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Everything posted by thegreenhowards
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Mallaig and the Road To The Isles
thegreenhowards replied to mallaig1983's topic in Modelling real locations
Great video Andy, I particularly liked the photo of the Turbots loaded with (I think) concrete sleepers in the headshunt at Glenfinnan. I now have an excuse! the detail on the ‘ugly’ concrete building on the platform at Glenfinnan is also very useful to me. Andy -
Mk1 BSO.T Scotrail branding question.
thegreenhowards replied to w124bob's topic in Railways of Scotland
I find Railtec’s website difficult to navigate, so in case you have the same problem, I think this is the transfer sheet you require. I had to ask Steve to find it the first time. He then sends you an email asking for the numbers. https://www.railtec-models.com/showitem.php?id=4188 Andy -
At my club, I think I’m one of only two people who possess a back to back gauge. Others look on in awe when a quick re-gauging of Hornby wheels stops a derailment! So sadly, I think that for many, re-gauging is a step too far. What is needed is careful demonstration of how easy these things are. Then (some) people will gradually take it up. Andy
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Glenfinnan Station in O Gauge
thegreenhowards replied to thegreenhowards's topic in Modelling real locations
Can you not see the monument masquerading as a large sunflower?😁 -
Glenfinnan Station in O Gauge
thegreenhowards replied to thegreenhowards's topic in Modelling real locations
Some progress today with my mock up of ‘mini Glenfinnan’ viaduct. I intend to paint the whole thing in magnolia paint which should be an approximation to concrete. Andy -
Mallaig and the Road To The Isles
thegreenhowards replied to mallaig1983's topic in Modelling real locations
A great find. It’s a shame the picture quality is so poor that some of the details are difficult to make out. That said, the photo of the ground frame at Glenfinnan is excellent and I liked the close up of the concrete overbridge between Morar and Mallaig - that could make a useful scenic break! The chronological consistency has been sacrificed for geographic continuity which makes it hard to draw too many lessons from the stock formations. But the green and cream mk1 on a service train was interesting as Rob said. I didn’t think there were any spares of these, so would it have been just pre or post the steam season? In terms of time frame, there’s one photo of a split box 37 with valences and round buffers (leaving Fort William towards the beginning), so I would have thought slightly earlier than 1984? When did the last valence fitted loco get ‘chopped’? Andy -
The acceleration sounds pretty good to me now. However, I wasn’t convinced by the coasting into the platform. Do you have active braking on the Accurascale chips? I always find that works better as I can shut off completely some way out of the station and coast in until braking in a couple of phases, one approaching the points and the other half way down the platform. Andy
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Saturday please.more interesting coaching stock and more V2s.
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Interesting discussion over the Heljan Newton Chambers car transporters. Personally I think it's a brave but welcome attempt to model an unusual and quite specialised prototype. I think the pricing is quite reasonable given where other new products sit, but it is admittedly quite an expense for a full train. I would have bought them if they'd been available when I was forming up trains for Gresley Jn, but instead I went for the earlier version of the same train, The Car Sleeper Limited, shown here photographed by Tony on Little Bytham (Tony, I hope its OK to use the photo - I will remove if there's an issue). Even in this case, I waited until Hornby were flogging off their long wheelbase CCTs for just over a tenner each! With Bachmann producing the same Newton Chambers coaches imminently, I suspect there will be a lot of these in bargain bins in the not too distant future. If they get really cheap, I may yet be tempted! What I would really like is the car carrying vans introduced in 1957 to replace the CCTs. They were bogied vans rebuilt from redundant ex GE 54' eliptical roof coaching stock (p215 of Banks and Carter). It's a shame that neither Bachmann or Heljan produced these instead of copying each other. Andy
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Smithfield - a Minories Inspired Layout in 0 gauge
thegreenhowards replied to thegreenhowards's topic in 7mm+ modelling
We have now started gluing in the retaining wall sections along the bare plywood cutting sides. I think it’s a massive transformation.- 92 replies
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I agree. The signal’s too mixed up with the loco in the first one. Second shows both loco and signal off perfectly.
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Good morning Tony, That is what I do on normal Peco points although with autofrogs rather than micro switches. As Robert says the newer Peco points are easier. I just couldn’t figure it out for the 3 way. Regards Andy
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Glenfinnan Station in O Gauge
thegreenhowards replied to thegreenhowards's topic in Modelling real locations
That’s praise indeed! I have a long way to go before I get anywhere near, and I don’t think my wife will allow that degree of ‘embedding’ in the garden. -
Glenfinnan Station in O Gauge
thegreenhowards replied to thegreenhowards's topic in Modelling real locations
Thanks - that’s why I said crank the volume up! It’s a Legomanbiffo sound file on a loksound XL. I think the sound comes over much better in O gauge because if the ease of using bigger speakers. This has two large (45x35x20) 3W speakers in the fuel tanks. -
Glenfinnan Station in O Gauge
thegreenhowards replied to thegreenhowards's topic in Modelling real locations
I’ve been working on some changes to how the station boards fit into the garden, in particular I’ve dug a new flower bed for my other half and the deal is that I can have a viaduct running across it. So far I’ve half mocked something up, but the eventual aim is to have something permanent in concrete. This will be a sort of mini Glenfinnan or maybe a Arnabol. there’s still lots of work to do to connect it into the rest of the circuit, but I’ve run a first train as shown in this video (please do crank the sound up). https://youtu.be/mctyMsJ_4fs The Interfrigo vans are now running smoothly after some problems. I noticed that one was always derailing while the other was fine. I tried single vans and the same one derailed. A friend then noticed that I’d put springs on one and not on the other. So four bits of sprung 0.7mm nickel silver wire later and all was fine. A lesson on the need for some springing with longer wheelbase vans. regards Andy -
Hi William I did this a long time ago and don’t have a wiring diagram, but I do seem to remember ringing up Gaugemaster who were very helpful. I’ve had a look at the point, and it seems that I have wired it with track buzz feeds from the toe end and then connected the frog wire from each GM autofrog to the two frogs farthest from the toe. The other frog doesn’t get any wire and seems to rely on the point blades. I don’t normally rely on the blades making contact and no doubt I will get a reprimand from sir! But in this case it’s in a yard where the only locos shunting have good stayalives, so there was no need to worry about perfect connectivity as long as I don’t have a short. The autofrog work by detecting a short circuit and switching very quickly (before the system shuts down!), so it doesn’t need to know which polarity to set - it just senses it. The autofrog will not switch on DC but if it’s set correctly for the road you can run a DC loco over it. I hope that’s helpful Andy
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I have a Peco code 100 3 way electrofrog controlled by two Gaugemaster Autofrogs (ref: DCC80). It was dead simple to wire up and works perfectly. Andy
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Glenfinnan Station in O Gauge
thegreenhowards replied to thegreenhowards's topic in Modelling real locations
The dodgy weather at the end of last week encouraged me to get on with some inside jobs. One of them was converting this 27 into a ‘Scottish’ one with the sliding windows. My initial plan was to cut out the yellow window divider and then raid the 26 and see if its windows fitted, but they were marginally too small. So I had to make some glazing out of acetate sheet. I then used my lining pen and aluminium paint to do the sliding window frames. It doesn’t bear close scrutiny, but I think it looks OK for the 3’ rule. I also fitted the snow ploughs which give it a very Scottish look and a sound decoder, so she’s now ready for weathering and then into traffic. Andy- 296 replies
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1. Because Peco don’t make code 100 electrofrog slips and crossings; and 2. Because I had spare insulfrog points from a previous layout which I thought I’d use up in the fiddle yard. I would make different decisions if I was building it again, but this was 8 years ago and I’m still not sure I’d trust my clumsiness with code 75 track! Also, I believe that with the very small insulated section on newer Peco insulfrog points, it’s not the insulated bit which creates pick up problems but the wheel drop into the crossing which lifts other wheels off the track. I do occasionally get pick up problems on electrofrog points. For my foray into O gauge I’ve used kit built points in the main and they are generally better. But being in the garden, I get more dirty track which creates problems. Regards Andy
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I do like reliefs - the stock is much more interesting (hint hint). Is this relieving the Tees Tyne Pullman or have I missed something in between? Andy
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I’m going to play devil’s advocate here. As a general rule I agree with you, but I think there are exceptions. Poor performance in the mechanism needs to be sorted out, but poor performance caused by lack of pick ups can be cured electronically. I’m thinking of a 4 coupled loco. Rather than trying to put pick ups on the bogies, I often use a stayalive which gives very smooth running much more easily. You may well ask if more than 2 pickups per side are necessary. And I would agree that they shouldn’t be. But sadly I find that they are - particularly on my garden railway, but also on Gresley Jn which has insulfrog slips and a few insulfrog points in the fiddle yard. Regards Andy
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Thanks Tony, that’s more balanced! I’d certainly agree that DCC is more suited to RTR locos and complicated layouts with lots of shunting and the resultant need to isolate things. I have many kit built locos fitted with decoders but I wouldn’t deny that it can be problematic. However, for someone who loves soldering as much as you, the need for a few more solder joints is hardly a reason to avoid DCC! The issue is with finding somewhere safe to put the decoder (and speaker because sound is the best thing about DCC for me) and avoiding shorts (which all too many kit built locos seem to have from time to time). I hardly think that the inability of a DCC hater and a man who admits he has 10 thumbs to change the address is a reason for abandoning DCC. I’ll wager that next time Timara visits it will be changed in less than a minute! Each to their own, I’ll now go back to listening to my O gauge 37 thrash round Glenfinnan! Andy