The Doc

My starting point when weathering is a very quick spray (from about a foot away) aimed at the chassis, using Humbrol Matt 29 Dark Earth from a spray can. I think this gives a good general grimy appearance. After that, a very diluted wash using a paint brush with acrylics such as black, dark grey, rusty red-brown and dark brown - all applied unevenly to different areas. Practise on an old mineral wagon (both wooden 7 plankers and steel). If the paint is not diluted enough and comes out too strong, quickly dip the brush in water and dilute the colour or move it around (or sponge it off if you really have gone too far).

Looking at the rakes in your photograph, you will find that Hornby and Bachmann make very similar maroon Mk1 coaches that match one another very well. The roof shades are slightly different, but in real life they wouldn't have been light grey for long, having acquired a coating of soot from the steam engine hauling them. Bachmann Mk1 coaches include more detail (wire rails and pipework on the roofs) but in my experience the Hornby models are more reliable (less likely to derail or uncouple on uneven track). If you go for crimson and cream livery, Bachmann's crimson is significantly darker than Hornby's, but in reality the shade of coaches varied quite a bit with age and weathering.

Is it only me, or do others find that when you select F6 you immediately get the wheelslip sound, followed by a half-second of absolute silence before the sounds kick back in again - makes it sound a bit unrealistic in my opinion.

You wouldn't be the first person to find the front bogie on Tornado/Flying Scotsman/Mallard to be a bit temperamental, and also to discover that big steamers need better laid track than a typical diesel. Some models of the Hornby Pacifics have a spring that helps to press the bogie down onto the track, some don't - not sure if they just scrimped a bit on some, or there was an error in the factory. I have found with one of my Pacifics that by loosening the screw that attached the T shaped slotted bracket to the chassis, it gave the bogie slightly more flexibility. Another solution might be to attach a bit of lead (from roofing/flashing lead) that adds more weight to the bogie.

An interesting suggestion. I bet that Ratio have sold many of their Midland clerestory coaches over the years for people wanting an older style of coach and I have seen plenty painted in other liveries. The short Triang non-corridor coaches still seem to sell quite well, even in completely unlikely liveries ( e.g. crimson and cream behind a BR experimental blue B12). There are also the longer corridor coaches that only have printed panelling on them - they are very popular in LMS and the more intricate panelled GWR livery. It might be difficult to decide what body and roof styles to go for from a manufacturer's point of view.

@JJ Your third and fourth coaches show the bits I was referring to that need to be pushed together. These are the type of chassis used in the Flying Scotsman set LNER coaches referred to in the original post.

If you want to get inside one of the coaches you have got, there are two little clips at each end of the coach immediately behind the buffer beams. Push these clips inwards towards each other and you should then be able to pull the sides and roof upwards. As Threelink mentions, the plastic may be a bit brittle, and they are prone to snapping. The transparent clips you have circled in your photo only hold the glazing in place (I think).

Finally, my most recent purchase is an LNER F4 2-4-2 in mainly etched brass, which has been very well made and beautifully lined in LNER passenger black. The chassis seems run quite smoothly, but only has pick-ups on the four driving wheels, so I am looking to add extra pick-ups to the non-driven wheels. It also needs couplings front and rear.

The 3rd of my new kit built acquisitions is a McGowan models J20 0-6-0. This is a monster of an engine and towers over a Hornby J15 by comparison The real thing was classified as a 5F, and only a little less powerful than the Southern Q1. The model is very heavy and can probably outhaul any of my Hornby steam engines. It has an unusually long wheelbase for an 0-6-0, so the model has unflanged centre driving wheels. This means it only has pick up on the front and rear driving wheels, and I am again looking to add tender pick-ups somehow, though it will need new tender wheels as the current ones are plastic. With a J15 for comparison:

A second J17, also by Bec, and also with a Triang Jinty chassis, but this one seems to be able to go through more modern pointwork, and also has tender pick-ups attached. I may leave it in LNER livery to give me a choice of time periods.

I've been trying to expand my fleet of East Anglian steam era locos for a while, but I have been looking for something a bit more unusual, so I occasionally searched online for some kit-built models that aren't available ready to run. It turns out they are just like buses - you wait ages then several come along all at once. Kit-built models can be very expensive, especially for rarer classes that are not available ready to run, but these all came in at well under £100 each. First up, a Bec J17 0-6-0 tender loco. It had a poor triang jinty chassis, so I am in the process of replacing it with a newer Railroad Jinty chassis plus fitting pick-ups to the tender.

As an adopted East Anglian, I think the Eastern region of the LNER have done extremely well these last few years. Certainly it was the case back in the 1970s and 80s when the LNER was under-represented compared to the GWR and LMS, but nowadays I think we are doing pretty well. Yes, the North-Eastern region may feel a bit hard done by, but there's a J something or other 0-6-0 tender loco on the way, and a G5 (?) 0-4-4 tank in development too.

I owned a Hornby (UK made version) HST at one time, and I recall that it could only pull about 3 coaches plus the dummy unit without slipping (when on sharp train-set curves). The dummy driving unit is the big problem because its bogies are just like the trailing unit on the powered bogie - the wheels run inside a mazak metal block rather than having pinpoint axle bearings like the coaches.

I should have added that if you are using modern Hornby or Peco track you will probably need to replace the wheels with finer flanged equivalents.

Depends what sort they are. The short clerestory coaches are nice, with good panelled mouldings, and can make a nice short suburban train. The Mk1 suburban (non-corridor) coaches are also a fairly decent representation, but are slightly shorter than scale length. The original Mk1 corridor coaches were very lightweight and far too short to pass off as proper Mk 1 coaches. The Triang Pullmans were much shorter than scale length, but very popular thanks to their nice livery. Many of the very short coaches in maroon or blood and custard have tended to warp so badly by now that the best place for them is the bin - I'm not even sure if cellulose-acetate can be recycled along with other plastics, so landfill is best for them!

The coaches are the full spec Hornby Mk1 coaches - that is to say, not as detailed as Bachmann's (Hornby don't have separately fitted pipes on the roofs) but the decoration is good, they have metal wheels, and they have modern bogies (ex-Mk2 coaches) rather than the 1950s Mk1 bogies of standard Mk1 coaches, since this pack represents a 21st century train. Likewise the loco has more detailed decoration than the straight Railroad version, but the mouldings are exactly the same. My own Tornado runs very well, as do Hornby Mk1 coaches (better than Bachmann, whose "close coupling" cam arrangement for the couplings can lead to derailments). If you aren't too fussed about fine detail and accuracy, you could pick up a brand new Tornado (Railroad version) + 3 Railroad maroon coaches for a little less (maybe £100 for loco plus £60 for 3 coaches)

I am pretty rubbish at soldering - as in, I'm not very neat - so I have never attempted to use it for anything other than electrical conmnections to rails, or when repairing locos. However, the most useful thing is to use some liquid flux - either applied via an old fine paintbrush, or a flux pen. Solder then flows where you want it to, rather than forming blobs. Maybe that's just me being hamfisted though.

Another point to note, adding to my previous post and Threelinks similar experience, is that lots of modern locos and wagons have a dummy "three-link" (pun unavoidable) coupling hook attached or moulded into the buffer beam, and the longer tension lock coupling hooks can sometimes snag on these, causing derailments. This can be a problem on larger radius curves too.

Lots of Hornby locos manage 1st radius curves just fine, despite what they say on the boxes. My class 08 said "Recommended 2nd radius minimum" - 17" radius - but it will go around 10" radius curves. How about the Hornby D16 or J15 pulling a couple of the Gresley suburban coaches? This video shows just that: I would recommend short bogie coaches (like the Gresley suburbans) rather than the more recent 4 wheel coaches. The pivoting bogies cause less of a problem with couplings than longish wheelbase 4 wheel coaches. The wider older style Hornby couplings are also more reliable on very tight curves than the modern slimline versions. With NEM coupling pockets on newer models you can swap them with the older wider ones as clip in replacements. My Peckett 0-4-0 has the wider ones and can pull short wheelbase wagons around 9" curves (just a bit of fun).

I have a mixture of Peco foam underlay, PVA'd stone chipping ballast, and un-ballasted (in the bit of the layout still under construction). I like the foam underlay, and mine is probably around 20 years old with little deterioration. I reckon the worst thing for the foam is sunlight, whereas my layout is in a garage with only artificial illumination. On the stone ballasted section of the layout, some locos in particular are very loud - usually older ones (Tri-ang, Hornby from 1970s/80s and Mainline/early Bachmann). My smoothest running locos (mostly modern Hornby models are acceptably quiet on the stone ballasted track, whereas something likt the Tri-ang blue Pullman is so noisy it drowns out any nearby TTS locos. So if you plan to run a lot of older locos, be aware that stone ballast, glued down with PVA, is very noisy, and a layer of cork underneath makes little difference.

My second Easter holiday project has been an ex-LNER J69. A few years ago I snapped up a South Eastern Finecast (ex-Wills) white metal kit of the body, already made, off ebay. It was far from perfect, but probably as good as I could have made it. I then hunted around for a suitable ready to run chassis. The Bachmann J72 is the best match in terms of wheel size and spacing, but older ones are often very poor runners with split axles. The biggest problem, however, is that the original model (previously by Mainline Palitoy) had a split chassis with thick heavy castings to add weight. No problem with a plastic bodyshell but if these came into contact with the white metal loco body they would cause a short circuit. The most recent J72 from Bachmann has a much newer chassis, DCC ready etc. but as the model costs over £100 I didn't want to spend that much just for a good chassis. Then I saw a company selling 3D printed J69 bodies on ebay to fit to the old Hornby (ex-Dapol) Terrier chassis, which gave me another idea. I bought a secondhand Terrier for less than £40 that was described as a good runner, and lived up to its billing. Selling the body for a good price I now had a decent chassis for only £25! Two problems that I can live with: 1) the wheelbase is a bit short for the J69, and 2) the body sits about 1 mm higher than it should. This is because the whitemetal footplate is quite thick, and even though I have thinned it, I can't lower it any further or it will short out the front pair of driving wheels. Presumably the 3D printed models available on ebay don't have this problem. A few jobs still to do: add coal, add buffer beam details (a coupling hook and vacuum pipes) + a Westinghouse pump (a 3D print bought off ebay). The photos are deliberately over exposed so that detail can be seen in the all black livery - which means all the blemishes in the white metal kit are visible. When running on my layout these are not noticeable. Plain black is a great colour for hiding faults!

My Sun Castle has its water scoop the correct way round - not that you can actually see it!

If you can find one second-hand (there are currently a couple on ebay), Peco used to make a curved point in their Set-track range for which the inner curve was 1st radius - it is smaller than their current Set-track curved points. This inner curve would form part of your oval with the outer route leading to the siding. I have used them in the past for minimum space layouts, and there is one on my layout shown here: You can see one here below the more modern version: Be aware that some locos are prone to derailing when turning onto the sharper curve - older 0-4-0s with coarser wheel flanges tend to be better. The inner curve is shorter than an R605 curve so you would also need a bit of flexi track (or does a first radius quarter curve exist?).

@Corky, Please bear in mind that we were all "one post members" when we started. If I had received a response like yours after my first post I don't think I would have continued with this forum. We should be welcoming newcomers. @BB I'm guessing from the question that Anuraj has only recently returned to the hobby after a long absence, and has only just realised that things are no longer made in Margate.

My Thane of Fife arrived a few weeks back and I can understand why some people don't like the colour, or the lining, and the footplate isn't perfectly horizontal. However, all the detail bits were fitted correctly on mine, other than the water scoop which is totally invisible anyway. A major plus for me is that it runs more smoothly than any other Pacific loco I have owned. It's the most expensive model I have ever bought, and I spent a long time wavering over the price tag (mine cost £172) but I have been wanting a Thompson pacific for years and previously I had looked at the DJH website. Their kit, together with their recommended combination of motor, gears and wheel-set, costs around £380, and then you've got to build it (no small achievement), followed by the cost of paint, lining and other transfers. There's no way I could make a model that looks as good or runs as well as the Hornby model, even with its flaws, so I am more than happy with my mine. In fact, I am so pleased that I went out and bought Sun Castle as well, and I am now officially skint.