Horsetan

The J.P. O'Dea collection at NLI turned up this 1959 view of 560 at Cork: http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000304698 Depicted out of service, with rods removed, and displaying the "garden shed" cab which itself is showing obvious signs of being attacked by the tin worm. Cast numberplates still retained. ....out of the many hundreds (thousands?) of Irish railway photos he took, it looks like only two involve J26s!

Were there any FGW-liveried HSTs? Or are they now too valuable to put on public display?

Australia's fascinating....

Wonder what the cause of the mechanical failure was?

You could always follow Keith Richards' example. The fella's pretty much self-embalmed thanks to all the drink and drugs. Mostly drugs.

Wheels may not be a problem for an etch-only pack, but castings will be.

I thought it was going to be a kit only?

I think I can see where this is leading..... It's going to have to be 560 with the garden shed cab, no?

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David Geen's website is years out of date, unfortunately, and he has no control over it.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!"