Karhedron

I have found a shot of the bottling plant at Merton here. http://gallery62603.fotopic.net/p58745379.html

I have just had a go with paint. Please excuse the very crude drawing but it shows what I mean a bit more clearly (I hope ).

The first that caught my eye was the lack of a fiddle yard. This ties in with your comment that you want to breakup the roundy-roundy nature of your layout. My suggestion would be redesign the back half of the layout (the area marked TMD and Branch line). Create a fan of sidings here to act as your fiddle yard and hide the lot behind a back scene. If you are not familiar with term "fiddle yard" then think of your layout as a theatre. The scenic area is the stage, trains come on from either side stop at the station and then proceed off again. The fiddle yard is "back stage". An area hidden from view and normally not treated with scenery. It is normally just a bank of sidings where trains wait their turn to appear. As it stands you layout has nowhere to store trains that are not in use (you can store locos at the TMD but what about the coaches and wagons?). I don't know how much stock you own at the moment but promise me, you will get more. I would redesign your layout to include a fiddle yard at the rear. If you want an idea of how this might look when finished then take a look at "Welham Green" by the late Andy Calvert. This did an excellent job of creating the feel of a mainline and depot despite the baseboard only being 6'x2'. Given that you want to include a station, I would advise increaing the length to 7'x3' if you can as this will give you a bit more room for some decent platforms. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=46634

After much searching I think I have finally found a picture of it. This shot is from the 1949 film "Blue Lamp" and shows the dairy in the background.

You may be right. Although one thing that springs to mind is I have seen occasional references to milk traffic from Felindre (whih is a mile to the south). Perhaps it is just the name or perhaps it had no rail connection as you suggest.

Also just found this Creamery at Llangadog. It is right by the station so I guess it was rail-served at some point. http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?cid=8953444552237870989

There was also one at Marylebone on the Rossmore Road overbridge (I think it was Express Dairies). There is a photo of it here after milk trains had stopped but before it was demolished. It is the rather non-descript 1920s industrial building on the right. http://daverowland.fotopic.net/p48050807.html Is this the one? http://www.peoplescollection.co.uk/Item/14061

Ah, perhaps that is why I have not been able to find ny pictures of it.

Does anyone have a photograph showing the bottling plant at Kensington? It seemed to receive a lot of traffic but I have been unable to identify it in any photos.

Sounds like they would get on like a house on fire!

I like it, looks like it has a lot of operating potential. If you are looking for an idea for rail-served industry on the back siding then either a Creamery or a china clay dries would be very prototypical for the west-country and allow you to run some distinctive goods stock.

I recall reading that PBVs started to be painted in brown around 1934 as an economy measure. I cannot remember the source though so best to try and verify this.

I believe that 2 Peco streamline points arranged in a cross-over will give a centre-to-centre distance of 50mm in 00. This equates to 12.5' or a distance between adjacent rails of 8'. This means it is about 33% overscale as others have mentioned.

I am not sure it is a question of effort. Dapol used to darkened wheels and motions, it is only the Manor, B1 and Brit which have suddenly gone shiny. This leads me to suspect that it is a deliberate decision (and not one I like). Perhaps they are assuming that as the loco body is being supplied ex-works, the metalwork should be too. Personally I am not a fan of shiny motions, too much of a throwback to the Poole-era.

Collett BGs would have been the most common followed by Hawksworth. I have not seen any pics of Mk1 BGs on these workings, I think they were still too new at the time. I have a nice shot of K40 W36 in lined Maroon with milk train brandings (kits in both 00 and N for this diagram). Visiting ex-LMS coaches did get used too as the above photo shows. I think that this is from lot 1198. I am guessing you are refering to the diagram O13 milk brakes. These were withdrawn around 1960 (although at least one went in departmental use) and in any case there were far too few of them to cover all the milk diagrams on the GWR. Practice was always to use old passenger BGs. I have a nice photo of a Star hauling a milk train around nationalisation with an old clerestory BG at the back.

Not rear or above but there are some here of a loco "in-situ" on a layout. I must say it looks better in a real setting than some of the "cruel enlargement" shots. http://www.ness-st.co.uk/links.html I think that digital photos can overemphasive issues that are scarcely visible at normal viewing distances.

That is looking very impressive SB! I saw the begginings of this layout on RmWeb3 but I missed its move to the new forum. I am particularly impressed by your 3-SUB, it captures the feel of the prototype very well. I admire your skill in crafting this out of the old Farish coaches (finally a use for them ). I am looking forward to seeing the scenic work take shape. Like you I have a strong soft-spot for art-deco architecture and the work you have done looks very good indeed. I appluad you for choosing to model a subject that you clearly love rather than simply settling for something easily available. You are well on your way to a unique and outstanding layout.

I have also been working on that assumption although DapolDave did not reply when I asked directly earlier in the thread (no offence taken, I am sure he has better things to do with his time than answer every question posted on here). However with the Ixion Manor the coupling rods were silver so anything is possible. I would also be interested in this possibilty. Although the hauling power of the 9F is more than adequate for the small layout I have planned, an increase in slow speed conrtrol would be very welcome.

If Dave is still collecting research now then my guess is that might be cutting it too fine for Warley. They have to get the plates designed, approved, manufactured and then the finished locos shipped over in a matter of weeks. I gather that there have been some manufacturing strikes in China this year so factories may have a backlog to make up. While it would be nice if they are ready for Warley, surely it is better for Dapol to take a bit more time and make sure everything is right. Personally I am still keeping my fingers crossed that it will go through the shrinking machine and come out in N gauge too.

Anyone really concerned can try to track down the old Citdel Miniatures plastics produced in the 1980s. These are quite a bit smaller than the current models and came 2 to a sprue with 2 cybermen. Here is a pic of the Dalek range with the Citadel Dalek far left (and noticibly smaller). Here is a pic of the sprue. http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?PHPSESSID=847a201a4f85568a3b75516ad3c7ee32&topic=15304.15 Ebay is probably the best bet if you are seriously concerned about scale, otherwise the Black Tree models aer easily available and should satisfy most people looking to include an amusing cameo in their layout. Now how about in N gauge?????

Ah but if the cybermen are tall than the standard human figures then you will probably have an 8-9' scale cyberman. Either way I agree with the above point that it probably would not show too much. The eye is very good at noticing discrepancies between objects that are meant to be the same size, not the same scale. It has a hard time noticing the discrepancy between different types of object (passengers being slightly out of scale for example). It has an even harder time when the objects in question are not encountered every day (anyone encountering Daleks on a regular basis either works for the BBC or needs their medication adjusting ). In short I think that Daleks being overscale by 20% will not really show since we are not used to seeing Daleks getting on trains anyway.

A while back somone produced some cast whitemetal daleks for wargaming with. I think they were in 28mm scale which is roughly right for 00 gauge. http://www.blacktreedesign.com/europe/product.php?productid=23093&cat=2302&bestseller=Y

That is a very good question although not one I can answer. The description mentions that the plate from D6304 has been changed from 1958 to 1959 with a chisel! Perhaps it would be best to assume that these plates are not necessarily representative.

Hi Dave, There is a nice picture of an NBL worksplate here. The date would be loco specific. Unlike the steam engine worksplates, the D6300 plates did not carry the engine number on the front, just the year. http://www.cat-flap.demon.co.uk/nb.htm I believe the dimensions were 12" x 5" although I am not 100% positive on this. The colour is a tricky one. The plates on the larger D600s were painted red but all the D6300 colour photos I can find show them as being black. Below are a selection of photos where the colour is clearly visible. http://www.rail-online.co.uk/gallery.aspx?id=77f7eb7b-900d-45ec-99b8-006a17a6506d http://www.railblue.com/pages/Photo%20Galleries/David%20Mant%20Collection/DMC_D6356_RG_250267.htm http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/D6343,_d7072_-_old_oak_common_-_1965.jpg Unless anyone knows of pictures showing any class 22s with red plates, I would go for black. There are pictures here of the worksplates for D6300 and D6304, both of which are black. http://www.gwra.co.uk/CATALOGUES/Nov2009.htm http://www.gwra.co.uk/Album%20Nov%2009/WEBCAT%20HTML/18.htm

Hello, It looks smashing and I am seriously contemplating getting one (even if it is much too big for a west-country branch line ). Can you tell us if the motions will be blackened on the final product?