As soon as I was home and had chance to relax and partly re-organise the resin demo items that I had taken with me, I carefully peeled one corner of the carrier film and transfers away from the backing paper so that I could get a better look at the transfers themselves. I was still only able to see the face-side of the prints through the carrier film of course, so the view was hazy, but it appeared to me that the lining that included double-white lines had the problem that Mick B reported a few weeks ago. The two white lines looked of unequal thickness, and a wrongly present thin ragged black line was present on the outside edge of the thinner-looking white line. I wasn't very happy, but given the problem of sourcing any satisfactory, affordable alternative transfers at present, and faced with the fact that I've more or less exhausted my supply of white-black-white lining and I will have other green loco liveries to apply in future, I decided on an additional test of a more practical nature.
I wondered how things would look with the transfers seen clearly on a background of the right colour, so I painted a small rectangle of black plastikard in Phoenix Precision Doncaster green, and selected sections of lining from several areas of the sheet to apply (none too elegantly) to my colour chip. The one thing I did try to take care to do was to apply the transfers in the same orientation in which they are found on the sheet, although it turns out that I have reversed one of straight pieces. The pre-formed oval outline is however lying with its length across, rather than along my chip, just as it is found on the original sheet. The carrier film by the way separated from the transfers quite willingly once it was wetted thoroughly. Here's the result:
I can't say that I'm totally happy with my purchase, but I'm reluctant to send the sheet back. If the entire batch has the same defect I'll be no better off with a replacement, and I don't want a refund as I can't apply a refund in lieu of lining! I suspect that the straight lining simply won't be a problem, and I tend not to use the pre-formed outline shapes for splashers and apertures, but the pre-formed radiused corners for panel lining will only be useable if I very carefully trim and re-touch them.
Although I'll probably keep this sheet, somewhat grudgingly, as I'm not the only one to complain, I do seriously think that HMRS have a responsibility to actually check the rest of their stock rigorously and if consistent fault is found they should either insist that their supplier replaces the defective items with correct ones, or they should ensure that all of their representitives are well aware of the defect and that they honestly declare it to anybody thinking of buying these transfers. In my opinion, these transfers are well below the standard of any previous sheets of HMRS LNER lining that I have used, it is not just me being "picky" about standards.