Horsetan

John Cage's 4'33"

I think I might have finally found a RPSI Cravens coach, albeit not in their blue and white livery....

Given the slightly more generous loading gauge that used to exist on the GS&WR lines, I wonder how practical it might have been to have a few of the post-1926 German standard designs, regauged for 5'3"? Things like the mixed-traffic Br.23 2-6-2s, for example, or the Br.64 2-6-2Ts or Br.86 2-8-2Ts for branch line and suburban work?

Sounds like the broad gauge equivalent of parts of the T&D which were equally parlous.

To be fair, there have been so many announcements recently that I've given up trying to identify which is which....

What announcement?

Digging into the wheelsets a bit further, I found the wheel diameter to be a consistent 12.06mm, with a standard back-to-back set at around 14.57mm... Pinpoint stub axles came out at 1.53mm: ...and the insulated axle muff was found to be virtually the same as the back-to-back measurement: Quite encouraging so far...

Guinness saddle tank.

Does that mean there might be a few counterfeit IRM "A" class models out there?

New sources of low-cost gas are always welcome to supplement turf-burning.

Some of us actually drive oul sheds

Non-standard designs, and possibly some way ahead of contemporary British engines. And yet, in the years to come, British designers did adopt some American practices, such as tapered boilers. By 1926, British locomotive design standardisation was arguably being left behind again, this time by the German "Einheitslok" design principles.

David Barham also showed us three Cavan & Leitrim open wagons that he'd been asked to print for OOn3. He said that current technology allowed him to print all three wagons in about one hour. Will be available as a Brassmasters kit in due course, probably next year.

....if somewhat inaccessible now. Wasn't there another one of the same design in Portadown?

The Schenectady Mogul - or something very similar- in the photo may also have found their way to Norway. There is a drawing for them, for engines numbered 22 to 24, in the aforementioned archive.

I seem to recall that the Barry Railway had some very American-looking 0-8-2Ts at one stage. Update: ah, no, it was an 0-6-2T. Class K, apparently. Photo of one here: It was the Port Talbot Railway that had the American-built 0-8-2Ts: Sample photo here

In the case of Templot and PlugTrack, the software and files themselves are free of charge, with the only cost being that to get the things printed by a print specialist.

At last night's monthly meeting of the North London Group of P4 modellers, we had a lecture demonstration put on by visiting lecturer David Barham, who explained the state of CAD and 3D printing today. He displayed samples of his work, including an ex-Great Eastern Railway J17 0-6-0 kit he is developing for Brassmasters - it looked that good, I signed up for one. Also of interest was a sample of 3D-printed trackwork known as PlugTrack - this is a system of 3D sleepers and chairs that simply plug into rectangular holes in the sleepers. The system is derived from Martyn Wynne's famous Templot software. I thought it offered potential for Irish 21mm gauge track building. Frighteningly good stuff.

They look similar to some of the engines built for railways in South Wales. The other 290+ drawings in that archive are fascinating.

Similar things used to happen with Bachmann and Bachmann-Liliput models.

I've discovered that Alan Gibson Workshop produces electrically conductive coach wheels, plus bushes for 1.5mm axles (hopefully the bushes are 2mm o/d, which means they can be pressed straight into the wheels).

The batteries would have to be programmed to run out just short of the destination

Presumably this would include wholesale demolition of all properties and structures that were built on the original formations.....

All good here, thanks, and the grey cells are already working out the least painful way of installing new wheels for 21mm gauge.

I think we might have a partial solution in the form of this brass tube - conventional P4 coach disc wheels could be mounted on this, and the 1.5mm pinpoint axle (if IRM have spares of part no.84 available) would telescope inside it.... Alternative insulated centre tubes cut to the wider gauge could then finish off the converted set.