Will Vale

Cheers Pugsley! A friend said that this tunneling stuff was a bit of a rabbit hole (pun intended) and I'm starting to see his point - you find one picture or bit of information about the thing you're looking for, and then spend another hour finding out about some weird machine in the background of the picture.

Agreed, more great stuff. I have a loco project in mind with a very exposed cab, so I can see I'm going to have to buck my ideas up considerably from the "chair plus man" position I started off with

I finally found a copy of the December Model Rail in the colonies - stupidly I'd missed it in the first (airmail) shipment. Great article, although I agree that the web pictures look better - the contrast and saturation seemed higher in the magazine making the colours oddly vibrant. I'll definitely refer back to this when I start doing my yard pilot.

OK, here you go - not the best, but hopefully it makes the text clearer: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/blog/315/entry-2767-noisy-gronk-pictures/

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I took a couple of pictures and then forgot to take more. I'll see if I can get some with the body off and post the lot.

Thanks eastwest, I'll stick to my umlaut substitute for now!

I sympathise about the code 75 - I ordered mine from Hattons as well. I was tempted to get an entire box in order to have a local monopoly

The shop in Johnsonville is a bit better, and mail order from Hobby City is good as well, but they seem to be winding down their railway business a little. Pity, they used to carry a really good range four or five years back.

Another recommendation for the Powercab here - it's a nice piece of kit with a great display and button prompts. You can't change the buttons from "toggle" to "hold" which is a bit of a pain with the ESU notching, but otherwise it's great.

I also have the Railfreight grey 37 and love it. It's worth sealing the speaker chamber with blu-tak, although the 37 sounds pretty good to begin with. "Chunter chunter chunter chunter BRRRRRRP!" - just like I remember from childhood holidays in Helensborough

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Unfortunately my home office is where I work from - and it has a fair amount of additional non-work stuff in it already. In the longer term my plan is to replace some tall cabinets with kitchen ones (drawers below, cupboards above, gap in between) to give me a space to keep the railway. 24x12 sounds like a dream come true!

Wow, now you all point it out I can see how tidy it really is - look at all the visible carpet!

Very impressed at how fine you got the lip - I chickened out of making a window seal on a recent project which needed a similar result. Is the copper wire resting on the surface?

The track looks very good - I like the cable trunking and the little patch of concrete for the electrical box. Personally I wouldn't rush to remove the nipples - as you say they give you something to hold onto, and I don't think they jump out of the picture exactly. You could always cut them off later if/when you motorise the points.