Hollar

I've used computers since the early 70s, when tiny hard discs lasted only 20 minutes and the fastest network connection available was to put a 360k diskette in your pocket and take it somewhere on the bus, and I started playing with digital music and photography in the 1980s. So I am distinctly old-school when it comes to backups. Currently I have everything backed up in the cloud, with an iCloud contract to make incremental backups automatically several times a day. Locally I have three generations of monthly back up on separate discs, plus a fourth irregular disc backup at a brother's house. Plus separate additional systems for my high-definition music files. Paranoid? Moi? Certainly, and still something occasionally goes AWOL. The iCloud setup is very probably enough on its own, but with family photos etc probably isn't good enough. Tone

If you want a quick, quality and permanent solution, 247 developments have every N7 number available as an etch smokebox plate. They are friendly and efficient, and I can recommend them as a satisfied customer, including the smokebox plates they produce on demand, for numbers they don't already cover. Tony

Certainly a layout at pains to emphasise the vertical dimension. I might have been a bit scornful of the anorexic railcar if I hadn't seen something similar (laid up for "restoration") at a preserved mineral tramway in Tasmania. It was used for taking the workforce down to the quay when there was a ship to load. With three trains a day at the height of the operating season, it boasts the busiest level crossing on the island. The permanent way would shake the fillings out of a set of dentures but it was delightfully as-was in everything except the seats in the trucks. I remember the work of J K Nelson, who pioneered the use of perspective in modelling. His home layout had HO trains running in the foreground and 2FS on the embankment in the middle distance - entirely convincing. He was the prefectionist's perfectionist. He told me that the steelwork on his Runcorn Bridge was cut individually piece by piece to use perspective to fool the eye that it was longer than it actually was. He may have been being mischevious but given the quality of his other work,probably not. Tone

A pedant writes: Westward Ho! had a little station on the Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore Railway. Like the GWR it was never connected to the national network, though in this case it was because Bideford Council wouldn't let them run their line as a tramway over the river bridge. Closed in 1917 because of the war, largely unlamented (like the West Clare Railway it was pretty well quicker to walk, I would guess). You can still see the site of the station in Appledore. Tone

I've also not been impressed by most of the DCC sound I've heard. However, I was entranced by a sound-equipped Sutton Loco Class 24 which I saw in John Brighton's Millhouses layout. This was a high-end chipped, expertly tweaked and driven by John, who is as competent with DCC and anyone I know. It was, in fact, just like the real thing. Apart from the fun we were having turning the diesel on and off, slamming the cab doors and stuff like that. So it can work. Tone

He certainly is. My experience is that anything from any SEF kits is available on request, and with you in a couple of days. Not true of every model railway supplier, to put it mildly. Tone

A strange definition of evidence for an academic. More like anecdote. Tony

Accurate recollection of colour is extremely fugitive. I'd be happy to stand corrected by an expert, but remember reading something recently that 20 minutes is about the limit for anything precise. Certainly my experience of hearing evidence in court is that eyewitness memory of colour is almost as flaky as estimates of how long things went on for. Tone

My favourite restaurant might be a partial answer. Ghanaian, apparently, up Stamford Hill. A sad day when it turned into a Tesco Metro Tone

Maybe he was confused an Maybe it was a palfrey that William III was riding, and which stepped on the little gentleman in the black velvet coat flinging him to his death and providing an Irish dissident toast for centuries. Tone

I made a complete hames of my attempt to build the Bradwell hopper, which ended up in the bin looking like some small, jagged modern sculpture with not a right angle to be seen. Didn't pay attention to the instructions. And it wasn't because I didn't realise how important they were. After all, I worked to the letter of the instructions when building my Bradwell Consett hoppers and complex though they were they just fell together. Over a significant number of hours, admittedly and with long-term scarring to the fingers. Ironically, given their state when operating, these are almost the only as-new wagons I have built. Cerdit where it is due: The bogies were a bit of a challenge, but luckily Ted Scannell got interested in them when he saw them, and he had them running like silk within about 10 minutes. This is the man who, for fun, fitted working brakes to a 4mm open wagon. Tone

Some while ago (I'm afraid I don't have it to hand so can't give a proper citation) MRJ published a brilliant method for painting teak. I don't have any teak-finish coaches myself but was impressed and intrigued enough to try it out on the interiors of some coaches I was building. It is by no means a quick fix. It took a few dodgy results before began to get the hang of it. but after that I got a far, far better representation of varnished hardwood than I had managed before. I stopped thinking that it was a shame that railways took so long to appreciate the virtues of magnolia melamine surfaces and aluminium trim. New to me was the use of a "comb brush" to achieve the grain effect. This is like a normal, if thin flattie brush except that the business end is like a comb rather than a straight line. Since buying a couple (from Atlantis, I think) I've found them really useful for all sorts of subtle weathering and accenting. Tone

I had a similar experience as a visitor at a local club, there to see whether I should break the habit of a lifetime and join up.The conversation at the bar got onto the Accurascale hoppers, and what great models they are. To loud murmurs of agreement someone said that what was really great about them was the huge range of numbers being introduced, which meant that he didn't have t wait for years until he had enough different ones to make a proper train. When I countered that it's easy enough to get some variety (by using t-cut or similar and commercial transfers they, to quote Alice's Restaurant, all went quiet and moved away from me on the bench there. After reading this thread, I think the speaker probably worried about damaging the resale value of his investment. And holding onto the good parts at least he wasn't happily running a train of identically-numbered wagons. It's a broad hobby and there is no place here for a moral judgement, but I was happy to go home to the peaceful ruination of another perfectly good kit, as I teach myself to use the airbrush. Tone

I do much the same, except that for plastic locos I (a) drill a smallish hole in the footplate, (b) file the end of the staple to a point, © force it carefully but firmly into the hole, (d) add a drop of superglue for luck. Then I trim them to length, gently file the bit you can see to more believable dimensions (and if the staple comes loose it clearly wasn't firmly enough) and add any tiny horizontal bit in styrene or brass. A bit blacksmithy, but it looks ok and with a pair of pliers you can pick the engine up by the lamp iron. I got fed up with lovely etched lamp irons falling off the moment you had achieved a decent paint finish. Tone

I have had a reply from Steve Cole, publisher of BRM, with an explanation of why the figured look as though they should be starting as tackles for the Washington Redskins: We’re sorry about the overscale issue. During the mass reproduction process it appears the scale was slightly out. Apologies. In fairness, Steve offered to send me the next two issues free,but i thanked him nicely and said I would just draw a line under it. Tone

Tollesbury is a beautiful little layout, which is a hard thing to achieve for spectators who, like me, know your the location pretty well. It's evidence that something can look 100% convincingly real, without actually being based on . All you have to do is build it with a knowledge of the area that is both profound and backed by instinct, painstaking care, and enough discipline not to invent a specious lineside industry for the sake of more traffic. I think I last saw it at Railex, where the operators were sitting in front of a large cheerful sign apologising for having left the sky at home. Some days I know just how they felt. It's not the only way to build a railway, but it is layouts like Tollesbury, Black Dog and St Merryn that make my jaw drop when I see them. Tone

I know there may be sensitivities here, but the four "OO" figures offered as free gift on the latest BRM portray very large men indeed. One scales as a very burly 6 foot 9. I will look gift horses more carefully in the mouth in future. Tone

I do have the occasional qualm about my hobby getting me into trouble with the law. My Hollar Models posters are packed in just the same self-seal bags that you often hear about in TV dramas and in court and I keep a stock of up to a thousand, I have a huge jar of white powder (talc) on my workbench, along with several bottles of different acids (the stainless steel flux in particular being quite lethal). Then there is (are?) the electronic scales also beloved by police giving evidence. And all the knives of course, including the amazingly lethal roll of tools I took in the car to Pendon for their scenery* and buildings courses. And some old paints, and aerosols that can't be sold any more and may be illegal to possess, but I've never got round to taking to the council dump. Context is all, of course, and you might be surprised how many enterprising lads in the chemicals business come to police attention because they let their car insurance lapse, jump red lights or use speed bumps as launch ramps. It's not like dealing with Moriarty, on the whole. Tone * In passing, Gordon Gravett's scenery course at Pendon was the best training course of any kind I have ever attended. Instructive, inspiring and huge fun I went straight home and built a perfectly respectable diorama to use as a photographic backdrop for new models.

When my son was young he loved the Thomas stories, but reading them with him always left me discontented with the 1950s-deferential milieu (not to mention the sexism). In the end I started making up my own. My favourite (and James's) was when the two Scottish locos came over and unionised their workmates. At the height of the strike Sir T Hatt came out to try an coerce them back to work. He was routed when either Donal or Doogie went up to him and said "See you fatty. See me, See my buffers . .." Whereupon decent working conditions were restored. Happy days. Tone

It all depends, as Dr Joad (and my old philosophy tutor) used to say, on what you meanto indicate by the word "real". He said, fanning the fuse. Tone

As I understand it, the basic wagon stock was pooled between the big four, in order to minimise empty workings, so the proportion of revenue-earning wagons on any company's metals would more or less the national figures. Specialist stock (? eg fish vans) wasn't Common User but almost everything was. Tone (Apologies - already been said, and better. Must try getting up before midday )

I can recommend the Red Hot Chili Pipers for those who prefer to eat their tattie scone while skirling. The live album in particular. This gives a flavour, but they also offer airs with more traditional sources Tone

Presumably with prospective buyers outside jibbing at the price. Sorry about that, must be the hangover, Tone

And a similar frustration occurs when you have put in a bit of effort to add those last little refinements to a really nice RTR model of the BR cattle wagon, and along comes the latest Scalefour News with the unwelcome information that it is several feet too long. Which of course it is. I'm finishing the paint job today, but I haven't decided yet whether to segregate them from my lovely detailed Airfix conversions, or sell the damn things on eBay and hope to get my money back - if not my time. As was said earlier, there is a casual carelessness about RTR wagon production that ranks alongside to their loco products 30 years ago. I am looking forward to Accurascale's first steam-age wagons. Perhaps they can be persuaded to produce at least one of those 5-plank open goods wagons that we so lack as accurate RTRs. Tone