John Tomlinson

I think the covering of a WC in thin brass was done by Tim Shackleton, probably in his book about detailing RTR plastic locos. Interesting though, the ancient body actually has a lot of quite fine detail judging from your photo. Those guys and gals in Margate 50+ years ago did rather well! John.

A good outcome. I regularly dispense with the little tender buffers to help with close coupling. It isn't really noticeable when they've gone under a fallplate. Save them if you ever have ago at "N"gauge! I have a little stock of drawbars bought in spares packs that can sometimes help, otherwise as you say, it's a case of make one's own. John.

Thanks for this heads up. Having been stupid enough not to order one of these straight away, you are quite right that they are now listed "out of stock". It does however say that more are on their way, which I hope is the case. If so I won't repeat my mistake. John.

I'd agree completely with this. Also you and I are both sole workers (your productivity however being far higher than mine!), rather than being rolling stock specialists who are part of a bigger team. Most of my freight stock is kit built plastic wagons. There are a few detailed RTR, and some cases where I've put a proper chassis under a nicely moulded RTR body. There are also a handful of brass kit wagons which seemed to take an age to do, and tbh don't look any better than plastic stuff at normal viewing distance. I've some Kirk coaches that I've built, and a couple of Isinglass resin jobs. I also find that I flip interests, sometimes I'm in the mood for wagons, sometimes coaches, other times a bit of loco kit soldering, or detailing up RTR stuff I'bve bought. As Clive Mortimore often points out, it's meant to be FUN, and variety is the spice of life! John.

An excellent post and very concise and clear. I spent a good hour or more last week reading about just this topic. Your summary is exactly what I could have done with, helped of course by the photos of the lovely models! John.

Quite surprised to read this. I hope all works out for you, that you are pleased with your new home, and that the new layout gets underway sooner rather than later! Please keep us posted. Best wishes, John.

I agree with Michael above, the grey colour looks fine to me, if there is any fading it is minimal. Assuming you do respray I'd be sure to give the bits that aren't red a bit of a scrub in Cif or similar to get them clean and also minutely scratched to help the paint adhere. John.

Great stuff Steve and well spotted! When the parts turn up perhaps you could confirm to us all that the colours match OK on the bodyshell to your other 4-CEP coaches. Many thanks, John.

Haven't sadly got a picture of 59206, but this is 59204 on a train not dissimilar to yours (a bit longer!). It is heading through Sonning Cutting on virtually the last working day before the overhead electrification posts went up. Clicking on the photo will bring up the details. John.

The V4 sits very nicely alongside your V2. But how "dinky" it looks in comparison! One thing I find fascinationg about our modelling of things from long ago is how it enables such comparisons to be made. Never quite the same just reading about them. John.

I seem to remember that in a Viking funeral, the deceased is surrounded by his most treasured possessions before the longboat, and he, are set on fire. What could be more treasured than the train set! John.

The only Jidenco wagon I've done is the GC 15t fish van that you show. I was pleased with the end result, but it took a long time, even for me. IIRC there were over 130 separate parts, inc.handles, strappings etc., as I did a count at the end. A fine collection of vehicles. John.

I think it is the same person. I bought a set of etches for the LMS "Austin Seven" goods loco from them some while ago. John.

I'd go with most if not all of this. I'm not too fussed about fast delivery, as I've more than enough to be going on with and a few extra days are neither here nor there. Proper packaging is more important, although I've only suffered in a tiny number of cases on RTR items where the seller has obviously been a bit dense without any grasp of what's needed. They've invariably offered compensation, which dependent on circumstance, I've taken or waived. Your last sentence to me is the most important. There are some amazing bargains to be had if you are careful, for example a complete DJH kit with Romford wheels for the Urie S15 a few weeks ago - just over £50. John.

The questions I ask myself are, "Yes it may be better, but is it that much better?" and, "How much have I done to the original in detailing etc., that would now be redundant?" John.

This is quite correct. However there are Southeast Finecast flushglazing sets which, whilst not perfect, do mitigate the impact of the windows being inset to some degree. John.

Presumably the worms must be handed to work properly, and so if someone mixes them up you get the starting point you faced! I think the model is a bodge, as you suspected. The chassis is of the original type, two fixing screws to the body only. Later ones had an extra two screws at the diagonals to the ones on yours, plus two tiny screws, a pair at each end, securing the chassis to the loco nose. The body however is a later type, as it has the seam running horizontally across the nose, except for where the doors are - early versions forgot to do this and it's a real pain to scribe on (I've done several!) A great result for your labour, I've several Bachmann Peaks of different variants and consider it to be one of their best, and most useful, locos. John.

The only "Little Engines" kit I've built is for the Thompson 04/8 rebuild, and I was very happy with that as a kit. My one and only experiment with wheel springing, which aside from being a real faff proved totally pointless in "OO", and was soldered up again! John.

I saw this whilst browsing Ebay a few minutes ago. No idea if it's of interest, if you have one, or how good the kit is, but thought it worth raising, https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204377500180?hash=item2f95d92a14:g:bbkAAOSwXF1kmF-t John.

In my albeit limited experience, the one thing you mustn't do with 3D print is to try to cut it through with a knife. It will simply break and shatter, and not in the place you want! Gentle filing and sanding are fine, and on my two coaches I used those metal backed nail files from Boots, that give a firm and straight surface, for sanding, especially cleaning up the insides of windows. If you do use a knife, it should be for back-scrapeing only. John.

I'm interested to see that you've built this in a different (and in my view better) way than designed. The two 3D coaches I've done have sides which clip and glue into the chassis at the bottom, and can't therefore be removed without serious damage. The roof then goes on at the end, and makes access very difficult if you subsequently say put a window in. If I ever do another it will be built as you have, and indeed as I usually do with other coaches, namely a shell of sides, ends and roof that is easily removable. I'm not an LNER modeller, but your teaking looks excellent. John.

Many thanks for this. Forewarned is forearmed as they say! John.

I happened to be in Camborne last Saturday, attending a wedding reception under 10 minutes walk from the shop. Popping in with the intention of buying D600 in all over green, the chap behind the counter unearthed a D602 Bulldog in BSYP in stock. Their stock system has shown these as out of stock for some while, so whether they have any more tucked away remains to be seen. I was very happy to take Bulldog away as this was the one I really wanted in the first place! A very pleasant place to go shopping, and I greatly enjoyed my conversation with the two gentlemen present. John.

The top picture looks like somewhere in Devon on a summer Saturday c.1960, or so I imagine in my fondest dreams! Fully agree about the Bachmann 42's, it's been said before but for non-DCC users I find the mechanisms preferable to those on their later 43's. We're off to Cornwall this week for a wedding (sigh!) and perhaps a visit to a certain shop in Camborne is in order to finally buy one of the D600's. John.

Our Skoda Octavias still have individul bulbs you can replace. However they are quite old now, dating from 2006. John.