Harlequin

I got 5350 with portholes in "Great Western" livery today. (The pre-order was transferred from Hattons to Kernow. Sad that I had to do it but no problems.) It's wonderful that Dapol have produced these older variations and taken the opportunity to address some of the issues with the first batch. Well done Dapol! The only thing slightly amiss on first inspection is that the coal load won't sit down properly. I'll find out why later. Overall she looks good but more later when I've had time to do a proper inspection. Fitting the decoder is a piece of cake and she runs very smoothly, although still a bit too fast by default (about 60mph at 50% throttle).

Sorry if I've missed the sarcasm again(!) but you guys (and you @chuffinghell) do know that the Dapol Autocoach will come with a sound-fitted option, don't you... Ding Ding!

That is the Airfix version slightly updated (mostly in the chassis, I think) but basically the same tooling - that's how old it is! To see how awful it looks in closeup just look at this:

I remember waiting for the original Airfix 14xx. All the hype suggested it was going to be revolutionary and there must have been production problems because it was about a year late, I think. When it arrived in the model shop we had to buy it even though it was more than we could really afford at the time. Driving home with Dad we both felt guilty and excited in equal measure. I was holding this exquisite Faberge egg wrapped in brown paper and we were going to have the justify it to Mum and my sister. Sadly, I don't think it ever ran very well... So when the DJM/Hattons 14xx came out I obviously had to have one, regardless of the fact that I had no layout or even any track at the time! It got me back into the hobby. I was lucky and got two good ones but they are both recalcitrant runners if they've been sat for a while and one makes a horrible grinding noise sometimes...

Yes, exactly. If the DJM/Hattons tooling can't be resurrected economically then there's very little chance of new tooling because that version has ruined the market for many years to come. But the Airfix one is equally atrocious with all those chunky mouldings, the conical steam dome, the visible seams, etc,...

My guess is that they have 48xx under inspection and they won't say anything until/unless they figure out a way to make it work better. We know that the mechanism is a dog and 0-4-2Ts are always difficult to get to balance nicely. So there's a chance that it might be silently consigned to the bin as being uneconomic to fix (which was more or less its state at Hattons, of course)!

If you look at photo catalogues it's clear that very many more than the first 20 had high cab roofs. For instance, here's a lovely portrait of 4388:

Thanks Richard but the photo of the model of 5320 posted by Robin above (courtesy of Cheltenham Models) shows her in GWR livery with a BR numberplate and shedcode plate on the smokebox door. So, is that a photo of a pre-production version where the wrong smokebox door has been fitted by mistake?

Has anyone built a TT:120 Minories yet? At TT:120 scale, Minories SP35 would be 1.352 m long and 193mm wide, or call it 4ft 6in by 8in in old money.

The Zimo stayalive time controls work for external stayalive circuits. The decoder rectifies and smooths the DCC waveform from the track to become its main +ve and gnd power supply. It also watches the DCC signal for commands. So if that command signal disappears but there's still power between +ve and gnd it must be running on stay alive and it can start its timers. BTW: Decoders (at least current ones) are not just computer-like - they really are computers. Zimo MN and MS decoders have ARM cores in them, running the same instruction set as most mobile phones.

I just received my last ever parcel from Hatton's - something I had forgotten was in my trunk: End of an era! 😞

I have an uneasy feeling about that firebox... Most photos of the prototypes suggest a much flatter top surface but sometimes you can see something like the Dapol rendition. E.g.: The thing is, I think we're seeing the inwards taper of the firebox sides in that photo, not so much the backwards taper of the top... It will be fascinating to see one in the flesh, see what it really looks like from different angles and compare it with the previous batch and other locos. P.S. I have been making a CAD model of a Small Metro (Medium Metro actually) and I started off from weight diagrams before I had access to a frame plan. The weight diagrams introduced many mistakes that had to be tediously corrected later.

Hi Graham, Don’t feel too down about what you’ve got to do. Chuffnell R is immortalised on RMWeb and its development has delighted and entertained loads of people. I’m sure you have hugely enjoyed making it and sharing it with us. Job done! Change has to come and we’re all looking forward to seeing what you do next, whenever and whatever that might be!

I've never been able to prove conclusively to other people that the coal speaker grille idea produces better sound that more traditional methods. I'm sure it does but whenever I try to record it on video the sound just doesn't come across for some reason. So I don't think I've convinced many people it's worth trying. I even idly thought about sending some of my locos on tour so other people could make their own minds up... So it's really good to get this feedback from you and your wife(!) that there really is something in the idea! Edit: And of course, it's not loudness that we are striving for but fidelity of sound reproduction, which is where the quality of the samples comes into play and there are some questions around that.

It's been a long day for Bruno, so he's having a long rest: He brought me a vole and a blue-tit today. He lost the vole (thanks, cat!) but after he'd tossed the bird around for a while he ate it whole in front of me! Not very pleasant and it didn't stay down for long... Oh, what fun! I took a parcel to the Post Office this afternoon and he was clearly intending to follow me the whole way. He wasn't worried at all by the dogs, people and cars on the road but I was worried for him. So I had to come back home and lock him in! I don't think he would sit patiently outside the Post Office, tied to the railings on a lead like the local dogs. I imagine I'd come out to find a shredded end dangling loose and people cowering in doorways while a tornado of teeth and claws whirled around the square. We're gradually getting used to each other - he only bites me in play now.

My 61 is still with me and opened up to have things done inside but poor old sound-fitted 97 is winging it's way back to Kernow, I'm sorry to say. I couldn't work out what was causing her to limp and sometimes jump.

They are not fitted on my Diag. O No.61 but I wouldn't describe them as missing. Very often PCBs are design with pads for optional components and I think these are just options that have not been used in the release models.

Here's my Minories brought out from its dusty corner with the cobwebs (mostly) brushed away: The curved turnout in the centre really makes it flow nicely: Curves feeding into other curves with similar curves either side. ☺️ I cut back all the Peco gubbins around the tie bars and the tie bar ends themselves so they don't stand out so much, which probably helps the appearance of flow. (The way the line into platform 3 joggles around the hinge post is an original CJF feature.)

CJF made beautiful designs within the limits of the technology at the time. We certainly have the advantage over him with computer design tools and precision measuring and cutting. Hopefully people don't take those old plans too literally these days. (Maybe I'm guilty of that!) In my version of the 7ft by 1ft Minories I managed to keep the turnouts clear of the centre joint by about 30mm and at the entrance/exit the turnout is exactly flush to the 7ft mark, as drawn above, but there's a sturdy end frame the track has to pass through and I use the depth of that to protect the turnout from damage.

Yes, quite right. I will amend my post. Thanks.

Dean Goods: Uncoloured for route availability, Power class A (not Ungrouped as previously stated). So no need for that decal at all. (But red would never have been right.) See Jason's post below. The cast iron "Caution" notice goes inside the cab, either on the left hand side sheet or the left side of the roof, but you may not consider it worth doing. Similar to this:

This is what I see using all Streamline Medium turnouts with no tricksy angles: The ladder starts on the right exactly on one of the blue 1ft grid lines and all parts are butted exactly together. A thin white line shows where the two 3ft 6in boards join and you can see that the last turnout overhangs that line. You can also see that the basic 12° geometry doesn't slew the track across enough or at the right angle to feed Platform 3. I have complete faith in my turnout templates because they proved to be very accurate when I used 1:1 printouts to lay down my Minories. (And that process taught me that I should even have allowed for the extra length caused by insulating joiners!)

I agree that in some of the many versions of Minories that CJF drew and published it might have been possible to maintain a 3ft minimum radius using the turnouts that were available at the time. In "60 plans for small railways", where Minories is plan "49s", the length of the layout is 6'8", there is no kickback siding but no minimum radius is stated. So this version might be possible with min radius 3ft turnouts. However, in "60 plans for small locations" the introduction says that all pointwork is Setrack or Streamline, Minories is now Plan SP35. the length is 7ft, it has a kickback and the minimum radius is stated as 3ft. This combination is, I think, impossible.

The axonometric view is reproduced in my track plans album, using my Streamline plan: BTW: I think that the statement of 3ft minimum radius that accompanies the original plan in "60 plans..." was simply a mistake. I don't think it is or was possible in the 7ft by 1ft size given for the 00 version with the kickback siding.

What do you mean by jerky running? Can you post a video showing what you mean? Do you hear a clicking sound when she runs? If so, have a look at @mikesndbs very important "Last Tip".