Jenny Emily

My Father and I used to take his exhibition layout on the road every year. This ended in around 2004 or so due to his age and the amount of work required. The baseboards were recycled in around 2011 into my shed layout and the steelwork underneath was used to reinforce the side walls of my shed. The only pictures I can lay my hands on are the following three from around 2001. His current layout as shown being put together in the video is a pale imitation of what there once was on the exhibition layout where we could run five trains at the same time on two levels. It used to take all of the Friday afternoon before a show to set up, and a further three or so hours to dismantle and package into his trailer for the journey home. There are some old videos from the 1990s somewhere showing it running if I can find them and convert them to a format to upload to Youtube.

After over a decade in storage, some of it much longer, I built a layout for my Father in his den. A quick video for enjoying the reliving of many childhoods!

Just running in my Barabel now. It's a very good runner; more so than the NCB blue one I bought previously. It's handling all the insulfrog points with ease despite its short wheelbase. All round an excellent model in all respects including the sub £50 price tag.

The Hornby Dublo tinplate coaches are very nice. I wouldn't have the heart to swap out all the Mazac wheels for plastic ones though. These days only the HD Super detail coaches get a run from time to time. However my Father is building a 3 rail layout in his railway room that will once again echo to the sounds of tinplate, if we can only decide and source what controllers to use as time has been called for safety reasons of deteriorating insulation on the original A3s, C3s, T1s and A2s.

My partner found me one in WH Smiths in Bolton which apparently had quite a few. It looks to be perfect for plinthing on a station platform just like the original once was at Darlington Bank Top.

Bu**er - it seems to be time to rejoin the club again, as that is a lovely model. However, I finally paid for a new car today, and that has put a crimp on finances for a while. I wonder if they will all be sold out in a fortnight or so?

Received my Father's, and it is perfect in every way. Dapol, you are forgiven for the string of excuses for delays (but don't do it again!). No problems with mine. I checked it thoroughly, and all bits are present and in place and the connecting rods are the right way up. He is very pleased with it too, but took it home with him before I could get some videos done.

Picking 'mine' (my Father's) Terrier up on Saturday from Arcadia and looking forward to receiving it. I'm hoping to also buy a circle of track too and maybe get a video of it running. Not sure if my Father can wait until Christmas for it; he's already asked me to bring it round for him on Monday!

WH Smiths in the centre of Bolton has one class 47. Seemed complete and undamaged, but not my bag so it was still there when I left. I am, however, interested in Locomotion and wondering what model they copied for it. Was there an Airfix kit in the right scale once upon a time?

Arcadia is shut until later this week as Tim's on holiday. I'll have to wait for mine until Saturday at the earliest. Bah!

I'm hoping that mine will reach Arcadia in time for Saturday morning so I can pick it up. The LB&SCR version looks wonderful and would have been my choice, but my Father insisted on Southern green.

"At the end of the month" has been the reply from Dapol for a few months now. To give one example, Dapol's advert in Model Rail issue 208 proudly announced that they would be available by the end of April. I notice that Dapol don't say at the end of which month in their reply posted above.

I have seen videos on Youtube of an alternative method that looked interesting. Base blocks were laid nearly to rail height, then these were drilled, rawl plugged and screws added. Using a long piece of wood and a spirit level the screws were adjusted easily then O16.5 track was hot glued to the tops of the screws. Ballasting then took place using a mix of kiln dried sand and cement that was tamped with a brush just like indoor ballesting. When wetted it all set rock hard.

Dapol would do well to stop promising delivery dates that change every month. It would be better customer relations to stop promising a delivery date at all, as no promises are far better than broken promises. The Terrier is now set to miss my Father's birthday on Sunday. Pretty poor considering one of their many promised delivery dates had it set to be his Christmas present last year. I'm now actively investigating other RTR O gauge loco options for him as waiting for a Dapol Terrier is growing tiresome.

I acquired an Ivatt a little while ago, and actually thought it to be one of the better GBL models. I'm also surprised that a lot of outlets that had seemed to stiop stocking the series quite a few issues ago had the Ivatts in in quantity.

So another announced delivery date slides. Why am I not surprised? Why do they bother giving a date for delivery, given how many times they have failed to deliver on a promised delivery window. Looks like these will now miss my Father's birthday, just as they managed to miss Father's day, his wedding anniversary, and Christmas - all of which at one time or another were promised delivery dates.

Isn't the Keith and Dufftown too? I think there may be a single length of track removed to seperate it, but it's as good as. Nene Valley is also connected via the Fletton branch.

The Great Central has become quite an interesting preserved line of late between the Montsorrel line and the plans to reconnect the two halves. It's really interesting to follow. Are there any plans to expand south to Abbey sidings? I read a long time ago about something, but couldn't decide whether it was some-one unconnected with the railway's personal fantasy or a realistic proposal by the railway.

I wouldn't consider a livery that a real loco carried as not prototypical. If the real think carried it, then the livery is prototypical for that loco at that point in time. The class 14s look pretty good in liveries that they have acquired post preservation. I also wouldn't mind a class 15 in the Railfreight livery it carried early in preservation, but then I'm odd and have a class 04 with TOPS number applied. I only later discovered that a real one had acquired a similar livery in preservation.

A couple of decades ago I built a remagnatiser for my school CDT (remember that?) project. It worked quite well, though it looked ugly. They aren't too difficult to make and were very handy. I've never tried them on anything other than Wrenn or Hornby Dublo magnets though.