Ray Chessum

I think that you will find that the 'Grumpy Old Gits 'club is already in exisstance , it was formed by myself, Tony Wright and two other friends whilst operating LB a few years ago

Why not just put a full load of coal in the tender and say its down on the springs because of the extra weight

I built the chassis in OO and added plasticard cosmetic frames glued outside the brass frames, this saves the problems with the frame spacers and cylinders etc, Ray

have two which will pull 6 Kitmasters with ease but I remember seeing them at Waterloo hauling twelve coaches to the carriage sidings at Clapham, but they replaced 0-4-4 M 7's doing the same job

I looked all my working life for a job such as this, needless to ay I never found one

what about a 'Lobby'

Could anyone offer any advice about which type of pointmotor would be suitable for fiiting in an uninsulated area of my loft based layout, temperatures in this year alone have varied between -12C and +32C. although the loft is perfectly dry. Solenoids are not suitable as the pointwork is handbuilt so is not robust enough to use them. If anyone has experience of motors that are reliable in these conditions I would be very grateful for their advice. The layout itself I hasten to add is in an insulated part of the loft and is habitable in all the above conditions, thanks in anticipation, Ray Chessum

To add to this debate, I recently had to re wheel my Schools class after a disaster [i dropped it] with Romford wheels, the originals were Gibsons with steel tyres. After the re wheeling it would pull 3 less coaches than before . Ray

I use a leather punch, it has 6 choices of size, Ray

i have been using kadees' for years on my coaching stock and find that they are best affixed to the bufferbeams, they enable any coach to be easily extracted and reinserted and of course all you have to do is to push them together to reliably recouple up

Phil, could you please tell me where I could find more information about the 'stay alive' function for DC, Thanks, Ray

I think the shortfall with Protocab will be that you will have to remember to charge the batteries before you operate your model railway, are they charged 'on the rails' or by a flylead system?. If you have a substantial fleet of loco's it may be a problem to make sure they are all charged up as well of course the initial costs involved, Ray

A little while ago someone posted that they would like to see other peoples efforts, well here are a couple of mine. The unpainted one is a DJH Merchant Navy and the painted one is West Country 'HOLSWORTY' , both kits were over 25 years old before I got around to building them Ray Chessum

Tony, If you think that is untidy you should see mine! regards, Ray

You can replace a portescap motor without removing the gearbox from the frames by removing the bolts which hold it to the gearbox sides, Ray

May say on my friend Keith Pearce behalf that all the numbers are based on photographic evidence of the prototypes, Ray chessum

You can straighten it but you can't bend it straight !

You vandal, you've bent the mirror

I think that I must claim more than my fair share of the questionable operation yesterday on LB, I was having too much of a good time to fully concentrate on what I should have been doing, LB usually performs flawlessly and I hope I did not spoil Simons' visit too much! Ray Chessum