Alexander H

Hello, I would be interested in becoming a Gold Member to be able to place classified ads. I hesitate to call myself a trader, but I do buy and sell but mostly to fund my collection and provide a little pocket money. I have a small web shop and sell mostly on ebay as the Railway Loft. Would I be welcome to place good quality ads in the classified section? I have a good mixture of ready to run and kit built models and accessories. I could limit my ads to a couple of dozen for kit built OO and O Gauge or I could place many more ready RTR ads - mostly locos - if they were welcome. Kind regards, Alex Holmes

That's nice! What a great combination to model, thanks for putting me onto it

Thank you Jason. I love the fact about the V2s. They are a favourite of mine and I shall look out for one now. In answer to your question, I do like the "foreign" locos I want to run. We all have limits to what rules we can break in creating a model and for me there has to be at least a vaguely plausible chance of a loco running on my stretch of line. I also like your suggestion of football and race specials. I'll look into that. Thanks again

I have found this as a possibility - the Exchange Trials in 1948 which saw A4s and Royal Scots on Western Main lines...it's a starting point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Locomotive_Exchange_Trials

My 4mm layout at home is inspired by the junction at Frome (Somerset) on the GWR mainline, where a branch line leads off, eventually going all the way to Bristol, which is 25 miles away. The period is around 1950. Now, I don't usually collect LNER locos, but a very nice A3 has come into my possession (a renumbered Hornby 60053 Sansovino with a home depot miles away in Gateshead I believe). I was wondering if there any possible excuse I could find for running an A3 "special" through Frome. The same question goes for an ex-LMS Royal Scot I have tucked away. Otherwise I shall find them a good home with someone else. Thank you for helping, Alex Holmes

Hello, I thought I might save somebody 3 hours of work by sharing my Hornby Q1 engine "shorting mystery". This was a near mint condition locomotive I'd bought at auction and was around 10 years old. It intermittently shorted when placed on the track - which it did 95% of the time, going a few further prototypical feet if you jiggled it, before shorting again. To cut a very long story short, I found that the problem was the middle gear pin (or axle) was made of steel and had slid out of it's chassis bearing and was touching the wheel. It was doing this because there was a crack in the middle of the gear wheel that was invisible to the naked eye and needed an eye glass to see it. So a cracked gear wheel led to a gear pin sliding out of the chassis touching a wheel which shorted the loco. This is not the first time I have seen cracked gear wheels on little used Chinese built Hornby locos. Something to look out...with an eyeglass! This is my first time at fully disassembling a modern Hornby loco as I am still largely stuck in the Tri-ang, Lima, Wrenn Era and I must say that although it was daunting, it proved possible using the same old skills of patience and attention to detail. So don't be put off fixing these yourself

It is almost exactly 3"...just a fraction under

The chassis is almost exactly 3" long....and Richard, thanks for the photo of the Diesel Loco. It really looks enticing, but for the future I think as I am firmly in a GWR period at the moment! Alex

Thank you John, I had just set my eyes on the City of Truro kit, but everything you say makes sense and your experience if gratefully received. I don't want to relearn lessons from the 1960s if I can help it. What else can I do with the motor and chassis? I was thinking about bashing a suitably small RTR body to make a small private tank loco...a bit of fiction and fun...but I have never seen a body small enough, so I shall probably set the chassis aside for now as you suggest. Kind regards, Alex Holmes

Thanks Bernard for solving that little mystery! I shall put it aside then as a future spare

Oh lovely. Thank you Rodney, I like the idea of motorising a kitmaster kit. That could be a nice little starter project in kit building for me. I'll do some research for the tender wheelbase lengths and see what I can come up with. I wonder what kits are still available?!

I checked some Keyser kits online and it could possibly be the tender for a GWR Dean goods engine. Thanks Fat Controller

Hello, despite my best efforts I have been unable to identify the motor/chassis combination and a second motor that I bought as part of a collection last month. I am really a RTR man, so am a bit at sea with these. However, the chassis runs so smoothly that it has got me thinking about what I could attempt to build with it. I was thinking possibly a privately owned locomotive for a mine as it is really smaller than any OO gauge 0-6-0 loco I have ever seen. I photographed it next to an 08 Class Hornby shunter to give an idea of scale. Any help with identification would be very much appreciated. Kind regards, Alex