corax67

What type of meter are you using Sir Topham? Is it digital or analogue (numbers or needle) and if digital is it autoranging or are there lots of ranges you can select? Autoranging digital is by far the easiest as you select DC Voltage, AC voltage, resistance, etc and the gubbins inside deals with everything else if you know where to put the probes. If it’s a meter with lots of ranges and you don’t know what you might be dealing with then start at the highest and work down. I.E. track voltage should be about 12v at full whack but you could start with 200v then down to 20v in case your controller has gone mad

I’m with Alister_G - Gaugemaster for me too on our church exhibition layout and my own layouts too. Karl

May I recommend this excellent article on DCC conversion of these motor bogies: https://bearwoodamrg.wordpress.com/2016/08/22/fitting-dcc-to-a-tenshodo-or-hanzono-motor-bogie/ Karl

The following is a statement from our FB page: “Perhaps you will be saddened, but not surprised, to learn that the difficult decision has been taken to cancel the 2020 Wilmington Model Railway Exhibition. This has been done in the interests of exhibitors, traders, volunteers and visitors as it would be difficult to deal with CoVid19 issues. The Wilmington Show will return, God-willing, in 2021. In the meantime we continue to raise funds through ebay sales - over £2,000 so far - and would welcome donations, both of cash and/or model railway items. Please make contact via this page to make arrangements.” The decision was no taken lightly given that all monies raised go to children’s charities but safety has to be our highest priority. Karl

I would recommend Lenz - I’ve had Lenz ever since I converted to DCC and in almost 20 years I’ve done pretty much everything with it from pootling around with little shelf layouts to full blown computer control (via RR&Co) of a 30’x12’ eight track exhibition layout utilising phones and tablets as throttles as well as integrating Lenz, Roco & Fleischmann handsets. The Lenz LR101 feedback detector will tell you what train is where - you can go other routes but Lenz is a superb system They aren’t the newest and shiniest manufacturer on the scene but their kit is bulletproof, reliable and keeps its resale value. I’ve just incorporated MegaPoints servo controller boards onto a Lenz run DCC layout with zero effort and am about to venture into the world of Arduino powered animations for a new exhibition layout which will be run with one of my Lenz Set 100’s - don’t anticipate any difficulties their either. karl

One of the guys in church has bought one of these: https://uk.banggood.com/1080P-HD-Mini-Wireless-WIFI-IP-Camera-DVR-Night-Vision-Home-Security-p-1627751.html?rmmds=search&cur_warehouse=CN and for the money it’s really impressive - we are planning to use it on a number of exhibition layouts we run in the hopes of staging a virtual charity exhibition late this year. Karl

I am slowly disposing of a large amount of railway stock donated to our church railway exhibition to raise funds for the children’s charities we support. One of the items bequeathed to our charity for sale is a new style Hornby HST power & dummy car sets R2703 GNER. As with the vast majority of the rolling stock it was stored in sidings on the layout and for some reason the normally clear windscreen and side windows appear to be fogged. I don’t know if this is through exposure to daylight or some other environmental factor but as can be seen in the photos the dummy car is more affected than its partner. The side glazing in the body is perfect as is every other item of glazed stock that was on the layout. It is possible that the owner may have glued them back in for some reason but I cannot see any obvious signs of glue around the frames. Other than the glazing the unit is a superb model and hauls its matching rake of Lima Mk3’s with ease around my sons little loop layout when tested. Can anyone suggest a possible remedy for this or a supplier of replacement glazing units please. Karl Karl

Some of Roald Dahl’s “Tales of the unexpected” gave me the heeby jeebys as well as “The Masque of the Red Death” starring Vincent Price. Karl

I would say keep the speed down, at full chat it did wobble more than I liked hehe Karl

Here’s my baby - Pushabout Sidings - at our last show in October which is a 5-3-3 Inglenook. All stock is Kadee fitted with uncoupling magnets fitted at the throats of the sidings. I run a wide variety of stock, all of almost identical length, such as 7-plank PO wagons, presflo’s, ore wagons, box wagons, etc with pannier tanks, saddle tanks, 03’s or 08’s - all on a 4x2 board I have a handout for interested people at shows detailing the operation and layout specifics which 8 can happily forward to you if you like. Karl

This question intrigued me so I’ve just popped 6 onto an OO gauge 3rd radius peco curve and a Bachmann 37 atop them - works like a dream Don’t have any N gauge currently but I would imagine it will perform the same Karl

My 8x2 exhibition layout is getting loads of playtime at home at the moment, probably more than ever before, set up in the spare room. Our church exhibition layout (16x12) only ever sees the light of day a max of twice a year for shows plus a rare Saturday for fettling if required but does get worked to death on show outings. Periodically we take Individual boards home to add or amend scenic detailing. If I had the space the biggy would permanently be up too. Karl

Wire in tube - why did I not think of that? It’s not like I spent most of my twenties RC flying ... DOH !! What one of us really needs to do is to get into our storage rooms once lockdown eases a bit more (it’s in church) and do some very accurate measuring and templating so we can try a mock-up - thanks all Karl

There may well be a thread to help me but I cannot find one so here goes..... We have a large (16x12) exhibition layout that has grown and been tweaked over many years - all of our points are on the rear non-sceniced boards which take 4 running tracks and split them into 10 fiddle sidings. Some of the points are becoming “tired” and swapping them out is not something we really fancy. Having seen Megapoints at Ally Pally we loved them and bought a servo controller & we have a matching set of 9g servos. Due to storage constraints we store the board in pairs, face to face, and mounting the servos below board risks them being damaged so we’d like to mount them above. Following possibly too much alcohol during a zoom meeting we had a bit of a bonkers idea - maybe fit the servos along the edge of the board and then operate the points via rodding due to space constraints. Has anyone tried this or were we having a bit of a mad moment? Karl

Our church exhibition layout is wired for both DCC and DC operation - it was originally built as a DC layout with 3 loops and a fourth outer loop which ran Hornby live steam, it’s 16’ x 12’. As time has gone on the live steam became more and more erratic and the fourth loop migrated to DCC, then the third too. Now we can run all or any of the loops as mix of DCC and DC which allows us the flexibility to put up a huge amount of shared stock at a show - standard format is the outer 2 DCC & the inner 2 DC including a lot of Thomas for the kids. My advice if you wish to go down this route is to wire for DC and DCC running is simple. Karl

Hi guys - I’d like to clarify my position with regard to these sales. We at St Michael & All Angels in Wilmington have been running a charity railway show over 20 years as part of our outreach and giving. The 4 charities we support are Demelza House children’s hospice, Cherished Memories, Railway Children & St Michael youth project. During these 20 years we have raised over £200,000 for charity through the show proceeds and the sale of items donated by very generous supporters, retailers and manufacturers. This year C-19 has led to the almost inevitable cancellation of our show, at a time when the charities are at their hardest pressed for funds. A great friend and supporter of the show passed away late last year and bequeathed all his railway stock to us, we have also disassembled his extensive layout at the request of his estate for sale. In order to still generate funds for the charities we took the decision to liquidate as much of the boxed stock via eBay as we can which is what I’ve started to do - I genuinely had no idea that things had gone quite so silly on there which is the sole reason I put up my recent post about the Bachmann underground entrance. I’m not looking to profiteer, swindle or rip off anyone only to sell the things we’d usually simply sell through our secondhand stall. Karl

I am slightly shellshocked - I know prices had gone way up but never expected this : https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bachmann-44-221-Scenecraft-Low-Relief-underground-station-OO-Gauge/254599473641?hash=item3b474fa9e9:g:UOAAAOSw-5pewT-P I know they are discontinued but £137 for a low relief underground entrance is frankly amazing. Karl

I have a few PL-11 point motors on my sons play layout and have found that without a CDU they did occasionally fail to throw every time. A Gaugemaster CDU, which I fit to all of my layouts because they are bulletproof and ultra reliable, cured this. Make sure the point throws easily by hand before fitting the PL-11 and you should have no issues. The Peco switches look nice but are pricey for what they do so I stick with plain SPDT momentary action toggle switches that are much cheaper and widely available in a variety of styles. If you can’t easily drill a hole through the board then you can mount it above the board surface by drilling a piece of plastic or metal ‘L’ section, screw the to the board and fit the switch horizontally through it. There is a small hole in the GM500 circuit board to accept a screw and that can go next to the point motor. Hook up wire of choice for me would be 16/0.2, again it’s what I’ve always used for solenoid point motors and it’s never let me down. Karl

Our annual charity show is due to be held on the second week of October (St Michael & all Angels, Wilmington) and our committee has been having conversations for weeks as to if we could possibly run whilst assuming the 2m social distancing guidelines will still be in place. Whilst no final decision has been made, but is imminent, we are struggling to see how layout operators on the larger layouts could isolate let alone the visitors, volunteers & kitchen staff. For example our own layout which wasn’t attending usually has a team of 4 to set up and constantly 2 to run, none of us are from the same households and operate from inside the 16’ x 12’ layout. Karl

Ah yes I see what you mean Karl

I convert all my own stock to Kadee but what this person did was remove the Bachmann hook coupling, drill a hole in the chassis and with a small self tapping screw attach a long shank #5 style coupler head minus draft gearbox into place. It’s either locked solid or flops around like a fish out of water so no use to anyone. This is the older 25/2 which doesn’t have NEM coupler pockets but rather screwed on hook/loop couplings. Karl

Can I say from a sellers perspective how shocked I am at what’s going on at the moment Having been tasked with the disposal of a large amount of stock bequeathed to our charity which we would normally have sold on the secondhand stall at our annual exhibition (almost certainly cancelled for this year) I tentatively placed 6 items on yesterday evening. Within 8 minutes of one going live I was receiving offers and requests to sell off site. As an example this one has me scratching my head since I figured they were £20 when new so opening up at £9.99 was about right but it’s been on one day into the seven and it’s already rocketed: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bachmann-44-221-Scenecraft-Low-Relief-underground-station-OO-Gauge/254599473641?hash=item3b474fa9e9:g:UOAAAOSw-5pewT-P I know they are discontinued but still fairly niche - truly bemused. Karl

Because all sale proceeds are going to the charity account I cannot just sell off items on things like forums as I don’t know where to set a value. If I’m unable to source a replacement part then it has to go on the charity secondhand stall at the next show (2021) and see what someone offers there Karl

Hello - I have been donated a Bachmann Class 25/2 (32-411) to be sold with the proceeds going to “Trains4Charity” Although the loco is boxed and otherwise mint the previous owner removed the original couplings and screwed part of a Kadee in place - according to the exploded diagram in the box the part should be serial number 400-030 but this brings up nothing on Google. Could anyone provide me with an alternative product code or do they have one spare I might purchase please Karl

I attended on Saturda6 with a group of fellow enthusiasts from our church - very guilty of the rucksack crime but in my defence, between two of us we were hauling around 9 Hornby Live Steam locos for the awesome chaps of the OO Live Steam Society to look at for us. My thanks go out to these guys, especially Maurice, who patiently spent 4.5 hrs (yes folks that long) giving me a masterclass in servicing one loco with every conceivable fault on it. Way above and beyond the call of duty. I thought the show was wonderful, as usual, with a great range of layouts and traders to suit pretty much most modellers tastes. Because of the space and layout it never feels uncomfortably crowded whatever time of the day you visit but obviously the stands for the big guys like Dapol & Bachman’s are always a bit of a scrum. Already looking forward to 2020. Karl