Barry Ten

Mikkel: that's a fascinating story. The model had two decal sets - I was committed to using one over the other, as the original builder had already made a choice regarding the wing tips. I was fascinated to see the photo of the replica at Tangmere (not far from where my sister lives - I must pop in next time). Brian, Nick: yes, you don't forget it, do you? I saw the Caroline Grace Spitfire a few years ago and the noise made an indelible impression. A few months later I was in the garden at a friend's barbecue near Slough when we heard that same engine sound, gradually approaching. One cue a couple of said: that sounds like a Spit! Indeed it was. Olddudders: that's a marvellous (if tragic) story...

I took a brief holiday from trains to finish this 1/72nd scale Revell Spitfire MkV. The model was started by a friend of mine who is not really a plastic kit builder (although he is an aeromodeller) as a way to keep an 8 year old quiet one rainy day in the school holidays. The model was part constructed and then abandoned when the 8 year old lost interest - at which point I got given the bits and asked if I fancied finishing it. I completed the assembly of the model, removed and re-glued a few bits, added a lot of filler and then sanded back to reduce (a best as I could) the joints between the various bits. The model was brush painted, mainly using the pots that come with the Revell kit - good value, although I did dip into my own paint store for some of the detail colours. After decals were added I applied Microsol setting solution, and then some weathering using Tensochrom active surface agents. There are still some bits I could not get quite right, some details missing (some parts went walkies) and the sit of the cockpit canopy isn't great but all in all I really enjoyed building a plane, after an absence of some 32 years at least! It used be something of a friday night treat, to go down the Rhiw Center in Bridgend after school and buy a kit - there was a small model shop tucked away in one corner of the market, if anyone remembers. Since working on the Spit I have been taking much more of an interest in what's out there in model plane land and have also been enjoying the first couple of issues of the new Airfix Model World mag. Anyway, after this little vacation it's back to Centenary stock, of which more anon.

Thanks, Trevor - and good luck with your venture - I shall watch with interest!

I don't think it's any more fiddly or harder on the eyes than 4mm to be honest. Most of the fine detail we have on our models is limited by the size of mouldings or castings, so whereas in 4mm we expect to have separately applied handles on coaches, in N that's not feasible. The only area where I've found things to be a struggle is in assembling couplers, but most of the time you don't have to do that; you either use the ones already fitted or swap in a ready-made unit. The models also benefit from being seen as part of a larger scene, I think, so my eye doesn't get any closer to the layout than it does in larger scales. Does that make sense? As for decoders, my roster is a motley collection. Some of my models came with decoders, some didn't, some have had them installed. As Adrian says, drop-in decoder installation is pretty straightforward and where a little more work is required, I have someone do it for me. My only minor regret is not committing to DCC from the outset as it does work brilliantly in N.

I knew it was double-webbed but I didn't realise that the inside profile was code 80. The one bit I don't like visually about Peco code 55 (other than the incorrect sleeper spacing, yadda yadda yadda) is the deep profile on the turnout switch blades - quite difficult to disguise. I have used some Atlas code 80 on the turnback curves on the non-scenic portion - in terms of rail height/sleeper combo etc it's a good match for Peco code 55 and can be joined using a standard fishplate.

Thanks, Steve. No, I haven't had any problems with the trackwork. My oldest locos, two Lifelike SD7s, have the deepest flange profiles but they still run well. With the older rolling stock - old Bachmann and so on - I generally swap the trucks anyway, to get the right couplers on them. I'd heard that some people have had difficulties with stock derailing through Peco X-crossings but again I've not had that happen. I think I've mentioned elsewhere that if I was starting from scratch, and had ready access to it, I might consider using Atlas code 55 exclusively - it just looks more "Americany" - but I don't know how their Code 55 profile compares with Peco's.

I've been doing a lot of head-scratching lately, concerning the best way to continue developing the layout. To some extent, I've become greedy: back when I started modelling in N, I'd have been content just to have a continuous run, a couple of sidings to shunt, a passing loop and a few fiddle yard tracks. Over the years, though, the layout has grown and not inconsequentially so has my pile of kits and items of rolling stock. Encouragingly, I've found that N works fine for slow speed operation and switching - but the downside of that is that I want more of it, not less. A year ago I decided I fancied adding a locomotive servicing terminal, and my Christmas present 12 months ago was the Walthers turntable, plus a roundhouse and some add-on stalls. I have since acquired a couple more kits that fit in with this theme, and continued researching the topic. At the time my thoughts were simple: the terminal (let's call it an MPD) was going to fit on the peninsula that would project out into the room. Failing that, there was more room along the as yet undeveloped lower wall. There didn't seem to be any lack of space, so what was the problem? Too much knowledge, that was what. The more I dug into MPDs in an American context, the less likely it looked that a modest passing point, with a few industries, would warrant a facility as big as the one I had in mind - a full on transition-era terminal with steam and diesel both being served, and a 9-stall roundhouse equipped with a turntable large enough to handle a Big Boy! An MPD like that would be much more appropriate situated by a division point, classification yard and/or major junction - somewhere where it would make sense to change locos and their crews, basically. I didn't want to create anything that looked toy-trainlike (it is a toy train, but I'd worked hard to keep a sense of spaciousness on the existing bits and I didn't want to blow that now). The problem had now become one of fitting in not just an MPD, therefore, but also a yard - and the yard was likely to take up at least as much space, if not more, than the original terminal. Still - plenty of space, right? I thought so, but the more I tried to square the circle, the more the pieces refused to fit nicely. There was room for the yard and terminal on the peninsula - but the yard would need a through-road; real classification yards aren't dead-ends, and the peninsula didn't allow this. There appeared to be plenty of room along the lower wall - a clear eight feet, surely more than enough? That was my fallback option but there were (are) problems that no amount of head-bashing has resolved. Shillingstone, my 4mm layout, runs all the way around the room, above the GA&E. On three of those four walls, the Shillingstone boards are light and narrow enough that they're supported by L-shaped brackets with no diagonal brace piece. However, the boards along the lower wall are wider, and I decided to go for fully braced brackets along this side. The downside of that is that the diagonal bit intrudes on the space above any putative extension to the GA&E. There's still room for it, but the backscene boards would need to be much lower - unacceptably so, in my view. I've considered various options such as spacing the backscenes out from the wall by five or six inches, and running a track behind them (with suitable access) but that then intrudes on the room available for foreground scenery. That may still be the way to go, but ... A more radical option would be to accept that the lower wall, while providing useful shelf space for the layout, is not suitable for scenic development. In which case, it might make more sense to move the storage yards there - basically, flipping them through ninety degrees from their current position. The downside is that the storage sidings won't be any longer than those currently in use (which have an option to be extended by 12", say three cars per road) but that would not be too unacceptable a trade-off. The plus side would be unobstructed access to the roads, since I wouldn't be trying to screen them behind foreground scenery. Even more of a plus, I'd then claw back 10 - 11 feet of existing layout footprint which could then be almost exclusively dedicated to the yard and MPD. That would mean the elimination of some work already done - not just relocating the storage roads, but also removing a couple of grades and re-aligning the existing trackwork. But that would not be too painful since nothing that has been ballasted would need to be touched, and to some extent one end of the storage roads could be transplanted with only minimal effort. Almost all the work seen in photos would be preserved. So anyway - that's where I am with my current thinking. Of course in model railway land nothing's quite that simple - to even begin to extend the layout, I need to remove a bookcase from one corner of the room, and apart from finding space for all those books and mags currently sitting on it, I'd need to remove a shelf as well. Apologies for the blather - any thoughts welcome, of course.

Pink Thing - XTC

Just set it as my background, cheers.

Thanks, Trevor - I am enjoying it, which is the main thing. I made a lot of progress in the first 12 months of the layout and almost felt that it was going too quickly but it has slowed down considerably since then and I no longer feel in any danger of finishing it soon. I have also been casting a critical eye at some of the areas of the layout that were developed the earliest, and I can see room for some changes, if I ever feel bored.

I'm perfectly happy with complements!

More snail-like development on the upper left of the industrial area: The building in the immediate foreground - Ridgeway Paints - which has been in many previous shots, is made up from DPM modulars components. The next one along, with the fire escape and angled frontage, is adapted from the Walthers Geo. Roberts printing company kit. The flats along the rear backscene are more DPM - Hanson Pianos, I think - and the as yet unfinished building on the retaining wall next to the tracks is from the Walthers Empire Leather and Tanning mega-kit, suitably modified to give it an extra floor. At the extreme rear (as already mentioned) you can see the start of what will be a steep, heavily foliaged hill, which acts as a viewbreak to conceal the storage yard and monitor camera. It looks a bit unnatural at the moment, but I'm hoping it will fit into the overall scene once "greened" and extended. That's it for now - I'm still trying to work out the best way to continue the layout's development in terms of shoe-ing in a loco terminal, more industries and a small classification yard.

Hi Mallard No - this is my first Chivers kit, although I've got the pigeon van to do as well. I think I bought both at Warley last year. The Centenary is the comet sides (and white metal and brass bits) on an Airfix/Hornby donor model. A skilled modeller could probably do a quicker (and certainly tidier) job by building the complete Comet kit, I suspect, but I'm happy enough with mine - it doesn't stand up to close scrutiny, but it will be fine as part of a train. cheers!

Finally, the Centenary restaurant car is done - or nearly so. Still some work on the interior (boring!) as well as handrails, doorknobs and some general tidying up, but the hard work is over. I fixed the incorrect door, as mentioned in my earlier post, by gluing a thin blanking piece of plastikard over the offending area, then locally repainting and re-lining. In the process some more lining came adrift elsewhere, and then the whole thing nearly turned into a disaster when I (stupidly) sprayed acrylic varnish over enamel - big mistake! Fortunately it was thin mist, not a full-on blast, and I spotted that the paint layers were beginning to react before proceeding further. Rather than risk making things worse with remedial action, I put the coach aside and came back a few hours later. The paint had "settled down", barring some rippling under the lining, so I redid the worst of the lining and then resprayed - as I should have done the first time - with enamel varnish. Definitely not a mistake to make twice... I still need to tidy up the brown cantrail strip, as well as replace one or two windows where the clear material gained a few blemishes during application. Other than that, I am pleased to see the light at the end of the tunnel with this project - it's taken a year, although admittedly it hasn't been sitting on the workbench all that time. I have now started work on the restaurant third, which I expect to go much more smoothly. Apart from being a simpler project - there's much less needing to be done to the RTR coach shell and chassis - I've learned a few dos and donts from the first build, which will speed matters. Also on the worknbench this week, a Chivers 6-wheel LMS fish van. Very satisfying kit, this one - the parts went together very well, and (with a decent amount of weight to add trackholding) the end product has a satisfyingly sturdy quality. I decided to have a bash at adding all three axles, rather than using the dummy wheels supplied in the kit. This turned out to be a doddle, so I've included an underside shot for anyone interested in a similarly low-tech, bodge-orientated approach. Nothing original - I just built a plastikard mounting block for the central axle, allowing it plenty of lateral movement. The wheels are Bachmann coach wheels. I didn't even bother removing the conical axle-ends from the central wheelset - it simply slides in and out of the bearing holes as required. The result is 100% reliable through Peco curved turnouts, which have a limiting radius of 30" - although I'd imagine it could tolerate somewhat tighter curves without difficulty - maybe down to 24"?

It's going to be a long wait for the truck driver as four Southern FT units plod through with a lengthy freight:

Keane's last few records - they tended to be written off as lightweight Coldplay/Radiohead wannabes, I think, but I find them very likable and there's some real substance on their albums. Perfect intelligent pop rock.