mike morley

Good question. Don't know. The never did have an internet presence and I dont recall seeing their stand at any shows for a couple of years before lockdown.

If I remember rightly, Peco Wonderful Wagons were pre-printed and embossed card overlays to go on die-cast metal bodies. They were discontinued many years ago but, like conventional kits, the kind of thing people might well have squirrelled away in their "To Do" stash.

Looking at the side-on picture, might it be lubricant for those pipes feeding the axleboxes?

This was round the back of Swanbourne station building. I always thought it would make a fabulous model - especially that bargeboard.

Whoops! Now I've dug the set I've got out I discover only the worm is brass, the gearwheel being plastc -hopefully of a more durable type than Tenshodo use. 14:1 ratio, same as original Tenshodo.

Branchlines do brass replacement gears for Tenshodos.

I recall several times seeing Maxi's lying dead at the roadside with one of the front wheels aiming in an odd direction, its hub having snapped off.

Is it your arteries I can hear hissing?

Do DS10's run hot? Last year I had a loco that suddenly began running badly after several years exemplary service. Cleaning the commutator (surprisingly difficult) made no difference and when I discovered it was running very hot I decided it had simply come to the end of its life and replaced it with a (surprisingly noisy) Mashima. Only after it had been consigned to the bin did it occur to me that running hot might simply be a trait of all DS10's. Edited to add a PS. I think I'd want to investigate why the motor in the OP is full of metal filings, as well as cleaning them out.

Without adding liquid you risk burning out the heating element I only recently realised they had.

Had a Lidl one for a few years. It hasn't had a huge amount of use but whenever it has been used the results have been impressive. I'd read that cider vinegar works well in them and when I tried it noticed an immediate improvement in the already good results. I intend to try ordinary vinegar next on the grounds that it's far cheaper and more likely to be "in stock" than cider vinegar. I've only recently discovered that it heats the liquid as well and was surprised and impressed by how much of a difference that made.

The proportions don't look quite the same to me. Your tanks look long enough to need central support, which the prototypes don't.

A drag?

Anything more to report?

Not long before lockdown Eon nagged me into letting them fit a smart meter. It came with a separate little display powered by a plug that has no fuse!

Looking through my books on industrials suggests that if a guard iron got knocked off it rarely got replaced.

But doesnt it result in an extremely modellable van?

The bit you are questioning refers to the Diagram 23 vans. Scroll down further and this refers to the Diagram 24 van Poor Old Bruce photographed. "From 1909 stock numbers seriously declined; in that year all 80 of the diagram 24 trucks were converted into fruit vans, achieved with a blend of ingenuity and subtlety, by adding a completely new section on top of the existing open body and secured by wood screws and a selection of corner irons. Even the existing side doors were retained as they were matched with new upper sections and on casual inspection there was little to suggest that the van started life as an open truck." I think my only quibble with that is the 'little to suggest the van started life as an open truck'.

https://www.gersociety.org.uk/index.php/rolling-stock/misc-stock/special-vans Scroll most of the way down the page. Details of the fish trucks that were the original donor vehicles https://www.gersociety.org.uk/index.php/rolling-stock/misc-stock/fish-trucks

This picture was originally posted by Poor Old Bruce on the Grounded Vans thread way back in 2016. It, not surprisingly, prompted some interest at the time but no one was able to identify its origins and we are hoping we might have better luck here, as this is obviously where the experts on obscure wagons tend to congregate. We're assuming it is of pre-Grouping origin, the reasoning being that if it dated from the Big Four era someone would probably have identified it when it was first posted. Any ideas, please?

Ian, how do you scrape the paint off something as delicate as grab handles without distorting them?

I've bought some from POWsides recently. Unlike the "genuine" Slaters kits they don't include wheels or buffer heads.

The whole thing was presented very well indeed and I was particularly impressed with the consistent quality of the individual layout videos. That was undoubtedly largely due to having the same pair do most of the filming, which under current circumstances must have taken an awful lot of organising. Well done to all concerned.