NHY 581

Would be nice if you could. We can’t go ahead without a Mullie.

Thanks Mike. That's pretty much what we had at this years day. I’ll be speaking to our highly skilled sales executives and peeling back the onion on this. It’s in hand, not a drama and doesn’t need the focus it’s currently getting. The day itself is all about the social interaction and enjoying the layouts etc..... Rob

Morning Rob, You need to amend your calendar to 28th April..............just saying........ Rob

Crikey ! Definitely not ! What kind of weirdo do you think I am..... Sheepbloke.

Just checked. Just read the relavent act and section. You're right. However, we will still be charged by the card machine company for each card transaction. It will be sorted by the time the event goes ahead. Thanks. Already sighted on that. See above. Rob

The SWAG Members day for 2024 is scheduled for Sunday 28th April 2024. 10AM- 4PM , Sunday 28th April 2024. Where Staplegrove Village Hall, 214 Staplegrove Road, Taunton. TA2 6AL Serious stuff. ************PLEASE NOTE*********** IF TRAVELLING BY CAR, REMEMBER, THERE IS LIMITED PARKING AT THE HALL ITSELF. THE VENUE SITS WITHIN A RESIDENTIAL AREA SO PLEASE PARK WITH DUE CONSIDERATION TO LOCAL RESIDENTS.. Fun stuff. Layouts. The usual menagerie of wonders has been assembled............as follows..... PAYNESTOWN. N gauge by @Barry Ten Those with longish memories may recall Al Reynold's 4mm homage to a typical terminus set in the South Wales Valleys. It's still about but under new ownership. Well, Al has revisited the original concept but this time in 2mm. As ever, Al has captured the very essence of the area to provide us with a wonderful evocation of these rather basic termini so very much at the heart of these tightly knit communities. RUYTON ROAD. 4mm/P4 by @McC Another seminal layout from the early days of Model Railway Journal ( Issue No. 75 ). Built by the late John Spencer it is now in the care of Paul Bannerman who rebuilt the trackwork from the original EM to the current P4. The rest of the layout has been sympathetically restored to provide a lovely insight into the Shropshire and Montgomeryshire Railway from Kinnerley Junction to Ruyton Town, serving a nearby quarry. Fair to say the aim of giving a flavour of a 1920s Colonel Stephen's light railway has been acheived. OLD PARROCK. 4mm/00 by @PaulR Paul's wonderful pre-grouping layout is a personal favourite of mine. Beautifully scratch built buildings are the true stars of this delightful little layout. Another outstanding example of the 'less is more' approach to layout construction and a real visual feast rich in colour and texture. Far too short an article appeared in Model Railway Journal No. 284. LYDBROOK DEAN. 4mm/00 by @wiggoforgold Alex returns to SWAG having brought his wonderful Yelverton along last year. This time Alex has taken himself off to the Forest of Dean. To quote Alex, 'Set circa 1962, it will be called “Lydbrook Dean”. It will be set on the former Severn and Wye line, and Ben Ashworth’s book “BR Steam in Dean” has given much inspiration'. Well, I think Alex has once again captured his chosen subject and era beautifully. MIDDLETON TOP. 4mm/00 by @JustinDean (Photo by Jay ) Jay brings his rather nice slice of the Cromford and High Peak Railway along. Middleton Top features Jay's scratchbuilt structures from the actual location as well as a number of kitbuilt locos and wagons unique to the line. Never exhibited before, this promises to be a real treat. (Photo by Jay ) OSNEY TOWN. 7mm @rcf Rob's Osney Town is the latest in a line of 7mm cameo layouts, which due to what Rob describes as a severe lack of space aims to provide a snapshot of a "what might have been" set somewhere in the sleepy extremities of the Western area of British Railways in the late 50s. If you think uou can't accomodate a 7mm lauout, think agsin as this is just 5ft long and depicts a small station set alongside a babbling brook. Of note are Rob's lovely structures which provide such character. KYLE OF LOCHALSH. 2mm Finescale. by @bcnPete ( Photo by Chris Nevard ) Pete flys the 2mm finescale flag with his homage to the Kyle of Lochalsh. Pete has captured the very essence of arguably one of the most readily identifiable railway stations. It's also rather well travelled as Kylie was originally built in Barcelona, Spain as a micro layout capable of being transported via boxfiles. It was first exhibited in 2010 and has since had two refurbishments to create a scenic section and fiddleyard section. CROPPER STREET SIDINGS. 4mm/00 by @Gilbert Chris is a dab hand at an inglenook and he treats us to another excellent example of the genre. They're not everyone's cup of Earl Grey but be prepared to watch and learn. Blue and green diseasals predominate on Cropper Street Sidings which is a small, eminently operable shunting puzzle and is another example of how a usable layout can be accomodated in a small space. For those of you who may not be aware, Chris is a tutor at Missenden Abbey, specifically weathering so rest assured, we'll be treated to some well executed examples of his craft shuffling about on Plopper Street. ST.OSWALDS. 0-16.5 by @Tim C Set in the early 1960s, Tim's delightful St Oswalds depicts a run-down Welsh narrow-gauge railway goods yard in its last days before closure. The layout and stock have a Welshpool and Llanfair flavour though locomotives and wagons from other railways also creep in to provide occasional variety. Have inglenook layouts ever looked so lovely ? Judge for yourselves......... Demos. Once again we have a selection of specialists to entertain and advise on stuff. Jerry @queensquare will once again be beating the 2mm Finescale drum and will have a selection of teeny tiny mechanial wonders and not so teeny tiny buildings and other bits as well as the society stand. George, aka @Gedward will be along with a diorama or two. Excellent scenery and a rather nifty hand painted backscene will no doubt elicit many a question from the casual passer by and George is there to answer. Stu, aka @Stubby47 will be there to discuss your requirements for a bespoke building or two. He'll also be demoing a selection of buildings by SMS and can offer a custom building service for this lovely range of buildings and accessories. If you struggle to locate him, he'll be under the mound of cake crumbs. Martyn aka @mullie will be returning with something small and East Anglian and once again be sharing how he achieves such lovely colouring on his models. Catering. Our crack catering team will be on hand to serve up a veritable feast of delights. The usual pasties, scratch built cakeage, cups of tea and coffee along with the occasional biscuit and Welsh cakes. All we ask is if possible, please bring your own mug to help keep the amount of washing up to a minimum and prevent the catering team’s little pinkies from drying out. (Costs a fortune in moisturiser for them otherwise) Profit from all sales on the day will go towards supporting SWAG'25 with the excess being donated to charity. ☆Please note...Catering purchases are cash only☆ Bring and Buy Once again our highly trained sales team will be on hand to run the Bring and Buy stall. Exhibitors and visitors are encouraged to raid those 'roundtoit' shelves and cupboards and offer those little gems for sale. Remember, a percentage of the selling price will be payable to the event. The money raised will go towards supporting SWAG'25 with the excess going to charity. ☆Please note....currently, we will be able to take payment by card ☆ Traders. Please give some thought to anything you might want to be able to pick up from the traders on the day. Please consider contacting them prior to the weekend and arrange to collect on the day. Lord and Butler. Peter will be along with a smorgasbord of items from the shop, both new and some previously enjoyed gems. 247 Developments. Brian is a long time supporter of the event and will have his usual selection of hard to find detailing parts, etched products and his expanding range of 3D prints. Mudmagnet Models. Richard brings his ever so massively expanding range of 3D printed items for those exquisitely crafted extra bits and bobs to add that all important detailing to our layouts. How........................... much ?!!!!!!! FREE. YEP. YOU READ THAT RIGHT............. FREE. This is still a free to enter members day. However, there are running costs associated with the event which are getting increasingly challenging to meet. To help with this, there'll be suitably labelled receptacles dotted about the hall. PLEASE donate a few coins into these at your discretion, you'll be helping to ensure we can do this again in 2025. .......To be brutally honest, the capability to hold SWAG in April '25 is wholly dependent on monies raised during the event, by way of the catering, a percentage from the sales in the bring and buy department and , yes, any donations made. To that end we will still see a post event donation made to charity but the priority this year will be to ensure that we CAN do this in 2025. SWAG'24 is going ahead due, in no small part, to donations generously made at SWAG'23. Loud shirts. ( photo courtesy of the EM Gauge Society ) Definately encouraged. So, I think that's about it for now. I've one more layout to confirm ( thankfully quite a small one ) and then it's just a case of fitting it all in.......somehow. *Oh and correcting any c*ck ups to the above. I thank ewe. Rob.

As I say similar numbers, certainly close enough to cause me to doubt the suggestion that roughly 4 locos out of 42 were fit for purpose. Rob.

The above appeared in the Bachmann 37 thread and is quoted here for context. My reply is quoted below. Rob.

Tidy. Pencilled in. Pre run at the Small Cardiff show '25 ?

Mindful of the fact that not every purchaser of Accurascale locos is a contributing member of Rmweb, what we see on here is a small percentage of overall sales therefore a small percentage issues. But, I have to cast doubt on those figures you quote. Working at an Accurascale stockist, we have sold similar, if not more 92s and 37s and have not had one returned by a customer for any issue, let alone a motor issue. This includes instore as well as those sent mail order. Neither have we had cause to return one to Accurascale for an issue discovered pre sale, i.e testing prior to concluding a ssale.Therefore, it's fair to conclude that overtime these locos remain as sold and have not developed any issues. In addition, given our relationship with our customers, if there had been any issues or returns direct to Accurascale, I'm pretty confident we'd be aware of this as it would soon filter through. So, based on the above personal experience I have to say those figures have to be viewed as incorrect. If they weren't we'd see far more comment than we have done regarding motor issues and, given their engagement and transparency, no doubt there would be comment from Accurascale themselves. Rob.

Great Eastern goods brake van it is then..... Rob

As highlighted in bold, this is the issue and one which I suspect could well a change in the way Bachmann will do things. If retailers are holding large stocks then yes, they may well discount them to death, to free up the capital they have tied up in these dust gatherers...........but........this potentially means that come the next batch, there will be an adjustment made to how the retailers order, i.e, they order less. This means that Bachmann may be left holding the excess stock.....leading to, as we're seeing now, Bachmann offer bundle deals to retailers to empty the warehouse.....in turn Bachmann eventually decide to produce less of each variant or even less variants. So, when a retailer slashes the prices of their stock, as MRD have just done whilst good for us the customer it's actually bad for the retailer concerned. Rob.

Spendid. Thanks Corbs. Order placed. Rob

Morning all, Things are quietly trundling on at Chateau Sheep but 'plans' remain as per with new modelling at a stand still ahead of Crimbo. There is obviously an intention to recommence hostilities after Christmas and thankfully, I may well have found an alternative baseboard from the Swedish baseboard company so all is not lost. Yesterday saw a package arrive containing goodies. Figures are not something that play a part on the layouts of the Sheep Continuum, other than the occasional loco crew. I'm grateful to John, aka @Warwick Sidings for the opportunity to play about with a few cameos, more of which over the coming weeks, no doubt. Rob.

Sorry to correct you, Andy but it is a six month period before discounting can exceed 15%. There won't be many, if any retailers who will discount to the extent MRD have just done. I suspect there are a number of retailers who have relatively large stocks of Bachmann 37s left on the shelves due to the sales of the Accurascale equivalent and this in turn is reflected in the stocks remaining with Bachmann themselves, hence the recent '37 bundles' now on sale with various retailers. Rob

Stop and chat at Sheep Dip.

Droning on.......looking back to Rapido's webpage for the train packs we see this... Our batch of ‘C53s’ feature all the same high-quality details as Model Rail’s ‘J70s’ but have an upgraded circuit board and Next18 decoder socket. There are also sound-fitted packs too, featuring an exclusive sound project supplied by Digitrains. Open to interpretation but.......

As I mentioned on the 'train pack' thread, the failure of Rapido to supply the etches and alternative cow catchers with the GER train packs, as per the original issue of the Model Rail J70s, is a bit of a let down and takes the shine off what is otherwise a lovely release. Given the cost of these train packs, I don't think it was unreasonable to expect these to be included. Rob

I have to say, the more I think about this, the more I see it as a bit of a let down on Rapido's part. Model Rails locos all included both etched parts and alternative cow catchers. It's not a deal breaker as such but given the cost of these packs, supplying a small sheet of etchings and two plastic parts would have finished the pack off nicely. Are the additional parts supplied with the coaches as well ? Rob.

That could be arranged..............

Thank you. Now that surprises me and I have to say, sadly, I see that as a retrograde step by Rapido. Scope for a bit of 3D printing methinks...... Rob.

They look splendid. I have Rapido's 1950s equivalents and am looking forward to picking up my GER versions. Regarding the J70, does it come with any etched plates ? Rob.

Ha ! No idea !!! This appears to have SWAG '25 written all over it..........

Hi Tim, I see a few modellers using the Halfords Camouflage brown for trackwork. Thinking ahead to my new layout, I normally use Humbrol acrylic dark earth, again an aerosol. It covers well and you can overpaint within the hour, if not sooner. I take it the Halfords aerosol compares favourably in terms of coverage, drying time ? Rob

Now this looks like a bit of fun, John !