would be appreciated.

I am sorry if I caused offense. I saw what looks like a mistake, and I thought it would be helpful to let you know. I will refrain from doing so in the future.

Personally, I would rearrange the platforms so from the top it goes platform-track-track-platform-track. You could then put a station building on the top platform, where you have some space for scenery. Of course, some rearranging of points would be required, and it might not work so well in that regard, but might be worth considering.

Some of the captions say liquified ammonia. I suspect they are actually ammonia dissolved in water, known as ammonia liquor, which is the name used on other images. Liquified ammonia would require tanks capable of standing around 10 atmospheres of pressure, while ammonia liquor could be transported as a common liquid, hence in the same wagons as sodium hydroxide solution.

Why were locos with discs never converted to headcodes? It seems an obvious thing to do (pre '77), once headcodes became standard. A lot of classes had examples that were built later with headcodes, so the design work was done - someone had already decided where they would go and what they would look like. Or did that happen, and it was so slow they were still getting through them when headcodes were abandoned?

I have no experience of that software, but can offer some general advice. If the issue is that Windows does not automatically install from CD, you should be able to open the CD in Windows Explorer, probably as the D drive under This PC, and double click the .exe file, which is probably autostart.exe. You may want to go to View on the menu bar, and tick "File name extensions" so you can find the .exe file. If it installs, but does not run, try right-clicking the desktop icon, go to Properties, then the Compatibility tab. The lowest you can go is probably Vista, but try that. Also try "Run this program as an administrator". If there is no desktop short cut, you can create one by right-dragging the installed .exe from Windows Explorer to the desktop, then selecting "Create shortcut".

Personally, I would leave the textures in the windows, and just draw in some line. When in place, cut across the top and bottom, and then down the vertical centre line. You can then wrap the paper round the card (assuming you will be printing on to paper, to cover card). This will give neat sides to your windows.

With regards to storage, the tanks would be raised off the ground and rounded at both ends, or spherical even, to hold the pressure. Modern ones have a load of pipe work for all the safety systems; not sure if older systems would have. I would be curious to know when liquid nitrogen was first being used industrially, I am guessing around 1980, but could be well out. Has it ever been transported by train in the UK? Nitrogen might have been transported compressed before that?

Preston Old Tramway pre-dates the railways - it was built to connect two sections of canal that together connected Lancaster and Kendal with Wigan, transporting limestone south and coal north. There was not enough money to cross the Ribble Valley, and so the tramway was built as a temporary measure, some tme around 1800. It became disused in 1859, but the route can still be discerned along most of its length. The middle section is now a cycle and footpath, and a very pleasant walk. During lockdown I have been exploring and photographing the less obvious remains and indications, and was looking at the section through Bamber Bridge on Saturday. It is curious how much modern building has left the route apparent. The second image is a modern industrial site, with the course of the tramway left undeveloped, though looking the other way there is no sign of it at all. More here: http://www.prestonanddistrictmrs.org.uk/articles/the-old-tramway/

Sure, but I would guess delivery companies would collect in the same way, if they had to do them.

I have had packages from Japan using Royal Mail that I have had to pay import duty on. I got a letter saying it was outstanding, and had to pay on-line before it would be delivered. This was to work, rather than home; I have a suspicion they do not bother when it is to a domestic address.

Thanks a lot. None are quite the image I found before, which I thought was black, with the doors mostly filled in, and smaller single windows in each end. But there are some interesting alternative there I could use instead.

I am looking for a photo (or two) of a shorter wheelbase brake van (like this https://peco-uk.com/products/lms-mr-design-20ton-goods-brake-van) that has been converted in to a mess and/or tool wagon. I am sure I have seen one somewhere, probably in Paul Bartlett's excellent site, but I cannot find it anywhere. I started to make one in N gauge, as I have such a brake van that was part of a job lot on Ebay, but have stalled without the image to work from. Any help appreciated.

Note that delivery costs from Shapeways look to have risen dramatically recently. It is now $19.99 - or more if you want it faster. I think this is because we are no longer in the EU, and count as the rest of the world. Looks to be a flat rate regardless of the size of the order, so worth buying in bulk.

Sorry I cannot help, but thought I would mention I am myself very slowly building a model of Croxley Green. The EMUs were three car class 501 though.

I realised the primer had not arrived because I had not ordered it. Hopefully next couple of days. I have the parts for a Worsley Work class 104, but I am not so sure about brass yet.

Er, I don't know. Is it? The ELR did go right next to it, parallel to the tramway, on that side of the bridge, so it certainly could be. Here is a close up, from a different angle. The first line is DfT, but it looks a bit early for Department for Transport... That said, it is pretty clean. Is it possible it was inherited by British railways, and is now the responsibility of DfT?

I decided to have a go at this more for the hell of it than because I have a layout suitable for it. I have a certain fondness for first generation EMUs, and already have a 501, but that was just a 3d printed body, so relatively simple. I am no expert in this sort of thing though I have made a few kits, so we will see how it goes. I better say at the outset that this will not be a perfectly accurate model; it will rather be in the spirit of the prototype. The basis is four LMS suburban coaches, I think from Graham Farish, purchased from Ebay. I found the older style where the windows are a strip of clear plastic on the inside, rather than the more recent style, where the whole body is made of a single piece of clear plastic, as the latter would be too painful to paint. Motor-brake The motor-brake is from a suburban brake (though the doors in the brake section are not right). It will be fitted with a Kato pantograph, and motorised with a Tomytec TM-13 (19 meter B) chassis. The bogies are a bit small (16 mm between axles, rather than 18), but the chassis is easy to source, and they tend to be reliable. With the coach disassembled, the first job was to remove the floor, which was actually easier than I thought it would be. I used Citadel fine detail cutters (my daughter was into Warhammer for a while) to cut most of it away, then filed it to remove the rest. It was quite a neat fit over the chassis. There is some damage to the bottom edge of the sides, but hopefully some filler will sort that, The prototype roof has a flat section for the pantograph, so I removed about an inch of the existing roof with a razor saw. The brake end wall of the coach needs to be flat across the top for the roof; again I used the Citadel cutters and a file. The duckets were also removed by filing. Then I glued it together, with a random bit of plastic for the flat roof, and plastic filler to fill in all the gaps. Driving trailers I purchased 3d printed cabs. I found two sources online. The Shapeways version, which I found first, is oversized, so I went to N-trains instead (the N-Trains are the black ones in the image). Theirs is still a little big, but I have it filed down - which they recommend to do anyway for smoothing. It is also cheaper and comes with jumper cables and buffers, so is definitely the version to go for. Even with filing the profile is not quite the same, and the carriage roof has a lip that is not on the cab, so not sure how this will work out... Again with the cutter, I removed the last compartment on each coach. I also filled in the windows of the next last compartment of one of them. This gets complicated, because I do not want to fit the windows until everything is painted, so I want the roof to be removable at this stage. You can see a noticable gap in the roof in one image, that will need to be resolved at the end. So this is where I am. I am waiting for more primer to arrive, then I can spray them up and see how lumpy they look. A couple of questions for the collective wisdom of RMWeb: The coaches have pairs of vents on the rooves; does anyone have a suggest as to how I replicate them? Can anyone give me a set of running numbers that would have been together 1977-80, for coaches and the set?