PMP

I saw it twice in the East Midlands, and it appeared I think in RM and possibly HM/MR. It was a BR D&E blue-Blue/grey era theme. The comments as I recall were on the relevant show thread so probably one of Derby/Nottingham/Retford or Lincoln.

Xxx as can’t recall the names, and I think the following is the ‘basic’ history. K&L was I think the initials of Ken xxx from scalefour society and Len xxx the designer/toolmaker. IIRC they developed the system including some architectural bits, and marketed initially through the S4 society. News travelled that it was good stuff and a deal was done where Maygib distributed it to the trade in the early mid 80’s. I think it got too time consuming to look after and the track range was sold and changed it’s name to C&L and they sold direct and distributed direct to the trade from a premises in Bristol. After a good few years the C&L track system was sold to the current owner. Ken York, Len Newman?

The Mucky Duck Ivatt I had was another example, my conversion kit is still on the maturing shelf! With Bachmann there were definitely differences within the range as Tim mentions, eg Panniers, Jinties D&E types no issues. Possibly down to use of different factories in China?

When the exactoscale track components came out, mid 80’s?, I certainly recall mention of Lima, Hornby and Airfix fouling them. At that time Exactoscale IIRC was only available through the S4 Society, and I’m pretty certain at the time the sales pitch so to speak covered the incompatibility. I’ve never used them, so whether the chairs were retooled subsequently and then ‘missed’ I don’t know, or if it were prototype company shape related. I think they did Midland and GWR types?

I was referring to both types in case I’ve not been clear. In the early/mid 80’s when I was at MRM Kings Cross models we sold SMP flex/points kits, and C&L(nee K&L) flex and components. SMP was and is ok for ‘coarse’ flanges, and C&L flex and component built track suffered chair strikes from coarse wheel sets. Interestingly running a Lima 31 on the contemporary Peco CD75 bullhead track I’ve had no issues, but not tried anything with the original style Lima wheels.

Chris was a really nice bloke, I can see the point in perhaps not naming it Boduan, but if someone has come up with a plausible back story why not use it? If the plan is to exhibit it it would give you the opportunity to mention the inspiration he provided. I’m thinking of a early noughties version's of Abersoch in N/FS, as a test piece. I visited there, pic above, last week, partly driven by Chris’ writing and modelling. If I do it any show or published account, would undoubtedly include a significant tip to his inspiration. If a modeller took an Rice or Freezer plan and built it as published any back story is I think, just as important. As mentioned by @Neilsome people haven’t got that back story generator in their skill set, so it’s no issue to be inspired by someone else’s. It is a hobby at the end of the day! 😊

No sense of humour failure at all. If you do photography regularly in ‘public spaces’ as I have done you get some most peculiar imaginary laws and rights being explained to you by assorted members of the public, and in previous threads here. Having recently started flying a drone, the experience is quite similar, to the extent one flyer I’ve heard of takes business cards with him with the pertinent laws printed that he hands out to ‘experts’!

If you’d been told seriously by a clown at an exhibition that ‘You can’t take pictures of my layout, it’s my copyright’, as I have, and similar in other circumstances, the suggestion isn’t that far fetched😊 Thinking about it the exhibition and layout was mentioned on here, it had ‘no photography’ signs displayed on it, probably 5-10 years back. Caused some discussion then!

I don’t know what ‘issues’ you’re referring to. What I do know is that the pizza cutter RTR type wheels and the original Romford profile will hit the top of scale positioned and profile chairs as @Tony Wright has described above. Again thinking back to the mid 80’s K’s and Hamblings driving wheels fouled too. I’d forgotten the dodge Tony mentioned of cutting the chair heads down, which does work.

If the layout is being exhibited in a public space, and there’s no restriction on recording within the entry T&C’s, the content creator has nothing to worry about. If the layout owner want to protect his copyright, don’t exhibit it or publish it.

A dose of reality needed here. As far as I’m aware no model railway has ever been established legally as a copyrighted work of art, instillation or design/artefact. So if someone wants to copy my layout, and even use the same name, I’d have to take them to court at my expense to establish that I owned the copyright for that design and exact dimensions of my ‘artefact’. It would probably come under a work of art, but until someone pulls the trigger on it, and pays for a legal opinion as to what it should be copyrighted as we don’t know. A court would then decide if my claim was valid and if any infringement has occurred and what financial penalties might be levied, if any, and if I’m entitled to recover any of the costs of bringing that court action. Anyone who wants to copy another modellers work really doesn’t have anything at all to worry about.

The SMP track chairs are much slimmer than any of the other ‘scale’ track chairs. Back when the C&L (Nee K&L) track came out, early 80’s, the issue of striking chairs was prevalent for RTR products and Romford ‘universal’ profile wheels. We used to recommend Maygib, Gibson Ultrascale, Sharman or Romford Finescale as being suitable for the K&L and exactoscale chaired track. Fortunately most of todays contemporary RTR has wheel profiles that work with C&L, DCC Concepts and Peco bullhead trackwork.

It was certainly a hackneyed phrase regarding GWR BLT’s at one time, with people saying Railway Modeller in particular was a guilty party. I did a check of several years of the 60/70/80’s and there was no evidence of such a bias at all.

I remember that, probably early 80’s and it was surprisingly effective. Making or copying the same thing has occurred a couple of time I can think of. One was the Mill on the East Suffolk Light railway, both Bob and Iain commented that the direct copy was a bit odd, but I don’t think it bothered them. I’m certain I’ve seen a OO version of Iain Futers Lochside a while back too, and there was a copy of Nigel Bowyer’s Carron Road too. Using a similar name could cause confusion especially if a fictitious location like Charford or Borchester, Buckingham’s not so bad as it’s not unreasonable for someone to find a real place to add a railway to. There was a interesting point made a while ago about using the same name for a fictitious model. Someone was planning an new exhibition layout with the name Albion Yard, the same as my extant layout at the time. It didn’t bother me so much, but the potential for show managers or visitors to a show to expect to see my layout, and see something else was there. No one of course has copyright on a name or layout design unless they protect it.

It can flow in terms of ’aggregates’ but with water I tend to agree with you.

I use plastic moulded loads, they have steel glued underneath and lift out with a magnet. They are about 1mm narrower all round to ease getting them in and out and top is covered with real coal for realism. Not ideal but pragmatic. I’m working on real loading for a washery, with the reality of it being a pita to unload them, and the sheer volume of material required to load each 21t wagon.

Yr Wyddfa Miners Track The Glyders Ogwen Valley All last weekend, fortunately caught the snowfall.

You extrapolated. You provided a text book example of extrapolation commenting on the lack of weathered buildings and pristine track. If you don't like comments regarding you extrapolating something, don't extrapolate. You'll no doubt have seen the popular subsequent replies from @2ManySpams and @NHY 581 rebutting your perception that modellers don't weather their buildings or their ballast. At the Doncaster show recently I can think of only one layout that might have met those criteria. In my experience I'd agree with Rob that unweathered buildings or pristine ballast are very much the exception at the shows I've been to, or seen video of. Perhaps you'd be kind enough to provide some links to those videos? If you want to see examples where the norm is weathered buildings and track, then visit shows or look at videos from Larkrail, Wells, and Manchester as those that immediately spring to mind.

The minimum radii I use is Peco streamline medium radius, and no problems with those.

The Bachmann rods are perhaps the weak point of the model in visual terms, so I swap the rods as shown below. You can remove the rods and cranks from the wheel assembly quite easily. The issue with a crankpin alignment is it won’t be a simple adjustment as they are permanently fixed with the rods into the plastic moulded crank. One thing to check is are the rods straight, with no curves or twists in them. I replace rods and crankpins using Romford crankpins and Brassmasters or Hornby rods as in the following link: https://albionyard.com/2012/03/04/trinity-08-brassmaster-rods/ This conversion also removes the sag in the horizontal alignment that some of these models develop over useage too. If you do not want to do similar conversions, the easiest option is to swap the wheels with those on the Bachmann spares pages.

The problem with ‘extrapolating’ observations as you have made is that the videos you’ve watched, only include elements that the videographer wants to film. There are plenty of examples of realistic modelling at exhibitions, and channels that cover them.

The next batch of improvements have been completed, the bogie wheels swapped out for Alan Gibson replacements, and the damaged chimney as well. The techniques of course aren’t solely applicable to this conversion, they can be used for other prototypes as I’ve done before, like below with Bachmann’s 4575 prairie tank.

The chassis and body on this model are exactly as per the service sheet, so this is a Mk1 if there’s subsequent changes. I suspect there’s an error/omission on the linked service sheet. The motor bearing cover which is immediately in front of the motor isn’t shown, but the fixings for it are, and it’s available as a spare.

18.0mm or 18.2mm? Asking for a friend…

The speedo drive on mine is broken, I have a replacement to fit as part of the refurbishment. From memory my chassis looks the same as the illustrated spares sheet, I’ll cross check it when I do the chimney replacement.