Horsetan

Probably OT, but did you manage to rectify the missing crankpin web in the post-1930 driving wheel in the end?

I went to his oul shop in Stamford station years ago. He doesn't exactly undercharge.....

I'm amazed I can't hear the sound of cans being kicked.

They weren’t the only ones, especially if they sensed they could get someone else to pay for it.

Imagine the Healy-Raes getting involved....

...although nowadays, it's probably more brown than green because of decades of pollution.

Et tu, Brute? Et tu? Actually mine does get a run now and then, and she has the extra tender for additional water capacity.... What you really need is a Br.45 2-10-2, and a Br.85 2-10-2T. Just those two are already a lot to look at. There's no reason for having German engines other than the fact that I like them, and occasionally they come up very cheaply on eBay. From 1926, they were up to 25 years ahead of Britain when it came to standardisation. Before the Wagner standard era, there were things like this Saxon XX HV 2-8-2. This model came cheap because - as the photos show - it was slightly broken, but it works. The real 19.017 still exists but has never steamed in preservation; it owes its survival to having been used by the Halle research facility as a brake test engine during the East German DR era, and is the only one (of three Br.19s kept by Halle) that escaped being massively rebuilt.

I got distracted and ended up reading the whole of that! The final article, Dalcassian Steam, was fascinating.

Their "O" gauge Gresley A3 and A4s don't seem to have sold like hot cakes. Wonder why that is....?

There's an outside chance of your coaches turning up before my order for five Irish driving wheel axles is completed by Ultrascale #eightmonths

For up-to-date authenticity, there should be a double-decker being driven along a pavement somewhere.....

I thought it was a real shame that the RhB weren't able to include some of their heritage, tourist, and loco-hauled stock in the eventual consist.

I knew I should have bought that neon cross......

I wonder if the software allows the whole chair (instead of the jaw) to be tilted to achieve the cant?

Anyone seen this Templot "PlugTrack" idea? It seems that this can work for 21mm gauge, although it won't give you the correct 1:20 canted rail. Bullhead only so far, not flat-bottom rail.

The last regular use of the branch was in 1948. Track lifting hasn't started here, but would have done by 1955 because that's when the girder bridge at Stranorlar was dismantled by Hammond Lane Metal Co. Incidentally, Hammond Lane feature so heavily in the records of scrapping railway infrastructure and equipment that I wonder if there was anything that they weren’t involved in cutting-up one way or another.

56 was just the service number for that route that day, so train number 56.

'Tis true what they say: you should never meet your heroes. You'll only be disappointed.

It's a lot of money to be paying for a static model. About 10 times too much.

Hardbrucke / Hardplatz is familiar to me as I stayed at a hotel there in 2006. Quite a lot of Turkish-run eateries near the bridge.

They were only there for one thing, and it wasn't the show. Now watch eBay to see the wagons reappear at four to six times the show price.

This is Ireland. Smuggling was quite an industry and sure people haven't forgotten the old *kof*"skills"*kof*

Sounds like she was having a bad day. Wonder if Chris might have escaped attention if he'd come in via the North and crossed the border by road.......

Was 143 scrapped at Broadstone? Rods have been removed, along with buffing gear and coupling. Tender axlebox covers missing, so it looks as though it was being used as a convenient parts donor. Cut-off at the left edge of the photo is the unmistakable shape of a Woolwich Mogul, but which one was hanging around at Broadstone in October 1960?

Doubt it. They'll probably try to hoover up as much of the new production as possible to protect their investment. These are people who don't worry about utility bills or the cost of existing.