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Yep, I would be up for that Nick! I think we have both modelled the same brake van as well!

Thanks Roy. To be fair I owe a great debt to @hmrspaul for taking such great colour photos of wagons and sharing them so I have some decent reference material to follow.

03121 shunts a brake van in Peasevern Yard in July 1977

A few more from today, 03121 with its new bell, shunts the engineer wagons out of the way; 03382 and 37029 also got some use. They share a (very heavy) storage box with the DMU and 03121 whereas 08950 shares a box with the molasses tanks hence is seen less

It is just over a month until Peasevern Yard's next outing way up North (by my standards) in Crewe and with a day off I took the opportunity to set up the layout for a test run. I was also keen to try out the "Graphite trick" of applying Graphite to the rail tops as suggested by @Ruston. It apparently aids slow speed running by helping conductivity between the loco and track. I haven't noticed a massive difference but to be fair the layout has always run well. 03121 did most of the running to check all was good. One of my favourite wagons is this Parkside Grampus which turned out really well I still need to sort some replacement lamp irons to replace the incredibly flimsy originals which have long disappeared

I can't remember the last time I exhibited at a show with Barriers, my layouts are front operated and never had a finger touch the front of the layout as they have been intercepted long before contact is made... A 6'2" big bloke and some polite "Please don't touch" does the trick.

I predict a continuation of 2022.... Red Bull quick, Ferrari the main challenger (at first) and Mercedes adrift while they sort the car out..

Latest wagon purchase is this LMS 20T brake van which is in need of some TLC (bargain price of £20!) but is perfect for my needs as it will undergo a drastic transformation... Many years ago while demonstrating at a show I built a 00 gauge Airfix 20t brake van but modelled it with the body burnt out, a picture of it appears in the first post of this thread. It was a nice model and often attracted comment on both Pallet Lane and Peafore Yard, before being sold on when I sold off my 4mm wagons. Ever since I started operating this layout and realised the scrap siding had some unused space I thought about building a 7mm version but struggled to overcome a mental barrier of spending £50+ on a wagon to then destroy 60% of it. My preference was also for a plastic kit rather than a ready to run version to make the conversion easier. The van looks to have been dropped at some point with some damage to the brake gear and a missing step board as well as bent lamp irons. The 3 tail lamps will be removed for use on my other brake vans. I have a few pictures to go off from a similar van sadly damaged in preservation to work out where the framing will go. Plan is to start work when the silo is finished as I don't like having too many projects on the go.

Thanks for sharing the above, I read recently that Lionheart were doing these so was curious about how much space I would need for a little L&B layout. I have always fancied doing something narrow gauge but having recently gone 7mm then 0-16.5 has more appeal than 009 so this range is very much of interest.

Some lovely wagons there Ade.

Really looking forward to this show, thanks To Al and the team for inviting me.

Layout sounds a nice plan, I think EFE may have done the Hanson lorry Dave.

Great article Chris and as you have mentioned a good issue of RM all round.

Great that the weather is getting better, I definitely put on some weight at the back end of last year so have been on a bit of an exercise kick, 45 miles weekend before last, 60 miles last Saturday and 50miles today. Have also been squeezing in some mid week 14 mile ones as well.

Very interesting thread, the coal stage is very impressive!

The silo has progressed further, I have started to add the cladding to the roof and also the support strapping on the vertical section of the body. Making the cone part was hard work to get right but at least the basic structure is complete and I can add the cladding and detail parts which I enjoy more.

I have just swapped from OO gauge to O gauge, I would say building an O gauge layout is not that much more difficult, the key thing is you will need to do more building of kits as there are very few Ready to plonk buildings. If you are on a budget what I would say is you will find some cheaper end secondhand 00 stock but this is in much more limited supply in O gauge. You obviously need less stock for the same space.

More progress on the cement silo today in that I have made the conical part at the top of the silo. There was no real option other than to scratch build this bit using formers and plasticard cut to the right shape. To anchor the formers to I used the top a Varnish spray can then cut triangular formers which were glued around the outside. Now people cleverer than me would no doubt be able to work out the correct shape for the plasticard to fit over the former which needs to cut into a horseshoe shape. I resorted to trial and error with paper first to get the right shape template after which I then drew onto plasticard. Due to the size of the structure I needed 2 pieces but got there in the end. I resorted to sellotape to hold it all in place while the glue went off. I need to fill a couple of gaps but will put an extra layer of card on top in smaller panels to represent the individual panels of the real hopper which will hid most of any discrepancies.

If the class 69 thread on RailUK Forum is to be believed then they maybe a temporary halt to class 69 operations while some issues with crankshaft cracks found on 69004 are investigated.

Done, good survey, and would be interested to see the results. Probably the most interesting bit I am curious about is how much of a minority am I being a 7mm Modeller vs 4mm and 2mm.

More progress today, I successfully negotiated the release of the funnel from the kitchen drawer so this was cut down to the right height. I also needed to cut the indent at the top of the cladding (as per the real silo) for the funnel. The funnel is not very visible in the photo below but is there and looks more prominent in the flesh. There will be a lot of detail to add to the silo body and I am exploring the idea of Rivet transfers which is something I have never tried before

They were a later fitment but no idea what changed to need them. Both 37601 and 37604 got them in around 2005, EPS having disposed of the other 9 x 37/6s to DRS by then.

It has been a good day for the progress on the silo as I have found a solution for 2 of the 3 parts of the silo body. For the middle vertical part I needed a tube around 144mm wide which was proving elusive. My wife came to the rescue and provided a massive glass vase of the right diameter. I decided that the best way was to make 2 discs of plastic card by drawing around the vase which would become the top and bottom of the vertical middle part of the silo. I would then make vertical formers mounted between the discs around which I would wrap plastic card. While the idea seemed sound I was worried about the strength of the arrangement and getting it vertical. The solution was to involve an old tin of Hammerite; I then added my vertical formers to fix the plasticard to; I left it at that for the evening and will put the cladding on tomorrow and then raided the kitchen drawer for the aforementioned funnel. The good news is a suitable funnel was found that can be cut down and glued to the bottom of the middle part, I just need to secure a replacement so it can be let out of the Kitchen.

Hi Nick, no the cement silo, apologies for the confusion. 03121 does indeed have a flower pot exhaust

Yes it is Dave, I am having similar thoughts, was going to make the bottom and middle part if it first then go from there. My good lady is out tonight so the funnels in the Kitchen need to watch out...