Skinnylinny

An alternative to a full floor might be to floor just the groom's compartment of the horsebox, which would then allow access to fit a partition wall. I believe this HMRS drawing is the same type as the D53 that I drew up, but I can't be certain. It certainly shows interior details: https://hmrs.org.uk/hmrs-2450--horse-box--9ft-w-b--14ft-o-h.html

Re: the horsebox and floors - there are two ledges above the solebars on the insides of the body. A piece of plasticard cut to 53mm x 28mm can be slotted in from underneath before fitting the brake gear, but after painting and glazing. That's what I had in mind, anyway! Everything on the separate brake gear part should be black, so can easily be painted separately, and should then locate once the floor has been attached and the wheels inserted, with the lugs hopefully locating things nice and centrally. I have to admit, I hadn't considered adding horses, as they can't be seen from outside. Indeed, I haven't even added a representation of the wall between the groom's compartment and the horse compartment! It is rather dark in there, after all... As far as the livery, I believe they would have run in mahogany, although @BlueLightning is better placed than me to advise!

Thank you, @Edwardian - you're a star! Just getting these files back into my CAD software for some checks and some minor tweaks. It's not quite up to my current standards, but I reckon it can be got pretty decent.

I'm not sure if I'd be able to edit those to bring them in line with the newer stuff I've done, but they could still be helpful, if you wouldn't mind popping them over please? Thanks!

Hi Pete, The cattle wagon was designed quite a while back - I'm not sure if I've still got the files! I'll see what I can do though...

Well, the whole of the Class 334 is primed, and paint has been acquired - a joint purchase by myself and another club member, as the minimum order quantity seemed enough to do several units! - so the next stage will be several coats of white on the ends before applying the warning panel yellow. In more pre-grouping news, though - a few models I have drawn up in CAD are now available as 3D prints through Oak Hill Works (thanks to @BlueLightning) - an LCDR open, an LSWR horsebox and open carriage truck, and an LBSC horsebox. Next going through the virtual workshop is an SECR (ex-SER) horsebox, to complete the "big three" Southern set: Still to be added are dual brake pipes, brake levers (on one side pointing to the right, on the other to the left!), roof details (rain strips and oil lamp pot), some corner strapping on the headstocks, commode and grab handles, groom's compartment footsteps, hinges for the drop-door, various bolts along the bottom of the bodyside... Work has kept me pretty busy much of the rest of the time, but I'm looking forward to Model Rail Scotland next month. Do come and say hi. I may still not have the purple hair, but this year I'll have a Rapido shirt on, with my name on!

Actually slightly closer to the desired size - it's 0.4mm square nickel silver: https://www.wizardmodels.ltd/shop/tools/ls006_2/

Welcome back, it's great to see your work again. You've done a fantastic job on Edward - the painting is very neat, and the boiler/firebox joint is completely invisible!

The 7-plank open there was not used for carrying flour, but coal, presumably to power the milling equipment. Note the "Empty to:" instruction: Netherseat Colliery! Certainly flour would not be transported in the same wagon either.

Having watched a video review of the set (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcpEcEKlreg) it certainly appears to be the Bachmann Junior chassis (albeit DCC fitted), and the steam loco is a rather cute caricature of the same loco offered by Electrotren/Jouef: However, in my search for details, you've alerted me to this rather pretty looking thing, also from Ibertren in h0 scale, which I dare say has a rather bashable chassis for something freelance... a long-boilered mineral engine, perhaps?

Fortunately, due to the wonder that is Freedom of Information Act requests... Now if only we could get these for our pre-grouping liveries! Edit: The image I have is much higher resolution, but for some reason RMWeb keeps downsizing it!

Goodness, where did the last month go? Unfortunately mostly not spent working on Linton Town, that's where. That's not to say that no modelling has happened, though. A filament 3D printer has appeared, from a Black Friday sale, and I've been playing with that a fair bit. The first project was a lever frame for the layout, designed with mechanical interlocking in mind. The first prototype works fairly well, being an almost to-scale model of a Saxby & Farmer frame, although the levers are a little bit flexible sideways, and a little bit close together for 1:1 scale fingers to operate, so I may have to play fast and loose with proportions. I also gave in and bought one of the EFE LSWR D1410 vans, although it's been renumbered already and is awaiting some gentle weathering. The axleboxes are bothering me slightly, being rather wide for Panter boxes, but I'm not sure they're bothering me enough to do anything about at the moment! On the non railway front, I've made a start on a collection of model aircraft I've been thinking about for a while - a 1:144 collection of British-built jet airliners. There have been fewer than ten, so it feels very achievable, and I'm calling the collection "Comet to Concorde". The first entry is a Hawker Siddeley Trident (still under construction): And I've been feeling rather queer lately - I bought a kit for a modern overhead EMU... A ScotRail class 334 from CMAC Models. This will end up as 334006 "Pride of ScotRail" for the club's Haymarket layout.

Very nice... but that's an LSWR horsebox, not an LBSC one! Don't get the two muddled up... :P For those wondering, the render of the LBSC one (a Stroudley D53) looks like this:

Thanks all for the advice and thoughts. As Dungrange has explained, the problem here is really scope creep (as always, with the best of intentions!). The idea of paying to convert all the members' DC stock to DCC is sadly unlikely to be viable, because of the sheer volume of stock owned by club members who might want to run it on this layout (or at least this fiddle yard) at a club night rather than at an exhibition. Despite the layout being Haymarket in the modern day, I strongly suspect the layout will see everything from Rocket to American steam to Pacers to maybe a Japanese Shinkansen on club nights. It may be the case that we have to limit fiddle yard use to "one train per road" when in DC mode - if that's the case, it's not the end of the world!

Well, this is the first time I've poked my head into this part of the forum, and I hope I'm in the right place! I'm a bit out of my depth, as I'm a dyed-in-the-wool analogue user, but my club (the Edinburgh and Lothians MRC) has decided on the next layout in the queue to be built, and there are some interesting challenges to overcome. The layout will be a model of Edinburgh Haymarket station, with a continuous run, and will be replacing our existing roundy-roundy. As such, it will need to be able to run in either analogue or digital modes to allow for test running of stock. This much is (relatively) easy to arrange (with lots of relays to switch on all the isolating sections when in digital mode). However! Our previous roundy-roundy ("Newcastleton") ran strictly on analogue, and had a fiddle yard with 12 tracks (6 in each direction), each of which could hold two trains. Using IR detection and isolating sections, when one train left a fiddle yard road, there was a delay of a few seconds, then the next train would "move up" to the "front" of the road and be ready to depart next, clearing a space at the "back" of the road for the train that was going around the scenic side of the layout. Given the length of the Haymarket plan, it has been suggested that it would be nice to have a similar "move-up" system in the fiddle yard. However, we would need this to work both with analogue and digital operations. Indeed, given the track layout of Haymarket, the layout could be split into two double-track loops, completely electrically separated from each other, so that half of the layout could be digital and half analogue at the same time, which would be especially helpful on clubroom nights. We'd like (at least) DC stock to be able to run on the layout without any modification, and ideally minimal cost to modifying DCC stock. So far we've looked at, and discounted: - IR detection alone (no use for DCC as it doesn't identify the address of the train passing over it) - Commercially-available DCC track occupancy sensors (no use for DC) - Current draw detection (would require the fitting of resistive wheelsets to any train to operate on the layout). One combination that appealed was using both IR and RFID detection (to identify the DCC-fitted trains as they pass the reader, and IR to detect the position of the front of the train), as this would require no modification of analogue stock, and suitable RFID tags are cheap enough that there's not really a price barrier to their use. However, we'd probably need to wire everything to a computer of sorts (most likely a Raspberry Pi) and write custom software, which is getting rather involved. Are we missing any obvious solutions? Indeed, has anyone built anything similar? Many thanks in advance!

Well, I've nearly recovered from Warley now... I spent at least 18 hours of Tuesday asleep, and needed that! Once again I didn't get to see as much of the show as I'd have liked (but then again, I was being paid to be there!) but what I did see was excellent. I finally got a chance to see Copenhagen Fields in person (although not until the last half-hour of the show on Sunday, when I think things were starting to be packed down), which was stunning, and I was fortunate enough to be able to meet Ian Rathbone and pick his brains on ruling-pen lining techniques, which has filled me with some more confidence to try things. I also acquired two new road vehicles for Linton Town (rather nicely built Langley kits of a Hansom cab and a Brougham) which are undergoing some very minor paint touch-ups.

Ah well, hopefully we'll bump into each other at Glasgow? As for Squires, I believe they'll be at Paisley, but if not, I could pick some up at Warley for you if given details. :)

Haha, sadly not - it would require a lot less maintenance work if it were! A trip to the Falkirk exhibition on Saturday just about floored me for the following two days, but I'm hopeful that with plenty of rest and being gentle to myself during the show itself, I should be able to make it through the two days of Warley. There were some excellent layouts, and I was very impressed by some of the scenic bits on offer from traders too - especially the trees from Primo Models. While Linton Town is very urban, I found myself pondering whether I could get away with a small park or patch of ground where I could justify one of their trees... Perhaps in the school playground? I also managed to grab some more of the South Eastern Finecast plasticard from Squires, and some more work has happened on retaining wall design. Now to figure out how to get a nice consistent slope back on the lower wall, then transition to a vertical section at the top...

It's been a busy month at work with the run up to Warley in a bit over a week. With our announcements safely made, I have been able to do a little bit of modelling. One of the most imposing features of Linton Town is the brick retaining wall and bridge/tunnel that acts as a scenic break. I've been looking into options for this for several years, and have never *quite* found a solution that satisfied me. Most of the ready-to-place options have stretcher bond brickwork, which just looks wrong to me, or comes in sections which have very visible joins too frequently to be easily disguised without creating a very distinctive regular pattern along the length. I've shied away from scratchbuilding thus far as I doubt my ability to get neat results repeatably (and given the retaining wall will have an overall length of over seven feet, consistency will be important!). However, I've finally given in and purchased some foam board and some sheets of South Eastern Finecast "brick arches" - these come in English bond brickwork (hurrah!), include the appropriate patterns of bricks for corners (double hurrah!) and have several different sizes of arch, including one which is big enough for the scenic break tunnel. I'm still nervous about consistency, but I have so far managed to turn out a basic archway, and I'm actually excited to try out some of the "blind" ones needed for the retaining walls... Since this photo was taken I've added some more decorative brick layers above the arch, and a buttress, and thus far things seem to be going fairly well... A fair bit of fiddling, but the retaining wall is relatively modular in concept so it oughtn't to be hard to put it to one side if I get stuck, and go back to it later. I also received a parcel from work, and I have to say this is a rather pretty little thing. I'm especially impressed with the sound (it being a Digital Sound set) working quite happily on analogue! I'll be heading "down south" soon for the Warley show, where I'll be on the Rapido stand, so do come and make yourself known! I may be without my usual purple hair, though - I don't think I'm going to be able to dye it in time - so look for the brown hair with green ends!

If you want to make it look even more like the LBSC van, I would think some plastic strip would make a huge difference - do plenty of dry test-fits before gluing anything, but the thicker green bits I reckon would have the biggest effect. The blue bits on the end doors are a bit more subtle, but also make a bit of a difference. Finally, the four corner lamp irons on the Kernow LSWR model weren't on the LBSC van, and they look to be separately-fitted parts, so hopefully should just pop off with a scalpel blade tip. Do let us know how you get on!

Afraid I can't help with sources of motors or explanations of the use of UJs (beyond perhaps allowing for less-than-perfect factory assembly?). However, I have an Oxford Adams Radial in which the motor has died, and I've acquired a spare chassis from which I'm going to transplant the motor. I'd be happy to post the motor and worm within the UK to provide the worm? I imagine that whatever motor you use, you'll need to come up with a custom means of mounting it as it won't exactly match the Oxford one.

That's one to add to the playlist then! I'm much the same with the second movement of Mendelssohn's Organ Sonata No. 2, except in that case it was my mother I was walking down the aisle!

Oooh, is that the arch from the English Bond arches sheet? I have been pondering using that for building retaining walls and an overbridge, but wasn't sure if the arches would be wide enough for a double track (00, Peco streamline spacing).

Personally, I am actually a fan of the pipes... IF they are properly tuned (which those played on Princes Street often are not!). However I'm aware that they are very much the Marmite of the musical instrument world. Also, we'll happily have a full pipe band, I'm sure... Well volunteered on painting them!

"You've got three bullets. What do you shoot?" "The bagpipes. Three times..."