Flying Pig

Most of the NER driving cars had a porthole for the motorman, as shown by the preserved 1904 luggage van. Ken Hoole's book The North Eastern Electrics (Oakwood) shows 1920 stock built with a porthole, refurbished for the South Shields service by the LNER with a full window and then with the window reduced by painting in a 1945 photo.

There are ways round that. I travelled up from Streatham to London Bridge in the van of a packed 4EPB one morning and the power bogie was completely hidden by disgruntled commuters. (I wasn't disgruntled - too busy watching the brake gauge.)

You may find it's the other way round: I remember reading claims at the time that the brake blocks on the Airfix underframe were correct for EM gauge wheelsets. Miles ahead of the Hornby offering when new but admittedly dated now. I find Dapol wagons, particularly in 4mm, a very odd mixture of antediluvian, could do better and very good indeed, as if they're not really paying attention most of the time but can do perfectly well when they put their minds to it. They seem to be more consistent in N.

I'm guessing reversal at Derby, then via Trent, the Erewash Valley and Pye Bridge to gain the Robin Hood Line (then freight only and not so-branded), Assuming a possession north of Clay Cross I can't see what else they could have done short of diverting from Brum via Manchester and the Hope Valley. However, turning west at Worksop should have allowed a straight run to Sheffield, without the diversion over the South Yorkshire Joint and a visit to Donny, which is a pretty excruciating way round. Presumably additional possessions prevented the more direct route. Some good solid freight milage in there though. Best I can come up with is Manton - Kettering, albeit Peak hauled and without noticeable heat one winter Sunday evening after dark, which is very ordinary.

The railway usage is by analogy with the frog in a horse's hoof and I think it arose very early and was at that time used in Britain. Like "railroad" it seems to have fallen out of professional use over here long enough ago that it now sounds entirely foreign.

Sorry, this is one of my pet hates. Home layouts aren't built for the benefit of third party spectators (except in very unusual cases) and should show their best face to the operator. I've seen some bizarre schemes in the modelling mags when this point is forgotten: one fairly recent one had the operator trapped behind the layout in a tiny triangular space in the corner of the room and able to see none of it.

Also to avoid using a slip which wasn't then available, I'd imagine. Signal diagrams for Liverpool St Met and Circle are available as pdfs at http://www.harsig.org/Circle.htm (Widened Lines 1956 and Metropolitan 1933 diagrams). The available moves are particularly clear on the 1956 version. Edit: also check out the crossovers on the Widened Lines at Moorgate in 1956.

There's just the one goods siding really - the warehouse top left - and any shunting is done on the up main at quiet periods. I'd make the warehouse a specialist one, for perishables say, and feed it with tail traffic and short trip workings from a nearby yard, which should be enough interest for a single operator and provide scope for interesting vans too. As there's no runround, I'd be tempted to propel trips into the station. It is possible to add at least one more goods siding and even an up goods line to allow shunting clear of the main, but both risk making the plan look crowded in my view.

Seems like a pefectly good model railway to me - ideal for relaxing and watching a train trundle by. Your buildings are a very harmonious collection and you've arranged them beautifully.

I have a friend who lives in Penistone and works a few minutes from Oxford Road station in Manchester, so my view is naturally that the route would make an ideal high speed passenger line

Here's a slightly modified fiddle yard arrangement. There are two sidings for branch trains at the top and they can be reversed by dropping a new loco on from the LH spur, though some hand shunting of goods trains may be needed and I'm assuming diesels (Sulzer type 2s of course!) that don't need turning. You could make the loco spur a bit longer to help with sorting wagons. An additional crossover at the lower right gives a through road that can hold a train to circulate on the main line without impeding branch operation. I reversed the loco release crossoverin favour of longer branch trains, but I'm not sure now this is the best arrangement.

Not at all keen on the fiddle yard. For one thing, as drawn you can't change engines to reverse trains without impinging on the visible part of the layout. Your original design allowed a train to arrive from the terminus and a new loco to be dropped on from the left hand headshunt, all offstage and without any handling of stock. It also catered for trains running anticlockwise on the outer loop which this one doesn't. Have another look at Chimer's plan in post #81, which is pretty much what you posted but with very nicely flowing curves, particularly in the station area. I would be interested to knowwhat the minimum radius on this is it looks like a very practical scheme.

Is there any resemblance between the panelling of the Hornby 4-wheelers and anything that ever existed? It seems to represent the edges of the beading, but everything in between is missing. Surely the various Ratio kits are a better source of sides to bash?

I agree with David. Ditch the trailing crossover and move the facing crossover as far left as you can, probably almost up to the board joint. Your leftmost board with the canal bridge looks like a very attractive scene and I wouldn't want to disturb it. Would the Midland have connected the sawmill siding to the goods loop via a diamond rather than incurring another facing point lock on the main? It would need a trap in any case.

Funnily enough, it's on the "settings" tab. You just enter your minimum radius in the box provided and any curve that drops below that radius will be highlighted. Since Anyrail doesn't lay curves to a constant radius, in many cases only part of the track section will be highlighted and you can adjust the curve using the two control points* to try and get rid of the highlight. *hold shift while dragging the control points to avoid disturbing adjacent pieces of flexi-track, or use the right button "glue" option to fix the adjacent pieces before adjusting.

Apologies, Phil. I missed your post.

Get hold of a copy of MRJ 246 which has a description of Martin Stringer's 7mm Tollesbury Quay: Tiny Trains: Tollesbury Quay by guitarfish, on Flickr He was "Death Bredon" in Murder Must Advertise, his initials being PDBW.

And not really surprising as 37s and 47s are fifty-plus years old and should have been out of service some time in the 1990s if all had gone to plan. What we have today is the equivalent of seeing the odd Sandringham 4-6-0 knocking round in large logo blue and really quite strange when you think about it.

There is an adjustable tool, similar in operation to the truck tuner, but intended to drill out axleboxes for brass bearings. It was originally described in MRJ 212 and subsequently marketed by Alan Gibson. I think Lambton58 acquired one recently and I've pm'd him to tell us where he found it as they were noted as out of stock at Alan Gibson not so long ago.

Absolutely, and I hope this model will show Locomotion where to go when they come to their senses.

When things got really busy on summer Saturdays, just about anything with a vacuum brake was pressed into passenger service, so there should be no problem using an 8F on the SO Hope St - Cleethorpes (summer timetable only).

The other option being the unhinged layout?

I watched one today chewing wood from a bird hide, so she must have already started a nest nearby. If it's quiet you can even hear the rasping sound as they do this but it was too windy today. Coachmann's second visitor appears to be a Tree Bumblebee.

Looks like the common wasp, actually.

In the days when people had rather little stock, they still tended to have more locos than could be used at once. This layout has no stabling for passenger trains, but conversely can be worked with a couple of short main line sets and a branch set, possibly no more than 7 or 8 carriages in total. Being able to supply a few extra locos from the shed, means that interest can be added by engine changes in the lower platforms, or even by terminating and reversing trains there. It's a different paradigm from the currently fashionable one of small scale trainspotting, but can still provide railway-like operations and interest for the operator.