John Isherwood

Very sorry to hear this - you will be greatly missed. John Isherwood.

Exactly - then delegate most of your new responsibilities to those immediately below you. If they, too, ask for more money, be supportive and help them argue their case(s) - the case being that someone has to do the work, and no-one will do it for nothing. As has been said, we are currently in a situation where there's not enough staff to go round! CJI.

Ahh - I should have recognised them! My excuse is that I had not realised that they had an afterlife in domestic chalk traffic - though I knew that one was used to deliver loco coal to the GWS at Didcot. John Isherwood.

As an addendum to the above : - John Isherwood.

..... and a very nice railway and town they are, too! My wife and I had the train from Croydon to Normanton entirely to ourselves - two passengers and three crew! The Purple Pub was very welcoming, the beer was refreshingly cold, and they served an excellent meal. Chris the Croc was impressive - even in concrete form! Sunset down at the river was magnificent, and there was even a bustard, posing in the middle of the road, as we took photos. John Isherwood.

......... and, in the nearer sidings, some sheeted open wagons that are not familiar. The buffer heads have central holes for access to the fixing nuts, which point to a Continental origin. What traffic into or out of Beverley generated the presence of what appear to be, by 1980, rather aged wagons? John Isherwood.

I can supply ESSO 35Tglw Class B transfers - see Sheet BL9 at the Cambridge Custom Transfers website. You may also wish to peruse the list of Appleby Model Engineering components listed on the same website - there are quite a few hard-to-come-by axleboxes, buffers, tank fittings, etc., etc. ...... and I posted a large order to Canada only yesterday! John Isherwood, Cambridge Custom Transfers.

Tom, Thank you for your response, which is perfectly understandable - it is unfortunate that a section of any popular following is unable to keep their enthusiasm within bounds! For my part, I avoid Facebook at all costs. Probably my irrationality, but I hear enough indignant outbursts from my wife, when she is scrolling through FB, to discourage me from going there! Best wishes for your further development of the Awdrey theme, and I'll look out for anything that you publish in the future. John Isherwood.

I still have a small stock of Humbrol Deltic Blue. CJI.

I HAD a Midland Railway guard's Acme Thunderer whistle - complete with cork 'pea' - which I loaned to my wife for playground duty. Sadly, it's whereabouts subsequently are shrouded in mystery; but I gather that it commanded instant attention! John Isherwood.

Simply astounding!! I would not have believed that it was possible to recreate nature with such incredible fidelity!! If the idea appeals, I would strongly encourage you to write what would be the seminal book on how to model landscapes with such profound realism. Please, when you can, continue to inspire / over-awe us with your beautiful creations. John Isherwood.

This somewhat tedious (to others) exchange of views has been taken off-line. CJI.

Abuse simply devalues the argument. My point is - from recent personal experience, as a complete novice to tracklaying and operating a moderately sized layout - not an expert in track-laying as you suggested - reliable running of extremely short-wheelbased models of tiny steam locos is NOT reliant on the use of DCC, stay-alives, or any other electronics. I have watched in amazement your milling-away of RTR chassis blocks, in order to accommodate DCC and sound equipment, which must be to the detriment of what little adhesive weight such small locos possess. Of course, this is your prerogative; but I would hate to think that the belief became widespread that DCC and stay-alives are a prerequisite to the reliable operation of small locos. You mock my knowledge of units of measurement, too; in order to suggest that I am somehow antedeluvian in my approach to modelling. Suffice to say that 40+ years as a highway engineer involved the exclusive use of the Metric System, when the UK was still largely stuck in the Imperial System. Please, let's not resort to personal insults, but stick to facts. CJI.

Sorry, but that is simply ill-informed rubbish. My current layout is my first since boyhood HD 3-rail in the 1960s - I am now 73! When laying the Peco Code 75 track, it was for the first time ever! I had built, by a general property maintenance contractor, substantial baseboards, on which I glued-down standard 3mm. cork underlay - nothing fancy! What I did do, having simply pinned-down the track, was to provide an electrical feed to EVERY SINGLE LENGTH OF RAIL, COMPLETELY IGNORING ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY VIA FISHPLATES. The track is by no means completely level - one only needs to watch the progress of trains to see the vertical and horizontal displacement. Moreover, each of the ten baseboards hinge up to the vertical position as a concession to my age and decreasing mobility. At each baseboard joint, several tracks have been cut, obliquely across radii, with no fishplate or other connection between rail ends. If this is not a recipe for poor running, I do not know what is! All turnouts have been modified to operate as live frog. Over 100 locos have one thing in common - the pick-ups are maintained such that each wheel with pick-up is always providing current. My smallest motive power is a Bachmann platelayers' trolley and this, in common with a L&YR Pug and a Deeley dock tank, run smoothly and reliably, with no stuttering - as do all the others, without exception. All this via DC, with no electronic gadgetry. So, as an beginner when it comes to track laying, I believe that I have proved that the principal requirement for good, uninterrupted running is electricity in EVERY piece of rail, no matter how small. DCC users can avoid the tedious soldering of numerous droppers by fitting stay-alives, but haulage capacity will suffer for every piece of chassis weight that is sacrificed to ever more electronic gadgetry. CJI.

Hence "properly adjusted". CJI.

No properly adjusted loco NEEDS a stay-alive, provided the track is properly laid. Far too many operators rely on fishplates as the only electrical connection between track elements - be it sectional or flexible. CJI.

What concerns me is that I am far from convinced that DCC sound users are in the majority. Yet, in order to pander to this perceived 'need' for unconvincing sound in steam locos, great chunks of the weight of the chassis are being cut out, in order to accommodate the ever-increasing list of electronic devices - chip boards, speakers, stay-alives, smoke generators, etc. In larger locos, much of this stuff can be accommodated in the tender but, in the current trend of small industrial locos, there remains precious little adhesive mass in the tiny chassis. All this volume of gadgetry costs money to produce and fit - and is entirely useless to what I suspect to be the majority of purchasers. I can see why the manufacturers pander to the gadget-obsessed; they can charge very significantly higher prices to those purchasers. However, those of us who do not require DCC, and all the expensive gubbins that go with it, have to rip out all the unwanted electronics and fill the vacated space with lead. All this is getting totally out of hand!! CJI.

..... the problem is that they would have to create a void in the metal chassis, in which to fit the stay-alive. On a DC model, this would be an empty space, and reduce the valuable adhesive weight. Stay-alives may, to some extent, compensate for poor track when using DCC, but there is no short-cut for DC users, who rely on well laid track to avoid 'kangaroo' running! CJI.

1950s? CJI.

I suspect that the majority of customers who, like me, do not use DCC would prefer all available space within the body to be filled with very dense metal. Stay-alives are no use to DC modellers, and should not be required if points are live frog, track is carefully laid, and electrical continuity does not rely solely on fishplate / rail contact. CJI.

I'm sorry, but to expect to be able to run trains that do not have duplicate numbers, using only out-of-the-box stock, is completely unreasonable. By all means opt not to do any practical modelling, but at least accept that there will be limitations to the authenticity that can be achieved. CJI.

The manufacturer lazy? How difficult can it be to renumber a wagon? Do some 'modellers' do no actual modelling whatsoever? What do they do if they want a rake of, say, 16T steel mineral wagons - expect the manufacturer to produce numerous versions of the same model? When I read complaints like this, I despair!! ☹️ CJI.

Three problems :- i] the legacy Alps printing process that I use can reproduce BR lettering colours OK, but the LMS 'Old Gold' numbering, as per the above model, is beyond the scope of that technology; (one reason that I only produce BR steam era transfers); ii] the smallest sheet that I can print is A6 - quite a lot of numbers would have to be included on the sheet; iii] everybody wants different numbers; the design work is prohibitively time-consuming - for me, at least. (I believe that Railtec offer bespoke numbering). Sorry, John Isherwood.

Delivered here too, today. CJI.

As my transfers are waterslide, I am not an expert on Methfix. Assuming that the transfer has not been sealed, the ideal solvent for the adhesive would be methylated spirits. Failing that, a sparing application of alcohol would be my first approach. CJI. PS. Fair point about acrylic paints - as a confirmed enamel / cellulose user, it hadn't occurred to me.