[Jordan]

... received mine this morning....
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All it's got to have is flanged wheels...

[shortliner2001]

All UK copies were posted yesterday - overseas and shops going Monday

[Gene Kruger]

[steve]

Thought it must be about due.

steve
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Hull MRS, ERFG

[giles b]

Mine came on Saturday, while I was away for the week-end, so I only started to read it this morning. Nice looking dockside cranes in the Letters column, and the Train Order article was also interesting - very nice layout schematic. Any chance we might see more of the layout either here or in the magazine?

Best of all I enjoyed Dave Howell's posthumous piece on background research. In doing something similar a while ago, when studying the Wantage Tramway, I came across an interesting load from the days before general refrigeration. As there was no local ice-making plant in the town the local fishmongers had to club together and share a daily delivery of ice that arrived (I think from Reading) packed in straw, in a plain goods van. I should imagine by the time it arrived there was a bit of melting and seepage, which would make an unusual story behind some "wet" weathering on the lower planks on a van.

[jpachl]

My copy arrived today. I especially like Colin French's Ledsam Street Yard layout. Like Prof Klzlr's Chicago Fork layout featured in Carl Arendt's scrapbook #97a, it proofs that real micro layouts are possible even in large scales.

Joern
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http://joernpachl.gmxhome.de/model_rr.htm

[pdbrooksburke]

The Chicago Fork layout is a must for MTI fans...more to it than meets the eye tho. Hand built pointwork for one. I believe that Chris may have the material for an article.
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Paul

[jpachl]

[Sol]

[giles b]

Sol,

Thanks for the update on the Devan & Summersett, and good luck with the rebuild. I've been going the other way, to create a layout capable of operation by more than one person at once, although it's still compact enough for one to work alone if necessary.

[Biased turkey]

Having just purchased a couple of Magic Train wagons, the "Magic Train retrospect" article timing is perfect. After reading it, I'm very tempted to purchase some more rolling stock and 2 engines... before they vanish from ebay.
As the article mentions, almost everything can be unplugged and reassembled.
I replaced the couplers with some Kadee NEM 362 #18.

I quickly built a tuning fork micro layout on a 4' x 1' foamcore benchwork.

So far the wagons are hauled by an On30 Bachmann Davenport.
Gilbert Gribi has a very interesting article about modifying the cabin to adapt the Davenport to On16.5 scale.

http://www.gilbert-gribi.ch/daven.html.

Here is a great example of adapting the Magic Train rolling stock, it is the Belgian vicinal layout built by René Ceulemans

http://www.jackymolinaro.com/reportages/2006/expoforum/expoforum2006_fichiers/expoforum2006p2.htm

Jacques

[Broadoak]

I have very much enjoyed reading the pages from Arthur North’s notebook and this latest one about cattle wagons reminded me of something I read many years ago.

It was in a book about the Great Western Railway, when you hired a cattle van from the company they came with two partitions. They had painted on the side in white and quite small, the letters L M S. These stood for large, medium and small denoting the partitions that divided the wagon into three separate compartments. This ensured that if you had paid for a small wagon that was what you got.

They were very careful about fiscal matters in those days.
Peter