To mark the 60^th Anniversary of the formation of British Railways in 1948, Modelfair has commissioned a limited edition of 50 gauge 0 ex-GWR Castle Class locomotives by Ace Trains. These will be in the unique experimental lined light Pea green livery that was carried for a short time by a number of Castle’s immediately after Nationalisation. There are 3 names available:

7011 ‘Banbury Castle’

4091 ‘Dudley Castle’

5010 ‘Restormel Castle’

By John Cherry

Rugby Central, 3 August 1957. A relief to the Newcastle–Bournemouth was run from York using Stanier 8F 2-8-0 No.48536 for the train throughout. It is thought that this was one of the longest - if not the longest - journey made by an 8F hauling a passenger train. Additional interest was that the leading pair of carriages were a Gresley articulated set.

I hope you will allow a brief follow up to the Neil Armstrong 'first words' item.

There is a commonly repeated story concerning Armstrong's last words on the moon, which allegedly were: "Good luck Mr Gorsky", and the story has entered the realm of urban legend. Use this link to read the details.......

Pete Runnacles

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Colin Watts says of Neil Armstrong’s 'One Small Step' speech: "The important point is that the world had no problem understanding his meaning".

Right.

Colin either wasn’t there at the time or has forgotten the weeks of perplexed speculation surrounding that cryptic statement. It was so not understood that Kurt Vonnegut later parodied the confusion in a scene from his teleplay Between Time and Timbuktu to hysterical effect.

I doubt anyone will remember the fuss in a few more years since all the official versions of the speech, including the recorded re-enactment that you can experience at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, have been carefully 'enhanced' to include the originally very absent 'a'. The only place you might stand a chance of hearing the original is in, believe it or not, the Disney MGM attraction where at one time they would 'blue screen' kids into the Armstrong lunar footage holding a giant cue card. And they say Americans have no sense of humour.

How lucky that the signal has been found to contain the proper wording upon "careful examination" with "modern techniques".

The modern phrase for this practice is 'retcon', (Retroactive Continuity). The modern expression of disgust for having it done unnecessarily is "Han shoots first!". Put me down for one of those.

Imagine what will happen when this technique is seen as acceptable in any circumstance. Don’t like the way the Titanic sank? No problem. Just wait long enough and get to work with the computer. Or maybe it’s that you want your version of the causes of the Sevenoaks Fiasco to be the 'real' one. Wait 25 years and fire up photoshop.

We are living in a Wikipedia 'mass opinion trumps fact' world. How marvellous that the digital age should put us back to 'everyone knows' instead of that pesky and expensive 'peer reviewed' fact system we had for a while after literacy became widespread and printing was reasonably cheap.

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The recent postings on signals have raised a query in my mind concerning the correct use of 'distant' signals on our club layout, currently under construction.

We have a quadruple track main line, with 'fast' and 'slow' lines in each direction, although for the purposes of this question we only need to consider trains travelling in one direction where we have a 'slow' line running adjacent to the 'fast' line with a one direction cross-over from the 'fast' to the 'slow'. Further along, at the approach to a station, there is a loop off the 'slow' to provide two platform faces to the 'slow' line. The 'fast' line runs through with no platform.

The cross-over is controlled from an adjacent box whilst the platform loop is controlled from the station box.

Assuming a gantry in advance of the cross-over by my understanding there would be a 'home' signal for both the 'fast' and 'slow' lines plus a shorter post 'home' signal for trains crossing from 'fast' to 'slow'. In advance of these (off stage on the model) I assume there would be three 'distant' signals, one for each of the 'home' signals.

My concern is over what happens with the platform loop. I believe this would require a bracket style 2-posted 'home' signal. Now what happens with the 'distant' signals for these? I would expect a bracket 2-posted signal. However, due to the short section the 'distants' have to be placed along with the previous 'home' signals on the gantry but as approaching trains might be off either the 'fast' or 'slow' lines, both lines would have to be equipped with those two 'distants'.

To keep the number of posts down, one of the 'distant' arms would be mounted on the same post as a 'home' but even so we have a gantry spanning two tracks requiring at least five posts and seven arms (assuming the next 'fast' line 'distant' is further on) for what appears to be a quite simple track layout.

Have I got this right or have I over complicated it. Or, alternatively, have I missed something altogether which would make it even more complicated.

There is a further complication on the loop in that it could be used to terminate trains coming in from the opposite direction but I think that is best ignored for now.

In case it makes a difference, the layout is based around 1960 BR Midland Region. (although at times it goes back to LMS for one members stock).

I would be grateful for any comments please.

Jim Campbell

Can anyone please tell me if Hornby have successfully changed the as-supplied chimney on Royal Scot class 46140 The Kings Royal Rifle Corps (or any other model, e.g. The Rifle Brigade) with a replacement, scale size, chimney from Hornby – assuming the latter are available. If so, please tell me how.

Alan Fryer

Thanks for the replies regarding Twickenham Station photos from Brian Macdermott and Peter Gomm. Twickenham Museum has rail side and a long shot from the London Road bridge, but not a head on shot of the main house, yard etc.

Peter Gomm's suggestion is a very welcome one, except that that I don't think that Co. Limerick has a bus preservation society, although there is a regular vintage motor cycle club event from the UK here (motor cycles are my other hobby). I did attend the first Cobham Bus Day at the bus museum (I lived about two miles from it).

However, with the intended move to France in the near future, it will be easier and cheaper to get to the UK so I will let you know, Peter, and perhaps we can arrange 'summit'.

Ken Darville

I think I missed the earlier postings offering suggestions for lubricating Chris Patrick’s Hornby plastic square axles to improve running. That said, he ought to bear in mind the possibly adverse effects of any lubricant on the plastic axle and axlebox; many lubricants will attack plastics, however slowly. Chris has already noted the further potential problem of using a grease which offers some resistance to the rotation of a light axle.

One safe lubricant would be graphite, but this is not readily available in powder form and, if bought as a grease, could contain damaging solvents. Chris could try inserting the ‘lead’ of a sharpened pencil (grade BB or softer) into each (clean) axlebox and twiddling it round to deposit a small amount of graphite. If this doesn’t seem to work, he could produce graphite dust by filing the ‘lead’ of the pencil and inserting a tiny amount into the axlebox – fiddly but it should be effective.

Another lubricant which should be safe is a silicone spray, as commonly used by plumbers when assembling push-fit plastic pipe fittings or (so my wife tells me) for adding a sheen to the leaves of house plants. Here again, only a tiny amount will be needed; the aerosol will probably come with a fine capillary tube to aid application. Alternatively, squirt a small quantity into the wife’s best eggcup or similar and apply it to the bearing on the end of a wire.

Nick Stanbury

I read that two correspondents were talking about chain fine link and lubes for models. I obtained very fine link chain from Antics in Cardiff at £2.25, for a project I am doing (ref. 8611). They are also able to supply the Woodland Scenics lube pack for £19.95, containing a selection of oils and greases for model railways. I hope this helps.

George McKie

Have you voted yet in the new 'Wish List' polls? The links to the voting slips are as follows: