Corbs

Agreed! Dave's work has something about it that sets it apart.

Wasn't there a story that the first one out of the shop had a copper capped chimney, and Stanier wasn't very happy with it?

We try to use the train for work, but a lot of the time it just is not competitive. Two weeks ago we needed to go to a meeting in Richmond, which started at 9am. Our office is in Bristol and there were three of us travelling. A comfortable medium sized estate hire car cost £65 plus £40 fuel, whereas the price for three of us (just to get from Bristol to London) would have been £612.

Chaps, does anyone know what the colour of Sussex's new livery at Stewarts and Lloyds was? It looks quite bright from the black and white photo.

Not a whole lot of progress so far this week. There's a loss of dexterity in my hands, I'm trying to work out if it's a side effect of having a cold or possibly RSI from using the laptop. Clumsier than usual and keep making mistakes which is concerning. Hopefully will be back to normal soon. Anyway I got my big buffers from RT Models and was able to 'finish' number 7 for the time being. There's more I want to do to both of the Kitsons but I'm putting them to one side for now to try and finish some other projects.

Thankfully the Reverend Awdry provided a rough translation as 'Lake in the woods' and 'Divided waterfall' (which is almost the ramse as the Manx and Gaelic) respectively.

Unfortunately I fear that 0-6-0 adaptations of current 0-4-0 models are unlikely as they will be deemed as too similar to justify whole new sets of tooling etc.

Yes I think he is planning on one. This was his previous Henry Mk.1

Knuckles of this parish is doing a rendition of that at the moment (he's already made one I believe)

Dave, here's a curveball (easily ignored). Have you thought about a different kind of layout, rather than a supplier or source (as you have done with the output sidings at Nant Y Mynydd, River Don and White Peak), you could model a way of tying all three layouts together so they can be operated as one whole? Like a set of exchange sidings? Where trains arrive and get broken up to distribute to each of the locations, or maybe coal gets taken from Nant to River Don, then steel carried away from River Don, etc.?

Interesting. I have the Cambrian kit, which I bought specifically to bash into the ex-turbot used as a passenger wagon by the BHR, but I'd rather start with an RTR model.

How the heck have I missed this thread until now?! Great stuff Mr. Ruston.

Thank you for taking the time to do that, Dave. Great to see the layout photos again.

Wasn't the Class 57 was a way of solving the above problems when the WCML upgrades were going on?

Oh yes! Or maybe even 21 seasons on TV!

The two above look believable, more modern versions of the class 74!

It was once said of Tolkein that he ended up writing the Lord of the Rings as a by-product of creating the Elvish language. Whilst not quite as expansive as Middle-Earth (or even Westeros), I think Wilbert and George Awdry had a lot of fun creating the world of Sodor. The elusive book 'THE ISLAND OF SODOR; Its people, history and railways' is all about building the world that the stories inhabit, with its own colourful history. My modelling is my own take on this world, I've changed some details, but I share the belief that everything in this world should have a reason to be there. To this extremely nerdy end, for the last 4 years I've been building up a 'master document', a sprawling spreadsheet of info, made-up history and justification, using TIOS as the base and building my own world on top of it. This document is constantly changing and evolving, but I thought I'd post about it for a change. One of the sheets is an attempt to decipher the Sudric language. The Rev. Awdry provides a few translations for place names etc. in his guide, which was a good starting point. I thought it would be interesting to compare it to Manx (the real-life neighbouring island), then English, then Gaelic (Irish and Scottish) and Latin. I also tried translating a few words and phrases for which I had no Sudric counterpart, to see what it came out with. I've uploaded a screenshot of this here. I found it quite interesting to see the routes of the words (in fact I'm currently reading a book called The Etymoligicon) and thought it may be of interest to others.

The disc wheels were such a prominent feature of the prototype, it's good that you are taking the time to replicate them properly. Really looking forward to seeing it strutting its stuff on Weston and Clevedon. Coincidentally I was mucking about with a spreadsheet on WC&PR locos earlier today. I'd always thought of it as having a huge loco stud as I was used to looking at the long stock list, but once I'd plotted the dates in use I found it usually only had 4 steam locos in use at any time (with a maximum of 6). It was also interesting to see how long the big Manning Wardles 3 and 5 stuck it out for compared to other locos. Then again, one wonders if Hesperus might have survived to the end if it hadn't broken the bridge...

Right then, got the couplings, fitted them, and.... The loco could not pull them. Unsurprisingly the wheels weren't turning! Following some advice, I filed down the ends of the axles and opened the holes a bit, and set about adding some weight. I used some L-section styrene to build some underframe boxes, splashed some glue in there, and poured in 'liquid gravity - small lead pellets. From outside it should hopefully look like reinforced solebars. Here they are with the paint drying I am pleased to say it works well! Skarloey can pull the train without many issues, but... The curse of Talyllyn strikes again! I've just finished reading 'Talyllyn and Corris Locomotives Vol I and II' (great read, full of anecdotes and info) as well as 'The Chronicles of Pendre Sidings' (also a good'un) and the trials and tribulations of TR No.1's long fixed wheelbase. What is happening now is that, without much in the way of springing or compensation in the trailing axle, over any undulation in the track, Skarloey's middle drivers are being lifted up and unable to make enough contact, resulting in wheelspin. I'm going to see if simply adding weight will work. I removed the ballast weights early on to fit the RC gear, but I may be able to saw off the bunker weights (it's all one piece) and just glue the tank weights in on their own. We shall see....

Non-fictional-ness aside, that's a very pretty train.

Whilst at home with the traditional seasonal cold bug, why not indulge in a bit of train set fun on the living room floor? TK&F No.6 and 7 were both out zooming around. No.7 unfortunately dropped a rod which needs seeing to - possibly a bigger washer is needed. No.6, whilst still in need of a cylinder 'trim', was exemplary. The whitemetal body adds so much, it was able to pull a heavily-weighted 16 wagon goods train a lot easier than even 'Thomas', which struggled with a lot of slipping and needed banking assistance on the DVD-case built incline.

All quiet from Farthing recently, how are things going?

Oddly it puts me in mind of a SG version of the Ffestiniog's 'tin car' carriages.

Do you have any plans to release the W&U coaches on Shapeways Simon?

This is interesting, looking back at the CAD, 1364 doesn't have splashers (the only one which doesn't, by the looks of it)