Rana Temporia

There have been lots of similar threads in the past, if you do a search you’ll find lots of advice. As has been said, Model Shop will generally offer very low prices but no hassle. EBay you will get more if you have the time to put them on there BUT you have to factor in that they take around 20% in fees on the selling price AND postage. Swapmeets, you will generally get the same prices as model shops. Selling direct to people who want them, you will usually get more and you know they will enjoy them. As stated, model railway clubs are a good bet. For an idea of what to expect look at what things actually sell for on eBay, that will give you a ball park figure. Ignore the dealers on there who put silly prices on them at buy it now. They are unlikely ever to get those prices but they may in their shops. You can search on eBay for what the items sold for over the past few months in the SAME condition and the SAME R number. Unless the models are particularly rare condition can affect the price by up to 3 or 4 times (I know, I’ve sold a lot of equipment). Remember something is only worth what someone will pay for it which may be substantially less than you want or expect.

Where is it broken? I doubt you’d get enough heat into the metal using solder, brazing it together might work but it’s something I am unfamiliar with and if the chassis has broken through being brittle then you might cause more damage or have further breaks. Maybe better to look for a damaged loco with an intact chassis block. I think the wheels drop out of this chassis once a plastic plate is removed so no need for re-quartering. I got a complete loco with damaged body for £5 not that long ago and the chassis for loco and tender now run around under a GBL streamlined duchess. I had to file the cylinders down quite a bit to get them to fit the body. The long term plan is to paint it BR green as a neverwazza.

81F. You read my mind! I had already been looking at some of the figures available at that scale. The book on the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway by W J K Davies has scale drawings of all the locos and Smallbrook Studios had some bodies to fit the Hornby 0-4-0 chassis based on one of the Heywood locos (genuine narrow gauge on 15” as opposed to the more common miniature locos). On the R&ER ~River Esk was actually built as a heavy goods loco to move granite trains but in keeping with the miniature appearance of the other steam locos.

Did the one at Colwyn Bay use one of the Tri-ang Minic locos? I can vaguely remember a ride alongside the road but I don’t think the railway was there very long. There was also an American outline one at Ffrith for a few years after the Fenlow diesels had departed that ran round a large oval and had a tunnel with ‘Mind your Noggin’ on it. I don’t think Noggin is a very Welsh term but I may be wrong. Unfortunately I have the same experiences of Rhyl which is why I hadn’t been for a very long time. I think the last time I had been there was a day visit when my kids were young, probably around 1990. After that visit I was in no hurry to go back, it seems a bit more friendly now.

On the back of WATB's look back at the L&MR..... Recently I finally managed to get to the Rhyl Miniature Railway 'Anything Goes' gala which was great. When I was young the miniature railways were something I always looked forward to and I can still remember having a ride on the one at Rhyl even though it originally closed in 1969 so I can't have been more than four. I think this is the first time that all the original steam locos have been assembled in one place? I found it hard to eventually drag myself away. I also remember the Fenlow diesels at Prestatyn or Ffrith which reminded me of my Big Big Train Hymek and I believe both are still running in the South of England and were an attempt by Ian Allan to get into the miniature railway market. I have seen a model railway based on miniature railway practice, an oval of track and trains tail-chasing. There are lots of prototype examples. maybe something to consider? Then of course there are 'real' railways with miniature stock like the Ravenglass and Eskdale which provided all the services of a full size railway for many years.

I knew I had a picture somewhere…………. In Industrial Steam Album by M J Fox and G D king there is a photo of the Head, Wrightson and Co Ltd no 13 of 1873 which is a ‘single sister’ version. I am on my iPad and links don’t work but if you google Head Wrightson 13 you’ll get several photos (with No17 on it). There are also some photos of a couple of their standard gauge vertical cylinder locos coming up with this search.

Great picture! Are the wheels solid wood with iron spokes and tyres? Where did the driver and fireman go, was it stoked from front and back or from one side like the Ffestiniog Fairlies? I’ve not seen this one before.

In the original review (a long time ago) in either Railway Modeller or Model Railway Constructor the reviewer commented on the bogie version being an industrial design and the fact that the BR versions had a fixed wheelbase. I think there was an article on making a correct chassis and running wagon for it. If anyone has a subscription for Railway Modeller they should be able to search for the article, unfortunately MRC is long gone and it’d be a long paper copy search. I am sure I have seen a picture of an industrial version in red with BOOTH on the sides of the roof.

Having driven site plant/4x4 wagons (Bedford RLs which were probably older than me…but superb at getting around difficult terrain) and land rovers for the early part of my adult life I can just imagine crawling along under the length of the train with a grease gun on every moving part of the shaft and scissors couplings. At least the Shay would be easier to get to the splined sections. I would suspect that the original lubricant would be tallow rather than an oil derived grease. I can’t tell from the drawing if there is a differential gear in there somewhere to cope with curves which admittedly would be much less severe than road vehicles. Maybe it wasn’t a problem.

Vertical pistons were used on a number of UK locomotives, most notably on the Welsh narrow gauge. However, there were a number of standard gauge vertical boilered and cylindered locos. They differ from the picture and the shays in that rather than driving a longitudinal crankshaft they are mounted above and connected to a crank axle to drive the loco. I have seen a photo of one standard gauge loco with a vertical boiler but what looks like a standard tank loco chassis with almost horizontal cylinders, it would make an interesting model. I think all the Sentinel geared steam locos had vertical cylinders.

No problem Threelink. The Jouef crane is a more impressive model based on a French prototype but is really awkward to set up to travel due to the two small trucks that have to be attached.

Definitely HO and was in the Lima UK range masquerading as a UK item. It has been available in a number of colours.

The Tri-ang society used to produce repro boxes but I think they were the old solid red types. If you have an existing box you can dismantle it at the seams, scan it and either do it yourself or get a friendly printer to clean it up and print off on card. I have had some Playcraft boxes done in this way. The card may not be as thick as the original but for display they are OK. Another option is to buy a non-runner with a decent box and sell on the other loco for parts. Good boxes on their own can be very expensive!

The Acho version, like all their locos had a bespoke chassis and it looks much better than the 3MT tank chassis. Probably the reason Hornby Acho went under as everything was made specifically for the loco rather like today’s offerings. I have one which runs superbly, as do all my other Acho locos. My two Tri-ang ones also run well, exactly the same as my 3MT tanks in fact.

The Tri-ang/Hornby version didn’t have a light and was available in two different types, the early one was black, the later version had an extra dome, red chassis and orange boiler bands. It used the 3MT tank chassis. The very similar Hornby Acho version had lights at the front. Tri-ang also released a continental type guards van which is slightly larger than the Jouef and Hornby Acho ones I have.

Such a shame that Jouef only did a class 40 and the Mk3s in OO. Great quality models. Some of the Playcraft range although sold as HO was closer to 4mm. The NB shunter was a very close to 4mm scale body on a chassis that looked nothing like the original and I believe the first model loco to have wasp stripes. Some of the wagons were also close to 4mm scale from the side with 3.5mm scale width. I think the brake van was closer to TT but I stand to be corrected.

Rolling roads are great! Next boring virtual meeting make sure your mike is off and set a loco going, if you have to have your camera on make sure it’s behind whatever device you are using! Even good for a quick release of a fully wound OO clockwork loco. Suddenly you are fully focussed again and contributing with the best of ‘em. Best stress relief ever!

The original Hornby ‘shortie’ coaches are easy to tell from the later ones as the bogies are unprototypically at the ends of the coaches whereas the scale length ones have the correct long overhang past the bogies, this was to cope with 1st radius curves. The Jouef blue/grey MK3 coaches could be used to create a realistic HST by cutting the buffers off and are often available cheaply, they also run superbly. I have no idea why the Lima ones have no bogies??? I did have a few of them and had no problems with the bogies breaking or coming away.

Threelink, a couple of the traders I spoke to on Sunday said the same thing. One had covered his table but not the fuel to get there, another hadn’t covered his table. I did one last year and although we sold a lot of stuff it was at ‘to go’ prices and a lot was bought by traders. Anything that was close to what I’d consider the going rate didn’t sell so I stuck it on eBay and got more than I expected for most items, even when you add the around 20% it costs to put it on in eBay fees. I don’t have to give up a full day either!

Visited the Bolton Swapmeet yesterday amongst all the other things I was doing so didn’t have time for a proper mooch but I was really happy to find these two Tri-andg green starter set coaches with Mk3 couplings for a whole pound each. They will look great behind one of my clockwork 0-6-0 saddle tanks! Just the odd bent coupling between them! I also picked up a Tri-ang DMU/Blue Pullman power bogie alongside a class 31/37 one at a very good combined price. Both work but while the DMU one runs like new the other is a bit ropey. The magnet seems OK so i might change the armature. I was wondering what the future is for events like this. The car park wasn’t very full, not that long ago I’d have had to look for a parking space. Most of the stall holders I speak to regularly said how quiet it had been. I know we have other ways of finding what we need but nothing beats a good rummage round in the odd box of junk/spares. You may just find what you never knew you needed!

I need to give my continental electric locos a run! Not getting much time at the moment for any modelling fun though.

I was going through some of my late Father’s boxes of treasure/junk/fun and came across this and I have no idea what it is. I thought it was a Tri-ang Davy Crockett dome/safety valve but it is a completely different shape. I remember him buying the box from a car boot sale and most of the other parts in it were from the 1950s/60s. The base is flat with a plastic protrusion to fit to whatever loco it’s off. The diameter of the main part is measured at 10.7mm.

I think Hornby Dublo only ever made this in the correct black although with a few different running numbers depending on whether it was a 2 or 3 rail model. Wrenn on the other hand produced a number of fictitious liveries including green GWR, red LMS, green Southern etc. This was a BR standard design and only ever appeared in BR black (possibly green?) although there have been a couple of other paint schemes of them on preserved lines. This one looks like a home repaint using either Triang-Hornby transfers or the repro ones made by Peter’s spares. I got an email from Hattons this morning stating that they had a lot of bargain basement clearance locos and a lot of them are 3 rail Dublo locos mainly N2 and 4MT tanks that have been painted in different colours. This may be from that collection. Another common number for non-prototypical GWR locos is the one from the Kitmaster/Airfix/Dapol prairie tank which I think is 6167.

Great video. May I suggest that you hunt down a copy of the Model Railway Constructor Annual 1983 and read the ‘Cover Story”. This is a very interesting article about how they produced the cover photographs for the magazine (which I actually preferred to Railway Modeller at the time) including lighting and special effects for night shots and a snow scene. You can often pick these annuals up for pennies, I have a couple I paid 5p each for at a swapmeet. They are a bit dated now but I do like to look back through them occasionally.

There was an interesting article in one of the Model Railway Magazines a long time ago where a display layout had most locos with home made motors which had all been made to match the particular loco type. There were some photos of impressive haulage on long goods trains but I probably don’t have the magazine any more! Totally un-railway related but electric guitar pick-ups are made by winding a coil of similar wire around a magnet and there is lots of discussions about how many turns, what gauge of wire, what type of magnet makes the best sound in music magazines and online. The Fender type single coils sound great but are prone to interference. Gibson introduced the humbucker pickup which has two sets of magnets and coils with the second wound the opposite way to cut out the hum, hence the name. Often less clear but more powerful. There is a visually single coil type which has the second set below it to allow the use of Fender type guitars without interference. There is lots of discussion on the superiority of hand would pick-ups with all sorts of strange gadgets designed to make this simpler. TBH I have tried some and never been able to tell the difference. They sound very good but then so do machine made ones. My personal preference was for a humbucker type pickup overwound to produce the loudest possible sound known as a super-distortion pushed through several home-made effects boxes into a 1970s or 80s Laney valve stack. Not suitable for home use! Model trains are quieter!