Chris Higgs

Hmm, interesting. I have just followed what almost everyone else is doing in 2mm, using the 100DP wormset (the only ones available) followed by the 64DP final drive. There are 100DP spur gears available, although I worried about getting them meshed OK given that the design does not provide any means of adjustment. Plus the 100DP gears are made by hand, and could disappear along with their maker if he is no longer able to continue. Wheeas the 64DP are beibng replaced by the almost like for like MOD 0.4, and a finer range of MOD 0.3 (around 80DP) introduced. I shall have to think about the decision again. Chris

Just in case anyone wonders whether I ever do any work on my promised loco chassis, here is the test build of the chassis for a Peco 2251. OK, the motor should not be there (it will be in the tender) but I am just trying out how the gearbox design will work in a tank engine. Somehow I have to mount it at the far end, but Mick Simpson says just to use very heavy gauge wires from the motor to the frames. And here are a couple of shots with wheels in (only for show) I am pretty happy with the gearbox - it does still flex a little but achieved the goal of not needing any fettling to get the gears to mesh and run nicely.

Ah, now if they were into doing that we would have got see-through steam loco wheels from the start, wouldn't we? As well as crisper paint jobs, much higher proportions of models that don't need sending back, etc etc. I like my Dapol HST (glue on window aside) a lot but it doesn't hold a candle to the Fleischmann 146 Electric I bought this week. Chris

I think my caption on the collection makes that clear: "Photos of MSW overhead electriciation at Broadbottom, and the similar equipement on the GE section at Stratford"

Actually, technically speaking she is the one who broguht it up. 2mm FS modelling is about whatever you want it to be. Imüpession making, or fine detail, that's up to you. But if its no extar effort to get it right, then why not do it. Chris

I don't think that's quite true. As far as I understand it, BR adpoted a wartime LMS design as its standard. Swindon however seemed to have simply ignored this and continued to use the GWR design on WR lines. However, looking at the prototype photo of Delph in your previous post, the bufferstops in question seem to be of the LNWR design (or one of them at least). This is quite similar to the GWR design, but at the bottom of the vertical rails there is a mounting plate instead of the rail being joggled out. This is nicely masked by the mound of coal in the photo! Seems like I cannot post photos here, otherwise I would illustarte the various types. If you send me a message offlist, I can send them to you. In the course of researching some 2mm kits, I have so far amassed information on over 20 different types of rail-built bufferstops. Chris Higgs

Certainly a characteristic part of the Manchester scene. But that's a Class 100, not a 104. Chris

I dug out the photos of that day. Here you will find the most awful photo, buts it definitely a Peak, and definitely on Woodhead. and here is some scenery the view off DInting viaduct and the Trans-Pennine unit - complete with Oxford University Railway Society headboard Chris

Yep, I remember making a trip up specially from Oxford to travel Picadilly - Sheffield (reversing in the remains of Victoria to get back into Midland) and back in what must have been 1980. Trans-Pennine unit both ways. The trip was also memorable for long delays sitting in Crewe on the way back. Train was over 2 hours late by the time we reached Stafford, at which point the guard announced he had received a new running schedule, so we were now on time! Chris

Yes, I see it now. And the "Inter-City" is printed higher up the body than on the Dapol loco hauled stock. Although I am not sure if that is an actual difference between the prorotypes.

Are we talking the prototype here, or how Dapol have implemented it, or both? As I understand it, the Dapol Mk3s have the wrong kind of single roof vent for almost all loco hauleds Mk3s, which had three small vents (like on the HST power car), wherase they are appropriate for production HST coaches. Chris

Let me know if you find these transfers as this is also my intention. I am thinking that as when they came out the coaches were labelled Inter City (no 125) that I might purchase the loco hauled versions of the Mk3s and just remove the buffers and re-number - these are still on sale at Hattons for 9.00 each, quite a bargain. Chris

Power cars assembled by one man on production line, dummy cars by another. This is likely, given that you don't wnat to get confused between the numbering on the two cars, plus it's easier to just do one sequence of assembly items, rather than having to remember and switch between two. One man doesn't know how to glue properly, other one does. If it's done by machines, still likely to have been done by different machines. One set correctly, one not. Chris

So far, Dapol have zero track record in producing a 4mm loco mechanism - unless you want to count the Pendolino which I expect they would rather forget. So the definitive model only looks that way so far. Still, we could always put a Dapol body on a Heljan mechanism... I am not 100% happy with my Heljan Westerns, but I did pick the up at under 50.00 each, and one of them was only 35.00. I don't think Dapol will get close to that. Plus their recent N gauge models have been produced in such tiny volumes that you struggled to get your hands on them.

But it is worth pointing out that until the 'NIMBYs' started complaining, the route was at many points much more instrusive, and much less in cuttings and tunnels. I have a high speed line near were I now live in Eastern Belgium, and I do hope that HS2 will be more intensively used than that. Although fun to travel on, that is very much a ghost line, with very few services - just one domestic Begian IC train per hour each way and even less true high speed Thalys - and you cannot believe it is paying back the money invested in it at all. Chris Higgs Who has a house a couple of miles from the line in North Oxfordshire, and who found it difficult to envisage exactly how high a viaduct they were proposing to build until more common sense views prevailed (or perhaps people who represent Buckingham/Oxfordshire constituencies got into power). You got the impression they were just trying to get one up on the likes of Brunel and build just about the most spectacular piece of civil engineering possible.

Well, I think that answers the question and thank you to all. I would therefore suppose this diemsnsion were also common across all the LNER angle truss underframes, such as those on the articulated stock. One other related question which now occurs to me - was the distance between queenposts on a earlier truss-rod 51' underframe 10' as it was on the 60' underframe. Chris Higgs

Thanks. I find that measuring the real thing is always the best choice, which is why I was annoyed with myself for passing up the chance when I had it. I have taken a lot of measurements off the Gresley rake on the SVR, but there is no access to the underframes when you are working with coaches stopped at a platform. I am inclined to belive the 10' over the outside edges of the angles, given that the one official drawing I have (of the 51' underframe as found in the Harris books) seems to show 9'6" between the inside edges on that underframe - which is 10'1" overall given the angle steels are 3 1/2" each. Chris

I am seeking information on the angle truss underframes fitted to LNER 61'6" coaches after 1931-4. Specifically I am trying to find out the distance between the two queen posts. On the earlier truss rod underframes, this is shown as 10 feet on the drawing by Mike Trice. However, examination of photographs suggests this was shorter once the underframes switched to angle trussing, and certainly the Hornby model has this much reduced to around 8'6" - not given the manifold inaccuracies in this model would I put much store in that. A bit of geomtery also suggests that the V hangers must be located closer to the trussing than they were on the truss rod undrerframes. Annoyingly, I examined in detail a Gresley full brake at Buckfastleigh which was in a position where the underframe was accessable, however I did not seem to have noted down dimensions of the trussing. Chris Higgs

Technically speaking, 4' 7.5" works out at 9.52mm, and there is a new 9.5mm driving wheel in the Association range - watch out that the flange still fits the body though. Similar argument for the 14XX, wghere 10.5mm is the true scale equivalent. I also believe that the famine of 9mm drivers is now over, or if not, will very shortly be. Chris Higgs

Thats being quite polite to the 94XX. It is generally overscale (length and height), as it was designed to fit the 'generic' 0-6-0 chassis that GF did in the old days. So it also has the wrong wheelbase. Once I discovered this, I abandoned trying to design an etched replacement chassis for it, as it wasn't worth upgrading to 2FS. Chris

Julia, Only broadside or end on views are really reliable for deciding the proportions, and based on the side-on view of Railcar 2 in the Rusell book I would say that for railcars 2-4 (but not 12) your after photos have the angle of the top of the window correct, but perhaps not the roof line. I also note that the side windows differ between Railcars 2-4 and the later ones. I now note from my Worlsey etch that Alan Doherty is clear his etch only covers cars 5-16, not 2-4. So I suspect he is not as far wrong with the angles as might be thought. I presume you have also seen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1934_GWR_diesel_railcar.jpg Perhaps you should settle for modelling the preserved Railcar 4 and head down to Swindon to take as many photos as you wish to get it right. Chris

Julia, I think you have to be careful here. Photos clearly show that amongst these 'early' railcars i.e. the curvy ones, that they were not all the same. Railcars 2-4 built to lot 1516 in 1933 (chassis by AEC, bodywork by Park Royal) had a squarer profile, quite like your 'after' photo, but they have the top marker light between the windows, unlike your model. But I do have a photo of Railcar 12 built to lot 1547 (it's in the Russell coach book Vol 2 page 218), and it is (I hate to say after all your work) just like your 'before' photo. This lot was built ba a different builder, Gloucester RC&W which may well explain the differences. There is also a photo in the same book of the Parcels railcar no 17, and this seems to be somewhere between the two! I think these is a book on the railcars, and it might be wise to try and get a copy. You may have to starve for a week to purchase it though. Chris

I got mine at www.amazon.co.uk and www.themodeller.com But they are not there at that price any more.

After having played around with the CAD, and also the actual Pannier body, I have come to the conclusion that you cannot fit anything larger than a 10mm cylindrical motor in without major chunks of the casting being removed. This applies to whichever axle you drive the loco off. So even the smallest Mashima I have (16mm by 12mm by 10mm) cannot be used, and it looks like coreless is the only option. Chris

No, the last photo is of the 14XX Autotank, not the Pannier Chris