CWJ

Similar examples: Referring to the filters on traffic lights as 'feathers' Saying 'Ping!' on the approach to green signals Responding to a flashing amber light at a pedestrian crossing with, "Eh up, he's putting us inside" Any contra-flow situation stimulates remarks about running 'bang road' Obviously only an eccentric crank would actually say any of these things... 😳

When you're in the car with fellow railway folk (it's even more enjoyable if a 'normal' or non-railway person is in the car too) and this sign appears in the distance... ...and the driver quietly murmurs, "Banner's off". Nobody says anything and the journey continues. (This post will either prove I'm among like-minded people or completely alienate me!)

A slightly wacky alternative: could you cut-and-shut the brake coach using a Mk3 body and various small windows, guard's doors etc from an old Airfix Mk2 or similar? I'm not 100% sure if the body profile of an air-con Mk2 matches that of a Mk3, but I'm sure someone will know. Cheers, Will

I can't be the only one who's slightly disappointed that we won't be seeing one of these trains trundling along!

There's a video of the work at Stalybridge here: https://thetrupgrade.co.uk/tru-news/major-railway-upgrades-in-stalybridge-reach-pivotal-halfway-point/ Cheers, Will

It's all a bit bonkers, isn't it? Especially when NR have to jump through a lot of hoops to spend taxpayers' money on anything. I hope the gantry was removed because it was in the wrong place for the new track layout, or perhaps because modern, lightweight signal posts can be folded down to ground level for maintenance rather than someone having to climb the gantry and get close to the OLE? These would be sensible reasons, although still wasteful so soon after the gantry was first built. I would like to think that if the only concern was electrical clearances being non-compliant, NR could have applied for some kind of derogation on the grounds that the gantry was there before the latest clearance standards were introduced. Cheers, Will

I do love how RMWeb can take you by surprise with the diversity of its content 😀 I came here expecting to hear middle-class retired chaps* with spectacles on a cord round their neck having polite but stubborn conversations about whether Gresley's carriage door knobs were round or slightly oval; instead I was greeted by a cross between embarrassing bodies and an Eminem record. It's like walking into a pub when someone's halfway through a random conversation. Joyous! Cheers, Will (* I'm deliberately generalising, other categories of modeller are available, please don't be offended)

I thought that too! Perhaps it's the photo's composition, with the rails below and wires above emphasising the speed. It could be an advertising image. Cheers, Will

Having drilled out the head and tail lamps at both ends, today I started on the windscreens. The first challenge was to create the nose-end fold in my delicate etched windscreen. You can see what this looks like with the separate opening window in place in the first photo 5 posts above this one. I bent the windscreen in the vice using a metal block (business end of a small try-square) to give a neat fold. ...which worked better than I'd expected. As a reminder, here's the unmodified model: I don't like to get all critical on the internet about products which someone somewhere has worked hard to create, but the Corgi Balloon is what it is - a fleet of diversely-modified tramcars represented by one robust casting. Here's a real one with the windscreen layout I'm trying to replicate: Photo: David Dixon Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ ...and here's mine after I filed open the die-cast windows and plonked my etched windscreen loosely in position: Obviously it needs gluing, gaps filling, the opening window adding, painting, glazing and generally tidying up, but I hope it will give me flush glazing and a finer appearance. Now give me a few days to summon up the motivation to file out the windscreens at the other end. Only a small file will fit so it's a long job! Cheers, Will

Today I had a go at etching the above frets. Let's get the bad news out of the way first... The stainless steel went in the tank, and after a while the water had gone dark brown. Not a problem, I thought, it's a very different metal from brass and the current was flowing happily. But alas all was not happy. The steel has been eaten away around the edges long before the holes in the middle (most of the silver areas) were etched through. The toner was badly damaged too. So I set the other steel frets aside until I've read up on what could be going wrong. The brass frets, meanwhile, went really well. These are some little brackets to be folded up for attaching to a DMU underframe. While rubbing the toner off to make a nice 'Instagrammable' photo for this thread quite a few broke off, but that doesn't matter. I'll try soaking in acetone to remove the toner next time. The fine detail is amazing on these, and I learnt that holes below a certain diameter don't etch all the way through, which is useful. Learning my lesson, I took this photo before removing the toner. There are a few minor defects, mostly because of toner transfer imperfections, but almost all of the parts are useable. The biggest problem is that my grilles are a bit too ambitious so the holes haven't etched all the way through, while two thick half-etched lines near the bottom have broken through. It's as if the electric current prefers flowing through some psrts of the fret more than others. Nonetheless, almost all of the parts are useable, and I enjoyed cleaning them up and folding one or two into their final shapes. Finally, I've started writing a 'How To Guide' for others to follow without going through as much trial and error as me. This now on hold until I work out how to etch stainless steel! Cheers, Will

Full of confidence after my last etch, I decided to make a batch of 6 for another project, and to re-do some of the tram parts in stainless steel. The words 'full of confidence' may give you a clue as to how this went... Most of them looked something like this. The iron-and-rolling-pin technique is very difficult when the image is printed on waxed label paper, because the brass has a tendency to slip around, smudging the toner. Experimentally, I tried transferring toner from a sheet if plain paper. As you can see, there's a reason why nobody recommends this! The toner has such a good grip on the uncoated paper that when you remove the paper in warm water all the toner comes off with it. This one worked though! With a bit of practice I learnt to iron and roll without imparting any sideways movement on the paper. I'm re-doing some of my tram parts in stainless steel to make them stronger. The next day I printed the failed ones on magazine paper, as I've had the most success with transferring toner this way. There are a few blemishes here and there, but this has basically worked. By the way, I browsed the magazine shelves for something without too many photos or graphics (ending up with The Spectator as it happens!) As this makes it much easier to align the two sides.

I sometimes travel on these and had also noticed the roof of the centre car having different weathering applied - how unrealistic! I've also noticed that the centre car's cab has blackened windows and things like the windscreen wiper have been removed. The cab desk is still intact. The centre car is in a slightly different livery without the blue ends, and it has some extra electrical jumpers on the cab end (presumably for retro-fitted systems like WiFi and CCTV). One set (150006 I think?) has a name applied under the front end unit numbers. Not my area, but one of these sets would make a nice modelling project for someone. Bearing in mind the title of this thread, I really should get some photos! Cheers, Will

Hi Pete, I only have photos of the pointy end, unfortunately, but there are a couple of useful side views here: https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/nmrtrain Cheers, Will

What's that? You want MORE pictures of a Blackpool tram being hacked to bits? Finally for today, I made a start on drilling out the headlights for LEDs. I had hoped to come up with a clever way of marking the centre of each lamp so I could drill in exactly the right place. No doubt someone on here will know the perfect technique, but it eluded me! So here are the headlamps with a 1.5mm hole drilled as close to the centre as I could manage by eye using a cordless drill (i.e. not a mini-drill). Not remotely central! Thankfully this metal is fairly soft so with a bit of naughty sideways jiggling of the drill bit I was able to expand the holes towards the centre of each lamp. By the way, this was a bit tiny to see clearly so I used these close-up photos to help me. The headlamps were then opened out to 2mm to make the holes round again. Not looking too bad now. I had also started to drill out the tail lamp on the right using a 1mm bit in a pin vice (the archimedes screw type). The headlamps were finally opened out to 2.5mm, still using the cordless drill but on a slow speed now as the lamp frames are quite thin. Here's the result: nice thin headlamp frames and the first tail lamp drilled out to its final size of 1.5mm. It'll look neater once the paint's touched up, but the black bumper needs removing first - that'll be fun! At this point I was summoned back into the house but I hope to do a bit more on my lunch break tomorrow. That's enough of that, we'll all be seeing tram headlamps in our sleep now. Cheers, Will

Next it was time to remove the bogie sideframes which are an integral part of the body casting. One 'bogie' removed, one to go. The masking tape is to protect the paintwork... ...from all this! I removed the bulk with a coarse file, then used medium and fine ones to tidy up the edges. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but to me this looks so much better already, even though it's only an empty shell of half a tram! The challenge is on to build some working bogies now. To be continued...

One of the etched bumpers fell apart while I was handling it, so I don't think they'd be strong enough even with soldered folds. I've modified the artwork to reinforce the weakest areas and will re-do them in stainless steel for extra strength. In the meantime I've continued on the tram body. I intend to flush-glaze the cab fronts so the moulded glazing needed to be removed from both ends. I carefully marked the cuts so that they'll be hidden behind window frames/pillars, using a try-square and fine permanent marker. They were then removed using a razor saw. That will do for now, but I might need to remove a bit more plastic later when I come to fit the etched brass windscreen. I then drilled some holes in the 'ceiling' of the glazing unit to make room for the interior lighting LEDs. This type of plastic is quite brittle so I used the pillar drill on a high RPM but lowering the bit slowly and carefully. Here are the three main parts that make up the bottom deck. The holes in the glazing unit will be painted black to prevent the light from the LEDs fibre-opticking* its way down the windows. (* if that's not a word it should be!) More to follow...

Did anyone else think the first of these photos had just blue sky in the background until they looked closer? The second one will always be the ultimate Austrian loco to those of us in a very specific age bracket who played with Lego trains in the mid-1990s. Great photos as always, thank you, David. Cheers, Will

I've used it recently, coincidentally. Their service was excellent when dealing with a minor mistake in my order, although I'm not certain whether I was dealing with Light Railway Stores or the manufacturer. So amalgamating small suppliers into one website doesn't necessarily mean losing the human touch.

Well my question has certainly sparked a good conversation; thanks for all the contributions so far. Particularly interesting to hear about the export angle. Just a polite request: let's leave the Brexit banter there, shall we, and stick to toy trains please? Cheers, Will (It'll now go eerily quiet. British folk have spent the last 7 years getting used to debating nothing but Brexit 🙂)

I expect those of us who enjoy tinkering with bits of brass and plastic are in the minority and everyone else only buys 'kits and bits' out of necessity, i.e. to create something not available RTR. That necessity must have reduced drastically over the last 15-20 years as the RTR world has exploded from pretty much 2 or 3 manufacturers each releasing a new model every year or two into the current very fruitful market where the likes of Accurascale seem to bring out a new loco every week! Kitbuilding must have become much more of a niche hobby, but it would be a tragedy if it died out, wouldn't it? It'll be interesting to see what the next few decades hold, as the baby boom generation moves on and people of my age have (generally speaking) less money and a later retirement age to hamper our modelling time. This might cause a reduction in RTR releases and a resurgence in kit-bashing... who knows?! Cheers, Will

I feel your pain, I've been there too!

Thanks for all your very interesting responses. It's nice to know I'm not alone, but John makes a good point that small suppliers may not be under any pressure to sell large volumes, so they get by happily with phone/mail order business only. Perhaps that will gradually change as the last remaining customers move to electronic banking and use the internet more. Cheers, Will

Morning All, I should start by saying that I love the proliferation of smaller manufacturers who are good enough to sell a vast range of unusual and obscure bits and bobs which, without them, we would have to fashion by hand or do without. So this isn't a criticism of the suppliers, it's a question for their customers. Does anyone else find they're about 100 times more likely to buy something if the supplier has an online shop? I've recently returned to the hobby after a 10-year gap and am surprised to find that while some cottage industries have set up modern websites from which to sell their products, others are still in the era of photocopied price lists and cheque books. A discussion on the Eileen's Emporium thread got me thinking about this. I'm sure the cost of building and running an online shop is not negligible, but in the post-pandemic age I'd have thought it pretty much essential if you want your stuff to sell well. I for one am not keen on spending money with a supplier who only describes their product briefly (e.g. "whitemetal Class 47 buffers" could be really fine, detailed castings or crude blobs from a 50-year-old mould*), with no photos, and needs me to ring them up during office hours when I'm supposed to be working, giving my card details over the phone (presumably with no security back-up from my bank if anything goes wrong?) and hoping they hear me correctly. Or worse, having to fill in an order form, hope they work out exactly which variants of which product my handwriting is describing, find my 20-year-old cheque book and post the order to them. If it's the kind of product only made occasionally in batches, rather than off the shelf, I won't know whether my order has even been received until the delivery arrives. I repeat: I'm not saying this to criticise the suppliers, I respect the choices they need to make to balance their overheads with their income. Having said that, the ordering rules some suppliers impose on their customers would suggest that manual phone/postal ordering creates a big workload for them and can be a source of misunderstandings. But sadly the honest truth is that the lack of an online shop puts me off. Do others feel the same? Is this something which needs to change in order for our much-needed small suppliers to survive? Or am I expecting too much? Are there people who prefer doing things the traditional way? For the record I turn 40 this year, so while possibly below average age for a railway modeller I'm not exactly a Gen-Z youth either! Nor do I agree with the 'supplier-has-appalling-customer-service-for-not-replying-to-my-email-within-an-hour" brigade; we must cut these manufacturers some slack for running their enterprise in their spare time or with limited resources. Interested to hear what others think! Cheers, Will * this is a fictional example - I have no gripes with any specific product or supplier.

The mid-blue TPE colour on the 350 looks more accurate than that on the Dapol 68 or Accurascale Mk5a, which both have it too pale IMHO*. The purple does look a little under-nourished, but all the colours are affected by being metallic. I'm not sure this scales down very well, as each shiny speck would be about an inch wide in N-scale! But I admire Farish for recreating it, and it probably looks great from normal viewing distance. Being fussy, and knowing the price of models nowadays, the bogies would look better with a coat of paint and, in the case of the 350/4, no collector shoes. My favourite part is the window labels - those TPE coach letters are the kind of detail that brings a model to life. Cheers, Will * for context, I consider those two of the best models of recent years and have purchased both despite having nowhere to run them!

With this next part, I'm pushing the boundaries of what can be etched and what, realistically, I'm remotely capable of assembling! The Corgi Balloon has a solid block to represent the front bumpers and towing block/slot (tram equivalent of buffers and coupling), and I thought this was an opportunity to give my model a bit of finesse ...but only if I can pull it off! So that block won't be filed off my bodyshell until I can assemble the etched replacement. The coupling is folded up into a box shape in the middle and positioned loose on the bumper etch which hasn't yet been folded into shape. Here you can see what I mean about the Corgi model. This livery variant is particularly unfortunate because the bumpers were painted black, so it looks like the big rubber bumper from a go-kart! I'm half-way through folding my bumper here. And here is is all bent and folded into shape. The towing/coupler block will be soldered together and filed down to look a bit more square, as it's too tiny to fold up perfectly. Although these brass parts look chunky in close-up photos, the bumpers are very fragile indeed so I'll need to strengthen them with solder here and there. I hope that doesn't spoil their appearance too much but they wouldn't last two minutes just glued to the front of the tram as they are. That's all for today, but now I've been able to make these parts I can crack on with hacking the body and interiors apart. Cheers, Will