"Of model railways and petrolheads"

Life really does throw some curve balls at you some times. Like leaving a job and finding yourself unemployed...and the opportunity of a lifetime coming along very shortly afterwards.

I said yes to that opportunity and a few thousand miles of air, bus and train travel later, I am now back in Sidcup nursing a few midge bites and about a stone lighter in weight!

This year was about finishing the restoration of the Volvo estate. You'll find the whole journey on DriveTribe, here. The highlights have been the Volvo 90th Birthday Celebrations at Rockingham raceway in April and now being asked to take part in a concours for unexceptional motor vehicles!

Then of course there was going to Iceland and having the absolute time of your life with your best friend and two excellent new friends. A place where the sun truly never sets. It was magical.

Going to Scotland and...well, you'll have to wait until November for that one. But suffice to say, it was as legendary as it was totally bonkers and life affirming! Channel 4, around November. I am very excited by the scope of that film project and it will be a great watch I am sure.

2017 has been a year of incredible change. I am not just referring to my weight (!) but to all kinds of changes, good and bad.

The outside world can seem scary at times, the news hitting people harder thanks to the almost invasive social media and reporting that happens.

The outside world is not as scary as it is portrayed. In every corner of this earth are good people going about their daily business.

I've witnessed this. Hikers in Iceland, willing to share water and tips for photography. The townspeople of Scotland, resting weary plate layers in their barns, houses and fields. The online communities for cars, including but not limited to the good people of DriveTribe.

It's been an incredibly tough year for my family. I have done all I can to support them. I've also done a lot that I needed to do for myself. The job hunt begins in earnest this month after some time away.

It's crazy how things line up sometimes. It doesn't always go your own way. Things can seem bleak. Truth be told, circumstances, situation and environment dictate how you feel. It's up to you to break out from that and find the positivity.

I have just spent two weeks in the company of some amazing people. It was life affirming. It was life changing. I am looking at a new industry to work in, potentially. I realised I had potential to feel things again that I thought were long gone. I was made to feel like a member of a team, someone who brought something positive to the table. I made new life long friends.

2017 isn't over yet. We are over the halfway mark. It's fast becoming the best year of my life. Who knows where it will go next.

I can only apologise for the lack of updates. There's so much I want to tell you, but non disclosure agreements are strictly non elastic. You'll hear much more from me when I am able, I promise.

Thanks for reading, and your patience.

Simon

"Hornby Raven Q6 review: a northern beauty"

It's with great pleasure that I present for the first time on this blog a locomotive class which isn't part of my overall modelling plans. I had no intention of buying a Hornby Raven Q6, and yet I now find myself besotted with the original and having ordered another, with both destined to become Tyne Dock examples in due course. So how did we get here?

That's one question. Perhaps a better one is why didn't we get here earlier? In the North of England there are many beautifully industrial railways with steam locomotives of various vintages that ran to the end of  steam. The Raven Q6 is one of those, and luckily for us, one is preserved and currently running on the North Yorkshire Moors Railways.

There were some people who wondered if we'd ever actually get here in modelling terms. A specifically North of England steam locomotive made by a major manufacturer for the mass market. It's all well and good throwing in the odd elderly Shire class, or a Scottish liveried Black Five, or a Robinson D11 with a slightly different chimney and cab roof, but it doesn't escape the fact that for the North of England, and specifically the North East of England, model railways have been severely lacking in products, excitement and general all round recognition that the region exists.

Hornby and Bachmann have produced some buildings in their Skaledale and Scenecraft ranges (including specifically North Eastern style sheds, water towers, signal boxes and even Goathland station).

It is made even more strange when you consider that the North Eastern Railway (NER) in particular was one of the major components of what has been Hornby's money maker for some years: the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER). Sir Vincent Raven's designs built for the NER varied hugely from humble tank engines, fast Atlantics to the somewhat unwieldy Pacifics and the beautifully rugged freight engines. It's in this bracket that we find Hornby's latest steam outline model, the Raven Q6, answering the prays of many people who've hankered for a steam locomotive with that North Eastern pedigree.

Of course, it could have all been very different. There was also a "crowd funded" model mooted by DJ Models a few years back. Happily for modellers there's been no duplication this time around, and the Hornby model was pushed ahead for release in 2016.

Let's face it, when it comes to steam locomotives and particularly ex-LNER steam locomotives, Hornby has a track record by far and away better than anyone else in the market. Bachmann has come very close with a few of its models, most recently the Ivatt Atlantic, but Hornby's Thompson L1, B1, Gresley B17 and most recently the Worsdell J15 and Gresley J50 are on another level to everything else. They led the way with revamped models of the Gresley A3 and A4, and the rest followed. Truly, if you follow the LNER, now is the time to be a 4mm scale modeller. You will never be able to have it as good as it is right now.

Heljan recently released a model of the Gresley O2 fright engine at an entirely comparable price to Hornby's Q6. It however doesn't measure up very well by comparison, I am afraid to say. If you need a Gresley O2, this is the only game in town. It has a number of features which I personally do not like, and objectively speaking its overall finish is not particularly fine when compared to many of its excellent diesel electric locomotives (I cite Falcon and Kestrel - both beautiful models).

Given the Hornby Q6 has a similar wheelbase, overall size and is being sold at a similar price point makes it in my opinion a reasonable comparison of models.

But there is no comparison. Objectively speaking there is an incredible gulf between the two models. In almost every way possible, the Hornby Q6 is the superior model, even accounting for some potential detail errors (lack of capuchon, mechanical lubricator, etc). The fit, finish and running qualities of the Q6 just by far out strip any other steam outline model out there.

For this review, I conducted some running in trials of the Q6 on 29 June 2016 and everyone at ERMS (Erith Model Railway Society) who examined the model was taken with it. But we were blown away by how incredibly quiet and competent the chassis is, without any modification. By contrast, my Heljan O2 runs extremely poorly and is much louder. I have previously been forwarded some screenshots of work done by others on the internet to improve their Gresley O2s and to me it's an excellent starting point for some modelling.

But the Hornby Q6 is better value for money. Less modifications need to be done, if any, to make it look like a proper LNER workhorse. It has a better motor and gearbox arrangement, separately fitted lamp irons, metal handrails and handrail knobs (Heljan's O2 has hideous plastic ones which look and feel cheap), sprung buffers and a plethora of other separately fitted details.

By comparison, Heljan's O2 has mismatching tender handrails, poorly designed outside valve gear, an incredibly misshapen chimney and a less than smooth drive in either forwards or reverse running. I feel like I could trust the quality control of Hornby implicitly with this release, which I can't say with Heljan's O2. The Hornby Q6 hasn't got the double fly wheel drive of the Worsdell J15, but it doesn't need it either.

Bear in mind, I have always previously praised Heljan for their excellent mechanisms and it is regrettable that such a high profile new release falls down in what is normally their strongest area (if we accept of course, some notable problem models such as the Clayton. Art imitating life more than we'd like!)

So does the Hornby Q6 measure up for accuracy to prototype? You bet it does. Surprisingly, this is a model which Hornby haven't laser scanned, preferring to climb all over the real thing and measure it up traditionally.  Which I approve of wholeheartedly as you may find things which you don't get from a laser scanning device (a useful tool undoubtedly - but not infallible).

This means that in real terms, the Hornby Q6 model compares very favourably to scale drawings and photographs of the real thing. This model - like all in the first batch - carries a diagram 50A boiler (the later type fitted by the LNER) and a chimney without a "windjabber" or "capuchon".

It also has the mechanical lubricator fitted to the right hand side, and does not have a sandwich buffer beam fitted. It is in late LNER livery, with the plain yellow Gill Sans lettering and numbering that Edward Thompson introduced when chief mechanical engineer of the LNER.

The detail in the cab is absolutely bonkers: the boiler back head is possibly the most realistic and detailed I have seen on any steam outline model. It is extremely fine, and really only needs some weathering and a crew to complete the look.

If I have one criticism of the design of the model, it is that the tender is very light and possibly prone to derailing as a result. I have not however in eight hours of running this model encountered a single time that the model's tender derailed. So this criticism may in fact be unfair. It is easily fixed by adding real coal or liquid lead when the moulded plastic coal is removed to add weight.

There's a few other nit picky details I need to get out of the way at this point. Bear in mind, I'm an LNER modeller and as such I, and others like me, are going to be looking closely at these models for modelling purposes, and we may find more fault than others because we know what we're looking for.

(But I caveat that with fully accepting the Q6 isn't my normal fare and I have relied on my friends who have looked after the real thing to point me in the right direction of prototype photographs and film online).

Firstly, I'm pretty sure looking at the photographs I've collated that this Q6 (3418) should have a capuchon on the chimney. However when I asked Hornby about this, they replied that on this particular locomotive, they had evidence the capuchon had been corroded away and had taken the decision not to model it as a result.

It's a fair response in my view. In my time rustling through books (RCTS, Yeadon's, a few books on the North of England railways and my late grandfather's photo collection) there's a few photographs to suggest that the capuchon was damaged regularly on Q6s. Whether that justifies not modelling the capuchon on this locomotive, when they have such a chimney tooled up on the British Railway liveried models, is up to you.

Secondly, the mechanical lubricator. The RCTS (Railway Correspondence and Travel Society) series of books indicates that the type fitted to this model was post 1949, which is British Railways days. I've looked at photographs and I believe it's not wrong for a 1946 era Q6 to have this type of lubricator. However whether it is correct for 3418 is another matter. I simply don't know - I haven't as yet found a photograph of 3418 herself.

Then there's the smokebox door. On some forums there's been doubt about whether it should have been this type of smokebox door or the larger, more bulbous later one as fitted to the British Railway versions. Happily I've found a large number of 1946-49 era Q6s in photographs fitted with this door, so I am content to say it's most likely accurate, if not for 3418 then at the very least for a classmate in this period.

The numbering and lettering on this version looks a smidgeon anaemic to me. However the colour and shape of them looks accurate. That is the most minor point possible.

The biggest criticism of this model I have seen is that as an LNER liveried model it doesn't represent the largest period possible as it has a diagram 50A boiler and not a diagram 50 boiler which has many different details including, but not limited to, washout plugs, safety valves, dome placement, and so on and so forth...

This is a fair criticism if what you expected was a pre-war Q6, but Hornby haven't sold it as such. It's definitely post war and its condition reflects that. In order for Hornby to model a fully pre-war Q6, it also requires tail rods to the cylinders, possibly a sandwich buffer beam, original NER buffers (and not the square based group standard ones fitted) amongst other minor details.

I asked Hornby if they were going to produce this type, and they stated a pre-war version with the 50A boiler type is definitely being on the cards. I suspect (and this is my view, not one Hornby have offered) that an LNER liveried Q6 was always going to be needed for the first batch, but to maximise the tooling available a post war one was easier to produce than a pre-war one. There's nothing wrong with that intrinsically, but if you model the LNER 1923-46 then this Q6 isn't accurate.

That takes nothing away from what is the model of the year, for me at any rate. I've never known a model to look so comfortable pulling a train or be so quiet and smooth when doing so. The chassis is a testament to Hornby's current design ethos, and the sharpness and accuracy of the body shell a testament to Hornby's tool makers.

For me, Hornby are at the top of their game once again. The excellence of the K1 and J15 last year have continued into 2016 with the superb Q6.

Of course this is all set against the current backdrop of Hornby as a company being in dire straits. The situation is grave. 

All I can do, as a railway modeller who understands the value of Hornby as a company, is encourage those closet North Eastern modellers to buy the Q6s and the 21 ton hoppers in spades. They are both excellent models, and no doubt this won't be the last Darlington built model to be released by Hornby in the future.

For the sake of the hobby, we need Hornby to survive. We can do this by helping them to understand when they get it wrong - and by supporting and praising them when they get it right, like any other manufacturer.

At the end of the day, I'm not paid to write these reviews and I have absolutely no interest in mincing my words. I've previously always been very forthcoming with constructive criticism where it was required - see Hornby's Great Western heavy tanks or their Duke of Gloucester models to name but two that felt the wrath of my keyboard - but equally we've got to praise and support them when they get it right, because it's to the advantage of all of us in the hobby that Hornby as an entity survive.

I don't normally give scores on this blog, but if I was to give a score out of ten, this would be a nine: not perfect, for like any model there are people like me and more knowledgable than me who will know a few details are wrong, here and there. But the overall quality of the product and its performance by far out strip any other steam outline model on sale today.

Well done Hornby, sincerely, and gratefully.

"BRWS Ltd Update #8: "Going to Japan"

It's not a big update, but the blog will be quite quiet as I am going travelling in Japan for a bit!

There'll be a big railway update, rest assured, in November!

"New stockist for Tale of the Unnamed Engine - the Kent & East Sussex Railway"

We are delighted to announce we have a new stockist for The British Railway Stories. Tenterden Town station on the Kent & East Sussex Railway is now selling copies of Tale of the Unnamed Engine in the shop.

We will be adding their details to our partner page shortly and will be making a full report at a later date.

Tale of the Unnamed Engine is now available at the Bluebell Railway, Kent & East Sussex Railway and Talyllyn Railway in Wales.

"Locomotion's new Ivatt Atlantic C1 model: a review"

This review was first published on MREmag on the 1st of May 2015.

When the Shildon outpost of the National Railway Museum (NRM) announced their latest National Collection model, I was overjoyed. For many years the large boiler C1 Ivatt Atlantics had held something of a fascination with me. So much so, that one of the first models I bought for my own model railway was a part built DJH kit of an Ivatt C1. Coincidentally, and as the picture below shows, I turned it into a model of 62822. 

That model is now long gone, and in its place is the recently arrived Bachmann made model, the model I ordered coming in exactly the same livery as my original! It is a model of 62822 with ‘British Railways’ on the tender (product number 31-766).  So, how does it shape up?

The Bachmann model is superior to the kit model in almost every way conceivable. The shape of the boiler, dome, chimney, cab cut out, the depth of and finesse of the running plate are all a spot on match for the Isinglass drawings of the C1 class and photographs of the class. 

The tender is a very accurate recreation of the one of the types the C1s pulled, and the level of detail on the footplate is astonishing.

Gauges, piping, levers, regulator...all picked out in appropriate colours. There is a fire shield for the fire hole door, and it works! The shield can be opened or closed. This is a mind boggling bit of detail. I cannot think of a time where I would actually pose it on mine but the fact it is there is impressive.

The turned whistle and safety valves are beautifully turned metal items, though the safety valves look microscopically taller than they should be. It's a very minor niggle.

The printing of the letters and numerals on the tender and cab are crisp in application, a nice accurate cream shade and also the correct font (Gill Sans). All are, however, perhaps a smidgen too large and again, thats a very minor criticism for what is otherwise a well applied and handsome livery.

The works plate is entirely legible and is a wonderfully printed version of the real thing. I do feel this should have a little more relief, but that's a very, very minor nitpick and to be frank isn't anything new from any of the model manufacturers in Britain (works plates, if they are included on models, are almost always printed).

At the front end, the motion is very fine, but the connecting rod to the rear driving wheels is cranked roughly halfway down its length. I had my C1 running back and forth, and I suspect if I had not been aware of the nature of the design choice, I would have been unlikely to spot it straight away. 

It does beg the question – given that the Great Central O4 model from the same stable has a similar set of outside motion and a step in the way too, as to why this was considered necessary? This bothered me for some time until I decided to inspect one of my Bachmann O4s to find out: and I was astonished to find that its connecting rod is also cranked in a similar way! Interestingly I think it is hidden better on the O4, which has the crank in its connecting rod further down, behind the step. This gives the illusion of there being no crank at all!

However, I do think of this as one of those potential solutions which might have worked as good as any other. The other solution would have been to make the steps thinner – and potentially more fragile) and push the motion out further to clear the crankpins on the leading driver (which is the source of the problem). Overall it just doesn't strike me as a big deal. Putting the locomotive through its paces, I am positive it's not actually discernible at a scale forty miles an hour.

It is interesting to note that, unlike my original DJH C1, the driving wheels on the Bachmann model are scale for the wheelbase but potentially a little under scale in actual diameter. It's as good a solution as any to the problem of modelling the wheelbase of a Great Northern built Atlantic, the gap between the driving wheels on the real thing being somewhat tight in itself! 

Again this is barely – if actually – discernible and I think Bachmann have done an excellent job in replicating the driving wheels of the real thing.

On the boiler, we find that the smokebox door even opens! This was a detail first featured on Bachmann's Standard 3MT locomotive, and on that I felt it was a gimmick of sorts, not really producing the effect needed by having the blast pipe arrangement too close to the inside of the door. 

On the Atlantic, it looks more realistic and that is is in no small part due to the fact the blast pipe arrangement is actually directly under the chimney. I question the need for it but there is no denying that it is well made and looks rather realistic. The door itself has a beautifully moulded dart and handles as well, which are all separate.It very much captures the shape of the GNR smokebox door.

There is a bag of additional details which include, in no particular order, three link couplings, brake gear, cab doors, fire irons for the tender, additional replacement parts for the tender (once the coal load has been removed), there are sight screens for the cab sides in clear plastic, a speaker mount and even a single white painted GNR style lamp.

Separately fitted handrails, lamp irons on loco and tender, all wheel pickup (except the front bogie) and the surprising number of detail differences between this 1948-50 era locomotive and its GNR and LNER versions all give this model an incredible presence. In reality, it's smaller than a Thompson B1, and yet gives off this wonderful air of being bigger than it really is.

There are, however, a few minor negative points which are worthy of mention, even if they don't necessarily ruin the model in a practical way.

The first concerns the brake blocks on the tender. These are moulded in line with the frames, and look very flat and awkward. Even if the model was to be converted to, say, EM or P4, by moulding them in this way it means the wheelsets will not ever be actually in line with them. From normal viewing distance, and probably with some weathering, it's not discernible but given this has been done very well on previous Bachmann models, it is a disappointment to see them here.

The buffers are not sprung. This had me scratching my head a little. I am almost positive that Bachmann already make suitable buffers (and if not 100% accurate, they are very, very close). That product is still available – 36-032 – and simply fitting a set of them at front and rear instantly improves the overall specification. 

Very few models these days don't have sprung buffers, save for the design clever era of Hornby Plc, so why Bachmann have decided to fit unsprung buffers here to a premium model is something of a mystery. Now, practically, we all know sprung buffers are actually of limited use and sometimes a bit of a hindrance if we're honest (where buffer lock occurs with sprung ones on locomotive and coaches, for instance) but for the price of the model and in comparison to similar specifications that Bachmann and other manufacturers have followed, having unsprung buffers seems retrograde.

The final negative point is another minor niggle, but for me it's actually a very avoidable error. I've checked photographs, Yeadon's Register, I've gone through a nunber of my Atlantic books, I've looked at British Railway Pictorials and almost every source I know that shows 62822 in its plain black livery, and in its final livery with the lined out tender. Every single photograph I've seen shows that 62822 should have had the cut out in the tender side sheets as per the cab. In other words, the same tender top fitted to the GNR liveried model and not this type.

Let's be fair about this. Renumbering the model to no.2877 in plain black livery would be correct, and yes for a modeller this is a simple enough job, including perhaps removing the smokebox numberplate. However, looking through my reference material, it's not correct for 62822 it is also not correct for 62825 in this time period either. 

Of course, I could be (and often have been) wrong, and for X amount of time in Y year, 62822 could have pulled this type of tender instead. If so, let me be the first to humbly apologise to both the NRM and Bachmann. It is as far as I can see currently, an error.

Is it a serious one? A learned LNER modeller of many years remarked to me a few weeks back that something along the lines of “a loop of wire and a drill will sort that”. He's absolutely right and as a modeller, it is something I am prepared to do but it seems a shame to tool up the correct tender body shell and then to not use it.

Do the negatives outweigh the positives? Absolutely not. I highly recommend this model for a number of reasons. 

Firstly, it's beautiful. Look at it. There is no better proportioned or elegant steam outline model being sold today. It's a wonderful scale model.

Secondly, after some running in, it's as smooth as a sewing machine, and actually has some guts despite its wheel arrangement (I have so far with my model of 62822 managed seven of Hornby's top range Gresley Teaks. The model is always a bit slow to start, but with careful driving round my test track, it hauled the train comfortably). 

Thirdly, you are not going to get an alternative to this model. If you model the London and North Eastern Railway in any way, shape or form (or Great Northern Railway, for that model) then you need one of these models. There isn't going to be an Ivatt C1 coming from Hornby, or Dapol, or Heljan, or Oxford Diecast, or anyone else credible. It's this model – and no alternatives.

Given they were ubiquitous on the Pullman and London-Scotland expresses before the Pacifics came along, and even when replaced en masse effectively by Gresley, Thompson and then Peppercorn machines on their original workloads; they soldiered on, through two world wars and just into the turn of the 1950s. Accepted, the Ivatt C1 is not going to be suitable for the smallest and lightest laid of branch line layouts but anything with a hint of a mainline set in the LNER period should probably have at least one or two knocking about.

So, am I happy with my purchases? Very. The negatives do not by any stretch of the imagination outweigh the positives of this model. If you're a serious modeller of the LNER, you need one. No kit will match the quality of this product, frankly, and I can say that having built and re-built one.

There is one thing I do want to address, separately from MREmag. There's been a lot of comparisons made between models over a number of years, not least because of the Model of the Year awards given out. A few people are clamouring for the Atlantic to be this year's model of the year.

It's a close run thing for me, but Hornby's J15 just edges it. There are less compromises in that model overall, with an equally beautiful level of finish, and the specification is higher for a model significantly lower in price. Yes, one is a "main range" and one is a "limited edition" but they're both new tooling and both from the main stables for our hobby. There are therefore certain expectations of both models.

If the Atlantic had come out last year, I'd have had no hesitation in labelling it model of the year. However, in a year with the release of Hornby's K1, J15 and D16/3 on the horizon, it really would have had to have had a higher specification overall to win.

That does not, however, mean it's not worth having and I thoroughly and wholeheartedly recommend this model to any modellers interested in the Ivatt Atlantics of the Great Northern Railway.

Until next time.

"BRWS Ltd Update #3 - Of J15s, cabbages and Kings…"

Goodbye March! It's been a tough old month. I started my new job on the 23rd and I am loving the change in work stream. I have to work very hard over the next few months and really concentrate, so the change to monthly blogs is an advantage for sure!

So I started the month with a simple enough task. I had to change my Hornby J15 into something more personal to me, and one which no one else had done yet. One with a stovepipe, suitable for my layout set in 1946-49. I scoured books, magazines and online to find one...

So the most obvious change was to the chimney, which was a straight swap for an Alan Gibson turned brass stovepipe chimney. I simply removed the plastic Hornby one with pliers - surprisingly not damaging it (it can be re-used for something else I suspect - an industrial steam engine?) and glued it down onto the boiler.

The cab and tender sides were then shorn of emblem and numerals, using a glass fibre pen worked carefully with a little water.

This image is a composite of two pictures showing the difference between my J15 as bought, and modified. The stovepipe chimney is more obvious as a result. A further change to the model was the removal of the smokebox numberplate from the smokebox door, which was removed using a scalpel and a thin, edged file to finish.

The body shell and tender body were removed, and gloss black sprayed over the top. I have been using standard plasticote paints for some time with plain black models, and the reason for this may become more clear later on. I used press fix HMRS transfers for the number and lettering.

No.5398 was a Stratford based example that retained its stovepipe due to wartime austerity. I managed to find a number of pictures of this locomotive and it was clear to me it would be the only one suitable for my needs at this time.

You can see here that the lack of a stovepipe and removal of the smokebox numberplate really transforms the look of the model. But it is in weathering and adding a crew that I find Hornby's J15 really comes alive...

I used Tamiya weathering palettes to get the overall finish I wanted on the tender frames and locomotive chassis, before dry brushing a variety of Humbrol enamel paints over the top, and sealing the whole model with a few coats of Gamesworkshop's Purity Seal varnish finisher.

The result is a model which has a nice, unkempt look and will fit in nicely amongst the other models I am working on at present.

The crew is from Bachmann and have been weathered to match the locomotive. I do like the pose on this fella, watching the road ahead.

Adding a lamp indicating a K class goods train rounds things off.

I am slowly getting there with this vision of having set trains and train engines for my layout. I hope to have a lot more updates next month (I've been saying this for a while).

- - -

On an entirely different note, I notice a lot of hullabaloo on a few infamous websites regarding a certain product announced last year (which I also felt was controversial at the time). Here's a little hypothetical for you all to mull on, and bear with me whilst I explain further later on...

If a bank said to a consumer...

"That product you ordered? We're cancelling it, you won't be able to buy it from us now".
"But you can have it from an appointed representative of us, in a nice new box".

"Oh, and it'll cost £30 extra for the trouble of reordering".

 ...we would hear no end of complaints about the bank's behaviour, clamours for heads to roll, who thought that up, and a general agreement that this is not good business practice nor is it fair on the consumer.

So why do I bring up this example? Hattons announced practically the same scenario this week, via email, for their model of King George V to be manufactured by DJ Models, and for all orders they had taken to be cancelled, directing their previously potential customers to STEAM instead to buy a now more expensive product.

As a loyal Hattons customer, and looking at both sides of the story, I feel it is only right to say that I have only ever received excellent customer service from them. Delivieries, returns, and pre-orders, they have never put a foot wrong with me.

However I feel, looking from the outside in, that this could have all been handled very differently. Good customer service is looking at what might potentially inconvenience your existing customers, and being pro active in not looking to appease them but to genuinely help them in a positive and constructive manner: and where things have gone wrong, putting them back on track.

It is very interesting to note how customers, who have in some respects been let down and now have to consider their order and its new cost, are being pilloried for their disappointment in various locations. Are we no longer allowed to question the quality of customer service, just because it happens to take place in the model railway world?

I can't help but feel disappointed on two fronts here. Firstly that such a situation still happens: and asking myself would it really have broken the bank to simply ask the customers of that model at Hattons if they wished to have their order transferred to STEAM, and if they still wished to proceed at that new advertised price? It would have only taken an e-mail or an update on the Hattons website.

In my view that would have been the right and fair thing to do, rather than cancelling all the orders as they have done.

On a different (but somewhat related!) note, I can see that Hornby have put a few sound files out for their TTS fitted King, due later this year, in addition to photographs of the model rapidly taking shape.
It looks excellent, and for my money, is going to eclipse the recent Heavy Tanks and Star by some way. As well it might, being designed post "design-clever" and on the back of the recent excellent Peppercorn K1 and J15.

- - -

Oh, and one update for fans of The British Railway Stories. Book Two - Great Western Glory - is getting close to entering the artwork stage. The book is now finished and being readying for printing before being sent to Dean Walker, our artist, for illustrating.

Exciting times! I have also promised a new set of films featuring a few familiar faces…but more on that another day.

Until next time.

"Hornby J15 - quick peek at some modelling…"

I thought I'd share a few photographs of my first Hornby J15, which has been modified extensively. These photographs appeared on MREmag today, and will be the subject of my big blog at the end of the month.

The fireman keeps a sharp look out whilst the driver nurses no.5398 home...

One of the few J15s fitted with a stovepipe chimney as a wartime austerity measure, she still carries shaded lettering and NE on the tender...

She's seen better days, but she won't be withdrawn for almost another decade, despite her looks!

She simmers, waiting for the signal, with a K class goods train.

And that's yer lot for now...

"BRWS Ltd Update #2 - Silver Jubilee"

Happy Februrary, one and all! As this month draws to a close, I've been reflecting on a lot of things both railway and non railway related. All things considered, 2015 is going exceptionally well. 

At the end of January, I found out that I had been promoted at work, and I start my new role next month - can't wait! 

I've also been doing a lot of writing by taking part in 28 Plays Later - it's been great fun but also thoroughly exhausting at times!

The last couple of months have also seen seen a bumper round of modelling. You'll remember the Hornby Railroad Silver Fox train pack I picked up cheaply from a previous blog post I hope. Well, now the set is articulated and on its way towards completion. 

It is a very simply system. Two screws fitted into the Gresley bogie, and two pivot points in the bottom of the Railroad coaches. Nothing more, nothing less.

The pivot points are actually made from the retaining lugs which come from the Great British Locomotives magazine packs - I have hundreds of these now and they are proving to be extremely useful!

As you can see, just two screws (again, both sourced from the aforementioned magazine!) fitted into a standard Hornby bogie.

The coaches fit together by the screws being inserted into the pivot point. The only change that needs to be made is drilling out the pivot points to be just a little wider than the screws to allow for maximum flexibility around curves.

And that, as they say, is that.

The valances are being made out of plastic, and at this stage I have no intention to do more than make the basic shape - I tried a number of ideas for bending them to the correct shape, but to be frank these are cheap Railroad coaches and the idea of the project was to make them more passable rather than a rivet counter's dream (which they could never be).

The use of some Humbrol acrylic paint - Tank Grey - applied to the sides makes the whole presentation a bit better.

I have since fitted NEM pockets to all of the bogies, and I will be using long shank kadees with them - these worked better than the standard Hornby/Roco coach couplers.

The last alteration I have managed thus far is to the locomotive, replacing the tender and cartazzi frames with two spares I had to make the locomotive look closer to the real thing - spot the difference!

The overall effect is quite good I think and lifts the Railroad model a tad. I intend to fit lamp irons and lamps, and some glazing to the cab to finish the model off.

Where would a railway based on the East Coast main line be without the Gresley A3 Pacific? I have been doing a lot of work on mine! As you can see from the above photograph, they are all based on the Hornby Railroad A1 Flying Scotsman model.

The above model is intended to be St. Simon (a little self serving!) and has had a new cab fitted, a new dome, resin smokebox superheater headers, whitemetal buffers, a resin smokebox door, a new smokebox door dart and a Hornby A3 chimney. The original body shell can be seen above.

The cabs come from the Great British Locomotives issue 3, and I think you can tell what the subject of that model is! The white templates in the top right of the picture are for fitting Alan Gibson brass washout plugs - this allows me to drill the holes in the correct place for an 94HP boiler.

I've replaced all of the driving wheels and the bogie wheels on all of my Railroad A1 chassis now.

Now paired up with their chassis and tenders, the whole fleet is coming together nicely. There are going to be three with GNR tenders (St. Simon, Robert the Devil and Humorist, at the front), one with an A4 tender (who else but Flying Scotsman herself?) and two with the non corridor beaded tenders (one will be Trigo, the other I haven't decided yet).

Humorist is the furthest along and I will hopefully have finished her, weathering and all, by the summer. She's had the most amount of modifications as she formed the prototype from which I have developed my modelling further. She's by no means perfect but she is all my own work which is satisfying.

In January, two significant models landed for review. The Hornby Peppercorn K1 and from the same stable, the 21 ton hopper wagon. Both are absolutely superb and complement each other well. Here is my K1 - soon to be one of the Stratford based examples - pulling a rake of these wagons.

There are two Dapol interlopers in the set which will be modified heavily to match as best they can.

The Hornby K1 is more of the same level of excellence in the locomotive department that we come to expect (particularly the B1/O1/L1/B17 models for example) but the hopper wagons are on another level for rolling stock entirely.

I cannot believe how little discussion has been generated by these wagons online, but I am told by my usual retailers, Invicta Model Rail in Sidcup, that they are flying off the shelves. All for the greater good I suspect!

You'll recall, if you have been keeping up with my Twitter or Facebook feeds, that I have been working on a model of a Thompson A2/3 Pacific. This one came to me in pretty bad shape. Well, after a lot of work, the model is nearing completion.

I'm quite proud of how much I turned it around on this model. Graeme King came to the rescue with a set of front frames and a new running plate, and after that the fitting of Hornby sprung group standard buffers, Bachmann V2 valve gear, and new cylinders have transformed the model.

Add to that the painting stage is now almost complete, and the transfers and nameplates can go on. She'll be finished in LNER plain gill sans numerals and lettering as Sun Castle. This was a Copley Hill based A2/3 for a couple of years in the forties and is one I always wanted to make for myself.

I've also been having some fun outside of work and railways! On Valentines day, I took the girlfriend out to see The Railway Children at King's Cross - it is a truly immersive experience and everyone should go, even those who don't like railways, purely because it is such a brilliant performance piece.

Our evening was spent in a lot of railway related locations, including the delightful Plum & Spilt Milk restaurant - the set course there was excellent! The service was also top notch, and I can attest from my hangover the next day that their cocktail bar is brilliant…!

I thoroughly recommend the restaurant but I do not recommend my hair do for the evening!

And of course, there was some time to go round King's Cross afterwards and take in the sights. It was a wonderful evening. I was thinking I over did it on the railway theme a tad though…! Don't worry, it's not all going to be railway related in the future…!

Finally, touching down this week from Invicta Model Rail again was the stunning Hornby J15.

I really don't know how I could describe this model as being anything other than the perfect LNER branch line engine. No really - it is the smoothest running model Hornby - or any OO manufacturer - has ever produced.

Big claim, but with a five pole motor and two flywheels, a metal boiler and running plate, I think it's a fair one. Yes there's a few niggles - the handrails should be inclined, not horizontal, and I'm not 100% sure about the way Hornby have made it possible to do the two versions of the cab sides and roof, but on the whole it's an exquisite model and everyone should buy one!

Mine went straight into the works for renumbering and and some modifications, the big change is of course the chimney.

Colin at Alan Gibson very kindly sent over in the post this excellent turned brass stovepipe chimney. The intention was to put the J15 in early 1948 livery with the lettering and plain Gill Sans numerals, but I can't find a photograph of a J15 like that as yet…!

Some black paint was applied for the camera to compare with the second J15 purchase. The shininess will be toned down at the weathering stage.

So that was my month of February. If you have any questions about the modelling, please do get in touch via the email address on the contacts page. Next month's update will hopefully include some layout modelling too.

Until next time!