Jub45565

Yes I'm surprised by this too - given the consolidation I would think this a quick win. From what I have seen, the crimson & cream Portholes were quickly available from the bargain bin while the maroon ones were not. It may be that the batch sizes were reduced, or that people purchased the latter in greater numbers... Maybe they will appear in the Q2 list.

As suggested earlier, here is a photo of the etched version often vents on a completed D1807 TO, assembled & decorated by Mike G

Interestingly timed, my etch is finally seeing the light of day soon too. They will be available from Rumney Models from Scalefour North. I thought Mike G had put a photo up of the finished coach with them fitted, but I see it isn't here I will ask him if I can post one. Not that I was aiming for direct competition, I think they both look good - it would be interesting to compare them side by side for a variety of open and closed windows within a coach - though I'm not convinced they would. Possibly within a rake though.

Going by the worth valley, this had all its signalling removed later on & a gap in the passenger timetable during the day to allow for the goods. There was no quarry traffic there though, so if signalling was there to start with there may have been more justification to keep it...

Looking good! Interestingly, my late lamented free Draftsight is still working - for how much longer who knows! I plan to switch to Nanocad when I need to, but will stick with what I know while I can. I've seen the grout method used to good effect a few times, I need to have a play myself sometime.

Funnily enough Dave I was looking through books yesterday & with the help of Duncan's (Blandford1969) spreadsheet (on the Stanier 3P 2-6-2T topic) decided that of the Manningham/Ilkley based ones 40117 & 40178 give a good variety of detailing differences. Just need to decide whether to batch build or not.

Sounds promising! I had readjusted my procurement activities for this to be likely at Scaleforum rather than Scalefour North or Railex...

Thanks for the correction... I'm sure I have seen a photo of one of the last Holbeck ones paired with a black one... anyhow, back to tender first Jubilees and it was indeed the train on 30/5/67. On page 29 of the OPC 'The Power of the Jubilees'. '...on 30th May 1967, Holbeck turned out no. 45562 to take the Duke of Edinburgh down the Ripon line. It was photographed returning with the empty stock from Ripon at South Stainley'. The photo is on a double track section, but is tender first. I'm not sure whether this helps! In many locations it would come down to the likes of headshunt lengths. There is a story of something being sent to Oxenhope for an outbound bank holiday excursion train, only to find it wouldn't fit in the headshunt so couldn't run round. I think that was a black 5. 4Fs regularly hauled them, and there are photos of Crabs doing so too.

In a world where fewer of us want to clutter the place up with paper when it is easier and quicker to find online (personal opinions, each to their own...) it may well be cheaper for you to be buying (ie for them to be producing) the thicker publication which they can print in higher volume, than it would be to both order smaller batches of several publications, and manage the supply chain of more line items that that entails...

There are photos of Alberta (complete with an unlined black tender) pulling the Royal train tender first in 1967... I'll edit this to add some photographic references later on unless anyone beats me to it

Craftsman kits for the 1P & 1F had a casting for the belpaire firebox 'top' - so they do exist. I had a quick look at 247 to see if they do one but couldn't see one - other current ranges to check would be Alan Gibson or Millholme Models.

I can't answer this directly - but the Rumney Models chassis kit available to suit the craftsman kit will be having a variant produced for the Bachmann body.

Just to note that that isn't the current Comet 4F frame. It now has the sides of the hornguide area fully etched through, and an etched spigot at the top for the Comet/Brassmasters style of sprung hornblock. (as in this style: www.cometmodels.co.uk/modules/viewcatpic.php/2/966)

I would advocate a sprung chassis. RTR chassis are not rigid, they have built in slop - which in itself acts as a form of compensation. Rigid etched chassis are rigid... Aside from road holding, which is a moot point if necessary in 00, is useful for pickups if all the wheels are in contact with the rails. By the sounds of it the original issue here was the hornblocks. All kits I've ever been aware of allow 6mm cutouts, but for some reason Exactoscale (and possibly a couple of others) went for 5mm hornblocks. So trying again with different hornblocks (Comet or High Level) sounds like a good idea. I also prefer all axles to drop out. It makes painting, and maintenance, far more straight forward - and taking the wheels on and off the axles repeatedly brings in its own set of issues... Just my 2p worth.

Not a lot to show, progress wise, I've mainly been playing with a Dave Bradwell J39 chassis that I have recently pulled back onto the workbench. However I saw these earlier on the 'Our Ilkley' facebook page. The only aerial views I have seen of Ilkley before cover the trainshed and a bit of the goods yard - but these are brilliant. I still can't tell what the turntable well base is, but there we are. Facebook gets a lot of bad press - but there are a lot of interesting groups on there and the amount of photos shared is huge - so a few gems do turn up. I hope they are of wider interest!

Do you have a source for this info?! I'm reasonably well versed with the prototype - both current and historic - and find this very hard to believe. In the early steam days they ran down trains in 4 sections (slate, passenger, general goods, loco) in line of sight working. Slate trains got a third brakesman at 100 waggons, which means that there will have been a good number of brakes permanently ratcheted 'on', while the brakesmen scampered between the waggons looking after the remainder. Slate ran under gravity control til late on (1939) as it was smoother and so broke fewer slates. From then til closure in 1946 it was presumably decided that the wage bill for gravity brakesmen alongside loco crew couldn't be justified/sustained. (Apologies for the off topic diversion, but I couldn't let this one slip go).

Ha, nice one Martin! A lot of people think 'mine' = tunnelled, sub surface working - while a 'quarry' is open cast. However I believe they originate, and so the 'proper' use of the terms, are mining minerals (eg coal, iron ore, etc) and quarrying rock/stone. However there are plenty of historical records, and companies, which confused the two.

Plus a D1999 (sandwiched between two of the D1851s in the above photo) and a D1915, though I am yet to see photographic evidence of it in use anywhere. The mid day run up the branch often unused a Fairburn tank. The main push pull set ran to Bradford FS & back to charge the batteries, but the Fairburn often used the spare push pull set by the looks. The Midland Record and LMS journal series' have a lot of info covering this.

This should be a direct link to the 3 throw, and there are a few more in this area of the thread.

As promised:

Oh, plus a rather grainy photo of the drive mechanism! Direct drive from the stepper motor, via the coupling (ie no gearbox other than that on the stepper). This is driven by an Arduino, and I have a variable resistor also feeding the Arduino to allow me to play with different speeds.

Ilkley had a pleasant outing to Railwells (which is now apparently over a month ago...) , and while I hadn't made as many steps of progress as I was hoping to since Scaleforum it generally behaved. The punters seemed interested in both it and the prototype, which is always nice to hear! Being right by the front door could have been a make or break! It also went into DC mode briefly, so that Jane (from the Wantage Tramway) could stretch her wheels. I had the turntable installed, and my pickup disk was working, but the turntable itself didn't turn very well - I later found due to the current collecting pin heads on my disk fouled the sprung PCB contacts used on the underside of the turntable. The turntable well coping was stone, and I have represented this with cork. I printed out a template, and scored the mortar lines with a triangular file, before painting. One thing which isn't yet in place, though I did built the option into the deck - is a locking pin. I have decided this will be useful. I think the stepper motor is precise, but I have a flexible coupling between the motor shalf and turntable drive shaft, which is to take out any slight alignment descrepancies. I think this is allowing rotational play (although from its design it doesnt look like it should!). Either way, there is some play, so installing a locking pin is the next job! Once that is in place, this end of the layout can have the scenics sorted out. There is a video of the turntable in action currently taking its time to upload to youtube. Once that has completed I will post the link, should anyone either not believe me, or have a minute of their life to spare!

I look forward to the original variants following on!

I measured against the P1 coach at Peak Rail (very well done, and a good day out too!) - and compared these with the Comet etches to make mine (which fit nicely, as per Mike G's photos).

The ones Mike used are my etch - I've got a few things drawn & made available through Rumney Models, which would be the plan for these too. I've drawn 5, 6 & 9 slat variants (the short ones aren't technically Stones, but look & function the same!). Mike's D1807 will probably be painted before mine is!