Flying Pig

People who think that a small urban layout needs to be a square box with houses along the back should be made to look at Hedges Hill until the penny drops. It's a superbly composed scene.

Just some old layout... Still the best evocation of its time and place that I've seen.

Quite a lot off topic, really, as it has little to do with the OP and is likely to spawn a long discussion. Perhaps better raised as its own thread in the Transition Diesel Liveries forum?

In the absence of continuous track circuiting, how did this work with sidings converted to loops? The back of the train would not pass the box, so the signalman could not see the lamp and confirm it to be complete.

This is what the LMS built when able to dictate the scale of operations: http://www.steve-banks.org/prototype-and-traffic/143-lms-coal-the-40t-hoppers

Nicely done, but you seem to have fallen into one of the Heffalump traps associated with 16t minerals. I'm treading on dangerous ground myself here, but I believe that until the rebodying programme started around 1970, any wagons without top flaps were from batches built before about 1947 and this would appear to be what your model represents. It clearly isn't a rebodied wagon as it has bottom doors (and thus also independent brakes) and the livery is much too early. As far as I know the top flap was introduced on batches built about 1948/49. These wagons differed from the later BR standard design in retaining the bottom doors and independent brakes. I think they are the basis for the Airfix kit. Happy to be corrected on the above.

I never run my trains in stock - it's difficult to clean off and if hot enough can even damage the mouldings. I'm reminded of the advice the late great Spike Milligan gave in a slightly different context:

I'm very impressed with the tone of the horns - they have none of the buzziness that afflicts so many models even in larger scales.

This argument cropped up on the Farish 40 thread as these models are also fitted with speakers as standard. However, only one model actually has DCC onboard (with sound) and it is clearly advertised as such and sold at a commensurately higher price. The other 40s are £5-10 pounds more expensive than comparable models such as recent 37s and 55s on the retail sites I've looked at, though it isn't possible to say how much of this is due to the speaker. In the 2018 Farish announcements, Bachmann advise that they are updating the chassis of a number of recent models to also have speakers as standard, so it looks like company policy in N gauge at least. It makes sense from their point of view to rationalise the range.

To be fair, when you exhume a thread after this amount of time, it's very hard to differentiate actual content from irony staining.

That's not extreme: this is extreme.

Thanks for your support, but I'm sure I said precisely the opposite As for Webb's patent radial boxes, my somewhat cynical guess is that the unique features were of interest mostly to patent lawyers and just sufficient to avoid paying royalties to someone else.

That's certainly how the Bachman Radial Tank works (minus any side control), but a full size radial 'truck'* isn't really a truck at all. Rather, the axleboxes are allowed to move sideways in specially shaped hornguides fixed to the mainframes that cause the wheels to steer just as if they were mounted on a Bissell truck, so the axle hence remains 'radial' to the track curvature. The Cartazzi axleboxes used on Gresley Pacifics are radial boxes with side control provided by inclined planes on top where the loco's weight is supported, but radial axles were very widely used in tank engines with a leading and/or trailing axle (0-4-2T, 2-4-2T, 0-6-2T etc) and I don't know what, if any, side control most designs employed. * Look up 'radial truck' on Wikipedia and you'll find a description of a bogie with multiple steering axles that isn't quite the same thing.

Lambton58's appreciation and thanks are duly seconded. I can't remember when I've enjoyed a show more. I'm currently sitting with a glazed look and making chuff chuff noises, like a less handsome Mr Toad. Sadly (or perhaps fortunately), the cloisters of Pig Hall wouldn't run to live steam, even if the coffers would.

I wouldn't have expected the same for the LMS group, but we will shortly have models of passenger tanks from the Lanky, LNWR and Midland, all in Bachmann boxes.

I have the very early Mainline LMS black Scots Guardsman and it certainly has no reverser in the cab (neither did the Jubilee), nor was it glazed as bought.

'...as a refusal often offends.'

If you scroll along the street, you can see that the pub is still there, though whether its 70s and 80s regulars would recognise it is another matter. The area has clearly undergone a certain amount of regeneration: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.9753198,-1.5921386,20z/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en

One thing they could do with the 16 tonners is label them a bit more clearly. I bought 377-254A which is labelled just "16 ton steel mineral wagon BR grey (weathered)". It has no top flap and from what I could see of it on the shelf I assumed it to be a rebodied Diag 1/108 vehicle, though a more careful examination of the livery under the weathering would have shown it to be too early for this. The model actually has independent brakes which I believe makes it a mid-1940s wagon and very unlikely still to be in traffic in my period. The history of 16-tonners is quite involved: top marks to Bachmann for producing the variations, but a little more help identifying what the models represent would be welcome. In terms of actual models, more 1970s rebodied 16 tonners would suit me. And of course, LMS and BR fitted underframes with clasp brakes are still needed by many modellers, along with LMS vans and opens to go on them. Same as in 4mm, but the availability of rtr underframes would be a particular boon in N.

Just to give the porridge a bit of a stir, that works both ways: Hornby could have been making Scottish engines all along and leaving those spolit Southerners to do some work for a change

Already being discussed here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/129016-Hornby-2018-announcements/ Edit: along with the usual wishlisting and froth of course.

I've always thought the low slung outside cylinders and long wheelbase make the B16/1 a tricky proposition for an rtr model which has to negotiate 2nd radius curves. The rebuilds, with the bogie 9" further forward still are probably even worse, even with higher mounted cylinders.

Blimey, that's fighting talk. The NER Class O (LNER G5) 0-4-4T was a solid and long-lived design, so very unlikely to have been sacked for unreliability. More likely the impecunious LNER was trying to save money.

Could you not just file the interesting bits off a 4F?

The Q is like a Midland 4F with all the character removed. It's so dull that the Southern got tired of building it after only 20 examples. If Hornby must do another Southern group 0-6-0, the Brighton C2X would be a more interesting choice, was more numerous and lasted nearly as late in service.