Broithe

I have some bits of the Stafford-Uttoxeter line that I dug up in my garden....

That popped up in my 'subscriptions' a while ago - I couldn't remember "who else" you were... Excellent stuff.

Discussed here - http://irishrailwaymodeller.com/showthread.php/5869-Rivets?

A whole fleet - in all liveries..? ..including DART.. ..a Celtic with a pantograph..

Just consider where they might be "in the way" later on. If you do do the drawer thing for the controller, then they could even be on there...

Shortened "Irish Deltic"? Or "Celtic"..?

Carbon capture technology has been fitted.

OK.

At last - this sort of thing - these keep the open face of the box stiff whilst the lid is not in place. Note - beware of Googling terms like "stiff gusset", you get picture of things that aren't made of plywood....

Triangular plates of plywood, glued into the open underside of the box. Sort of like this welded assembly. They'll still leave you access underneath, though there will be a little restriction - you could even curve in the long side of the triangles, with little detriment to the improved stiffness, but a little better access. The more of the open side that you 'plate' in, the stiffer the assembly will be. Try it with a cardboard box and you'll see the significant improvement. If the bit of twist that you have is a concern, that is.

It's a lump, but it will work for ever.

Just triangular plates in the corners of the open side, if that makes sense. Struggling to find a suitable picture...

Fillets in the open face would get rid of a lot of the twist, if it bothers you much.

Is it worth having the controller on a sort of slide-out shelf? So that it can be accessible when in use, but out of the way when you're working on the layout, etc. I did that once and I'm sure that we would have found the controller in the way, when it wasn't in use.

Deluxe Materials' Liquid Gravity, if that's what we're talking about, appears not to be a lead-based product - http://www.gaugemaster.com/item_details.asp?code=DLBD-38 - quite what it is seems rather difficult to establish. It did seem a little unlikely that a substance so easy to ingest would be lead-based these days.

I see him every couple of months - he still does the fairs. He'll be at the Stafford Exhibition in a few weeks. This is him - http://stores.ebay.co.uk/busmodelsatdrdays https://www.facebook.com/alongclassiclines/ Definitely a small thing - it's like running something N16.5

You could - the motor is under the 'ballast' in the trailer.

Well, I succumbed at the weekend and got a Wickham Trolley - £65 from the ex-Mr Modelfair. It is a tiny, delicate thing. This chap's video here gives a good representation of it - you can lose the first couple of minutes. I got the plain yellow, as seen in the video, that seemed the best to produce a "plausible" version eventually. It is extremely light and requires a pristine track surface. There is, as you might expect, no space for a DCC socket, but Hattons will flog you a ready-chipped one for about £110. The 'gravel' load isn't desperately realistic - a coating of suitable sand might help - and add to the weight. If fitting personnel, then it could be an idea to use white metal ones, to further aid track connection.

Droppers soldered to each rail would be more secure, long term. The rail joiners still rely on a 'frictional' connection to the rails, which can cause resistance issues over time.

Another safety issue with round bales is the potential for them to roll down slopes. This is the aftermath of one that emerged through a hedge into the front of a Transit - killing the chap who played the cello on the early ELO hits.

Print off a few of these..

There is almost always a tendency for upward pricing pressures to be much more efficiently transferred towards the end user than downward pressures are. People will need to keep their eyes open - price changes are happening preemptively already. On the Germany/Poland issue, a friend of mine buys a good bit of German stuff, mostly sourced in Poland for cheaper carriage, and often lower prices, too...

There is a 'plug-in' form of the more usual 'chocolate-block'-type connector that can be very useful - it can even be cut down in size, if you're confident that there won't be any further connections required.

There are many possibilities - it depends rather on the number of individual connections at each board joint. It's a planning issue, really. Places like Maplin would have a variety of potentially suitable connectors. Another point is, how often would the boards be disconnected?

For the more modern layout, these round bales look fairly good.