Turin60

I too had a list from him, nothing to interest me but I gather he is away for a couple of weeks. Hope this helps. John Bruce.

Just thinking ahead for my to be built G class. Given when the second batch of the G class locos were introduced, delivered from Deutz in a "green' but seeing no service in this colour, all repainted prior to service into simple black & white. My question would be given that at the time of their introduction the "Flying Snail" was still in use did the locomotives actually carry this? I know later the broken wheel logo was applied with Black & Tan livery from 1963 or 1964? Your thoughts would be most welcome

Hi Leslie, may I just say having helped Andy at a few exhibitions over the years I can honestly say his loco's do not de-rail unless something untoward happens, and that is despite the fact that unlike me he doesn't worship at the alter of "compensation" so his are rigid as a general rule. John Bruce.

So many exquisite parts that have seemingly gone from the market, indeed the work involved in making some of them is truly wonderful. I'm sure some clever soul could knock up something similar on his 3D printer but it won't shine like freshly turned brass and have the feel of something made by a craftsman. I'll get off my soapbox now! John Bruce.

If you're the wrong side of the Irish Sea and you're looking for a Murphy Models class 121 then DC Models would be a place to go with prices from £110.00 (with damaged handrail), grey livery at £125.00 plus P&P, actually they say on the website "No VAT to Eire or EU so perhaps something for everyone! John Bruce.

My unwelcome visitor is still hanging around like a bad smell, however I'm learning to work with him! Now given the space I have I could fall back on an Inglenook shunting puzzle but much as I enjoy a shunting puzzle I've been there and done that, and to be honest on this occasion I would like to have something where I can operate in a more railway like manner. So we are now having the back of a small signal cabin at the extreme front lefthand side as a view block with the platform and station platform deemed to be further to the left (thus off scene), so I am still hoping for my agricultural merchant/dealer by the rearmost righthand siding, the through line being deemed to have been lifted beyond the road bridge (steel girder with stone abutments), its former route being guarded by a redundant wooden signal post. Please ignore the mess/storage of valuable material below the layout! The abutment shown in the photograph I've borrowed from my EM gauge Light Railway to get an idea of the affect, the track is only sat in place at the moment while I contemplate manual point operation via a simple slide switch or by simple servo's, decisions, decisions! At this end of the model there will be a slightly skew roadbrige to help hide the actual end of the track, the girders will be a faded red oxide colour with grey stone abutments. That's the plan anyway. John Bruce.

It was good to see the layout and have a natter at Eastleigh on Saturday David, thanks for bringing it along. John Bruce.

Thanks for that Leslie, hope you're back up & running soon. Best given to both of the above even though Andy did not have his GWR broad gauge layout there due to a slight mishap when packing his car, so was running North British instead! Oh the life of the exhibitor! John Bruce.

Gosh, you've been busy over the festive season and into this new year, well done. John Bruce.

Thanks for clarifying that Leslie, might still bump into you at Southampton tomorrow? John Bruce.

Leslie, will these be available direct from yourself this the wrong side of the Irish Sea, I ask this as I have only just started modelling the Irish prototype. John Bruce.

An unwelcome visitor comes calling. Yes curse him, reality came calling while I was fiddling around with my new points on the baseboard (being refurbished/recycled!), it seems that I don't have space between the loop line and the rear of the board for a convincing low relief goods shed. Soooo, instead there will be a partially demolished platform with overgrowing brambles and so on, that's the rear dealt with. I don't know if I can keep my agricultural merchant still on the remaining siding or replace it with my low relief goods shed idea, as in it doesn't exist yet. Much more fiddling to be done yet with cardboard and so on, we'll get there in due course. I must draw up a plan for the model for your consideration. John Bruce.

That sounds like an excellent excuse reason for working on what would in effect be a "gauging" vehicle! John Bruce.

Now there are two. I've been busy in a steady sort of way! The second point for my Irish micro layout are done, that is to say the construction phase is complete next step is gapping the sleepers to avoid the dreaded short circuit followed by filler too hide the gap thus created. In the mean time I shall be working on what passes for baseboards, as a clue they are made from recycled Ikea drawers, must be the Scottish part of my ancestry. John Bruce.

On Andy's behalf I can report that he will be exhibiting his new GWR broad gauge layout based on Marlborough! John Bruce.

Oh Dear. While cleaning up the first point in my new gauge I realised I'd made a mistake, if it's not too tedious I'll explain. If you've ever seen point work built using PCB aka copper clad sleepers you will have noticed that as in real points the point blades are joined together with one or more tiebars, on many model points this tiebar is the width of a sleeper and very securely soldered to the blades. Now mechanically however it is only to take the weight of our toy train yet this soldered joint suffers from a certain amount of twisting stress, if you've ever had one of these joints fail at an exhibition you know what a pain it can be to repair. I saw a chap at an exhibition demonstrating building PCB point work and he had a neat way of joining the tie bar to the point blades which I have taken on board. Instead of a large soldered joint he joined the two with an L shaped piece of phosphor bronze wire so it is just the PB wire that holds the two parts together and with a little flexibility and no stress on the joint, oh and for the tie bar I use copper clad fibreglass strip intended for N scale. Yes it's a bit fiddly but well worth it, I've not had one fail yet. And the mistake I made was I used PB wire that was far too thin so it bent easily. In the photo above you can see the L shaped wire soldered into the foot of the rail out of the way of the wheel flanges, the tie bar is gapped but not the sleepers yet. One down one to go. John Bruce.

First one done. One down and one to go, it needs quite a bit of cleaning up yet followed by gapping the PCB sleepers then electrical testing. The final check will be to see if something rolls through it without falling off, so I'd better get on and finish a cement type (?) van I've started....until then it's all theoretical! Colonel, don't panic the wheels on the 26mm axles were just to check clearances, for the real wheels I an going to try (1) MJT inside bearing units with longer axles, I'm not running long trains and when using auto couplings with a latch you don't want the wagons "hunting" and re-coupling. (2) cutting and sleeving 26mm axles to use the pin points, there won't be a huge amount of stock so hopefully such butchery will not cause me too many problems. The couplings I'm planning on using are DG, I was tempted by Spratt & Winkle but then I could't run my stock on Mr C's layout, good tech' reason for using brass axles though. I am a touch out of practice building copper-clad points but have now got my eye in so the next one will be better. John Bruce.

The website claims 19.3mm, I shall have to check. Might need to introduce it (very gently of course) to some very fine wet & dry. John Bruce. I plan on attending so will make a point of looking you up. John Bruce.

A few years back I saw a motorbike drive chain 3D printed, as above printed in one piece and no excessive play between the parts. Obviously not a useable thing but the guy who created it did so because he could! Sometimes that's a good enough reason to do something. John Bruce.

For folk in the UK wishing to try 21mm gauge using EM standards be it in 4mm scale or 7mm scale (Three foot gauge), Paul Martin of EDM models produces and sells a 3D printed back to back gauge photo attached. Gauge shown in the photograph with a 4mm scale wheel on a 26mm length axle, hope this helps someone. John Bruce.

Thanks for that, looking again at the photograph again you can make out the 2nd brake shoe on the side nearest the camera. Cheers John.

Is that van just "piped" or fully fitted? John Bruce.

Galteemore, my model will be fairly minimal featuring just two points and will be of the "Bitza station" school which was popularised perhaps by the late Iain Rice and carried on by James Hilton even more minimally! Mine will feature a goods loop with small stone & brick goods shed, a siding feeding a small agricultural merchants in corrugated iron. The line through the single platform ends under an oxide painted girder bridge, the line presuming to be closed beyond the bridge with a disused signal post in front of the bridge. The (small) station building will again be stone with brick quoins and will also act as a view block for the fiddle yard, for the bridge I found a good colour photograph showing what I considered perfect...can I find it now, can I heck. However in the meantime there are some points to build, if it helps anyone else I'm cheating here in that despite working to 21mm gauge I'm using Peco point plans for the templates. Peco track geometry is spot on despite having sleeper spacing to suit European spacing, so download the Peco templates and before printing them enlarge the image by 127% and hey presto 21mm gauge points with more or less (?) correct sleeper spacing. John Bruce.

Thanks for the interest guys, Mol as far as standards go I'm going for EM on 21mm and I do like your "Silver" engine, early days yet, my own motive power looks set to be a C class (in silver) and a G class (later type in black) and when new patterns are made hopefully a second (earlier) G class to be in green. Galteemore, I live in NW Hampshire so as you say not too far away. It's early days yet, points to build and sleeper bases are hopefully on their way to me, baseboards are part new build and part recycling, the design will be quite simple but we can look at this at some point in the future. John Bruce.

I'm just starting my Irish railway modelling journey so I anticipate a good few mistakes so please bear with me. How did I end up here, well not too many miles from me lives a certain Andy Cundick whose exploits with 4mm scale Irish modelling are well known here, given such influence I was bound to want to dip a toe in sooner or later. The other influence was from when I was growing up in the 1960,s, I had a copy of "The Observers Book of Railway Locomotives" and in there were some diesel locomotives which appeared to be painted SILVER! What a mad idea, only to be outdone in the 1980's by Network South East painting locomotives red WHITE & blue...now that was mad!. Anyway now I've got a replacement Observers book and it seems that edition was the first to feature the railways of the Irish republic. Now being English (albeit with Irish ancestry) and awkward my project is going to be built to 21mm gauge, now I must admit I don't mind building pointwork which is going to be done with code 70 rail and PCB sleepers, there should be appended to this message a photograph of my point plan set up with sleepers stuck in place ready to go! In more recent times I seem to have acquired a reputation for building layouts which don't feature many (or any) points, well my plan is to use two points so the layout might be classes as small as opposed to Micro and will be more charicature rather than prototype. Bear with me it might not be as bad as you fear. So I've got the cunning plan and rail and hope to make some progress over the forthcoming festive season, so best wishes to you all. Now let's see about inserting that photograph. John Bruce.