Buhar

I think these would be LM Region, LMS station signs were white on black.

Larry Goddard advocates sticky tape (one of the Scotch brands) stuck to glass, trimmed and then onto the boiler. The paint and varnish holds it fine. It'll be less than 5 thou, so shouldn't be too prominent.

Fair point, Steve. I was hoping the balance weights might have been an insert that would just pop out rather than being moulded as part of the wheel.

Hi Steve, I can't quite see on the photo of the B12 chassis, but do the balance weights push out? Those on the B12 are great big chunks whereas 903's are much finer. Otherwise it's going to be a fiddly filing job.

Hi Gismo I presume the shed withstood storm Barney which probably went right over your part of the world. Are you able to progress things in this weather or is on hold until spring?

Lake Alert on Little Blytham! That Claughton can't be the Jamieson kit can it? Thanks for those lovely images.

Watch the excess of vitamin A in fish liver oil (especially if your partial to liver and onions). It might be better to go with a general fish oil.

Is Holden Tanami Beige not an option then?

Maybe it's a case of watching too many model trains, but I think there has to be some noise, even if it's completely wrong! If it's the locomotive sounds, I think you end up with too much missing, depth and the doppler effect. I'd go with no DCC sound and even not try to deaden the track noise too much.

Thanks for the alert, Ian. Pricey, but worth it for that lining.

Naughty, naughty. Anyway, with Steve it'd be sardine tins or oil containers scrounged from the local tyre and exhaust. And still be inspirational.

If they didn't have a commodious cab there would be nowhere for the crew to store their tabs and and a couple of crates of Newky. Judging by Newcastle town centre, NE enginemen would have been shirt off and leaning out of a Midland cab during a blizzard.

I used to really enjoy the "9F from Nellie" type articles in the mags, but times have changed and even if you did such a model it could well look out of place against the modern RTR on the same layout. People quite reasonably want their layouts to look of a piece. BRM and Model Rail both feature kit-building quite regularly, including wagons as potential starters and renumbering and detailing features, if only as a side feature, are there every few months. The thing the internet can't replace, for me, is the scale drawing, but these seem to be less frequent. I remember the wagon drawings every month in the Railway Modeller with particular fondness. I have scans of thousands of articles reasonably well archived, but my first port of call if I want to see a technique or research some detail is usually this website. On top of that, topics like this one provide the entertainment and stimulus that a good magazine can, plus it takes me off my beaten track, which is good. I do think t'Interweb has inevitably altered magazine use putting more information and examples out there than there ever was in the past, but I still pick three of them up every month.

That whiff of primer really helped, didn't it? That area round the splasher would do for me if it was on my railway, especially in black and probably in Prussian Blue too.

That (or an identical demonstration) is at NRM York. IIRC it's two take-away coffee mugs joined at the rim. It doesn't half hunt though!

As Richard says it's hard to see, but I think you're close. Could the splasher top be falsely widened, and if it could, would it help, especially with the three-quarter view?

I think that might be the solution. Tell yourself, though. You weren't "fretting" you were problem solving.

Hi Steve, For my money, drop the skirts. Bits of the chassis will be visible, but further back. It works for the Bachmann 3F (although with less metal than yours). The problem we have is that light doesn't scale and so parts of the beastie that are in shadow on the real thing are quite visible on a model.

Having a convertible layout to accept visitors is quite easy to arrange from DCC with a few toggle switches and a plug for the controller. Depending on the layout design some parts could be omitted and so out of bounds for analogue locos but an analogue route could easily be made available for guests. The reverse is true by switching enough analogue sections to live and plugging in a DCC unit. Again, it doesn't need to be every part of the layout. It's up to the owner if they want to got to the expense and effort to accept visitors of the other denomination. On springy/floating track. Is there not still the problem that foam perishes over quite a short time or are there more durable materials around now?

It looks like we may have our first RTR G&SWR loco! OK, there is a big risk it may not be in the right livery (although it has been suggested on the Hornby Engine Shed forum) but Hornby's Peckett W4, which is under development, is the same type as GSW 735, later 16043. Ian@stenochs has naturally done one in the big scale and gives its history at http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/70407-locomotive-railway-carriage-wagon-review/ - go to post #10.

Hi Steve, is that marker a true cylinder? All the ones I've looked at have been tapered. Hi Andy, there was a short article in the Railway Modeller, probably around 1970, "A Barney from a Bec" describing this conversion. The main issues were dropping the boiler height by 3mm and shortening the footplate. The builder (A.T. Condie) used a Caley chimney and smokebox door from a Ks 0-4-4T kit and settled for a slightly off tender by converting the Bec one. However he notes a T9 bogie tender would represent a good number of the class members. He also says replacing the dome and safety valves would give a reboilered version. Your half mark was very fair, good luck.

Stunningly beautiful.

T9 heading towards a Barney? I presume you're leaving the Jumbo to Steve.

I've been trying to find drawings for a Gerund to haul my rake of Participles.

That's an elegant solution to the fall-plate issue. I've been turning ideas over for weeks to find a reliable hinge method. Your's scores by keeping the plate close to footplate height.