Horsetan

There is a bit of a sting in the tail with the Hornby Class 31, since a fair few of them have suffered from flawed mazak underframe casting, which either leads to fracturing of the ends of the casting or expansion, causing the plastic body to distort and then shatter in the area of the cab front. Do keep an eye on this. The same type of thing notoriously affected the Heljan Class 47 which, not content with being too wide, then became too long.

David Geen's website is years out of date, unfortunately, and he has no control over it. Only way to contact him is by post or phone these days, or catch him at finescale shows. The 4mm scale Mitchell range is in reality run under David's control, not Pete's.

^^ Have ye seen Father Shortall? He'd be about eighty now....

The Great Southern book is here. Fascinating photography....

David Geen, not Pete Waterman.

Everyone's waiting for the Hattons / DJM attempt at a OO King. Should be finally released in 2017/2018. I'm sticking with the Malcolm Mitchell kit, which is the definitive model for 4mm scale.

The Skodas were particularly good rally cars.

That was the "Achtung Baby" tour.

I'd like to second this motion.

There is quite a bit about the fuel problems in the book about Bulleid's Turf Burner.

I'm at that stage in life where I no longer make any declarations as to my age.

Website now says "in stock", if anyone now feels the need.....

Missing the platform number.

That ticket bears a date not long before the locomotive fuel crisis kicked in....

You should also be able to get away with using scale 3' 10-spoke wheels by robbing the trailing ones used in the bogie of the Hornby "King".

Now here's a thing: as can be seen from the photo, the two types of frames are broadly similar in outline, but the coupling rods are not interchangeable between the two. The nickel silver frames and rods have better detail and a more refined profile, but the trailing section representing the 7' part of the wheelbase is marginally longer than the earlier version in brass! If you try to use the nickel-silver rods on the brass chassis, the leading and centre drivers will revolve fine, but the trailing drivers will lock up. Not what you want on a sprung or compensated chassis. In the words of Father Ted when faced with the problem of getting Dougal off the milkfloat at over four miles an hour: "Keep going round the roundabout! I'm going to have a think!"

In order, DR Br. 50, Br.52, Br.50.35, DB Br.23 (x2!), DRG Br.50, DR Br.52, DB Br.64....and some brown diesel thing. The "Plandampf" events are quite tightly timed, and it costs a load of money to have engines certified for that type of work. It couldn't really happen in Britain, as the service timetables are so tight that there's no real room for giving a day to steam-hauled services, and that's before you go into the money and equipment required for mainline certification. Notwork Fail and the regular TOCs probably regard steam specials as a nuisance.

....and here's a look at some of it...

If you really wanted to go the whole hog, then some work to the front frame arrangements might be possible - i.e. widening them to make them look more suited to 5'3" (albeit this illusion would work better for those working to 21mm gauge), and increasing the vertical gap between the main footplate and the front footplate/bufferbeam assembly.

By far the most interesting of the surviving ex-East German engines, Roco did a grand job of capturing the looks of 18.201....and the temptation to put it in front of a sample of ex-East German Doppelstock was too great. Trivia: did you know that 18.201's front headlamps came off a Trabant?