Harlequin

With the duckunders remember that operating is not the only time you might (or might not) need to access the separated areas. There's also tracklaying, ballasting, track weathering, track cleaning, making scenery, fixing backscenes, planting buildings, etc., etc., etc... Stacking trains in storage loops obviously affects operations (although, if you're prepared to see the trains you don't want at that moment, to do circuits of the scenic area to open the path for the train you do want, then maybe that's not such a big problem). If the lifting section and possibly some o

Hi Martin, I can see the reason for all the talk of CJF, now, and to my eyes there are some typical CJF problems. (Sorry!) There’s almost no room for non-railway scenery. Unrelated tracks passing close to each other. Goods yards are cramped. Lots of Double junctions out in the open. Relatively sharp 90deg turns following each other in the right-hand dumbbell. Duckunders making access more difficult. Also, I worry about the storage capacity and how it will work in practice because of the lack of crossovers. Edit: Maybe the reversing loops ob

Minories, as originally conceived, is portable and so you set it up wherever there is room for it... (And then fold it up and take it away when the room needs to be used for something else.)

Great, thanks! Adv starter: OK Bracket: Oops - trying to get the drawing together too fast! Loco release: OK Trap/catch: I was using Andy's own terminology. OK "traps". Distant: Great, OK. Bay trap: Interesting, OK.

I'm no expert so I'm taking a risk here but, nothing ventured nothing gained, so here goes: I think the catch points are not correctly positioned. The bay wouldn't need one because it's a passenger line. The goods catch point needs to be in the run round loop because it's not passenger rated. So here's my stab at it: It is still "over-signalled" - it has to be if it's not one engine in steam. However, I replaced the bracket by separate starters for main and bay to lighten the feel a bit. Might be better if the loco release spur was just worked

How about a sand furnace? It would need to be alongside a track, near the engine shed.

Great to hear from you, Martin. It sounds like you’re back on track.

No, the firebox “flicker” is run by electronics on the loco and is just a regular cycle between the two LEDs. This is one of the model’s flaws. I guess it’s done that way so that it “flickers” under DC control too.

Ah, interesting... Sounds like you have some crossover between the firebox light circuit and the motor circuit. Maybe there are some trapped wires somewhere with their insulation stripped away and making unwanted contact? Or bad soldering around the carrier board socket?

Wierd... Does anything look odd on the decoder or the carrier board?

This all sounds very odd and to work out what's going on you need to eliminate some of the variables. What decoder are you using now? If you put the same decider in another loco does that loco behave the same? If you put a different decoder in the Mogul does it behave badly? Etc., etc... The firebox light is very dim even when it's working properly. Are you using F0 to turn it on?

That all sounds like much more fertile territory. It wasn't my intention to push you towards Launceston, Ben. It was just that I saw some similarities that I thought resolved some of the problems with your earlier plans.

"Finetrax" is, erm, fine but... "Eezed Build" is a bit awkward as a name for the range... Sorry for nit-picking.

Lots of info here:

Who has “run a mile”? The pertinent questions have all been asked and answered for now. I’m sure there will be more activity when there’s more information.

In a topic called "2021 Hopes" only @rovex has mentioned the obvious choice: How about a GWR 2021 class 0-6-0 saddle tank - not as later converted to pannier tanks, we've got enough of those! Surely the perfect loco to release next year!? Domed or domeless with a few variations of cab, bunker and chimney styles, ideally. Hornby have done well with small saddle tank locos recently and this would follow-up that trend with a loco that could find a place in many GWR layouts, ringing the changes a bit from the ubiquitous panniers. (Did any survive into BR ow

Yes, Gordon set out the maths above: This is really the core issue with helices, which others have already touched on in this topic: To achieve the gradients required to make them work reliably, without resorting to the powerbase solution, they have to be physically large and that is often impractical in the space that most UK-based modellers have available. And as Gordon and others have pointed out, an arguably neater solution is a "round the room" level change ramp that is combined into the general layout design.

Will do. Thanks. Edit: Done.

Unfortunately steam pipes aren't listed amongst the spare parts in the manual so if we simply wait we're likely to be disappointed. Since the pre-publicity shots showed 6385 with external steam pipes and since we know that that loco had them before it received the roundel livery, why are they not on the production model? I think both questions deserve some official response.

That's the word I was looking for, thanks. It wouldn't come to me earlier.

I did wonder... The "Ben" account seemed to be recent so I thought I'd venture the question. Someone from Dapol must monitor this forum, surely? They seem to have made Dapol Digest read-only so I couldn't ask the question there. Any suggestions of where I should ask to get a public response? Or if they don't want to talk to the general public could you ask them for an official response, @AY Mod?

@DapolDave @DapolAndy @Ben Dapol Can you explain why the model of 6385 does not have outside steam pipes, please? Is there any possibility you might supply steam pipes as a spare part through DCC Supplies? (At the moment their Mogul page is still empty.) Thanks,

Hi Wayne and Patrick, Thanks for the prototype demo. This is a potentially very exciting development! It looks great but of course that's only half the story. The acid question is how well does it work? It would be great to see some rolling stock passing through it, if possible. Especially things that are known to be finicky like the front bogies/ponies of many locos. (BTW: I notice a step in the rail level after the frog in Patrick's photos.) Patrick's build demo shows a very simple electrical setup of the turnout. That's fair enough, but does (could?) the