mike morley

Steffan Lewis used to have the same thing under his Maindee East layout but he rarely used it, having set off the fire alarm at one venue

Far from it! What got published might well have been the toned-down version.

How do we know he didn't? Who knows what the original letter said.

I have built an RT chassis to go with a Hornby, ex-Dapol body and would suggest that if you've never re-chassis'd anything RTR before this is probably not the one to start with. Nothing wrong with RT's chassis. The problem is the body. If you havent already done so, you will discover when you take it apart that the body is a strangely convoluted thing with umpteen screws holding numerous bits and pieces together. It's far more complicated than it needs to be and while simplifying and improving things (especially getting rid of that hideous join twixt the saddle tanks upper three-quarters and lower quarter and, while you're at it, producing a proper boiler underside to replace the strange thing the manufacturers provide) is not particularly difficult it's something you can do without if you are already entering the uncharted territory of building an etched chassis. If you want a finescale Austerity the thing to do is find an old Airfix kit body and mount that on the RT chassis. Not only is the Airfix body more accurate than the Dapol/Hornby version, it is far more user friendly and far cheaper. My Dapol/Hornby Austerity cost me £56.00 and about all I've retained is approx £5.60's worth of plastic. Close to the top of my 'to do' list is another one based on an Airfix kit that cost me just £10.00. The Austerity is one of the few kits that didnt make the transfer from Airfix to Dapol (the masters were damaged in a fire) but they are still available. Oh yes. Don't re-use the original RTR motor in any loco you re-chassis. A High Level gearbox and either a Mashima or a Matsumi motor is the way to go.

Throughout the years I was an urban postman I used to work on the theory that you can never walk far enough so also used to go walking most weekends. It was a very rare walk when we didnt encounter at least one herd of bullocks and it was very noticeable that the herds, but not the individual bullocks within each herd, varied a great deal in terms of size, physique and levels of aggression. In the era when James Herriot books made regular appearances in the Best Seller lists there were a fair few other vet memoirs riding on the bandwagon and a regular complaint in most of them was that some farmers were prone to leaving it far too late to call for the vet, who as a result found themselves struggling to castrate almost full-grown bulls. Knowing that meant it wasnt hard to work out how the variations we saw on our walks came about.

Post them on here too, please. Us non-2mm modellers would also like to see how its done.

I have a theory, based solely on spending far too much time looking at photographs, that the Cambrian painted the framing of their vans black when new, but gave them the simple all-over grey treatment at any subsequent repaints. My only reservation is that I would have expected the percentage of all-over grey photographs to be rather higher than it actually is.

A lot of surnames derived from the places from which the bearer originated, so things like voters rolls and telephone directories (if such things still exist) can be useful. I was a postman for 16 years and always kept an eye out for potentially useful layout-names from the names of the people on the envelopes I was delivering. Best one I remember was Fulbrook, perfect for a layout set in the Forest of Dean.

Another vote for the Triang 31.

Just stuck a magnet into mine. Whatever it is, 'taint ferrous.

Walk away, have a very large, very stiff drink, leave it a few days then come back to it when you are in a better frame of mind. Don't throw away all that effort and expense.

Did they? Useful to know. Thanks.

I use Copydex in tubes, rather than the plastic bottles. The brushes built into the lids of the plastic bottles never reach the bottom of the bottles, so there is a lot of wastage, and as the level drops the increasing amount of air that replaces it makes the remaining glue go manky, as mentioned by Mick Bonwick above. The tubes make it much easier to control how much you use and there is little wastage and no contamination by air. The downside is that while most supermarkets, Wilko's etc all seem to sell the bottles of Copydex, the tubes seem to only be available on line, so if you run out at a crucial point it takes more than simply nipping down the shops to get yourself up and running again. And as for Copydex v PVA. No contest! Copydex every time!

Your task, should you choose to accept it . . .

Major Clanger is always helpful with this kind of thing. When I was in the early stages of converting my Bachmann Mickey Mouse to EM I dropped it and bent the chimney. Wizard had only taken over the Comet range a matter of days before, the chimney wasnt listed as a separate item and Andrew went slightly wide-eyed when I asked him if he could supply a replacement at whatever exhibition it was. He suggested I send him an email as a reminder. I did so and had my replacement chimney at an entirely reasonable price by the end of the week.

Saw one for the first time a couple of months ago in Shenley Brook End (an area of MK) when returning from dinner in the pub with my ex. It was clearly lost as it was zig-zagging like a tramp steamer in U-boat territory, going round three sides of every block while we went straight on along the fourth side, and my ex informed me she frequently had to drag them out of hedges when she took her dog for a walk in the morning. Navigation is clearly not their strong point.

What purpose would it serve?

I found the loco is surprisingly well-balanced as it comes. I've yet to add an iota of lead to mine, but it is still able to haul an entirely respectable train.

A year or so ago, somewhere on line I found a really good explanation as to what they were about. It might even have been somewhere on RMweb, but there is only so much you can bookmark before the list become unmanageable and when search engines don't like anything with less than three letters Google isnt much help. So, can anyone point me in the right direction? My vague recollection is that they were used in pre-telephone days as a means for signalmen to communicate via train crews with the relevant department when they had a problem with either signals or telegraph equipment. I'm sure there was more to it than just that, but I think that was the gist of it. I'm also fairly sure they were only used on certain lines (former broad-gauge?) but lasted long after they became obsolete as a form of decoration, some lingering to the very end.

I don't even know how you'd describe that!

Re the Dapol, ex-Airfix crew. Since the 1960's, if not before, they have been cast from some sort of soap that was impossible to paint, yet yours look fine. Have Dapol changed the formula to something more user-friendly or do you have some arcane skill I'm sure many would like you to share with us?

Fairly sure one of these will satisfy your needs. https://www.n-driveproductions.com/rangeandprices.htm