SRman

Just a quick update on the LCDR brake van. I have added the buffers plus several more coats of paint. The white roof in particular needs many light coats to prevent it looking too clean and white (I used a pale grey as a primary coat for that reason). Still to be added are the footboards and brake gear, the latter being particularly frustrating for me as I can't make head or tail of the instructions! In addition, I don't like the etched brass 'wooden' brake shoes so I think I will have to use them as templates to cut them out of 40 or 60 thou plasticard with wire mounts. Even so, if I don't get this spot on, those full-length footboards will hide a few discrepancies (or short cuts!!).

The Mainline model set new standards in appearance. It was a great pity that they never seemed to run well at all ... mine certainly didn't and neither did any of the others I saw! Bachmann, of course, introduced a very decent mechanism into what was already a good-looking model so it could actually run as well as it looked.

Some nice videos there, faulcon1, and an interesting looking layout. I hope you won't mind me commenting on the class 30 though. As your model is in original, as-delivered condition, it should have a Mirrlees engine. Bryan of Howes actually responded to the challenge when I made a passing comment about the unlikelihood of getting the correct Mirrlees sounds into a sound project and came up with the goods by using a mix of archive footage and existing Mirrlees sounds from the re-engined class 37 'slugs'. As you may have noticed from my earlier posts I have both class 30 and 31 sounds from Howes in different members of the class: D5513 (renumbered and updated in livery from an original Hornby D5512 release) and 31 233 in Railfreight sector livery (reblown from the original less convincing Hornby sounds). Anyway, please don't take this as any form of criticism as I like what you have done.

When all is said and done, Skaran, it is your layout for your enjoyment. At least using MR and LNWR stock would not entail changing any scenery, signs or road vehicles - they'll be of the correct period already!

Well, if I call it Newton Broadway (which doesn't sound too bad at all!) then the woods can become Falcon Woods!

The GWR did have a link to the Metropolitan Railway in early years, to the extent that much of the western part of the Hammersmith and City line was built for broad gauge. Just a little food for thought!! At the moment, while I am still constructing the main lines on the upper level there is limited stock storage on the LT lines. Basically it is a free-for-all at the current time but I will exercise some discipline regarding period settings and matching stock, scenery and road vehicles as best I can when things are a little more complete.

I have just gone through an uploaded many (but not quite all) of the missing photos. I will try to locate the rest in the near future.

Bif: if you are still around, I sent you a PM with a query on July 15th. Not sure if you had noticed it.

Broadway had not entered my mind, I have to admit. Still, another good idea to put into the melting pot.

That's really taking shape, Peter. Lots of progress there.

No, Michael, you are right. Photos on the first five pages seem to have dropped out, probably because I was using a different site to host them. Most later ones are hosted on Photobucket or in RMweb itself. Give me a few days and I'll wade through and fix them up. Thanks for drawing my attention to it.

Mine isn't a pre-grouping layout per se but I intend to vary the periods it represents from time to time, even to the point of changing a few buildings, the road vehicles and stock on it, and hopefully the signage as well, although that may be more difficult. I think I may have to put up with a few anachronisms as a compromise but we shall see when construction of the layout has proceeded further. At the moment I can also run my pre-grouping stuff as preserved items with more modern stock. I have some London Transport trains too, with the oldest stock modelled so far being half a train of 1920 F stock, albeit in post 1933 LT livery, so it *sort of* quaifies! I have some locomotives in SECR, LBSC and SECR liveries but don't yet have suitable trains for all of them. The LSWR M7 does look good on the front of a three set of SR liveried Maunsell coaches, a scenario that could have occurred into the mid 1920s. I have assembled a train of mostly southern area private owner wagons which include a couple of anachronisms because I like the liveries (eg the Firestone open wagon which actually dates from around 1928 or after, since the Brentwood factory didn't open until then). I am working on acquiring suitable brake vans for each of the railways but, so far, only the SECR is properly represented, and even that is still under the late stages of construction. As for the LSWR, I have a set of suitable Roxey Mouldings brass coaches to build (all currently still in their flat condition!) plus an earlier plastic and brass kit, from the same source, of a luggage van. Of course, the upcoming Bachmann Birdcage stock in SECR livery will be a 'must buy' for me, and I have two Roxey LCDR luggage vans bought in built condition from swap meets recently, being painted into SECR red. If you wish to take a look at progress so far, I have really only completed the London Transport circuits, so everything has to run on the LT lines for now. You can see it here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/27719-srmans-new-layout-yet-to-be-named/ .

Yes, I was probably a little too impatient and posed the question before the SIG was set up! I managed to get some Phoenx Precision paints imported shortly before the PO bans applied, including some LSWR salmon, LSWR umber, LSWR loco green and SECR wagon grey but I cannot, fr the life of me, find that SECR grey. I know exactly where the other tins are, but not that one. Annoying!

Falcon (or Faulcon) Green sounds good.- I hadn't thought of that one. The XB Falcon is in good nick although its paintwork isn't. It does have 'character' though! I bought it in 1985 for spare parts for $150, It turned out to be in better condition than anyone had thought, spent a few thousand on it over the years but it is now worth more than I have spent on it (not counting 28 years worth of normal servicing costs and registration, etc as they would apply to any car, rare or not!). It is that rare thing: a car that is appreciating in value now.

Falcon Lane could be a goer. It is apt in another sense: I still own, and occasionally drive, a 1973 (Australian) Ford Falcon hardtop (two door coupe, in English!). Falcon Road. Falcon Bridge. Falcon Park. Falcon Wood. Just trying a few variations for size! I don't think I can use "junction" as I don't have a 'proper' junction, although I do have that siding pseudo single-track branch line running off the Underground lines. Hmmm. More food for thought. Falcon Junction would also make me think of Eagle Junction on the Brisbane suburban lines. It does trip off the tongue easily. So does Falcon Wood, although I was going to name the small woodland tract Newton Wood after my good friend Doug, who did the baseboard timber work for me. Edit: trying to use a perfectly valid English word c-u-m between the words 'siding' and 'pseudo' but the stupid language checker keeps blanking it out. It is not a rude word in this context but the automatic fixer-upperer doesn't care about that!

Here's a quick question for the SECR experts: I am in the process of finishing the Roxey LCDR brake van in SECR grey. As base coats, I have used Humbrol blue-grey #79, with the intention of using the correct SECR grey for the last couple of coats. However, I cannot find my tin of SECR grey at the moment. Can anyone tell me if the Humbrol 79 is reasonably close in colour? If so, I may just leave that as the final colour - it looks fairly close from the limited number of coloured photos I can find on Google. p.s. As the post offices are now refusing to accept paints and the like, it is now nearly impossible to obtain new stocks of specialised model railway paints/colours over here in Australia.

Yeah. Let 'im make all the mistakes!!! You are a man after me own 'eart!!

Thanks for answering that. Roxey have quite a few pre-grouping items available in etched brass, including this brake van. Cambrian Kits are to produce an LSWR D1543 brake van in the not too distant future too, as well as their existing SECR 'Dance Hall' vans and SR 'Pill Box' types. I was lucky enough to find two built Roxey LCDR/SECR luggage vans at recent swap meetings here in Melbourne. They were very nicely constructed although the brake gear had suffered minor handling damage before I bought them - price = $20 Australian each (that's approximately

Two more pics of the LCDR brake van going into SECR livery - the second coat of Humbrol 79 has been applied. I have posed it with the as yet crewless Bachmann 'C' 0-6-0 in magnificent full SECR lined green. Also visible in the upper photo is the recently repainted Dapol track cleaner which was in Hatton's dark grey and white livery but is now in simplified BR blue and grey livery.

Sorry to hear about your back, Peter. I don't go back to work until Tuesday. Hopefully I'll cope by then. The polystyrene does make a mess, doesn't it?! I always keep a vacuum cleaner handy, just to get the stuff off me!

Another suggestion: Church Lane (or Street or Road). I have been laid low with the bad back but am starting to improve now. My first modelling task since then has been to experimentally swap the station buildings from the Hornby Skaledale Italianate style to the Bachmann art deco style. I didn't really intend to use this building here but I think it looks rather good. It will be linked to the platforms by a footbridge (Ratio modular covered footbridge on the way from Hattons right now for experiments to commence!). The lighting was not the best and the white of the all that polystyrene swamped the camera a little, although I have tweaked the photos a bit to compensate. Another thought occurred to me while I was laid up: I have a large Kibri modern tower building that has close to the same footprint as the large Tudor hotel in the existing photos. If I am careful with the scenic surrounds I may be able to swap them from time to time to suit a more modern image period. I had a similar idea way back at the planning stages for the main line station: have two interchangeable modules, one with platforms in use (1960s or earlier), the other with derelict, weed-grown platforms to fit more modern settings.

As I am recovering from the back problems of the last week or so, I have now been able to start a few simple modelling projects - or continue with existing ones. I can only spend short times sitting at the workbench for now but things are improving rapidly. Besides the class 350 conversion to class 450 mentioned elsewhere, I have finally, after much thought, come up with a way to level the LCDR brake van - it was previously sitting a little high at the compensated end. The solution was actually quite simple. The compensated unit rocks on a single piece of wire threaded through the cradle mounted on the underside of the wagon and the separate cradle carrying the 'W' irons and the wheels and springs. I removed the wire (it was only lightly glued in place), and removed the wheel/axle/'W' iron cradle assembly. I then used a drill the same size as the wire and hole in the wagon mounted assembly and drilled the holes upwards towards the floor, elongating them into slots by a little less than 1mm - this was by trial and error to get the ride height just right. Once that was done I reinserted the wire through the two assemblies and all was well. The other thing I did was to give the whole body a quick spray of grey undercoat, followed later by a thin coat of Humbrol blue-grey #79 as a base coat, to be followed by more thin coats of the same colour, before the final coat or two of the proper SECR grey can be applied. I still have to sort out the brakes and brake gear. I have found the diagrams in the instructions almost incomprehensible, together with the brass 'wooden' brake shoes being too thin to be convincing, so I am going to rethink the brake blocks altogether, probably using plasticard, before I nut out the brake rigging. Here are the progress shots; please remember that the colours are by no means final.

The vinyls to convert a Bachmann class 350/1 into a SouthWest Trains liveried class 450 arrived last week, while I was unable to do anything due to a back injury! I have now healed sufficiently to allow short (very short!) spells at the workbench, so I did a little preliminary painting on the first driving coach of the Bachmann class 350. I have also removed the pantograph and associated insulators and conduits/bus bars from the appropriate coach, Some holes will require a small amount of filling before painting but as I won't be using the vinyls here that can be done at any stage of the conversion process. I noted from photos of that coach in Modern Locomotives Illustrated that one of the underfloor modules appears to be absent when compared to the 350. I would assume that it was the AC high voltage step-down transformer and equipment. This was a rather nicely moulded separate fitting on the model and was easily levered out with a small flat-bladed screwdriver. The vinyls come with panels to cover the pantograph well, the red and orange flashes on the roof and include a red panel for the driver's cab air conditioning unit. I decided that I would actually paint the drivers aircon unit red and dispense with the vinyl panel for that. I have also decided that I will paint the roofs, ends and skirts (above the underframes) blue. The photos show the first thin coats of red and blue. These are still very thin and do not necessarily reflect the final colouration of the panels. The vinyls themselves may be seen on Electra Railway Graphics' website at http://www.electrarailwaygraphics.co.uk . Photos are of only the first coach at this point. I don't know how rapidly I will be able to progress with this project but I will take photos at each stage - hopefully slightly better ones than these!

I agree with you on the chip fitting score, Rob. I have now done five 4 CEPs, two MLVs and five 2 EPBs ... all of them were pains to get into!

That reminds me, Bachmann are to produce an E4 in OO so it may well develop an N scale version in due course.