Waveydavey

Have you ever had a crack at doing a Rolls Royce engined Met Cam Clive? All three front ends would be suitable so just the underframe details would need sorting if you didn't fancy doing the four figure headcode conversion. I reckon the engines and radiators from a Hornby 110 would be a good start for grafting onto a Limby 101.

43 for me. Not a big surprise to be honest.

I've found IPA to be a good and cheapish paint stripper. Don't leave models in it for too long though as the plastic can go a bit 'grainy' after a long soak. Cheers David

Sorry Porcy, I've not got near a 24 yet. Resolving the age old question of the height of class 24 windows is near the top of my list of things to do.

Nice work Porcy. I think I've said above that the Hornby side window is slightly too far forward which is very obvious when you paint on a full yellow end. I think the best option with an etch would be to just do the cab side frame and dividing bar and leave the filling of the Hornby trench and window size adjustment to the modeller. 24s and 25/0s had a different cab side window from the later 25s due to the former having a drop window and the latter having slide windows. An etch for both types would be wonderful. I have measured quite a few bits of 25 lately so I'll post a few of my detail photos here to illustrate what I've been babbling on about when I have a little more spare time. Cheers David

Were both produced with Bruninghaus springs?

The grill etches look very nice but you have drawn 17 slats compared to 26 on the real thing. If you are looking to redraw them is there any chance you could try and squeeze a few more in to try and get as close to the right number as possible? I'd be interested in three or four sets if you can have a look into this. And saying as you are obviously keen on 25s have you considered drawing up the cab side windows for an etch? The Hornby body has this as a recess that is too far forward and the wrong size. If you've read Karl Crowther's article on doing a 25/3 in a recent MRJ you'll know what I'm talking about. One of the compromises you make with using the Bachmann cab doors is that they are too wide and make putting in a correctly sized cab side window a bit of a squeeze. Cheers David

It's the lower part of the Bachmann cab front that Alan is talking about grafting into the Hornby cabs for a 25/1. What you then do with the Hornby cabs is up to you. I'm a bit rusty on the subject but I think I remember that the Bachmann 25/1 centre section has raised grill surrounds that are only really suitable for 24s and 25/0s whereas the Hornby centre is closer to what the 25/1s had. Cheers David

Must look into how suitable these would be for representing Briggs of Dundee tanks.

Hadn't thought there would be any suitable bolts available off the shelf as the Hornby bolts are shouldered. Will get hold of some 10BA and see how they work. I suppose a bit of brass tube could replace the shouldering if it turns out to be necessary.

Does anybody who's had chassis problems with Hornby 31s have a few body attaching screws going spare? I need some and unfortunately they aren't available as spares. Cheers David

My two Lima 31 bodies came with Mirlees exhaust ports.

How do you find operating from the front Mark? It's something I've considered for the new incarnation of Longcarse but I'm not so keen on blocking the punters views while I spend ten minutes trying to couple up an awkward three link coupling.

You managed to get access to the Cemflo at North Road the other week then Porcy? A few Cemflos may grace the rails of Longcarse West's replacement eventually. Sooner if Enterprising Western finishes his rake and can be persuaded to offer them in a loan.

It's Teesside. Two e's and two s's. Otherwise known as God's country. Whereabouts did you go. You could have dropped in for a cuppa and an update on my new layout. You'll have plenty of opportunity at S4um though. Cheers David

Masokits do a spring chassis for the Parkside PMV/CCT. I have one in my to do pile. Cheers David

DAV is presumably the direct admission valve. Nice diagram and explanation On page 23 here http://lmsca.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/LMSRAVB.pdf Comet models C50 has BR DA valves included in the pack. Whilst it's up to Dave to produce whatever he feels will sell I'd much prefer to see things that are either unavailable elsewhere or, if available, not to scale, incorrect shape etc. I've bought a lot of Lanarkshire stuff and it is certainly very good quality so I'll be buying plenty more as and when the bits I need come along. I just won't be throwing away all my ABS buffers quite yet. My Mikes Models buffer stop kits on the other hand........

Don't know why I said 20" heads there as all the ones I've measured are 18" diameter. LB05A is close but then MJT 2350 is close too. What's a 'peg plate'? Sometimes us professional railway men have trouble keeping up with all this modelling slang. Cheers David

I know you must get sick of wish listers asking you to do this or that part but I'll have a go anyway. Any chance of doing the buffers fitted to Metro Cammell (and many other) DMUs? Basically it's an 18" self contained buffer with 20" diameter heads mounted on a 5" deep ribbed packing piece. Photos can be provided if required. Cheers David

Just checked and they are not now listed on the Howes site. Guess they must have sold out. I think the spares are done in small batches and often get sold out so you have to be on the ball and order them while you can. After a little tot up I reckon more than half of my recent model railway spend is on Heljan spares sprues. Yes, the 26 doors were in 7mm.

All sorted out now. Due to being very short on spare Exactoscale chairs I've had to use 4 bolt chairs on this panel with a few C&L 3 bolt chairs. The sleepers with the 3 bolt chairs will be painted to represent newish replacements for rotten old ones.

Turns out one of the tracks across the board join didn't quite line up. Rather than fudge it I decided to get the p.way gang back out to relay a 60' panel.

Another photo. Here you can see the full scenic area from the dock end of the layout. Trains will arrive from the Stirling (far) end and be shunted into any of the eight sidings. On the far left is the coal depot and two storage sidings. On the far right are two storage sidings with a disused crossover. Lastly on the near right are the two public delivery sidings and a further storage road. Very similar to Longcarse West version one but subtly rearranged and expanded. As before the layout is set in Alloa in 1975 and will be freight only. For those of you who know the area a little bit of explanation may be in order. The layout is fictional but is assumed to be in the area of the Caledonian Railways goods yard in Alloa which was accessed from Longcarse Junction on the Alloa to Larbert line just north of the 'other' Forth rail crossing. To generate the traffic required I've manipulated both history and geography. Firstly I've assumed that Alloa New Yard was never built so that molasses and CO2 traffic for Menstrie and Cambus must pass through my yard. Secondly the MOD depot at Bandeath has been moved over onto the north bank of the Forth. Along with the usual traffics for the area of grain, coal and sundries the yard is going to be very busy indeed. This mornings job is to get the rail joints across the two main scenic boards soldered to the C&L edge connectors and lined up as smoothly as possible. Once this is done I'll move onto making up the Masokits functional tiebars and trying to fathom out the Ambis ones I've got that I want to use on the disused crossover on the two storage roads. Cheers David

Haven't actually mounted the servos yet. I've got the MERG 3d printed mounts and micro switches so the under board side of things is all ready to go. Above board I'm using Masokits functional tiebars. The big issue I've still to resolve is how to reliably connect the rod or wire from the servo to the tiebar. It'll be under the boarding for the point lever to keep it out of sight but this also means it'll be inaccessible so needs to be fairly robust. I have some Ambis PALM units so they might offer a solution when I get around to looking at them.

Some of you may remember my layout Longcarse West that featured in these pages and was exhibited between 2008 and 2011. After retirement it was sold on twice and is now in the safe hands of Simon and Terry Bendall who plan to revive it and return it to the exhibition circuit. Although Longcarse West worked well and attracted a lot of positive comments I felt that the planning stage had been rather haphazard and that certain things could have been done better. In short, a good first attempt but could do better. I did feel however that the concept was good and that it could be further developed and improved. Moving house got in the way for a couple of years and a lot of time was spent developing and refining a Templot plan. One of the side benefits of moving was that a bit more space became available in my allocated model railway room so the scenic area increased from 7' to 9'6" allowing bigger points to be used (A7 minimum instead of A6) and a couple of extra sidings to be added. As the thread title says the new layout is more of an evolution of the first rather than starting with a new idea. Good quality 9mm birch ply was bought last summer and the boards completed during the autumn. Since Christmas I've laid the Templot plan onto the boards, laid the individual sleepers, and worked on laying the track. At the moment I'm working on the electrical side making sure every rail has a feed and keeping my fingers crossed that MERG get some of their Servo4 servo driver kits in stock soon so that I can install the servos I plan to use to operate the points. Below is a photo of progress on one of the boards. If you know Longcarse West this will look fairly familiar to you as the left hand arrival board where trains arrive from the Stirling direction. Cheers David