Tom J

I would still be interested to see a re-plated version; having bought another 'Brit' today at Leamington I am also wondering whether the TPM etched deflectors for the Minitrix 'Brit' could be made to fit, as I am wanting to model 70013 as it is now. Also wondering about fashioning an air pump for 70000, for which the original deflectors are correct. £60 a pop is much more like it, price wise(!), although the one I picked has a slightly damaged tender handrail (some solvent will fix) and is missing the bag of 'bits' and spare traction tyres. This one does seem better out of the box, motor is getting warm after a couple of hours running in, but not hot. Dapol Dave advised me that the loco to tender wires will shortly be available as a spare from the usual outlet.

Hmmm.... it's funny actually. The Cornish crews thought they were good at that game, and would often brag about it, but the Bristolians were much, much worse, and never said a word!

I spent a couple of years working at Newton Abbot (this century!) and it's very interesting for me to see where everything was. I did quite a bit of study into the station's long term history for some display boards which were intended to replace the Brendan Neiland Intercity prints (which I had my eye on!) in the end they never got finished because the station manager wouldn't release me to finish them off and I had already spent a lot of my own time on them. What I didn't know was how the place looked in the 80s. It always used to sadden me that, stood on platform 1, looking at the industrial estate, I was never able to picture what sprawling railway vista met you from there. Likewise it was hard to visualise the through road and platform 4 when parking your car on the formation and climbing up onto the platform ready to start work! A few things of interest, from a more recent era. The old office at the east end of plat 3/4 still retains a beautiful parquet floor, and a fireplace if I recall. The barrel safe hidden under the floor is still there, but alas nobody can find a key for it these days. Platform 1/2's buildings were of course predominantly replaced after the station was bombed. That story is a fascinating one, with stories of a rail from platform one flying as far as the bowling lawn at the top of the park, and a 'King' with a strafed tender tank. Asbestos is the reason the buildings are not used, and their fragility. The problem is that they would be a nuisance (and expensive) to take down under the roof and without possessions. Platforms 1/2 suffer from no longer having toilet facilities (the chargeman's 'shed' has one, famous throughout the WR as the place for train crew to leave 'gifts' for the station staff, which the poor bloke then has to cope with for the rest of the night) but the originals were never taken out - there is even some interesting period graffiti in there! The waiting room also still has a beautifully tiled mosaic floor, doubtless original from 1927. Final bit of NTA trivia - the signal gantry outside the old D&C office stands on small patches of land donated to the local council, maybe a yard square under each foot. This was the reason the site was never developed into a Lidl as was at one time anticipated - they couldn't accommodate the gantry in the plans!

Thank you for that - I was short on inspiration for my sermon for Sunday morning and was idly browsing RMWeb as a diversion - I now have my illustration sorted! "You can't just make the perfect family...

Well, after all the stress, expense and heartache caused by my 67s and Britannia, my Dapol experience is improving. The HST seems to have behaved and now my 26 has done four or five hours of running in, my confidence is returning! It really is a lovely model. Just a shame that neither catcher-recesses nor twin headlights have been modelled on any of the releases so far. I would also be interested in unpowered blue ones (so far the only dummy has been the Rails special edition, to my knowledge). Far North and Kyle line trains often had two 26s at the head, to balance locos and retrieve failures, and I would like a pair to sit between my NGS snowploughs. I just hope I can still knuckle down and finish my 24/1 conversion now that I have the '26'!

Simon, I too have recently sat and read this little lot from the beginning. Impressive stuff. Just out of interest, do you always make a sub-structure for your buildings, and then clad it? What thickness plasticard do you use for the inner? Looks quite thick?

Pete, It's been a month or two since I last looked on here, for various reasons. This week I have had another unsuccessful trip from London to Devon to try and get my three year old little lad back in my life. In the weeks spent preparing for court, I've not so much as thought about my own plans to make my own little piece the highlands. Time and budget have other calls on them. The last couple of days, to take my mind off things, I've been cracking out the books, and looking at one or two bits and bobs, and I found myself back here. The very last railway trip I made with my son, a couple of weeks before I saw him for the last time (Dec '10), was a day trip (consecutive nights on the sleeper!) from Euston to Kyle and back. It's a place I first learned of as a kind of myth when I watched Michael Palin's film as a little boy, and which as a railwayman I have since visited and grown to love. Very many happy memories. I wish I was rich enough to make you an offer you couldn't refuse for what is a beautiful little rendition of a very special place. It's lovely. I do hope the layout makes it to an exhibition over here again one day. Thanks for sharing your work on here.

I am a bit confused as to what the first release was now! Am I right in understanding that so far, nothing has been done representing the later locos? Of the first batch only 26015 went to Inverness, and it was modelled in later condition than that... Are we to expect any more releases of this loco please, and will they represent locos at at INV in the 70s, surely one of their most favoured guises? Sad to hear that poor PCB soldering is still common. I have two 67s with faulty lights, (one is a replacement for an original which shorted totally and wouldn't run any more), a dummy HST trailer which flashes its' headlight, and would be disappointed to wind up with a 26 that does the same! Compared to the PCB on my Farish '24', the soldering on Dapol's circuit boards is far less consistent.

Density looks spot on, Pete. You have reminded me of the highlands sufficient to have encouraged me to hit the workbench, and my slightly boz-eyed Class 24/1, today! I think Steve Flint joked in the RM KoT article about putting some peat and seaweed under the layout for effect, but I can almost smell it just looking at that layout. Love it.

Pete, I am normally loathe to offer advice or criticism to someone who is millenia ahead of me in modelling skill, but just this once... ;-) There is always a danger with a photographic background that it detracts from a model which is, by definition, an artistic interpretation. Use of things like 'smart blur' in Photoshop to remove detail but retain sharpness and colour rendering from the backscene image is quite possibly what would help to make the difference. I loved the first backdrop but when it was behind the layout it was the detail rather than the density that drew my eye the most! That said, I would take some density out; having spent many happy (read wet, draughty, mist-ridden) hours on Kyle station and the surrounding area, my recollections of the place are invariably in conditions where the view to Skye and the south was affected by the mist, which is a further case for taking some density out. Retaining a little bit of tonal variation in the sky should help 'keep the eye in' though, so I would go somewhere between the first pair, but do consider judicious loss of detail from the image to help it to quietly support the layout and your fine modelling! Perhaps the use of a smoke machine could simulate those days at Kyle where you could cut the floor-to-ceiling clouds with a knife and fork - my wife has been to Skye twice with me now, and still never seen a thing there...

I have Steve Flint to blame. I'm a child of the 80s so I just about remember the late blue period, but as a kid I modelled preserved steam. I was converted by 'Kyle of Tongue' - indeed I was privileged to do a couple of exhibitions operating KoT and Reighton, which was dated but a few years later. At that time I had never been to Scotland myself but something innate told me this was for me. Since I joined the railway, I have been to Inverness and beyond many times, and I love the area. The Kyle and Far North Lines in the mid 70s just fascinate me - apart from the locos, everything was knocking on - the infrastructure, the rolling stock, you name it. It's like a steam era railway but with the corporate image - and at that, I have found a happy balance. I model the contemporary railway as a memory of what little time I was able to spend introducing my son to the railway, down in the South West, but as pure escapism, I like to slip into a part of the world I love and a decade I never saw!

This traffic came just in time. The branch's future was looking decidedly shaky and people on the railway were having to speak up to save it. Maybe someone will do the decent thing, now that it's been brought out of mothballs, and run a charter up there for the first time in a while. Tyseley Pannier(s), perchance?

Thanks Al - ironically it ran for an hour last night without getting over warm or suffering speed variations! Should the driveshaft be clipped in tight at both ends? I have free movement at the tender end but it doesn't seem to clip home as positively as the front joint. Looking at it cost me one of the pickup wires! PS - what's the best way to remove nameplates without marking the deflectors? Thanks very much for your help. I have hope this one might not have to go back now! Thanks Al - ironically it ran for an hour last night without getting over warm or suffering speed variations! Should the driveshaft be clipped in tight at both ends? I have free movement at the tender end but it doesn't seem to clip home as positively as the front joint. Looking at it cost me one of the pickup wires! PS - what's the best way to remove nameplates without marking the deflectors? Thanks very much for your help. I have hope this one might not have to go back now!

Unbelievably, the fault with my new 'A1' has led me to diagnose a bit better what might be up with this one. The noise seems to be coming from the driveshaft. If I lift the driving wheels off the rails it runs beautifully. So, either the driveshaft itself has slack in it, or there is resistance in the driving wheels which is only manifest when it's on the rails. Dr Al treatment might well be the cure?! I hope so as I am not keen on having to send it away...