autocoach

Been so long that I can't remember what card I put the pre-order on. Hope it is still valid.

Not that many of you would really care but the Peco US prototype Code 83 and Code 70 is a very dark brown.

#273 arrived in yesterday's post on this far distant shore. I was most delighted to see the article by Tom Knapp, who I have known from the early 1970's. I saw Tom this past Sunday (September 22) at a NMRA Coast Division meeting in Alameda, California. Had a brief conversation while he was setting out goods for the auction. Unfortunately I had to leave the meet shortly thereafter. One note of correction on Tom's article that may have been written some time ago and would be unlikely to be picked up by a UK editor. Grandt Line, the US manufacturer of architectural and Rio Grande specialty items is alas no more as the owners retired. It's factory was only 3 miles from my home. It has reappeared now after being sold as San Juan Details who appear to be getting most of the Grandt Line catalog back in production. Tichey continues to up the game in plastic molded window parts. The HO scale sets I picked up from my local hobby shop yesterday contained glazing and laser cut window shades. Northwest Short Line has also undergone a change of ownership and is back in business.

Very slow boats from China....and I thought it was "just crost the bay"....

Okay, I started this by adding a few "wishlist" items to a simple question about the 2019 Poll. I apologize as it immediately opened a small surge of desperate needs from other modelers. My modest suggestion to the moderators would be to lock this topic NOW. Apologies again but there seems to be great pressure behind a dam to express what we desire often knowing it will never come to pass.

I would watch Jason Shron/Rapido closely for the health/trends in the hobby in North America and the British Isles. He does tend to cater to the premium end of the market but seems to be very sensitive to the Chinese manufacturing end where he has invested heavily. Other factors such as the tariff wars and political uncertainties may impact all of this in the near future.

I bought and built the Smallwood kit long before the Kernow announcement. But I will shell out the usual fist full of dollars for the Kernow RTR version if were to ever appear. I tried to build the larger LSWR brake van kit from Smallwood but the resin castings for the roof and sides were a bit warped and cracked when I warmed and tried to straighten them. It used a Dapol plastic underframe. It's in the never never ever to be built boxes of kits now. At one time the original owners of Cambrian talked about a kit for this LSWR van along with an LSWR/SR diagram 1543 van which did not have the road van freight side door. Both of those seem to have disappeared with the sale of Cambrian to new owners. But Hornby has come to the rescue for we pre-grouping/grouping/early BR van lovers (a type of van pool?) with the RTR LSWR/SR diagram 1543 van which should be arriving in the next three months according to a Hattons email I received this morning.

Is there or will there be a 2019 Wishlist Poll? Other than a malachite 4SUB for my collectors closet, there isn't anything new I have left to wish for. So many things I never dreamed would be produced have now become OO/4mm reality. Oh maybe Hornby could issue a properly liveried SR Malachite restaurant car (not the BR livery). But that's not a new model. Oh, and what would be a new model would be an original 1945-46 air streamed West Country with original cab.

If you are looking for the original Southern Railway "square" cab which many WC/BB's ran with up until the early 1950's, the only source is RT Models who are supposed to debut their new etchings for the square cab and original smoke deflectors at the next Scale Forum. See this link. Anyway, RT Models makes most of the original Albert Goodall add on parts for the WC/BB Hornby locomotives. The V shape cab was not introduced until 1947 so there would be a small window for a few locomotives with the current Hornby WC/BB cab and Southern livery Bulleid coaches. I will be purchasing the RT cab and smoke deflector but would rather Hornby released a square cab version of the WC/BB as they did with the recent Merchant Navy. Or someone make a 3 D print replacement cab.

Fascinating subject. I like the idea of treating it as an industry not just the quaint Ian 4 wagon linhay I am adding a comment mostly so I will be able to follow the topic. 7-8 years ago while modeling Padstow, I became fascinated with the Wenford line and dries at Wenford Bridge. I acquired 3 of the 4 mm resin cast drys from Kernow along with each of the 3 Beattie well tanks (none now operational) and 10 Cambrian 1923 RCH 10 ton clay opens to build a short string that would (as was intended but never really happened) move clay to the Padstow long wharf for transhipment to small freighters as far as they could navigate up the Severn and to Ireland. The final part of those clay trains is the LSWR brake van due in October from Hornby. I could never get ECLP transfers to represent the PO clay wagons after they had been returned to ECC after 1945. If I had built the 12 module of the Wenford dries before I lost interest it would still have been only half the length of the real buildings.

You might try Kernow Hobby Centre, I have had excellent service in the past from them. Note my location below.

Prey that it is so.....

Look on the Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine website for a lot of other ideas on building clamps including recent article on using clothespins and Lego blocks.

In the August issue of the magazine owned by the same company as RMWEB the review of the Bulleids was written by a Tony Wright who does not seem to be intimably knowledgeable on Bulleid rolling stock (well neither did a certain noted Hornby marketing consultant.) The accompanying photographs were taken under what appears to be bright intense light and the green appears acceptably far brighter than it would the usual darker caverns that we modelers live in. Looking at the 3-set of SR Bulleids I now own in daylight I would agree that the shade is more acceptable. I will live with it even though the coaches will run on my Padstow in 1947 (if rebuilt) as less than a year old and not revarnished (unrevarnished as in unrebuilt for the WC that pulls them.) On the other hand if someone comes up with a way to lighten the green a shade without completely dismanteling the coaches and respraying I will be most interested. I can accept that the many green Manunsells I own have been revarnished and therefore have a darker shade than never varnished and unrebuilt pacifics that pull them. Using my Hornby 1941 Merchant Navy (of course I had to buy a Channel Packet) on the point however screams quite loudly the difference in the shades of green. I am not expecting a review in MRJ so wonder what the rest of the model press make of these SR coaches. I don't subscribe to a lot of UK model railway publications these days and get my BRM in the electronic version. So the opinions of other publications suitably excerpted in these pages will be most welcome.

Mine arrived in the post yesterday (Saturday, 03 September). Nigel Bird now has to charge 12.00 GBP for air delivery which translates to USD 15.53 on the credit card billing even with the falling GBP. It's and indulgance, particularly as my UK "00" layout is gone and I am now working on a local US prototype (SP in Port Costa on the Carquinez strait in California in 1949-54) for my new layout. But as long as I can afford it I will continue. I am, however, very interested in Richard Dunning's SR Diesel prototype model.

Living not far from the shores of said Pacific Ocean, I was at first somewhat alarmed at the title of this topic. The WC/BB revamp must (emphatic imperative intended) include an 1945-47 original cab version and some attention to the mechanical aspects of the drive rods. Most of the spam cans I am interested in still had the original cab well into the early 1950's. My current fleet of WC's (all two of them) are laid up out of service with out of quarter drivers caused by binding rods. And, I have recently lost too much manual dexterity to fully utilize RT's impending etch for the original cabs.

A while back you stopped any shipments to North American addresses due to insurance difficulties. Has this changed at all? If not is there a third party who will process orders and ship to North America (specifically the US)? Dave you don't have to answer that question if it would impact your relationship with your insurer. Perhaps other RMWebbers could point me in the right direction. thanks

Class 1366?

I would guess that Hornby marketing wants to control all customer oriented messaging but doesn't understand how to communicate or doesn't wish to communicate with those who liked the old Engine Shed. I am not sure that type of "corporatization" sits that well in in this rather specialized hobby in spite of what the young things in marketing have been told in their business trade schools. The Engine Shed should have remained a channel oriented to the sophisticated railway and modeling technically knowledgable customers. Then the marketing departments U Tube can then be let loose on the less sophisticated sectors of their perceived markets without turning off the knowledgable customers.

YouTube is owned by Google. I would suspect there is some synergy going on. I use a Google Speech to Text app called Live Transcribe on my phone when I really want to understand a conversation (ie with my physician) or even a presentation at a railroad society of which I am a member. Context is always helpful. At least I knew what they meant by Holmby...

A bit further off topic. I understand the license fee for the UK but I live in the USA. Instead of paying the government we have to pay either a cable company or as in my case a satelite provider (Direct TV) and to get decent set of channels it costs almost $120 a month. And then it's another $120 for broadband services and land line phone. I need to buy a new TV that will connect by my WiFi to the broadband and get rid of the satelite. I was watching the Youtube version and they must be the caption provider. And now back to playing with my trains.....

I am almost completely deaf these days so I watch with the sound off and closed caption on. Nice to hear about "Holmby Trains......" Can't they pay decent closed captioner's a living wage or improve the vocabulary of automated captioning. It gets a bit annoying.

Unfortunately what I could have used would have been a pack of ECLP clay 5 planks post 1945 when the clay traffic started to return after WW2.

Hornby-Rivarossi USA is back again at the NMRA National Train Show in Salt Lake City Utah. I am not there preferring to spend my hard urned dollars on product (UK and US)..misspelling intentional. Is this a mis-allocation of their corporate resources given their competition in the North American market. Think about a half dozen savy competitors lead by Rapido. If their initial 50 foot box car offering is any indication, they are looking to match Bachmann USA in the toy department. (Side note, Bachmann USA has two personalities. They can make incredible models as can Bachmann Europe/UK, but they can also market stuff that has no relation to real railroad/railway hobbyists.) I understand they are also separately showing what Hornby UK can do. I wonder if Lynton Davies is going to show up. Oxford Miniatures has a nice and growing 1/87 line of vehicles.

Closeup of the misplaced V Hanger. It seems to be molded as part of the truss road making modification much more difficult. And in the glare of direct close lighting, the Malachite green seems closer to what I would expect.