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Richard Lee

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Everything posted by Richard Lee

  1. A friend with whom I wargame sometimes makes videos, so maybe that could be arranged...
  2. Bachmann 3F nearly £64 at a certain Cornish model shop: http://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/p/51180/31-627B-Bachmann-Class-3F-Steam-Locomotive-number-3520-LMS Bachmann 4F nearly £65: http://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/p/51184/31-883-Bachmann-Midland-Class-4F-Steam-Locomotive-number-3848 I happened to buy the 3F from them a few weeks ago and was pleased with it, and the price.
  3. https://westhillwagonworks.co.uk/ They seem to be concentrating on fairly modern stock at present. From the video they look impressive if you don't need automatic uncoupling. I wonder whether they would be any good for a 1930s/ branch line with small 4-wheeled wagons? I will watch this thread with interest.
  4. Concerning prices, it does seem to me that Bachmann have significantly increased their prices. I noticed the MRP or whatever they call it of the new Birdcage Stock coaches. They aren't going to be an impulse buy for me anytime soon, although I did shell out for the earlier Maunsell Green ones when their price eased down a little. Last night I ordered a Bachmann 3F 0-6-0 tender locomotive from Kernow, for coming up to £64. If the price had been approaching £200 then I don't think that I would have bothered. The message seems to me to look for stuff that seems good, but that is closer to your preferred budget.
  5. Forgot about that. There are some very nice industrial locos around, so industrial layouts are a reasonable bet now. Must admit that my junction to BLT 'L' shape would find more use for small than for extra-large points, although I want to keep minimum radius for anything except light engines to no less than 30", ideally 3'.
  6. I do like the Bullhead medium points. If I was seriously thinking about a new layout or replacing the track of my existing one, it would make the choice of track type easier. Not sure whether a small point would be necessary, though. A small point would be useful for loco release to run around loops (no wagons or carriages would go through) and loco sheds, but at a pinch, the Code 75 flat-bottomed rail ones could be used, with a bit of weathering and "careless" ballasting to disguise them. Many people would like larger radius points, which would look really great on layouts that model main or secondary lines. What I would like is a simple way of switching polarity for Unifrog points for the purpose of frog and DC power routing. I know that Tortoise and Cobalt point motors do that, but I am a bit mean with money and also like to operate points by hand. A cheap, unobtrusive, hand-operated lever with built in microswitch to attach to Unifrog points would be of great interest to me.
  7. One thing that they could do to get a few extra sales is to offer the four-wheeled red coaches as a bargain pack with a tin of mahogany paint and a sheet of LB&SC Railway stickers for Stroudley era coaches.
  8. I like the Langley ones, although they dearer than a lot of plastics. You can buy footplate crew that fit in Hornby Terriers. They also footplate crew in the old "pill-box" type caps, in case you have any locos in Victorian or Edwardian livery. They have quite a lot suitable for pre-grouping or Big Four layouts. I would say that the level of casting is quite good. There are a lot of white metal 15mm wargames figures around that need a lot more tidying up with knife and file. http://www.langley-models.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_OO_Scale__1_76th____HO_Scale__1_87th__Kits_8.html Must admit that for passengers for coaches, I am getting a bit less fussy about the figures that I use, except when headgear or lack of it would be important. Once, I bought a couple of Mainline paneled early LMS coaches, added metal wheels and Kadees, and put in some cheap plastic figures that I believe were made in China. I joked about the coaches representing an excursion from Chinatown in Liverpool. (The figures all had black hair and a yellowish skin tone.) The difference between using bargain basement figures for seated passengers compared with using reasonable figures is not really noticeable if you don't have lights in the coaches. The main exception is that I believe that hats and caps tended to be different in Victorian and Edwardian times, so I would still use decent figures, at least near windows.
  9. Won't give marks out of 10 because I don't have a huge number of locos, and trains tend to be short on my layout. Pulling power is comparable with the old Terrier, but possibly a shade lighter. The new Hornby Terrier can cope with a rake of 3 Bachmann's Birdcage Stock very well. You have to be a little careful at low speeds (running on DC) with 2 Hornby's ex-LSWR Maunsell re-builds because those coaches are not very free-running, though. It doesn't make a lot of difference if you add a Parkside passenger luggage/guards van at the back of the ex-LSWR re-builds. Please note that my layout does not have intentional gradients. Concerning prototype, so far I haven't found too many pictures of single Terriers pulling more than 3 bogie coaches, or 2 bogie coaches and a few goods wagons. The new Terrier seems to like to go slightly faster than the old (ex-Dapol tooling) Hornby Terriers, but is a lot quieter, and looks a lot more like the pictures of Terriers with coaches that you see in the Hayling Island Branch Line book. (I think that the old Terrier is taller than it should have been.)
  10. That sounds almost as if I can legitimately run it on my layout, assuming the Rocket ran on Southern Railway branch lines in the 1930s.
  11. I notice that both the limited edition and the normal train pack are shown as sold-out on pre-order at Hattons. I am glad that I got my pre-order in on time. Edit: I think Kernow still have some.
  12. Can't speak for others, but I will be keeping an eye open for Dapol Stroudley 4-wheeled coaches in OO. If I remember correctly, Hattons will be doing their coaches in the umber LBSCR livery rather than Mahogany (which is what I would tend to expect with locomotives in Stroudley Improved Engine Green). I have pre-ordered some of Hatton's coaches in SECR livery for my SECR liveried Terrier to pull. At the moment, I use mahogany painted resin kits for my IEG liveried Terriers, but I imagine that Dapol can make better looking coaches than I can. Whatever happens, I want my LBSCR coaches to look a bit different from the SECR ones.
  13. Glass plates? What is wrong with oil paintings?
  14. You might find that Metcalfe sometimes stop production of a kit, and a little later bring back a revised version. If you can't get hold of one now, it may be worth keeping your eyes on the Metcalfe site for the next couple of months.
  15. Train-Tech do vibration-triggered battery-powered coach lighting that has a delay before it switches off. It stays on for short periods (such as stops at stations). It uses batteries that are about the size and shape of large coins. The batteries are of a type that are readily available. If you have a lot of coaches then this method might not be cost effective, though. Works well, although I haven't bothered to replace the batteries lately, so not at the moment on my layout. By the way, the batteries last longer if you don't live right on a busy road with heavy lorries and agricultural vehicles where the coaches are stored near the road, triggering the coach lights. Link to an example at Hattons: https://www.hattons.co.uk/80686/train_tech_cl2_standard_coach_lighting_strips_warm_white/stockdetail.aspx
  16. Wall-paper paste would do it. When I did my layout, I mixed the paste a little strong, as if it was for a heavy paper or for a paper border. Keep a little of the made-up paste for a couple of days in case you have to stick down a corner again. Edit: It is also a good idea to dilute a bit of the paste first, brush it onto the part(s) of the board that you want to stick the static grass mat onto, and let it dry before you stick the mat on. Otherwise the board will absorb the paste on the back of the mat too quickly, and you are more likely to get wrinkles in the mat. In other words, do it as if you were wall-papering a small piece of wall that just happens to be horizontal rather than vertical.
  17. My layout uses Kadees but doesn't suffer from the Kadee shuffle. When something needs to be uncoupled a giant hand bearing a tooth-pick descends from the sky and gently inserts the tooth-pick between the jaws of the couplings.
  18. If I understand the last couple of Protocab newsletters, Protocab seems to be getting to be able to seamlessly flip between track power and battery, recharging the battery when there is track power. They are still in pre-production mode for this, with a discount for pre-orders. That said, Protocab is an expensive way of controlling your locos. If I was brave enough to try radio control battery power I would be tempted to look at Deltang as well, as a cheaper option.
  19. I use the Dexters from Langley for my 1930s SR branch line. I hope that they will still be okay for when I run my SECR liveried Hornby Terrier with the set of Hattons 4 and 6 wheelers that I have pre-ordered.
  20. Sadly, I can see the coaches now when I use new navigation system. This could be bad both for customer pockets and rival shops. Edit: Windows 7 on second-hand Dell laptop.
  21. Doesn't show any products for me, although it tells me that that there are a total of 22Hornby OO coaches (including new and pre-owned) that are SR Maunsell in SR Olive Green, either in stock or on order, Era 3, from the UK without weathering. I commend it for potentially saving customers lots of money! I use Windows 7 on a Dell laptop.
  22. They would need tooling that can deal with changes. By the time they got to the Isle of Wight the carriages had grown truss-rodding and batteries for electric lighting. Also, I think the guards' duckets looked different. The varieties of coach used most may have altered as well; I have a feeling that the sets on the IOW consisted of 2 brake thirds (at the ends), a composite and an all third. It looks to me as if the LB&SCR photos of the Hayling Branch that I have seen included full brakes.
  23. One possible option that might or might not appeal, is an 'L' shaped layout inside the house. That won't, of course, give you a continuous run, but would allow you some use (for household purposes) of the room it is it is in. My layout takes up 2 walls of the spare bedroom. It is enough for my SR branch-line.
  24. I have 2 Mainline ones in LMS livery, and they do indeed have the numbers TheSignalEngineer quotes. I also have 3 fairly recent Bachmann ones in LMS livery. The differences that I can see are the coach numbers, the Bachmann ones have better corridor connections, the coaches have either "Bachmann" or "Mainline" on the underside as appropriate, and the Bachmann ones came with metal wheels, whereas I had to swap the plastic wheels of the Mainline ones for metal wheels myself. Oh, and the grey roof colour is slightly different, although well within the variation that you might see in a photograph of a prototype steam-age train. Neither the Bachmann nor the Mainline ones have NEM pockets, but can readily be bodged to accept Kadees. I am pleased with them, and they were relatively inexpensive. The 3 Bachmann coaches came free when I bought the running-in oval and controller, along with a 4-4-0 Midland Railway liveried Compound for £150. The only problem that I have is that my layout isn't really big enough for 5 coach trains.
  25. I really wanted the SR Maunsell Green ones, so I bought a set (and am pleased with them). However, I am glad that I have a branch line, and don't aspire to run longer trains. At that price, it was touch and go for something that was attractive and distinctive, a good model (I understand), and would fit the layout well. I don't think that I would have shelled out for something at that price if it had been even a little outside the main scope of the layout. Maybe the cost of OO models will rise to the same heights as the costs for HO. If so, I fear that I will be buying models less often than previously.
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