C&WR Posted September 26, 2013 Share Posted September 26, 2013 Fox transfers to the rescue! My attempts to write the I s on the doors was a bit of a failure, but the Fox maroon blanking panels have covered up the mess. Now to get the rest of the transfers on - still thinking about which window sausages/no smoking signs to use as the Precision Decals were just to delicate for a big old oaf like me. Despite the greatest of care every single one I tried just disintegrated. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium John M Upton Posted September 29, 2013 RMweb Premium Share Posted September 29, 2013 I have the fully assembled "station" building now sitting on the desk in front of me and am trying to decide what to do with it. Landfill is the first thing that springs to mind... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
C&WR Posted October 31, 2013 Share Posted October 31, 2013 Just to finish off, my coaches came out like this: I then gave them a run on my railway as I was back home again: And there we have it, the longest train ever to run on the layout: Only problem was that it just did not like running all seven carriages. Five would go round happily all day, but the full rake consistently derailed or decoupled, mainly on the front or rear two carriages or both. I'm actually wondering if this is something to do with the laws of physics as the tail of the train would be level with the locomotive when going round the short side of my 8'x6' roundy roundy and therefore there might have been some pull towards the centre rather than following the track. On the other hand I am a former Classics student & now a financier so I might be taking bobbins! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjcampbell Posted October 31, 2013 Share Posted October 31, 2013 If it were due to the curve it would be the front or middle coaches that would derail due to the pull from coaches behind. I found I had to remove the coupling centring spring to get one coach to stay on the track on my Son's train-set (3rd radius), I suspect it was too strong for the weight of the coach and it's bogies. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
C&WR Posted October 31, 2013 Share Posted October 31, 2013 Thanks for that, Michael. Thinking about it I think it was it was the trailing bogie of the second coach which went most often & I wonder if that then threw out the balance of the whole train. The key place they derailed is somewhere my Bachmann Class 220 (I have a broad range of modelling tastes!) will also only go in one direction without losing at least one wheel from the track and I have detected a distinct undulation. I will need to do some further experimentation. Unfortunately my last visit to the layout was a little fleeting and I barely had time to get it folded down and the Duette attached, let alone pull out a wider range of rolling stock. My biggest fear is that the track may have shifted when being folded up and down - this was never a problem when I was running more train-set type stuff on a bare baseboard as a nipper. Usually far more surefooted stuff like my Lima Prairie & Hornby HST, both of which I had on the original incarnation of the layout & which ran with no problems have started to play up. I had also made some of these to represent corridor connectors: This was a prototype & the revised versions had more folds to allow more flexibility. Again I wonder if this was affecting how the couplings worked. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Wintle Posted October 31, 2013 Share Posted October 31, 2013 Only problem was that it just did not like running all seven carriages. Five would go round happily all day, but the full rake consistently derailed or decoupled, mainly on the front or rear two carriages or both. I'm actually wondering if this is something to do with the laws of physics as the tail of the train would be level with the locomotive when going round the short side of my 8'x6' roundy roundy and therefore there might have been some pull towards the centre rather than following the track. On the other hand I am a former Classics student & now a financier so I might be taking bobbins! This is the same issue that has been around since Hornby and Bachmann started putting close-coupling units on their coaches. It has to do with using tension-locks in the close-coupling mechanism. As you increase the tail load the couplings in the lead coaches pull out (the centring spring is only really to centre the coupling under no load), and the cam mechanism causes them to move off centre - they can do this because the mechanisms aren't really intended for couplings that have lateral or rotational freedom. Because the gap in the bogie is fairly small, this pushes the bogie over so it runs skewed, causing at least one flange to run hard against the rail. This flange can then climb any imperfection in the rail (likr a track gap or joint) and derail. The fix is to use a coupler that is intended for use with a close-coupling mechanism (i.e. it forms a solid bar when coupled) like the Hornby or Roco close couplers or the Fleischmann Profi. Adrian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
C&WR Posted October 31, 2013 Share Posted October 31, 2013 Thanks, Adrian, very useful. I had noticed the bogie-wobble but thought this was because the track was banjaxed, not something that happened and then was exacerbated by the banjaxed track! Once my finances get sorted out a bit having bought a house I hope to build a new railway. In the meantime I am restricted to occasional visits to my current one & will just have to run shorter trains. To be honest 5 coaches + motive power is the longest that looks sensible and fits in my platforms anyway... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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