Horsetan

Comparison with today's satellite view of Clones, and - engine roundhouse aside - it's hard to believe a railway ever passed through there or that a once-extensive station existed.

Before doing that, have a go at SSM's Wickham inspection car. At 27 Euros, it's not going to bankrupt you if you mess it up. All brass, so your soldering skills will be tested, but not complex. Once you're satisfied it's gone together, I think the E/J26 will be ready and waiting for quite a lot of soldering. Don't make the mistake that one past Forum member made of launching straight into the 800 class 4-6-0. He ruined it and it was a terrible thing to watch it happen. 170 Euros down the drain.

As much or as little as someone is prepared to pay for it. 65-70 quid would be fair. It's the previous generation model now, but would only have particular significance to devoted Pete Waterman fans. To everyone else, it's just a decent Black 5. Other Black 5s are available.

I feel sorry for anyone who ends up being Executor for his Estate. It might be easier just to heave the lot into a skip.

That fella is well on the way to becoming a hoarder in later life.

To be honest, it doesn't look that much of an advance on the previous generation. I suppose there's only a certain number of times that you can squeeze the juice out of a lemon.

Did they? I only ever remember seeing a photo of a single one there.

In the 1990s, one ended up in Vic Berry's scrapyard in Leicester. Always wondered how that came about but, then again, there was precedent for it; a few steam locomotives were shipped from CIE to Spain for scrapping.

YES!!

"The Birds"?

....or their droppings....

Is Crossley back in business?

New SSM J15 etches have arrived, and a new batch of kits are apparently now being packed... Goes without saying, if you want one, now's the time to get your order in, as it took five months for the etch company to get round to producing the relevant etches.

Dear God, I thought my DC Kits Derby Lightweights were bad enough, but to have to tackle MTK......

That's the last iteration of Bulleid's turf-burning testbed, prior to scrapping in about 1957. 356 was colloquially known as the "...Mental Turf Burning Locomotive"

Is a bit like Macmine Junction, but with the branch at the opposite end...

The GSR didn't exist until 1925.

Who's to say that the Drumm battery system itself couldn't be further developed?

The WLW design looks vaguely like one of the Cambrian Railway 0-6-0s over in Wales....

In terms of £££, what budget was available to the GSR during that period for building new locomotives? What were the building costs of 800-802, and 850? How much money was left after that? Note 850 was made possible partly because it made use of some existing Woolwich Mogul parts. The impression I get is that, money being somewhat scarce, the GSR stuck to the conventional principles that it saw as being cost-effective, or cheap. If the 25 engines of the 342/670/700/710 had not been built, what could the GSR have created for the money not spent? Innovation tends to cost, so developing a new mixed-traffic design, with Walschaerts outside motion, may not have resulted in as many as 20 engines. There would have had to have been some sort of testing of the initial tank and tender designs to see if they really were of universal use, before asking for approval to build more. In the case of the 2-6-0, would all-new tenders have been built for them, or salvaged from older withdrawn engines? We don't know. I'm also looking at the W class moguls in the North which were introduced in 1933: - As a contemporary design, what did they cost the LMS(NCC) to build? - Would they have been suitable for use on the GSR network and, if so, on which routes? - Would it have been realistic for the GSR to ask permission to test a W or two? If such permission was forthcoming and the engine found suitable, would the LMS have then agreed to build them for the GSR? What would that have cost?

How many of them did Bus Eireann have to start with?

Not that easy. The smokebox/G8AS parallel boiler/firebox and possibly the cylinders and outside motion are directly transferable from the Fowler engine, likewise pony and trailing bogie, but the chassis frames appear different. The 6ft driving wheels are shared with the Stanier Black 5. The tank and bunker plate work are also Stanier/Fairburn-like, without being a direct swap with either of those 2-6-4T designs. If it had been that easy, Hornby would have had alternative tooling for their Fowler 2-6-4T ready years ago.

D'ye think the Illuminati were involved?

D'ye think yer man's becoming a "seagull manager"?