the-gog

Another fictitious name: D1188 WESTERN HANDBAGS I think the clear glazing is now the right size. If it was opened out any more, there wouldn't be any room to draw in the black rubber surround. It's the current lack of the surround that makes it look artificially small. When Jon draws it in, it should all fall into place and look correct size. RWJ

By the looks of it, the glazing should be completely clear of the black rubber surround. I'd have thought that the easiest way to do it is to make up a jig out of something like thin balsa that could slot through the vertical handrails, stick it over the headcode box with a couple of blobs of blu-tak either side, then draw round the cut-outs in the balsa with a thin black pen. (Maybe a fibre tip?) Ideally a Bob Moore lining pen if anyone has one. I wonder if someone will make up an etch for the rubber surround - attaching it will be pretty tricky, though. RWJ

It's a big improvement, isn't it? All that it would then need is to draw the black grommet onto the surround and Bob should be your uncle.

Does anyone know if the rubber surrounds on the model are painted onto the clear glazing? If so, wouldn't it be a relatively easy job to remove it with thinners and paint on a thinner surround? The headcode boxes themselves look to be the correct size. RWJ

Thanks. I had an inkling. I bet crew could've grown some tomatoes in the cabs in a growbag if they wanted.

I've been looking through OPC's "The Power of the Westerns" and there are a number of photos in it of four Westerns which had a square panel on the cab front just beneath the handrail. What was that all about? Ventilation?

Much obliged. RWJ

Cellulose thinners, I assume?

Thanks both, but as I said, I've no airbrush, so it's academic. Railmatch aerosol will be what I use.

Would be difficult to do it with Klear/Kleer as the original formula stuff has long since sold out. Hasn't it? Anyway, as I've no airbrush, I'd have to use Railmatch's aerosol gloss varnish.

Mine* will be destined for a covering with semi-gloss varnish at some point, as it looks to be just a little too matte for my tastes. *that is if Steam haven't forgotten that I'm one of the 400 who reserved Enterprise. RWJ

So glad it comes with only the vac and steam heat pipes fitted, as it should be for as-built condition. I'm also pleased that the 'A' and 'B' end letters are on the correct ends. It's looking very froth-worthy.

What's interesting is how many proposals the BCR came up with. No wonder they lost so much money, what with spending £££ on surveyors' and lawyers' fees. f they had managed to build an extension from Lydham Heath to Caerhowel to join up with the Cambrian, they could've made much money from through traffic, sufficient to be able to survive for longer I'd have thought.

Thanks Andy. I'm subscribed to a few topics by "instant notification by email" but couldn't work out why I wasn't getting any email notifications. RWJ

All, Does anyone have much interest in proposed railways that were never built? I have unearthed a pile of documents in Shropshire Archives for various extension proposals for the Bishop's Castle Railway, as well as plans to build a railway down the Rea Valley (Minsterley > Pontesbury > Worthen > Marton) and on to either Chirbury (for BC) and/or Montgomery. There were 10 proposals altogether, by a variety of companies, all surveyed in exquisite detail. I photographed the entire lot, and all come with a coarse-scale overview map as well as things like gradient profiles and cross-sections. How does a terminus at Montgomery sound? It was planned to have been built just below the castle, and was a spur off a Montgomery (Caerhowel) to Lydham Heath line. This spur was on a gradient of 1:43 or so. Another of the plans shows the original proposal to link Oswestry and Welshpool, but not by crossing the Severn near Buttington - indeed, not crossing the Severn at all until south of Welshpool, and again on a different alignment to what was eventually built. Other proposals showed a triangular junction at Chirbury; a triangular junction just south of Forden; triangular junction at Lydham Heath; and a triangular junction at Cheney Longville, where the BCR met the Shrewsbury & Hereford Railway. This little lot would be ideal to be published in book form, EXCEPT that the original maps are around A2 size, and contain very small text and other details. It would be difficult to repro them in anything like a readable size. Perhaps they'd be of more use to individual modellers. I have the entire lot of photos in different sets on my Flickr account as well as the original files (obviously). All the original plans date from the C19th, and as such are well out of copyright. I spent a great deal of time (and photography fees) in the archives, purely for my own personal curiosity. I might think about modelling Montgomery Town. The wealth of material is just jaw-dropping. Richard W Jones PS - it'll be difficult following this topic, as this board isn't sending me email notifications. I'll try to remember to keep an eye out for replies.

Just as well he didn't succeed. There's only one thing that Golden Ochre reminds me of, but I'd better not write about it as people may be having their dinner. Reminder to self: put Loperamide on the shopping list.

Guilplates can do one-off custom 4mm British Rail-style diesel & electric nameplates (say, as carried by the Class 50s) for £20 for the first pair, and £5 per pair for the subsequent orders. Prices may have gone up in recent years, and I don't know if they can also do Western-style plates.

Yes, it's just as easy knocking them up in Illustrator. I was using Photoshop to overlay them on a 1974 side-on colour shot of Musketeer in Penzance.

Some names suit and some don't. Excelsior, Endurance, and Defiance are particularly good. Revenge might have pushed the Western Region's independent attitude just that bit too far for the BRB to be able to stomach. I've been having lots of fun with these in Photoshop. I'd like to get a set made, but I don't know who'd do custom 4mm Western plates. Richard

Western Victor was an earlier proposed name, but Victorious sounds much better.

Achiever and Excellence were two names proposed on a thread on this board. Also remember that some Westerns carried HM Navy warship names, so I also borrowed a few from the 50s when I came up with this list: WESTERN ACHIEVER WESTERN EXCELLENCE WESTERN EXCELSIOR WESTERN EXUBERANCE WESTERN ENDURANCE WESTERN CONQUEROR WESTERN DEFIANCE WESTERN ILLUSTRIOUS WESTERN REVENGE WESTERN TRIUMPH WESTERN VICTORIOUS

My preferred method is to use 3M double-sided sticky tape. It's not as strong an adhesive as the regular single-sided Sellotape, which makes it relatively easy to remove the plate, if need be. Plates I first stuck in some 4 years ago with this method still haven't fallen off.

Interesting. In which case he slavishly copied Helvetica. The dead giveaways are the digits 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 9. They match Helvetica Heavy 85 *perfectly*. There isn't enough personality in 4, 8, and 0 to be able to tell. As far as the nameplates are concerned, again, it matches Helvetica, *except* that the 'Western' R is ever-so-slightly narrower than Helvetica's. It's terribly subtle, though. All other characters I've seen match nicely. The big difference is in the spacing, or kerning. It's nothing like Helvetica's metrics, even spaced out to 330% normal spacing. Then again, hand-spacing always tends to look better than computer-decided spacing.

No. Rail Alphabet wasn't seen in public until 1964. Margaret Calvert and Jock Kinnear probably only drew it in their studios the year before.

I've been taking a close look at the prototypes' nameplates, mainly so I can draw up fictitious ones (based on the list of the batch of 26 that never got to be used, and also from a list from my own imagination). It would seem that the numberplates were set in what's called Helvetica Heavy 85, while the nameplates were set in Helvetica Bold 75. That's the closest match I've been able to achieve. It isn't any other Grotesque typeface that I can source. I think I'll crank Photoshop into action this weekend. Western Excelsior, anyone? Western Endurance, Western Defiance, Western Revenge... you get the idea. RWJ