coachmann

In my lifetime I've seen the FR resurecting their own line back to Blaenau Ffestiniog, and overseeing the building the Caernarvon-Porthmadog 'WHR' line as well, both mammoth tasks by any standards. It is easy to take the Festiniog Railway Company for granted nowadays but I remember a time when the Snowdonian mountains were silent. Those people down near the Porthmadog station have had their little line for years and so speaking as a mere cynic and member of the travelling public, my suspicion is they fancy cashing-in on the FR's success now the donkey work has been done. If I want to see heritage WHR and a take a little trip up and down a tourist attraction I know which line to visit, but if I want to park my car and get somewhere for real, then the new WHR has it. I have no doubt the latter line will be run run a businesslike manner, indeed it is a necessity if it is to survive and pay a dividend. Amateur dramatics they don't need.

I never had time to write books about my livelyhood, but if you want the advice of one of the 'originals', this is it...... DRESSING PENS : Keep the tips of the pen fine using finest emery then lightly rule a short line about 2 inches long (as you would using paint) on the emery paper. This might sound daft but it brings both nibs level. Check them again under a magnifyer and if both nibs have an equal flat area (not too flat mind you!) then your pen is ready for use. I cannot assist in honing your pen unfortunately as I am left handed so your pen will slope a different way if you're right handed. How long should the prongs be......? Buy the smallest pen you can find is the answer as these have finer tips. As an example, the length of my pens overall from tip to end of handle is 4 1/4 inches. PAINT : Use only Humbrol gloss paint. Let a new tin settle for several days before pouring off the oil into a spare tin. Stir whats left into a thick putty then pour back about a quarter of the oil you poured off. Stir and this should be good consistency for lining. As you get further down the tin it might be necessary to pour in a little more oil. BASE : Lining goes on any surface but as matt has a texture then gloss surface is preferable. You can always matt down afterwards. I went to art school, so does this matter? No not really. A friend opf mine is a draughtsman/sureveyor and I do all his lining for him because for some reason he cannot work on 3-dimentional objects. Practice, practice, practice is best advice. I started in 1962 with a brass handbuilt bow-pen compass belonging to my grandad, so Ive had a good few years head start Mike! COLOUR : Humbrol No.69 yellow always seems to be runny and translucent so I always cheat by mixing it 50-50 with Humbrol No.7 cream. This is used on coaching stock from all the Big Four companies. As you know, the LNER used primrose edged with a fine red line and the LMS corridor stock 1923-34, had a red line beside cream. Little point in attempting the red lines in 4mm (1/16" in real life) and so my 50-50 mix looks about right. When it comes to lining out Gresley coaches, I use cellulose as it dries almost as soon as it leaves the bow pen and remains on top of "knife-edge" etched beading. However, enamel can be used successfully so long as you keep the lining fine and the enamel paint thick. Larry Goddard

Weren't the WHR people down by Porthmadoc station against the new FR/WHR venture?

Looking at this (Burkitts LMS black 'Peak') I could have lived with diesels this colour!

I'm using primer (from Brothers and Simoniz) but have used Halfords metal primer. The "secret" is to lay on a first fine coat (never mind its bald). After 3 minutes or so lay on a second coat wetter this time. Finally a third coat wet all over. Leave to 'cure' for a minimum of 4 hours over a convector heater for the first 15 minutes to prevent fogging. If I take a short-cut, as I do sometimes with my own models, I put a colour on top of the primer after 2-3 hours and paint tends to chip off steps later on....A sure sign the primer wasnt left long enough. For washing models I use Ajax powder, 1/2 inch paintbrush and a toothbrush and wash off with very hot water. I shake it and leave it to dry. Do not use a towel or anything as threads, hairs etc will be left on the model. Before spraying, brish the model off with a 1/2 inch paintbrush used solely for this job. I know it sounds long winded but it's an easy routine to get into and it pays dividends. Larry

As a commercial organisation I have to look for good but innexpensive. Etching primer is not a pre-requisit. I ditched that idea in 1971.

Yes, Halfords primers can be used on brass. Nckel silver, alumimium and steel too. But watch out for plastic primer. This can only be used on plastic and cannot be trusted on metal.

On this day in history my dear wifey was born. But don't ask me to tell you what was happening on the railway on 22 May 1942....

Even if the LMS had been given drawings to build 'Castles, I'll bet they would have incorporated LMS standard parts...... Fowler 3.500 gallon Tender, 3-cylinder Walchearts valvegear and maybe a parallel boiler....... A cock-up in true Anderson/Fowler tradition. The reason why the LMS continued with certain outdated ideas in the late 1920s/early 1930s wasn't just because of certain powerful ex-Midland men. The 1929 - early 30's depression also played its part. But for all that, stupidy reigned when the final Fowler locos came out (even if they do make super models ).

Is it just me or what, but I cannot see the point of showing how smooth DCC locos run on YouTube when the format is inherantly unstable and just makes the locos look as if they are running jerkilly.

The idea is probably as old as railway modelling, building a 'what - if' branch to a place that was never served by a railway. So long as everything is taken into account such as surveying the route to see what would be involved and potential traffic with particular regard to freight. Then a loco might be designed to work that route if has unique characteristics, or locos bought secondhand and adapted. Locos on the M&GN were from the Midland Railway and the Great Northern yet, with reboilering/rebuilding, none ever quite looked like the locos still running on the original companies lines.

A prime example of the problem I have with numbers. It was 47646....Just checked this out in my photo diary. 47186 was on sand empties, not sulphur. 47110 was on the14.20 Junction Speedlink. The 31 was 31217. Cheers, Larry

I doubt if Bullied would have had much say after the 1940s. He was regarded as an oddball and his ideas would not have fitted into the austere life that we all suffered for nine years after 1945. His Pacifics were greedy on coal becasue drivers could not guarantee the cut-off would stay in one position and would work them at 50% cut off even though this did not please the fireman. Also they could not take in primary air, a thing that had crippled lesser locos in the 1920s and 30s. They were also a garage job if something needed attending to. After being expensively rebuilt it is said the drivers hated them because of the extra time needed to oil round three sets of valvegear, and they still remained coal eaters because some drivers continued to drive them as they had the originals. Simplicity was the wartime and postwar keyword.

Right at the end of your chosen period, 22nd February 1989, showing the variety at Llandudno Junction/Llanboune Junction! 47464 departing for Crewe. 47110 on Amlwch Tanks. LMS coach in Departmental use together with crane. 47228 on Speedlink including more tanks from Amlwch. Another 47 on Sulphur empties to Mostyn Dock. Class 31 running round its Nuclear Flask train probably from Wylfa. The Trawsfynedd train would arrive mid-afternoon and the two would go forward as one train around teatime... And in case you feel tempted to build something unusual, the GER Inspection Saloon with 31 145...

Landscapes with & without trains. Virgin in the upper Lledr Valley..... Virgin at Deganwy Quay... Large Logo @ Conway Castle... Lull before the storm over the River Conwy... Early morning on the bird sanctuary, Llandudno Junction...

The sight of S.A.C.Martins picture prompted me to dig this one out. A more modern or older variation....? 24047 on Mk.I's and a 47 on Mk.II's standing in the rain at the carriage shed at Llandudno Junction in 1978. An ancient gas lamp contrasts with 'modern' motive power in the shape of 24 073 and 25 158 on shed at Llandudno Junction, 26 June 1977.

I still haven't a layout since cutting the old one up and demolishing the shed, so I have a feeling for what you are saying. In your shoes I would just continue building things for the proposed layout once you have extablished the scale/gauge.

There was just a lawn there at one time but I think there is a cycle path there now. If so, then one can also expect a 10 foot electrified fence as well!

I don't suppose you have offended anyone here, afterall, the notion that Labour has some god-given right to rule Britian is immature in a democracy. David Johnson (Labour) said it all this morning...."We have left the country in a better state than it was when we took office in 1997". Oh really? Tell that to the voters who heard Blair say in 1997 that he would not be touching the economy for the first two years of his regime, in other words, there was now't wrong with the economy. Tell that to those denied a NHS dental service. Tell that to people who have witnessed record levels of immigration into their towns and cities when the people already settled there have not been able to find employment (two and a half million people unemployed now). Labour has simply done what it did in 1951, 1970 and 1979...... It is leaving workers, not benefit claimants, to pay for their irresponsible ideology. This is simply a response from someone at the opposite end of the bar and who has also been roped into repay the national debt.

I particularly like the big Great Central 4-6-0s, which in life were a doomed species because of restricted ashpan and lack of primary air. Apart from that each class was built in very small numbers and as such were costly to maintain. So I thought an LMS 'Jubilee' boiler with cladding to look like a parallel boiler mounted on a slightly altered GCR chassis would produce a workable and an efficient 'Sir Sam Fay'. Never got around to building it though!

No one would believe today how hard it was to get rock 'n roll records from the USA in the 1950s. Thank goodness for Youtube then......Jerry Lee Lewis, the REAL King of rock, at a railway station near you? Pump up the volume and base for this.....he's a real character.

Two pictures close by Llanbourne! 33021 waiting to depart with the 15.40 to Crewe on 15 May 1985. The water pipes were for refilling the toilets. Another excuse for a 37..... 37/5 No.37503 in grey large logo livery running in on test train and curving off the Llandudno branch at Llandudno Junction on 28 February 1986.

Oldddudders : This is very close to my own thinking. Within this structure one could still introduce 'locos that never were' provided they fitted in with the rest of the loco fleet as regards livery. Or one could pretend the railway were never nationalised and model one of the Big Four companies as one thinks it might have developed in the 1950s and so on. But the topography and architecure wouldn't change although the nature of the traffic might.

Unless one is playing trains and running whetever takes their fancy (and I'm in no way a critic of this), once a modeller decides to construct a model of a railway then all sorts of things kick in. Architecture of the company that built the line for a start, and of course scenery. Even though a loco shed may be 'off stage', it is important to considers its function. A Motive Power Depot was a garage and servicing area for locomotives needed to work the principal passenger and goods services that the shed was responsible for. Straight away this dictates which type of locos would work on your layout, but of course there is also scope for visitors and foreighers for other sheds and districts. The types of freight worked in your chosen area determines the types of wagons that would feature in greater numbers than others. Same goes for passenger workings. Regardless of scale, gauge, electronics, steam or modern image, a successful layout should tell the visitor whereabouts in the country it is located by its brickwork/stonework and scenery, and the origins of the line by its architecture, locomotives and coaches, plus the nature of its principal traffic. By all means create an imaginarry world, but it still lies somewhere in Britain (probably) and not on another planet. Larry

Late 1985 to mid 1987 was indeed an exciting period but it was also a sad time too as the 'Peaks' dissapeared to make way for Class 150/2s. The 25s, 33s and 40s also dissapeared one way or another during this time. You chose what was probably the best period after the steam-era when more diesel classes operating down here than at any other period. But isn't it always the same with railway modelling that you model one period only to miss out on another. I refer to 1989 when the line was passed for steam again and the 1993 Class 37 invasion. LG