BG John

There seem to have been a number of versions available. I've got two that a friend built for me, a motor car van and an ordinary box van. The box van has different ends to the one on eBay, and has hinged side doors. Both are on 12ft wheelbase chassis, but the bodies are different lengths. By some amazing coincidence, I just happen to have the underframe instructions, that cover 10ft 6in and 12ft wheelbases, fitted and unfitted.

Pre Grouping isn't a very useful term for me, as the GWR carried on and just absorbed some companies in 1923, and the Kent & East Sussex was independent until nationalisation. The grouping that had the biggest effect was in 1876 when the GWR, Bristol & Exeter, South Devon and Cornwall Railways merged, and I'm not sure if my broad gauge layout is pre or post that one yet! The layout I'm just starting on wouldn't have been grouped either, as it's a mixture of industrial and narrow gauge.

When you consider how well documented and photographed the 19th century was, there's still vast amounts of missing and unknown information! Maybe today will be even worse in 100-150 years time, as so much of what is recorded is digital.

It's useful for lining things up for drilling too.

Does anyone question your sanity when you refer to one of them as the green dog? As the nearest I'm getting to a Brighton loco is a Terrier in K&ESR blue, I must paint one of my rather more freelance locos Improved Engine Green, so I can have arguments with people about the colour .

As I understand it, they were first seen at work in the trenches in WW1, but I'm not sure their need for their own sofa was discovered there! I think they were originally named Alsation Wolf Dogs when they arrived here, as the German association wasn't popular after the war, but the Wolf bit didn't go down too well either, so they became Alsations, although they have no connection with Alsace. If I come across a decent model I'll have one regardless!

I've got what looks like the same drill, that I've had for decades. I've done some very light milling on it using cutters held in the chuck, and the work held in a compound cross slide like this one.

Of course an exception to sticking to correct dates, if I can find a suitable model, would be a German Shepherd appearing on my 1905 and mid 19th century layouts. The breed didn't exist until 1899, and as far as I know wasn't discovered by us Brits until WW1! A little test to see if anyone notices .

I'm not keen on vague periods, or locations. It's as though it was so long ago that no one really cares about accuracy, just about seeing quaint olde trains and ornate liveries, with people in old fashioned clothes, and horses but no cars! Much as I liked what Mike Sharman did in some ways, to take an extreme example, he modelled something that never existed in anywhere near that form. It's what you see on a train set, not a model railway . I've been through all my built and unbuilt EM gauge locos and rolling stock, and weeded out the out of period items, so what appears on the next layout will have existed in 1905 as far as possible, and there was a fair chance may have been seen in more or less the same location. I've given my 1906 built loco coal wagons the benefit of the doubt for now, and need to check on a few non GWR wagons. The 1930s/40s RTR stuff will go, get converted back to OO and run on my 1958/60 Ingletyme, or turned into something weird, quirky, silly, freelance O-16.5 or similar! I know it's not easy to stick closely to a period and location with limited products available, and a lot of what exists is in the form it ran in much later, so compromises have to be made. I've got an assortment of broad gauge kits from a variety of dates, and if they all get built I'll end up with a mix that never existed, so that's something I need to work on. With my latest dabble in 7mm scale, I picked a date and location, and decided that if I was starting with nothing I could make sure I only build or buy the correct stock. Then I was given some coaches, and started buying cheap (well cheapish for O gauge!) wagons on eBay, some of which doesn't fit the criteria! A home for some of the oddities will be revealed to the world very soon!!!

Even better at creating an illusion of size is an 1883 version, where you can run 10 coach trains of 4-wheelers in the space occupied by two or three modern coaches!

I found the RMweb Inkscape Tutorials on building a coal office and coach bogies for the Silhouette cutter very useful. They seem to cover pretty much every feature needed for railway modelling, except adding text and colouring. I usually find manuals, tutorials and videos confusing and unhelpful, as they teach features I don't need, and skim over or completely ignore the ones I do, and I'm left with too much to work out for myself, which is why I've always got stuck with drawing on a computer in the past. I started writing a summary of how to do the things I'll need, and in what order, so I don't have to keep relearning when I forget what to do! I'm also getting to grips with GIMP, concentrating on the features I need to work with Inkscape, like altering the perspective of photos. I agree about upgrades, but at least Inkscape and GIMP are free and open source, so they don't put pressure on you to buy upgrades you don't want.

Have you tried Inkscape? I think you could produce artwork for etching with it, and I'm finding it quite straightforward to learn the bits that are needed for railway modelling. I'll be using it with my new Silhouette Portrait cutter to make my own windows, and more!

Thanks Dava. Ideally I need 2'6" 6 spoke wheels for what I've got in mind. No one seems to do them!

I think the droop snot was ugly. Fortunately I had an Opel Ascona rather than a Cavalier!

What motor and gearbox did you use in this? I'm planning my first scratchbuild to run on my new 7mm micro, and as it only needs to move two wagons at a time, I'm not sure what I need to power it.

No train in the station at the moment. Of course that's a new platform, and mine will be as it was before WW1, so I can probably get away with pretty much anything that doesn't make the trains derail! I'll try something around 14mm from the rail, and low enough to clear anything overhanging, which may mean rail level as something based on the GVT Beyer Peacocks is on my to-do list. I suppose I ought to wander up to North Wales and look at these things for myself!

Or even better, Colonel Stephens!

I've just bought some cheap unpainted "O Gauge Figures" as they're described on the packet, and advertised as 1:43 scale. The tallest man is about 6'2". I wondered if 1:50 scale ones might be better, as a 1:50 6'2" man would be 5'4" in 1:43 scale (I think!). I bought them to see if I could "Edwardianise" them for my new industrial area micro layout, or forthcoming rural East Sussex one, both set around 1905-1910. Either that, or the ones I've got get held down, whisky poured down their throats, and a chunk sawn out of their legs! I know they're not 4mm scale, but I think I've got enough Victorian/Edwardian people for my 4mm layouts already!

I think he should do one, or several, for 28.08mm gauge, like they should be. To P4 standards of course, so no detail needs to be lost in converting it!

Thanks Phil. The sleeper spacing doesn't matter for almost all of the track, as it will either be set in cobblestones, or ballasted over the sleepers, to hide the Peco OO track. But in a few places I may replace the Peco sleepers so I can make them visible. The platform height is interesting. Did you measure the height above the top of the rail, and the distance of the platform edge from the rail? Presumably trains can overhang the platform if it's that low, which could help me. Being a micro layout, everything has to be compressed, so I can make the platform a bit wider than I could otherwise.

Whenever I want to check dimensions, I refer to the data in my Model Railways Handbook 7th Edition from around 1963 (except for broad gauge!), but it doesn't mention narrow gauge!

I've got an island platform in the middle on the plan now, so stock won't collide, but there will be fixed obstructions! I've been using bits of paper cut to the dimensions of GVT locos and stock to test clearances, and I'll build stock that fits the layout! If I like O-16.5 I'll build something bigger in the future.

I think this is an even bigger "challenge" than track centres, especially on a micro layout! It's easy to look at the narrow gauge and think you can squeeze a lot in, however the gauge may be around 50% of standard gauge, but rolling stock is more like 75% of the width. My neat little plan ended up with sidings that would only take one wagon! I've made big changes to the track plan, and now I've got sidings that will take three wagons, that I'm happy with. It would be good if some of this was mentioned in the various introductions to narrow gauge modelling I found on the web, as the proportions are so different to what standard gauge (and in my case broad gauge too) modellers are used to!

Thinking about another current thread where we're discussing Human Resources in business, maybe it's actually a long pig sandwich that was formerly part of Kevin

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