DCB

The preserved 4472 Frying Scotsman in Apple Green LNER Livery, no deflectors and single chimney roamed around the WR after 1963. Seemed to have a dispensation to use Red routes, they probably use the 1922 weight diagram (A1s were red 20 ton, A3 double red 22 tons) It came through Kemble circa 1963 and my parents took me to see it, I think they expected it to stop not barrel through about 55mph belching black smoke.

The A3 was Double Red 22 ton axle load and too heavy for all but WR Wolverhampton (later Shrewsbury) Bristol and Plymouth lines in the 1950s. The GW/GC Joint line was the main place the A3s would have mingled with WR locos but most GC expresses used the alternative Metropolitan line. Even then very few A1/A10/A3 locos worked the GC, 4 at a time I believe, V2s could time the express trains and were more versatile and speeds were limited. Pre WW2 B17 and ex GC B3 locos ran faster schedules than the A3s could match as speeds were not restricted, I think a lot of 60mph limits came in post WW2 so timing made fast hill climbing and coasting back down the modus operandi whereas pre WW2 the B17s were fast and the GC locos rode superbly at high speeds so making up time downhill was normal. The B3s were not well regarded but ran the overnight 3.20 Manchester the tightest timed train in the UK at the time for many years, so they couldn't have been that bad.

I have a Romford screwdriver but prefer a flat blade with a slot cut in to it. The Romford screwdriver is almost essential for the extended axles used for OUTSIDE CRANKS and can be used for the crank pins though I don't bother with them due to excess wear and breakages preferring Triang screw in crank pins which are a direct fit in pre tapped Romfords. The pre tapped wheels are easiest to fit but some pre pre tapped still lurk in model shops despite being around 40 years old now. Un drilled ones are good but are fine scale, under scale width for GWR 6" treads, but the un drilled can be drilled for GWR 15" throw 30" stroke as used on 28/29/49/68/78/51/52/72XX classes. To be honest I find Romfords a bit crude with that big ugly centre nut. 1950s Hornby Dublo and 2000 era Hornby wheels are a lot less ugly, and more prototypical IMHO I have bored Romford wheels out to suit Hornby bushes especially centre wheels to fit the Hornby drive axles. often keeping Romfords as leading and trailing wheelsets as they quarter so nicely

The Bluetooth system is hopefully the future, The stakes are high as so many people are heavily invested in basically obsolete and very expensive Track signal DCC and could be left out on a limb like 20volt AC modellers in the 1950s . I think the peak of automation was 60 years ago when some pioneering 3 rail layouts had track circuiting. automatic colour light signalling etc operated by government surplus ex military and ex GPO relays etc. Two rail and track signal DCC makes automation more difficult OK a fully automated ,layout has its advantages, you could set it going and go for a ride on your Hardly Ableson or visit your local night club while live streaming the layout activity to some one in Middlesboro' what can't sleep, but you might just as well have a Hornby Virtual Railway in that case

You are doing very well as my Bachmann 64XX with the same wheelbase is a bit marginal on 2nd Radius. Do you think your pickups will work reliably with that amount of travel. How do you plan to paint the chassis?

My Hornby Grange derailed and wiped off its left hand footstep assembly. It was in the depths of the hidden sidings and the part has yet to be found, indeed the step may have been lost some time before. Thing is I need a replacement, and have found similar locos for sale on eBay, sold as VGC not spares or repair with the same defect. Presumably the parts are not available from Hornby? They have a big square hole so are not like Star/ Castle/Hall/ etc Can anyone point me to a suitable replacement? My last attempt to scratch build footsteps did not end well

Any chance of a picture of the failed component? In my experience Hornby does not re tool for different batches but it's suppliers do. Post 2000 era Hornby gets its products batch built by third party manufacturers, Hornby UK manufactured products (from Margate) were made from relatively few standard components but even they had similar parts which varied as locos were updated. Visually similar parts may have different fixings or hole diameters, threads, heads, or materials between batches. It's intensely annoying, I had a nightmare swapping China made Tender Drive Super detail and Loco Drive Railroad Evening Star bodies and bits which looked identical before dismantling but just didn't fit. And trying to find the only decent Castle Hornby made (Star Chassis not Airfix vakv gear) was a major undertaking.

So why do some trains have left hand drive engines driving on the left. I asked an ex WR fireman and he shrugged his shoulders Apparently as far as I can tell GWR drivers used to keep their swords in a scabbard on their left as they were right handed which made it easy to draw their sword when the espied an adversary. Manty other companies drivers drove on the left to keep well away from sword wielding GWR drivers approaching from the other direction. Like wise many pre WW2 French Bugatti cars were Right Hand drive yet they drove on the right.

That's a criticism of Table layouts, ones with "A Baseboard" as seen from inside its not obvious how tight the curves are. My loft is / was around 8 or 9 ft by 13 usable at 3ft above floor and the roof slope causes problems. One side the baseboard is around 1 ft wide due to where the loft hatch is, the other 4ft in places. On the 1ft side my head is uncomfortably close to the roof. Its 00 and horribly over complicated. Work stopped around 20 years ago, it has done service as a test track, it holds 10 coaches and 22 wagons in each of 3 storage loops and has 3 very long sidings (8ft plus) and a short one. The current shed layout 7ft 6" wide inside has a 2ft 6" operating well which is 6" too narrow, even with all controls on a level below the track work. The shed is a nominal 8ft wide and we didn't realise it was 7ft 6" inside until design was complete and we slimmed down the operating well to compensate. I would not touch TT 120 with a barge pole, it's Hornby Dublo 3 rail over again, limited range, 4 express engines , Goods engine, 2-6-4 and 0-6-2 tanks were the entire steam range 35 years after initial launch, or Triang TT... If the range increases then fine, but Hornby missed a trick by not going 1;100 TT3 and in your space I would go for N gauge where you can get a decent range of stock and not be reliant on Hornby staying in business.

60 to 90 minutes. Gosh. Last time I tried to do that son and heirs boss rang " Er can you start at 5 am someone's gone sick." Swift end of session, but not before Grange had derailed and suffered what transpired to be terminal damage and Dunster Castle found a brand new track defect which make the bogie hit the mainframe. Still by reducing prototype 30 minute gaps between trains to 30 seconds we shifted quite a few trains. Adrian Vaughns "Signalmans Twilight" I think its twilight, has some fascinating detail of GW mainline power Mon - Fri with several trains having the same loco day after day yet others have different locos and different classes every day. I try to never run the same gods twice, different locos and stock re sorted to 17 or 19 from a pool of 60 or so at marshalling sidings, terminus and storage, yet the Fish never changes nor does the Milk but its 6MT (County or Castle) job up to London at 60 mph and a 4MT ( 43XX Manor std 4 but usually a Hall) back limited to 45mph (40?) empty, The rosters bring the 6MT back on Parcels / Newspapers and the 4MT on Parcels ECS,

Looks really good. Many "Serious" modellers run far slower than scale speed, which is sort of bizarre . With steam the revs per minute of the wheels does not scale so 00 should run 1:76th of full size speed. I remember an exhibition where old dudderers were crawling expresses around at a scale 25mph and when they fancied a cup of tea a young lad took over started running them at running nearer 60. Suddenly it came alive as trains arrived with little warning and flashed past, just like at the lineside at my favourite spotting place Dawlish, which I think has a 60 mph limit... I'm a big fan of near scale track centres, but the biggest benefit comes with set track, getting the width and length of crossovers down to save space. I find most 00 is under 40mm wide, but that is not 20mm each side of the centre line. Love the point rodding...

One thing which gets missed is viewing points, Heritage power units, both DC pre 1980 and DCC pre 2022 tend to be desk based giving one sitting or standing position for the operator, that can be exploited with perspective modelling. Modern DCC mobile phone based, and wander lead DC means you can wander at will around watching from various view points and indeed operating points manually. The best view points on our railway are only possible using a small camera, either stills or video jammed in a corner, but some pretty good ones are looking along the terminus approach and the curve where the line swings away from the wall towards the main panel approaching the terminus where the trains are viewed head on. Just a thought.

Generally a loft layout is the type with central operating well and round the 4 walls or linear with a long thin end to end layout with operating space to one side. My first one 62 years ago had a solid 6 X 4 board against the roof slope and I had to climb on to it if trains stalled at the far side. "Table" solid baseboard 6X4 etc layouts are not a good use of loft space. An unobstructed space of 6 X 12 is relatively rare in a loft. Mine has about 8 X 9 between the supports which reach up to brace the roof at around 3ft 6" above the floor, so that was my Datum, there was 3ft beyond the supports one end and 1ft the other end so about 12 X 9 at waist height coming in to around 12 X 7 or 12 X 6 which made working at the back awkward. It was never finished apart from 4 storage loops and 4 long sidings off a single track oval which was very useful for running in locos. and hiding many cubic feet of junk It was very difficult to access, Up a retractable loft ladder which eft a big hole to fall down in the middle of the operating area, or I could take away the ladder and be trapped when the trap door was lowered. It was noisy for people downstairs , un usable when people , My son mainly were sleeping. I think something like "Sams Trains" floor level "layout . or low level 12" or 18" above floor Level layouts would be worth considering if your loft is like Sams'

I have often seen the playing card system mentioned but have never worked out how you relate a card to a wagon. When I operate "Ugleigh" the BLT outside down the garden I leave the incoming train in the platform, then I pull out all the wagons which are in the sidings and need to be taken away, back them on to the brake van then put the incoming wagons in the yard in the best available places for loading or unloading. One or two will have arrived and need to return as the intermediate station(s) can only be shunted by down trains. Then the train departs hopefully before the passenger is due as the branch is one engine in steam. What role do playing cards play? Deciding which ones go/stay?

I actually set aside an hour this evening for a running session, no maintenance allowed, which was curtailed by problems after about 35 minutes. Ran an originating Up goods with a Crab, Up through goods with an 8F 48475, . Terminating Down goods with Hagley Hall, down through passenger with a Hymek, Up Passenger and Parcels with 47XX blocking P1 for half an hour loading parcels, Up XP with Devizes Castle. Down XP with Glos Rgt Castle stopping at P3 and taking Manobier Castle as pilot up bank, Pilot detached outside terminus to save platform space , Up Goods with 9F had caught the XP Being held outside the station by East Box while the pilot was attached to the XP before stopping on the through road before taking 81XX banker up Bank. 14XX ran auto train down main line to Middleton Basset and return. 81XX and Tender first Manobier Castle returned coupled together, 81XX to Banker siding, Castle to MPD, Hall goods shunted by 77XX Goods yard pilot and 77XX Down yard pilot to release Hall to loco spur, 77XX removed breakdown crane from road 2 to breakdown siding on Up side and return. 4566 carriage pilot came across to return brake van to Marshalling yard and return to Up side. finally Castle Sir Edward Elgar hauled Up XP from terminus which de railed on the upper lift out which has warped. Working a bit like a one armed paper hanger, using 5 different controllers, often driving two train at once and two locos on one train off one controller I ended up with a lot of shunting to do and only 25% of the locos on the layout actually moved. Despite being an oval no train went right round more than once. Nothing ran on the branch as it was raining! And this is DC Just wondering how others operate