Hal Nail

I've bought and then sold a few over the years. They have very fine planking detail and several types not available from Parkside or Slaters Even if the body moulds were still about, I suspect it wouldn't be cost effective to redo all the whitemetal chassis parts in the face of Dapol competition though.

Thanks Ade. Just wanted to check I hadn't bought a rough one!

Good spot. I suspect its a publicity mock up in advance of the actual headboard being ready.

if we leave them alone together they might mate and somewhere in between would be about right :)

Can anyone who has a Terrier and a 14xx or 57xx advise on the relative running? I have or have had numerous 14xx and 57xx and they are smooth as silk and near silent. My Terrier makes far more motor/gear whir. Its not terrible but nothing like as good as those and I was curious whether thats normal before I tinker. To be fair my Lionheart 45xxs are even noisier so it may be the 14xx and 57xx are just spectacularly good.

Yes all that is true - I bought a rare seatpost for my bike at a fraction of the normal rate. I found it by accident browsing for something else so it was only afterwards, wondering why no one else bid, I noticed they had spelt the name wrong! I used to find mid-afternoons on weekdays always got furious late bidding but then 5.30pm onwards was dead as people were on the way home. Of course covid and working from home may well have changed that. I tend to do buy it now these days which makes this irrelevant (and potentially out of date!)

It seems to be widely held on here that Sunday evening is a good time to sell but I have no idea why. In years and years of using ebay I have invariably got most of my bargains on sundays when there is often far less bidding than comparable items I've been following that ended at other times. Clearly this is anecdotal but I've always found it pretty quiet.

In a bid to move sideways, if not forwards, what exactly are the benefits of pre-ordering in 7mm anyway? Apart from the class 50, which was rerun immediately anyway, I've never known anything in this scale sell out. And since even Rails have the odd 5% off sale on top of their usual discounts, you are virtually guaranteed to pay more by pre-ordering than you might otherwise. Genuine question! edit: I assume it isn't that once you place an order you can forget about it until it arrives :)

Those were the days. Change at West Ealing now to a shuttle, carefully timed so it doesn't connect with anything in either direction.

I'm always happy to wait if that means a better model. If I was desperate for something that wasn't right then I wait for Heljan to do it.

Do you drill them or just glue slivers of rod in place? I've used railtec transfers to good effect for some fine ones on a Dapol model and you cant tell the difference from the originals. For an old Cooper Craft China clay conversion, which has quite large bolt heads, I cut them off the end I was turning into a door, then glued them back on again where needed. It's a bit of a faff to get things looking even though.

Which is all that actually matters. I'm genuinely staggered that we can all look at the same evidence and draw such different conclusions but I think the answer is to stop bothering to read these threads :) (edit: it's a bit annoying that having crawled all over one measuring it, I've mislaid the vital envelope I recorded it all on).

I'd have thought the more obvious positive from this is you haven't just bought something even they weren't happy with.

A couple of palvans at Alton this morning. Variations in the buffers, axleboxes and brake gear between these two. Both having repairs to the door timbers which are gradually rotting away.

Are those Dowty buffers - thick housing but spindly shank? I didn't realise they hung around that late.

First thing I've seen for years that's pin sharp.

Excellent thanks! It was that one image that threw me - I'd been pretty convinced till then.

I'm with you on that one!

Resurrecting this some time later! There was some musing (may have been on a parallel thread) how long these 9ft V21s lasted. I've just read in The Acquired Wagons of British Railways, Vol 4, David Larkin, that most of them were converted in 1953 into V40 Pallett vans. I had actually sold mine on some time ago but it was a fun variant at the time anyway!

Also coverage in his The Acquired Wagons of British Railways Vol 4. As an aside, a separate thread was musing if the V21s ever made it to the 60s. The answer, apparently, is yes but not as V21s!

Fox plates are a flat steel plate with transfers for the lettering. I have some Shephard etched ones I was going to use and bought some Fox transfers for the crests but had started to wonder if Fox were correct all along. I think though, with the exception of the one I've posted above, they all look like raised lettering to me so I've answered that! Still cant tell if they are black or brown though which was my original question!

This doesnt look flat - look at the bottom right S https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-cornish-riviera-express-train-headboard-nameplate-at-dorset-county-99368487.html?imageid=60B67AE0-9A74-45FE-A5D4-988B56BCBC12&p=276236&pn=1&searchId=a01a4040da4dda1213ad12a4b8f309c6&searchtype=0 or this one:

This looks pretty flat which caused the doubt but the pics from preserved ones look more obviously raised. Maybe that is a mock up for the publicity photos? (Edit - or they didnt bother to cast another one for the Limited?)

Can anyone confirm if the lettering on the Western Region ornate headboards was black or dark brown please? Also are the letters raised (cast) or were they just painted on a flat background? I've always thought they were raised but having doubts now. I realise there are some preserved ones around but the pics are inconclusive!

I tried to turn a Dapol SR van into an uneven plank version. I certainly managed uneven before the filler came out!