Tom J

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?

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.

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...