Flying Pig

Time has actually made things worse. Old fashioned steamroller wheels will negotiate the gaps more smoothly. The (welcome) advent of better looking wheels requires narrower gaps for smooth running, but backward,compatibility militates against this. The major issue on Code 55 diamonds and slips is the obtuse crossings in the middle, where the gaps are very wide, which allows wheels the oportunity to go the wrong way. Indeed, as far as I can tell from pictures, Peco have left out some of the checkrails altogether on the slip for practicality of manufacture: code 55 rail is quite clumsy (much too wide) and with that and the oversize flange gaps a lot of the clearances for prototypical components just disappear. There was a consultation a few years back about better ready to run track in N (mostly on the N Gauge Forum) which in the end led to the Finetrax kits. These show that it is possible to make good-looking track which accepts current UK rtr N gauge stock, but I have no personal experience with them. Clearly the demand wasn't sufficient to make a ready to use range viable.

To expand on what @RailWest has posted. A small yard like yours would normally have received and consigned small numbers of wagons at a time rather than being the starting and ending point for goods trains. It would have been shunted by passing local goods trains which would work between marshalling yards (often very small ones) picking up and dropping off wagons along the way. The train would normally stand on the main line while the loco shunted the sidings and note that it would need trailing not facing access to them in order to do this (otherwise it just gets trapped in the siding). To achieve this while avoiding facing points, the simplest layout is what you have, bar the facing crossover. Your sidings can be adequately worked just by goods trains on the inner anticlockwise circuit, with wagons reversing their journeys at the marshalling yards at either end of the goods trip if necessary. Or if you really need to shunt a clockwise train*, the loco will need to run round first before crossing over to the anticlockwise line to shunt. But all of this can be done with the trailing crossovers controlled by ground signals. (*if this was expected to be a frequent occurrence, a trailing crossover from the clockwise main to the yard headshunt would have been provided, crossing the other running line via a diamond or single slip.) So, what to do with the facing crossover (apart from just removing it)? Facing points became far more common in the modern era and you mention DMUs so I gather your layout is set post about 1960. Perhaps the crossover is a recent addition to allow increase frequency DMU services to terminate in the inner platform as well as the bay? In that case, it would need a third main signal on the home bracket, reading over the crossover and another stop signal at the far end of the platform.

According to the 2P service sheet (downloadable here) the part number for a set of tender wheels is X8303. I can't find it advertised and in stock anywhere, however.

See the beginning of this film. It seems to be a D1666 they're roasting a few minutes later too.

The restored Tempest Mk ii flew for the first time on 10th October at Sywell.

Were sprags actually used to stop moving vehicles? I've only ever heard of them being inserted to prevent an already stationary vehicle from moving, a practice which I think predates the railways.

I mean like the TARDIS. Impossible of course, but anything you do inside a 22x is hampered by the basic design. In any case, XC Voyager interiors may look worn, but they compare favourably for comfort with some more recent stock. It is in my experience a relief to change from an 80x to a northbound Voyager at Bristol Parkway.

Tweak the crank forward so that the axis of the speedo sits over the axle centreline. It is currently off-centre which is why it describes a small circle.

You have a BR standard van (fine, very numerous) two BR insulated vans (much less numerous but still correct) a Midland or early LMS brake van The brake van seems a bit antique, but as Paul Bartlett's photos show them in departmental use 10-15 years after your period, perhaps there were still a few in traffic?

It seems someone read the story of Pooh stuck in Rabbit's front door and thought the Puke would come out easier if they left it a week. Obviously it was more obese than they reckoned with.

Hopefully they will be fitting larger interiors...

You can make Anyrail show you where curves are too tight: https://www.anyrail.com/help_en/settings_tab.htm

Railway of the Month in April 1977 and the slip coach is mentioned.

Highly unrealistic - they were always blocked or the water tank was empty.

The Leith General Warehousing wagons were made for Harburn Hobbies by Peco and are still advertised: https://www.harburnhobbies.co.uk/acatalog/Peco-NR-P151C-Peak--Roof-Wagon--Leith-general-Warehousing-No.168--5520-1.html For liveries, your period is Era 6, but BR did not repaint wagons often so Era 4 or 5 would be ok provided the vehicle type was still in service (e.g. avoid wooden coal wagons). The variety of wagons suitable for your era that have been produced over recent years in N is actually quite large, though you may have difficulty finding the ones you want new as batches tend to be small and quite infrequent.

I was disappointed by the H&P livery as it didn't seem very biscuity at all. I had been hoping for something more like this.

Black shading is correct pre-1936, but shouldn't the letters be gold? They appear to be yellow.

Your Anyrail layout doesn't look quite right. If it is 1.2m wide it seems to be much more than 2.8m long (more like 4.6m).

If you right click on an unconnected section of flexitrack, you should see "curved track" on the menu that pops up. You can then enter the radius and angle for the arc you want. If the flexitrack is already connected to another piece of track this doesn't work, so disconnect first (right click on the track and "disconnect"). Note that Anyrail may not allow more than 90 degrees of curve or a radius less than the minimum specified in the Settings sheet (which you can change). The new curve will not be positioned or aligned as you want so you will need to rotate and reconnect it. If you want to preserve the curve while working on adjacent connected tracks, paticularly if you are adjusting their curves freehand, right click and "glue" it.

Sorry, missed this. Your bird was a Wheatear, probably on its southward migration.

Any kind of wagon, surely? Too much shunting involved in a stopping goods for the brakes to be connected, even if it contained fitted vehicles. No guarantee that the loco would be fitted either.

Most of the sound seems to be from the exhaust which is white noise plus some deep smokebox resonance. There is a rather persistent audible whine as the loco recedes, but it is not particularly loud and may at least be in part due to the turbogenerator the Swedish locos carried.

This is a plan I drew years ago, which places the colliery and the exchange sidings side by side. That's very much a modelling dodge but it folds what might be a very long installation into a compact layout which doesn't require fiddle yards both ends. It also means you can swap full and empty wagons in the fiddle yard without messing about with loads. The fiddle yard is a short cassette deck meant to accommodate nothing more than a colliery shunter with a short cut of wagons, or a main line loco and brake van. There's no need for full trains which saves on wagon stock.

In which case I have to wonder how meaningful it is to call a C1 a 'small engine' based on that calculation.

I'm struggling to understand how a loco so big could only be a 2P. Using the usual online sources, they were more than 25% heavier than an LMS 2P, had 50% more grate area and 70% more total heating surface.