Martin S-C

Gluing them temporarily to corks for handling while painting them is a good idea. I use coffee stirrers but I think a vertical hand grip below the figure is easier than one out to the side which the stirrer provides. Time for a glass or three of wine to start up a figure painting support collection.

I should have used this technique when planning my railway empire but now I feel that using your ideas would be rude!

Possibly of some interest Tom, I saw Black Lion Crossing at York and snapped a few pics of Geoff's weathered wagons. I hope the images are of some use to you.

Here we go then. Prepare yourselves for a sorry excuse for a railway... First looking south. Then the middle. And north.

What about the ubiquitous and pretty Beyer Peacock 2-4-0T as used on the Isle of Wight, the Cambrian and elsewhere?

On my trip up to York at the Easter weekend for the railway show I was on the Peterborough platforms for the first time in probably a decade. I snapped some pics. Would you be interested in me posting them here Gilbert? Then you may be able to do some 1958 comparisons.

Neil's next visit is 30th April - 1st May and we hope to break the back of the last bits of carpentry then. Then he's back on the 11th and the 13th May. Then the 18th and the 20th. The plan is to finish all carpentry and clean up/sand down/check round fettling any last woodworking bits by the end of the 13th. Then its track work. For the 22nd to 26th May I have a 4-day trip planned to the Forest of Dean to do some walking, take lots of photos and generally soak up the atmosphere of the place. My modelling is taking a wee unplanned pause due to nice weather and various trips/shows. I have the ochre paint and lining job on the 1363 tank to complete and the four 1850s coaches to assemble. I should also get the green/cream and blue/cream clerestory bashes done too. They are beginning to annoy me now! Other projects on the go are the GWR O1 milk van conversions, the Hornby Kit-Kat van bashes, the engineers department brake van and pair of ballast wagons, two very early LNWR brake van 3D prints which I'm going to fit onto hacked about Bachmann GWR shunters truck chassis, a Mike's Models 1.5t crane truck kit, 4 old kit-bashed vans bought yonks ago on e-Bay that I thought could be repainted into MVR/CMR livery, a half-built brass LBSC horse box kit which I'll freelance and a shed load of coal wagons to change couplings on, weather/tart up and generally fettle. I think the loco and the clerestories ought to be priorities. I should also reletter/relivery and weather 2 or 3 more locos so that when the track is laid I have something to test it with. I like making lists of things to do but this one is a bit daunting.

I appreciate this case is closed but they are different boxes - look at the styling of "HO" and the yellow lining at the left end. And the proportion of box that is cut away for the plastic window - it is greater at both ends in the sellers photo.

No.13 is my favourite loco of all time and I'd like to have a model of it eventually in 4mm scale. The site linked to was set up by my pal Paul for items used on my MSTS virtual Highworth Branch route built around 2001-2005 and set in 1922. The seller clearly didn't know about it, though Googling for "GWR No.13" will get you the information needed. Sorry for that diversion. Back to the e-Bay fun.

It's a very inspiring model! I have a second rolling stock collection based around the year I was born so I have an interest in decrepit old wooden opens and there were some really wonderful examples of painting and weathering of such beasties on Black Lion.

A few pics of Black Lion. At shows I mostly take pics of small details and areas that especially inspire me:

I enjoyed a fantastic but exhausting weekend. Unfortunately, despite the best laid plans of mice and men I failed to link up with James (Edwardian) and Mr Runs as Required which was a pity but apparently James was very busy doing all kinds of pre-grouping socialising. The NRM was very good (although much smaller than I remembered) and the York show was excellent in a lovely airy, roomy venue with lifts to aid those who had knackered themselves going up and down the many staircases... The only downside was the ridiculous prices in the restaurant. My wallet suffered only modest casualties. The only think I bought was a Cowans Sheldon 50ft turntable kit from London Road Models which is the one I've had my eye on for a few months. I drooled over the computer-controlled servo systems by Megapoints which incorporate a lovely random bounce into semaphores as well as give a "first pull/second pull" motion as all the arms move. I am thinking more and more about a primitive signalling system using disc and crossbar points so I do not know if the Megapoints servos can be altered to work at 90deg to their usual throw. I've contacted them to enquire. I chatted with the lovely people at White Rose Model works who do a very nice range of laser cut stock storage cabinets though they are somewhat pricey - before I decide I will check out what IKEA can offer and keep an eye on second hand map chests. https://www.whiterosemodelworks.co.uk/department/laser-cut-drawers-plinths/ Judith Edge http://www.ukmodelshops.co.uk/catalogue/judithedge had some lovely brass kits of early diesels and electrics. I might use one of these as the basis of a freelance early internal combustion loco. High Level Kits - http://www.highlevelkits.co.uk/ - had an awesome choice of gearboxes, motors and small chassis on display which I think will be where I will go for a new chassis for my Keyser TVR S Class 0-4-0ST as well as possible others of my early K's and Ratio loco kits which are known to suffer from not-very-good frames. As for layouts, I spent most time at Black Lion Crossing which is superb and which I hadn't been able to see at Warley last November. Unfortunately the battery of my camera died soon after I'd taken lots of pics of Black Lion so I wasn't able to take pics of the other show highlight, the Nettlebridge Valley Railway but fortunately James has uploaded a number of photos of this inspiring layout. So thank you James - your pics have been copied into my "inspiration" folder for further dribbling over. I took numerous photos at the NRM but won't upload them here due to site space restrictions. They are all on my FaceBook page:

This is what I and my friend Mike did. I too find that going around an exhibition with a friend inevitably means you spend not long enough looking at the layouts you have an interest in and too long looking at those you don't! It was a great shame we missed each other, James and R-as-R but I am sure we'll have the chance to natter another time. I agree that the NVR was gorgeous but for superb scenery I found myself nailed to Black Lion crossing which I completely missed at Warley so was determined to enjoy this time.

An old post but towpaths were almost always on the downhill side of canals because the extra earthworks associated with them added strength to the canal and reduced the likelihood of leaks and bursts.

I heard about this the other day but was more than a trifle annoyed to hear that it won't be released in SECR livery. My understanding is that it is not actually an SECR vehicle but an SR one built to their diagram 1424 and based on earlier SECR vans. I cannot but help think this is a big dropped ball by Rails and Dapol.

I would class the post above Regularity's as "rivet counting for sound". Asking for all that within the next ten years is somewhat silly, unless you have about a grand per loco to spend and have a pet electronics and acoustics engineer at your beck and call. What controller on a model allows for cut off adjustments? None. So why ask for cut off sound? Lets not place the bar unreasonably high. Its a matter of personal preference. I have sound fitted in all my steam locos and find most of them delightfully convincing. Its all about a case of how much "convincing" one needs. If I'm in a 25ft by 12ft room with 3 or 4 steamers working away around a big layout, absolutely acoustic accuracy is wholly irrelevant because you are not going to hear it among the other ambient sounds of people talking and so on. If you want to talk about things like acoustic shadow which is the subject raised with the Swindon safety valves then you need to apply that argument to every sound - diesels as well. Your last paragraph immediately classes all diesel sounds as inadequate as well, and many of us know that isn't the case. Each to his or her own of course, but please don't suggest steam sounds are not good enough yet - I can assure you they are - for some!

No need to apologise, discussion of portable housing options for model railways hardly counts as off-topic. I am pretty sure there was a well-known British layout of the late 60s or early 70s featured in RM that was built in a caravan. I may be imagining it but it could have been that the fiddle yard stuck out at 90deg and the caravan door had to be open while it was operated. memory is hazy on that though. Off to York now for the weekend, just awaiting the taxi to take me to the station. I am meeting up with an old train-sim pal of mine who has just returned from Oz to live in the UK (silly man). Going to the NRM today and the model railway show tomorrow.

Is she serving you up with a fine Chianti?

There are various safeguards in place! Too obscure and personal to tell the entire tale here but if we ever meet at a show or some similar face to face venue I'll tell you the full story.

That detachable chocolate icing corner will do fine!

Eureka! The perfect prototype for my layout banker. A South Eastern and Caledonian Railway interleaved 0-4-6-4. Can you e-mail me the drawings please?

Absolutely beautiful Sem. Some of those pics are so good you need to do a double take before you can assure yourself its not a real train. The standards of detail and accuracy in today's train sims is incredible. Annie. The detail of the ironwork of the luggage rails and brakesman's seats on top of the 1840s coaches is really fine. Very well executed. What were the rolled up cloths for? I guessed they were foul weather covers for the brakesmen but not every seat has one and there's a roll on the birdcage brake van as well.

Yours is the only model layout I know of that looks good enough to eat.

The house is owned by a friend. I merely moved in. I promise you that a readily available railway room was NOT my main motive for coming to live here!

It has sadly long departed to the great standard lamp style lounge in the sky. EDIT: Note also lower left of last pic, stack of G scale stuff with KLR road van/brake van prominent. Here's a bunch of my G scale wagons running at a friends garden railway about 12 years ago. I still have all these, and 4 engines, I mainly disposed of locos and the more foreign coaches.