naugytrax

The flat sides and rectangular water-filler hole identifies it as a Hawksworth tender. This type of tender (except for those fitted to the 1000 Class Counties, which were wider) was interchangeable with the earlier 4000-gallon Collett design and could be seen running with Halls, Modified Halls, and Castles, having been swapped during servicing. However, the Kings, as a matter of prestige, each had their own dedicated (Collett) tenders and as far as I know no King ever ran with a Hawksworth tender. So no model was ever manufactured like this and the unprototypical pairing seen in your purchase must have been the work of a previous owner, perhaps by accident. Rather than look for a GWR King body to "match" the GWR tender, I'd dispose of the tender in favour of one more appropriate for a King. Incidentally, the Dapol County and Castle on which the Hornby models were originally based had Hawksworth tenders whose width (OO scale 8' 3") was a compromise between the County (8' 6") and Castle/Modified Hall (8' 0") types. I don't know about the more recent Hornby models.

Carelessness in manufacturing - or maybe desperation in time of shortage - was not unknown even in the good old days of Meccano Ltd. I used to own a Hornby-Dublo ex-lNER coach in red and cream livery which had been fitted at the factory with bogies belonging to the LMS coaches of the post-war period. Because the bogie types were of different lengths it didn't run quite right, but in my days of using tinplate track on a wobbly hardboard baseboard my expectations of stability were lower!

and all's well that ends well. Thanks for your efforts, gentlemen.

I followed your link and indeed there it is. Thanks. But since I log in from the US, I get by default the US version of the Website (https://us.hornby.com etc.) and there it isn't!

It's now the 5th of May (2022). You've not yet posted the May Calendar. Why not? Will it appear soon (when?) or do I have to search the Web for another railway-themed desktop calendar?

This model was built from a kit. Based on the clumsiness of the details, e.g. the thick boiler-bands, the body is a whitemetal casting. The wheels were made by Romford. It is not a Hornby product.

But the "double crossover" in Code 83, listed in the Walthers catalog, is a completely different beast from a "double slip" by Peco or anyone else. The double crossover is a pair of single crossovers between parallel tracks, one left-handed and the other right-handed, superimposed with a diamond crossing in the middle. See https://www.walthers.com/code-83-nickel-silver-track-6-turnout-double-crossover It's not equivalent at all. BTW, if ordering from Walthers, they carry the Atlas Code 83-to-100 transition rail joiners. It's not clear whether these compensate for the difference in rail height.

A model of Sir Topham Hat (originally known as The Fat Controller before the word "fat" became deprecated due to body-shame issues) is available from Bachmann (US) in their "Thomas and Friends" range.

96RAF's catalogue seems to be later than Howbi's, because it contains fully-diecast (no tinplate) wagons such as the BR 16T Mineral Wagon, a more recent introduction. However, the prices shown for the tinplate-bodied wagons are lower! (Something to do with Tri-ang entering the field?)

General Certificate of Education "S" level stood for "Scholarship". For students proceding to college, the various counties would award "County Scholarships" based on A-level results. But "State Scholarships" were worth more and were awarded to students who succeded at "S" level examinations, which were taken a year after the A-Levels.

If contemplating a second-hand purchase, you should be aware that early versions of this model (e.g. Airfix 54250-0) were fitted with plastic wheels, which are considered inferior to the metal wheels on the later Hornby versions. Also, initially there was only one running number produced, 6894 (or W 6894 W for the BR-liveried model) so to run a pair you might want to renumber one to 6895. I replaced the inner couplers on mine with American horn-hook types which dropped neatly into the Airfix coupler boxes, giving a better-looking spacing between the coaches with less slop than the tension-lock types. Ultimately I plan to fit proper close-couplers from Keen Systems, which will give an even tighter and more prototypical spacing. At that time I will remove the redundant buffers and replace the oddly-curved headstocks with straight ones. And I'll replace the outer headstocks too, fitting longer buffers. I've read that there is an error regarding windows and/or doors in the Guard's section, but that's not the sort of thing that bothers me when they're running around, so I'm not looking to get the (presumably correct) promised new release from Hornby!

The Postman mentioned EWS maroon. I've been committed for decades to using Floquil for repainting my stock, even though it's becoming very hard to get (and expensive) in many colours since manufacture stopped a few years ago. I recently got a bottle of Wisconsin Central Maroon, which I imagine to be identical to EWS maroon given that the WC was a major owner of EWS. EWS maroon looks to me (in photos) as being awfully close to BR maroon, and by dirtying the paint a little I get what seems to be a convincing shade. Any thoughts?

From the last type of MK II coaches onwards, the wheel diameter of the real thing was 3ft 0ins. So the correct OO model size is 12mm. 14mm wheels are too big and will foul the brake blocks. Hornby fitted 3-hole wheels to some coaches needing 12mm wheels. These are only appropriate for freight vehicles, but originally Hornby economized by manufacturing only 2 types of wheels. 12mm plain wheels are now available as R8096.

if someone sensible made them Like this? https://www.dccconcepts.com/product/cobalt-tiebar-labels-12-pack/

It's quite unlikely to find a DMU on a Class 1 train. I think "1A20" is a mistake here. I renumbered my Lima DMU with 2B(something) reporting number. This indicates a down train on the WR, i.e. heading West.

74 last week.

When the 4-6-0 County was originally introduced by Dapol it had a metal fall-plate. A protrusion each side of the plate, at the front, engaged with a depression in the corresponding cab side. This provided a hinging effect. The fitting of this separate part may have been seen as a "frill" which could be left out when the model was "Railroad-ised" by Hornby! I remember that my first County had a matt finish which made the green appear unusually light. I sprayed it with gloss varnish, and the resulting shiny surface made it look reasonably dark.

I must say that this is all pretty baffling to me. In all of my OO gauge locos with leading trucks or bogies, these are attached to the main frames with pivots or slots so that they are completely free to move sideways until the fixed limit of travel is reached. Therefore they have absolutely no influence on the fixed wheels. The statement: "locos with front bogies are guided by them and the driving wheels follow" applies to full-size locos only, and not to models. The statement "Front driving wheels on an 0-6-0 are heavier and then more likely to derail" is also weird. Even if the weight on the front drivers were greater, and in a correctly-balanced model it isn't, the greater weight would surely make them less likely to hop off the rails, not more likely? I did once try to add a sideways-acting spring to the front pony on a Dublo 2-6-4T, to see if the "steering effect" made any improvement to track-holding. It simply made the pony truck more likely to derail and didn't affect the drivers, so I removed the spring and concentrated on smoothing out the track instead. Of course, as people have said, you should check the back-to-back distances and the alignment of track, especially through turnouts. For testing purposes I would use a loco with a 2-wheel leading truck, such as a 2-6-0 or a 2-8-0, since the leading truck is the most likely to derail if the track is irregular (on many RTR models, the pivot arm is too short, so that the wheels are not parallel to the rails on curves). In my experience, if pony trucks don't dance off the track, an 0-6-0 is very unlikely to fall over unless its wheels are out of spec. BTW, my Q1 runs just fine on my layout (which admittedly is pretty smooth due to progressive realignments over the years). It's a slow locomotive, so dynamic effects are likely to be negligible and any unreliable road-holding has to be a problem of non-standard wheel and/or track dimensions.

I'll second that, although I'd like to see bigger buffers on it. Actually, the old Airfix underframe from the outside-framed siphons should be a pretty good fit along with the Airfix bogies.