coachmann

Glad you like the 2-6-0 Paul. 'Mickey Mouse' was generally reserved for the 2-6-2 Tank, at least in the areas I was familiar with..

I had a Datsun Japcrap 120Y because I was offered a good deal on my Ford. It had everything that one would only get in a top price Ford Ghia. Unexciting but reliable, it passed to my eldest son and then to my youngest. It didn't go as rusty as some Datsuns I saw. Friend Derek Lawrence's Datsun had a carbuncle of rust right in the centre of the bonnet.

Prototype practice in steam days was different. According to the late Bill Rear, Carrog yard was served by Down trains only. It is easy to see why if goods originated at Ruabon. Locos of goods trains had to run round their train in order to set down and collect wagons. Such trains used the running line as a headshunt under the watchful eye of the signalman. There was a shunt signal and a shunt limit. In winter, Carrog's signalbox was often locked out and all trains used the Up platform, much as they do today on the heritage line. I think the down loop was removed in the winter of 1964. So fear not Paul, tis me altering operating practice to suit the model. Running round is too long winded for me, so I call the down loop a goods loop and only Up goods trains serve Carrog. It leaves the Down platform free for normal traffic. Livestock collected at Carrog is a different matter if it is destined for a place in the Barmouth direction.

We had a speedy drive over to Carrog mid afternoon to photograph the 'gardens' on the platforms, but were stopped about 2 miles from Corwen by an RTA. Air Ambulance arrived and it was initially considered the road would reopen, but it wasn't to be. Police assisted my turn-back and we shot off back home. However, another bad RTA had shut the slip road to our home town. Sunday afternoon drives ain't the chuckle they used to be ha ha.

Done it....

Our garden birds are of the ex.seafaring type...

Rails might have decided not to go the extra mile for lining out, hence the publicity for no lining. I know from a lifetime of business experience that there reaches a point where you simply do not throw any more money at a job or product when the ceiling is always the amount buyers are prepared to pay. Ordinary passenger corridor coaches were lined out before the war and the Dynamometer Car was a very special vehicle. I am not going to repeat myself concerning lining.

Thanks Andy, but I do miss my old video suite. A visiting friend made the comment that the locos sounded great in the flesh but did not sound right on the forum. I have always put it down to the stills camera that includes the option of taking video. Obviously, the small mic is never going to pick up the full spectrum of sound particularly bass, and having used video professionally in the 1990s with separate purpose built directional mics, the results from the present recording equipment leave a lot to be desired and do not surprise me.

A quiet afternoon at Carrog and 'Dukedog' 9028, on a Ruabon-bound train, pulls into the down 'goods' loop to pick up three empty fitted wagons from the goods bay. The video is basically to show the smooth running on the robust Peco Code 100 trackwork. Click on 'YouTube' got show full-screen....

If you set a loco of at less than walking speed on DCC at breakfast, it will still be running at that pace at teatime.

Dunno Clive. I just knew it as the ''Eastern". I simply modeled what was there when doing Diggle Junction. I have seen dark blue station signs at stations on the hope Valley route outside Sheffield, but I never investigated why.

A photograph if only to show the layout is complete again with its shiny new Code 100 fiddle yard. The unconnected track under the window is wired to an old DC controller for testing new locos. The longer sidings hold two trains.....

The blue shown on the Phoenix website has never seen GER blue. Regarding the blue used by the Eastern Region of BR on signal boxes and lamp rooms etc, it was quite a light blue from what I saw firsthand on the Standedge route eastwards beyond Diggle. This has come up before and someone suggested a proprietary shade that looked the part. Perhaps it was on the old read-only RMweb.

The obvious thing to me was to place a small radius point on top of a double slip. Result!

This doesn't surprise me today. I haven't bought an AP since going digital around the turn of the present Century and I think I have only popped into our local camera shop twice since that time.

Chatting with Roy Dock in the GEM factory, he once described RM as the Amateur Photographer of the model railway world because it carried all the advertising. I used to buy the Xmas edition every year even in the wilderness years when I did no modelling for myself.

Sir, you are a gentleman and a scholar.

I never noticed the different cover colours and I have never worn an anorak.

Regarding the Peco double slip, I think you will find is is small radius at 2 ft Dave.

Even Peco large radius points are very sharp prototypically but it depends on how much compression you intend building into your model station/layout. It needs to be thought out beforehand. The prototype of my station just holds 6 Mk.I coaches. My model holds 5 Mk.I's, so I used large radius points. That said, I later laid Code 100 for a particular reason and out the window went realism! If you were modelling a station that took 6 coaches and your model will take 3, then large radius points could look overpowering.

I was at one of my usual photing spots just outside Prestatyn Station when 'Tamworth Castle' first came down the north Wales line. As it approached, I couldn't figure out what it was! The shot duly appeared in 'Rail' I think. It then became a regular performer on the Maentwrog Road gunpowder and the nuclear flasks for some weeks. Pictured dropping down the Ledr Valley en route to Llandudno Junction...

Slightly off track, but how about the Llangollen line? I heard there was no steam at their recent Transport Gala. Fire risk?

My only experience of Heljan is two GWR 47XX's and both are very smooth runners. I will fit DCC and sound later on. But yes, I will be keeping and eye on the Heljan Class 25 development mainly because I have a yen for the sound. The real 25's were a particular distraction to me in the 1970's as I could hear their characteristic engine sound and horn from my garden shed where I worked full time. If the loco sounded like it was being held at signals in Abergele, I would dash down there with the camera!

For some reason, I photographed a pair of newish Rats on a returning Llandudno-Stoke in 1965, but I generally avoided diesels in those days. It was a different matter on a diesel railway and I followed them from 1976 until their demise on the last day. So modelling-wise, the temptation would be to have a blue-era funny hour.

Filmed a stock movement (not a lot) this morning, to empty the fiddle yard prior to it's relaying with new track. This final section will make the layout 100% Peco Code 100. All the locos will receive engraved plates when I get around to doing some indoor jobs.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOQ7hbpLauI&feature=youtu.be