mike morley

Can't help feeling that the alterations to the horse deserve more than just two pictures and a single sentence.

Yep! Seen that, too. A high-mounted, letter-box type layout with an operator of about 6'4" and built like weightlifter with shoulders so wide he probably had to twist slightly to get through doorways. He spent the whole show stood four-square in front of the layout, its extreme ends all that was visible if you peered around his bulging biceps.

For several years I helped exhibit a large layout that had one of its operating positions in front of the layout. A common problem I came up against was spectators assuming that a control position on their side of the layout was for them to use. More than once I had someone (usually in the 11 - 14 age bracket, occasionally a pushy parent) demand I hand over the controller and on one memorable occasion a particularly obnoxious pre-teen got stroppy then abusive when I politely but firmly refused.

On a possibly related subject (If not, apologies for the thread hijack) I am attempting to improve a couple of cast whitemetal farm carts that I made a rather poor job of building a few years ago, but am finding the 70 degree solder I used to build them now has a melting point so close to that of the whitemetal they are proving impossible to dismantle. My initial assumption was that the solder was suffering from some obscure variation on the theme of age hardening, but it has since been suggested that the solder and the whitemetal formed an alloy with a much higher melting point. Your thoughts, please.

They've asked you three times for proof of purchase. How is that a change of tune? Why is it apparently a problem to provide it?

I love the idea, but any comparison will inevitably have a winner and a loser, and the loser is likely to get miffed and stop advertising in the magazine responsible, causing loss on income.

Goods ordered yesterday afternoon just landed on my doormat, a mere 21 hours later. Difficult to imagine service much prompter than that!

A few years ago 247, when still in Mozzer Models mode, managed to finish one, but only by doing some very 'interesting' things to the chassis (dog legs in piston rods IIRC). That was in 00 and when I mentioned to him that I was attempting one in EM he became quite animated and stated emphatically that it was unbuildable in EM or P4. Has anyone else ever succeeded in building one in any gauge?

With all this talk of poor kits of Barclays, I'm surprised no one has mentioned Mercian's. The latest development with mine (An early 14") that caused me to put it to one side and walk away for the umpteenth time is discovering the underside of the boiler is too short. I discovered that error after I'd installed it as well as building and fitting a motor and gearbox that mistakenly assumed the boiler was the correct length. Inevitably, the gearbox will foul a replacement boiler of the correct length. This follows on from the cut-out in the footplate and the slidebar bracket that both appear to be intended for 5'3" gauge, the cut-out in the cab front that was clearly intended to accommodate a much bigger firebox and backplate, multiple holes for brake hangers (none of which are in quite the right place) and castings that are either wrong or too mis-shaped to be useable. There were probably more problems, but I've been putting the kit aside and walking away - sometimes for months on end - for so long the details are lost in the mists of time.

Will you need to know in advance if we want EM or P4 versions or will all three gauges be catered for on the etch anyway?

Started years ago as an unintended holiday project, forgotten about then dug out, dusted off and finished before Christmas for the Risborough club's lockdown diorama challenge. Also started donkey's years ago then revived and finished last month as a lockdown project. Loosely based on the the drawing of the PW hut at St Mary's Crossing in the old Peco 'Ericplans' book. I've yet to see a picture of St Mary's Crossing that features the prototype. Must do something about that improbably shiny brass doorknob . . .

Corris number 3 at Rhyd yr Onen, late August 2010

Corris No 4 at Nant Gwernol 28th August 2013

That'll be Pontdolgoch, not Pontefract, and Cemmaes Road, not Cemmans.

The high-speed sprint along the Dyfi estuary. A Mach-bound train approaching the tunnel at Fron Goch.

Cambrian Coast, north of Llwyngwril. The train is in the early stages of the climb to Friog

It would need to be in the winter when there no leaves on the trees to block the view, but Dolforwyn Castle ought to be visible from the site of Abermule station and Montgomery Castle from the former Montgomery station.

I can see how a van or a wagon could get 'lost' - say, by being wrecked in a heavy shunt a long way from home when those responsible knew it was unlikely the owners knew where the wagon was so kept quiet about it - but in CC Green's second Cambrian Album he mentions that when they were absorbed into the GWR, the Cambrian had 39 guards vans, three of which were 'never found'. How do you lose a guards van?

Why not hang a lamp on the hook? Or did a lamp on a coupling hook have a different meaning?

I think the entire subject of Welsh brake vans is a minefield. For instance, I'd love a Mid Wales Railway van, but as far as I know there is nothing to go on other than a couple of pictures of the one (or was it two?) that went to the Elan Valley. The Oakwood press says they only had one, but photographic evidence suggests that either they had two that were rather different or they altered the one they'd got during the comparatively brief time they had it. And neither bears much more than superficial resemblance to the 16mm version that's on sale. Something I am particularly mindful of is the Victorian habit of hailing "Mr X's new passenger engine for the Y Railway" when in reality it was simply a standard product of Sharp Stewart, Kitson, Manning Wardle etc. with perhaps a minor tweak or two to the specification in order to accommodate the customer's specific needs (Furness 4-4-0's and the Cambrian's Beaconsfields being a very obvious for instance). I think it highly likely that exactly the same thing happened with guards vans, simply because the budget for them was so much smaller and the roles they had to perform so much lower profile. Why would anyone bother allocating valuable drawing-office time to something when a perfectly acceptable version could be bought off-the-peg from Met. B'ham, Glos etc? And as an aside, if the ever-genial Andy Cundic's Talyllyn Road layout ever goes on show again in its Welsh guise (Last time I spoke to him he was considering altering it to a Highland Railway layout) the loco roster includes a very nice portrayal of GWR 1338, the ex-Manchester and Milford, originally LNWR, Coal Engine, complete with GWR tender.

Ah! The joy of the Kerry Ridgeway in the snow. And, of course, the joy of winter motorcycling . . .

I did a couple of field trips to Llangurig in 2003/4 when the embankment across the back of the Blue Bell's car park was still there. The bridge had already gone but recently enough for the height restriction signs on the approaches to it to still be in place. I felt that where the railway had crossed the road that runs between the Blue Bell and the village hall was too high for a level crossing but nowhere near high enough for it to have ever been a bridge. My conclusion, therefore, was that the road had been severed when the railway was built and the detour road across the front of the school to the bridge at the other end of the Blue Bell's car park built as a replacement. The layout of Llangurig that I'd hoped to build never came about because I came to the conclusion that the quantity and nature of the many buildings - particularly the Arts and Crafts architecture of the Black Lion and the matching terrace beyond the bridge - meant there would be an awful lot of work for not much railway. I also had some reservations about the Blue Bell. It's undeniably a very modellogenic structure, but it was also quite clearly originally four or five, perhaps six buildings that over the years have been amalgamated into one. Without knowing the history of the pub - about which not even the lady then running it (Sandra?) knew much, and she'd been born and brought up in the village! - there would be a lot of potential for error that, depending on the nature of the error, could be difficult to put right. Jonathan: when you take your walk around Llangurig be sure to stop at Cwmbelan on the way - a lovely little village that I felt had more than enough potential to become a small intermediate station on the branch to Llangurig. I would also recommend your walk takes in Marsh's Pool, upon the hills behind Llangurig. An idyllic spot.

I went on one of those trips (can't remember the year) with my boss of the time who was a member of the Bletchey - Bedford rail users group, and I understood it was them, not Network SouthEast who were the organisers. My lasting memory of the journey was the number of pheasants the train sent up as soon as it got beyond Aylesbury. Every few seconds there was a russet whir as one took frantically to the air. Edited to add a missing 'h'. Thanks John!

RTR couplings might not be too happy if the transition too and from level track at the foot and head of the incline is not fairly gentle. Tension-locks should be okay at the foot of the gradient but if the transition is too sharp they could struggle at the top. Not sure how well Kaydees would cope top or bottom.