paulontheball

Vary sad to hear this news, Keith produced the Templot and built all the pointwork for my exhibition layout Little Salkeld back in 2016 and it's a real credit to him that the layout is always praised for the track work. More recently Keith produced another Templot for my next project, an EM gauge layout based on Brading on the IoW. To further help out, and totally unprompted, he also sent a collection of old Triang clerestory coaches for me to cut up and convert to IoW stock - a really nice gesture. Keith was a real gentleman, friendly and helpful, a skilled modeller, and generally a great guy, he will be very much missed. My sincere condolences to his family and friends Paul

Spot on! :-)

Thanks very much all, not 100% straightforward and clearly a few shades of grey

Hi, possibly an obvious question, but thought I would check... I'm looking to detail an N Gauge Graham Farish model of a GWR Toad Brake Van (BR ERA), and I must admit, Western Region and any bespoke practices they may have had is new to me. As its unfitted I would just like to confirm my assumption that when it was being used as the brake at the end of a freight train, it would have a single tail lamp showing red at the back of the veranda plus 2 additional lamps fitted on the irons on either side of the veranda near the doors for the guard. Also, the side lamps would show red to the rear of the train and white forwards for the loco crew to see that the train was still joined? Many thanks Paul

Many thanks both. Your responses are pretty much what I suspected as these were getting quite elderly, (certainly in the BR period) and probably suited to smaller branches.

Hi, Question for the wise... can anybody advise if the 2F 0-6-0 Johnson tender loco's found their way onto the S&C in LMS or BR days or both? I have spent some time googling this but not found any record of it.... but that may just be my poor googling skills! Many thanks

Much of the 4 wheeled stock was returned around 1937 however some vehicles remained in service on the island all the way through to 1949 when they were also returned to the mainland. The ones that did stay on the island didn't all remain in passenger service, a number were converted to departmental stock. A number of them also had steel sheeting by way of refurbishment/repair by the time the war was over. I think the IOW railway was always a bit of a mix of stuff, part of its charm I guess!

I'm building stock for a future Isle of Wight layout set in the late 1930s/start of WW2 period and considering what a mish-mash of secondhand, patched up and modified coaching stock they had at the time, I wondered if a set of these or the Hattons units in SR livery would work behind a Terrier or an O2? - any views?

Here’s probably a mad idea and associated mad question .... in planning my retirement, which to be fair is not for a few years yet, I’m thinking about moving to a place with a large enough garden to accommodate an ex BR brake van body - not the heavy chassis, wheels etc but just the wooden structure on top. No doubt it would require refurbishment, and may even need to be transported in pieces, so I wondered if they had asbestos built into them? - particularly as they often contain some form of Stove/burner for heating

Hi, I know the Type 3 (or Class 33) was not a S&C locomotive however I‘m sure that I read a while back that 3 were temporarily transferred as far north as Glasgow shed to cover for failing Class 26 locos. I wondered if they ever ran on the S&C albeit by exception?

As it happens I'm experimenting with an old Triang clerestory and doing exactly that for a yet to be built IoW EM Gauge layout based in the early 1940s. Its currently in process and you can see a before and after pic here. The bogies are Bachmann bulleid units converted to EM Gauge with Alan Gibson wheels. The roof is the original with the clerestory hacked off and the void built up with plasticard and filler and then sanded to profile - it's just placed in position at the mo hence it's not sitting down properly. Hand rails have been carefully shaved/sanded off and will be replaced with wire handrails formed in a more typical SR configuration. Lots still to do, I still need to scratch build the interior and the under frames (which I'll do from brass rod/section), airbrush the malachite green, add transfers, couplings, vac pipes and generally add the fine details and titivate before weathering it down. I haven't adjusted the length of the coach by adding compartments, so appreciate that its not the correct length, mind you, research suggests that the IoW had a fair old mix of coaching stock at varying standards and levels of modification, so I reckon that it may blend in with other conversions that I'm going to do with Ratio Midland coaches as part of the overall view.

Hi, I’m the builder/owner of Little Salkeld. I used a mix of 2/3 chinchilla dust and 1/3 fine N gauge ballast. The fiNetrax was glued down onto a thin cork underlay which already had a paper Templot plan fixed in place. I hand painted the underside of each piece of track with a slightly watered down PVA solution and laid it in place with a piece of flat ply and weights on to ensure it cured whilst nice and flat - then 24 hrs to cure. The ballasting was then the fairly common process of pouring ballast onto the track and using a small paint brush to get it off sleepers and shape it on either side of the track. A light spray from a distance with a water detergent mix to wet it and then a heavily watered down mix was carefully applied using a pipette. A good 24 hours then to dry again. Chinchilla dust drys like concrete, so it’s preferable to get it off sleepers and shaped before you apply the PVA. I air brushed mine after as I found that the chinchilla dust was too light with a bit of a greenish colour which didn’t look right. It does take a bit of time, and not as easy as PECO code 55 because the track is much thinner allowing the ballast to spread around, so it it needs a lot more fettling but the end result means that it’s worth the extra 25% of effort and will be the thing that really makes your track work and layout stand out. By the way I recall that I also did a test piece with around 8 short sections of track bonded onto a piece of scrap ply to get the ratio of ballast to chinchilla dust right. It’s worth painting the samples as well because you get a much better sight of what they will look like when finished. Hope that helps Good luck with it! Paul

Ok, many thanks for the advice folks, very much appreciated

Hi, can the collective advise on the detail for permanent speed restriction signs please? - these are the yellow and black signs as per the attached pic - I’ve spent sometime googling but not found any clarity on the subject yet! Period modelled is early 1960’s and location is a prototype on the Settle & Carlisle line - track plan pic also attached. What would be the maximum speed for the yard and the relief siding? Where would the signs be located? Would there also be a speed restriction on the entrance to the station, or anywhere else? Any advice gratefully received!

Many thanks

I’ve all but finished my N gauge layout Little Salkeld and now starting the research and planning for a new project. I've decided to dip my toes into EM gauge for the first time so have settled on a simple prototype - Bembridge on the IOW during WWII and Southern ownership. keith Armes who advertises a high quality track building service on the 2mm Society website has already created an accurate Templot plan for the period, so that’s a great start. I now need to acquire plans for the station building and surrounding structures and wondered if anybody either has access to them or can point me in the right direction as it’s a prototype that has been modelled before? In fact, any information on the station such as plans, pictures or other associated detail would be very useful. Many thanks in advance. Regards Paul

Hi unusual one I could do with some advice on please. I have an N Gauge Farish class 25. It's about 4 years old and has always been a good runner with a Lenz silver chip. The control system is Lenz 100. Recently I was running the loco on the layout when it stopped for no apparent reason and then proceeded to back up for a very short distance before stopping altogether. It then remained dead. I've since spent ages trying to fault find but still can't find the fault. Things I've tried: 1. Reset/reprogrammed the DCC chip - no change 2. Swapped the chip with another - no change 3. Retested the chips in a chip tester - all worked fine. 4. Removed bogies and checked gears - no split gears 5. Bypassed all electrics after disconnecting them and connected a DC supply direct to motor contacts - bingo!, the motor runs fine with no load 6. Checked solder joints and retouched any that looked poor on main Pcb 7. Checked lights - they work fine, switching on and off and reversing 8. Cleaned all contacts - no change 9. Checked contacts from Pcb to motor contacts and just bent them in a little more to ensure that they connect So in summary, the chip is good, the motor runs fine (with no load), the lights are working, the contacts appear clean and are touching so it leads me to think that the Pcb on top of the loco has failed in some way but looking closely it just contains surface mount ceramic capacitors and resistors - I struggle to see what could have failed. Any ideas would be appreciated! Regards Paul

Great, thanks for the useful advice Gents, I hadn't realised the importance for a regulated and smoother PSU, I've just been using an old (and cheap) 12v charger supply! - wonder if that's my tortoise motors are quite noisy?! Now have a good idea of what to look for Thanks all, Regards Paul

Great, lots of options, many thanks folks

Any recommendations for a source of multi pin connectors now that Maplins have dissappeared? The use is for signal control, powering uncouplers, powering building lighting, point motor power etc but not the main power feed to the track (that's direct from a separate DCC bus), basically everything else. Reliability and quality are important as they will be used on an exhibition layout. Thank you in advance

Hi, I have a new layout which launched onto the exhibition circuit recently. The layout has 14 points plus a double slip and uses 16 Tortoise slow motion motors to switch those. I've been using a secondhand psu previously used for charging some gadget (can't remember what to be honest) to power the motors and it's worked fine but at its initial outing I found the connection from psu to control panel to be a little intermittent. Simple solution is to just cut off the original connector and replace that but it got me thinking that I need this to be reliable as it's an exhibition layout and I should really have a half decent psu (and connector!) rather than just using somthing that I had laying around at the time. Can anybody recommend a decent psu that will be uber reliable and thinking about it, maybe even have a little extra capacity for expansion to possibly feed other accessories please? Thank you in advance

Thanks for the comments! I've had a request for Keith's details, so here is a link that should provide the info needed by folks: http://www.2mm.org.uk/small_suppliers/KeithArmes/index.html Regards Paul

I went down this road using code 40 rail mounted onto copper clad sleeps for my Little Salkeld exhibtion layout which is nearing completion. Having just got back into the hobby after a break of 25 years, so a long time since I had previously scratchbuilt track work (and that was 4mm scale), I decided to approach Keith Armes who provides a point building service. Keith did a stunning job and the points have been combined with FiNetrax tracks elsewhere. If you have the time I would encourage going down the same route (either by approaching Keith or having a go yourself) but do appreciate other factors like time, budget and number of points all drive the decision. Like you I'm planning my next layout and that will be an EM gauge shunting layout - I'm planning to have a go at building that trackwork myself. Keith's contact details are on the 2mm society website by the way. Good luck on whichever route you take!