HeavyDuty

Thank you all for your comments about lamp brackets - I will look for photos so I can add them to my vans. I'm sure I can find an appropriate detail part or bend them out of brass strip stock if I can find dimensions.

But isn't "Americanism" as you put it just a local dialect, thus acceptable? You are contradicting yourself.

A question regarding lamp irons on wagons - I have to admit this is a detail I've never noticed before. Would I be correct in assuming they would only be applied to fitted stock?

My 15 has been running in on my rolling road for the last two hours, it runs beautifully. One unforeseen problem, though - my DCC system at home is a simple early Digitrax Zephyr that can only access F0-F9, so I need to look at an upgrade before I can finish playing with the 15's higher sound functions! I like the Zephyr's form factor for the workbench, so maybe a Zephyr Xtra.

Very nice, John - thank you for linking your thread! The new vans seem to be better in that regard than the first wagons, but I'm sure there is still much that can be improved if desired.

John, I for one would find a step-by-step guide of what you did to upgrade your wagon with Bill Bedford components to be extremely useful!

Brown Santa (Brown Father Christmas?) just delivered my plain green 15 to the office. Absolutely stunning!

I've found that the same solvent Kato USA recommends for removing lettering from their products works on my vans - it removes the white with minimal effect on the bauxite and requires no rubbing which can cause polishing of the wagon paint. It's a Japanese product called "Mr. Color Thinner." It's no longer resold by Kato USA but is readily available on Amazon here, and also in the UK, too. There are several products with similar names, I'm told you *do not* want the leveling filler! https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hobby-250ml-Color-Thinner-103/dp/B000VYWPGM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1487257896&sr=8-2&keywords=Mr+Color+Thinner

One time to have a look under the hood, er, bonnet; another to install the decoder, keep alive and speaker; another to tweak the speaker location; another to resecure the keep alive... etc.

This thread is worrisome. I tried emailing to check stock of an item that was available on the website, and then placed an order a week ago after no reply was received. I'm not worried about the payment - it was via PayPal, they will protect me - but it's an item that I really want! Hopefully they will come through, I sent a followup email earlier today to see if there were any problems. UPDATE: they responded to my email today and immediately refunded my payment through PayPal, the item wasn't available any longer. I have no complaints with how they handled the transaction.

I have several of the 12T vans, and I'm impressed!

I just ordered a pair of the plain blue ones from Invicta and plan to redo them as NPVs with Express Parcels branding - I don't care for preweathered stock. Can anyone suggest a source of appropriate transfers?

Hopefully after the WuM railbus!

Passenger traffic through Rochelle is very rare - special movements and detours only. I did catch this between Sugar Grove and Aurora, but rolled up to the crossing too late to do anything more than two quick (bad) phone pics from the driver's seat. It was BNSF 91 and an idler car.

!!! Hopefully I can see it when I stop at the post office in a few minutes, to get there I drive parallel to the BN C&I. I live about a half mile from the line.

I am very obviously a child of the 70s, because my mind went somewhere completely different from this comment. Exceptional modeling, this is one of the layouts here that I always look to for inspiration on how to create a believable scene.

Others already covered this, but let me add the first time is the worst - it's easier after that.

Happily running in my plain green 350 before I add numbers and install the sound decoder...

My 15 should be on the way by now - hopefully Steve used African Swallows instead of European, the model is a heavy one. Does anyone care to share more pics of theirs?

I really like your painting turntable idea! I'm shamelessly stealing it...

And here, too - thank you for the direct link, Steve!

I tried that last night on my iPad, but it wasn't clickable. Maybe I tried too soon?

Noisy plain green 15 ordered!

I thought that was just trucks?

"HO, f### off." And in Canada: "HO, f### off, eh?"