Flying Pig

The article in April 1957 Railway Modeller gives dimensions for both 00 and TT-3.

Somehow the Minories version manages to look more complex than it actually is and has a more 'big station' atmosphere. When straightened, the very basic nature of the layout becomes obvious.

Look up BT Call Protect. 1572 is the number to access and control it. Has this feature perhaps just been activated on your account?

It's quite possible that your newsagents will become a betting shop anyway while your back is turned.

The cab shape is so unmistakeably Scottish that even being overwidth it suggests the NBR type much more strongly than a Worsdell design. Overall the model doesn't really say G5 very effectively and imo would be happier pretending to be an NBR than an NER loco. If you wanted to work on the body, the simplest thing would be to add a layer of plastic sheet to widen the tanks and then round off the top edges. The dome could also be replaced (it's quite untidily fitted) with a more typical "Drummond" design. But then you would need to repaint and honestly I think the model is probaly best left as it is.

Grunt in this case is not power, it is tractive effort. However in you are correct in that TE varies with traction current, so the driver would need to handle the loco carefully on starting a heavy train if there was a lower current limit when working on the pantograph.

Relatively little power at yard speeds where the pantograph was used since power = tractive effort x speed

What about about a Sentinel-style contraption? True Sentinels didn't have rod-coupled wheels, but you could claim it was built on the frames of a more conventional loco. The body could be very simple.

I agree the front frame extensions need work, but I'm struggling to see any moulding defects in the boiler. Do you mean the washout plugs near the firebox?

Quite a number of 19th Century locomotive engineers want a word. Mr Stirling looks especially peeved.

Can you expand on that? What do you think were the dubious aspects of LMS design that continued under Stanier? How could Collett have done things differently?

Apparently they were, but they looked like this. The Bachmann loco is of course a J72, also originally an NER loco, but later used more widely on LNER lines. But location needn't matter much, as a simple layout without many identifying featres can move about to a greater or lesser extent - see this thread. A look through the Micro layouts etc section of the Forum will probably throw up some inspiration.

With that cab it looks more like one of the NBR 0-4-4Ts https://www.lner.info/locos/G/g7.php

Have there been any images of more recent models than the livery samples? Any photos taken at shows almost certainly show the same items, problems and all. We will probably have to wait for the production run to see what they have done with the liveries (and there will no doubt be review samples sent ahead).

That'll be a Farish one with the crankpins rubbing on the platform.

Is it necessary to remove the tarnish before painting? See @Miss Prism's reply in this old thread.

Yes - about a foot I reckon from the very limited information I can find online.

Difficult to say for sure from a sketch, but I've a feeling the headshunts would be too short to shunt a large wagon like a BYA between the two sides of the main loop (which appears to be necessary for siding access).

They missed a trick or two when they did it. The motion is still very generic and the motion bracket and expansion link in particular are awful and have needed addressing for several iterations of the model - it's shown up badly by the A2s and the forthcoming Black Five. The Black Five has noticeably finer bogie wheels too, though I'm waiting for tales of woe when it is run on older points. A few tweaks below the running plate would really lift the A3.

Ah, my mistake, it was the town wall at Conwy. As at York for the original station, though that didn't require a raised section. But if the Metcalfe item is too small for trains, what does it represent?

Is that meant for trains where the ruins have been violated by the railway, as at Conwy for example?

Indeed and the MR 483 survived remarkably late and hasn't been done so perhaps the one for somebody to choose (a surprise omission from Bachmann's Midland collection, actually).

The thread is cracking on for 180 pages and Fran has recently stirred the MU pot, but there are plenty of steam era suggestions prior to that. However, I'm happy to spin my crackly old disc again (at 78rpm): - LMS general merchandise opens and vans, particularly on clasp-braked fitted underframes; - LNER/BR 21t coal hoppers. And if you want a loco, imo the big hole is a decent Midland or LMS 2P, though I don't see a huge demand for one.

On what planet is that safe?! Measure the wrong answer and you'll be lynched when you get home.

Hence CAMTIM. For the Cathedral of Chalesm, read all your favourite loco classes when EMD and Siemens start exporting to the past. The what-if really needs to be: what if time travel were invented for you and your friends only and none of those annoying paradoxes and side effects occurred? Then we can stop worrying about the details.