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Anadin Dogwalker

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Everything posted by Anadin Dogwalker

  1. I'm still waiting on Revolution to announce 313/314s in OO if only to smoke out the Other Manufacturer that Ben Ando keeps refusing to name/denies knowing.....grrr
  2. How about Sefton, the most seriously injured survivor of the Hyde Park barracks bombing? There's a life-size statue of him at the Royal Veterinary College near Potters Bar.
  3. Re Ventimiglia, it was wired at 1500v DC so could be used by dual voltage French stock and Italian at half power. I interrailed that line in 2002. I can't remember which leg was wired first south of Avignon (ie Montpelier to connect to the Midi, or the Marseille leg) but the completion of the PLM DC electrification was 1962 and the AC Cote d'Azur extension in 1969. The triangle north of Marseille was all wired up as the loco depot (St Charles?) was on the Nice leg of the triangle. East of the depot there was a dead section and the catenary style changes to AC all the way along the coast, then back to DC on the approach to Ventimiglia. I'd need to dredge up the photos as I cant remember what style of spans were present in the station; I suspect it was probably Italian. IIRC it was mostly TGVs, units or BB25500 on locals plus the odd Sybic or BB22200- all dual voltage types by necessity.
  4. I had always assumed that the wires would go east to Retford and join up with a 1500v KX-Doncaster/Leeds electrification, hence the proposed 27 EM2s.This would have only lasted a year ( on paper) between the 55 Modernisation plan and the adoption of AC. The allocation of all 40 AL5s for construction at Doncaster (and more AL6s) was the last vestige of wiring the ECML before the 80s. For the 76s, I wonder if it was at all possible to transplant a fixed output (ie no tap changer) transformer and rectifier pack into the space occupied by the steam heat boiler and tanks (or ballast weight in the majority) but otherwise retain the original DC control gear- but I think the air compressor and reservoirs on the dual/air conversions used some if not all of the space available. The principal is sound as it's how the SNCF wired a lot of the early dual voltage locos that way. The major downside would be the loss of regenerative braking. The electric spine plan is one of the great missed opportunities of the last 20 years. I went through a phase of photting at Worting Jcn (west of Basingstoke) about 10 years ago. I was surprised by the volume of freight but annoyed as ever by diesel haulage under/over juice. Basingstoke-Reading and Didcot-Coventry under wire should be a no-brainer, but Oxford is still diesel I think? I stopped at Tebay yesterday between 3 and 4pm and bagged three 66s. a 70 vs one 88. Not a bad haul for an hour, but I'd prefer 90s or 86s anyday.
  5. I'd forgotten about the loop aerial (good call) but the set itself was in daily use from 99 to 2005 without a hitch.
  6. Guilty as charged. My Dads 1979 Duette provides the 16Vac output to stationary decoders to kick the point motors under my layout. My 2005 Sony Trinitron has outlasted the contemporary DVD player (which failed after 8yrs) and VCR which lasted a bit longer and I replaced both with the same models. Previous to that I used my Granddads '72 single channel manual-tune-dial Sanyo. Still got it and I bet it still works (and now you only need one channel if connected to a digibox). Inbuilt obsolescence was an alien concept back then.
  7. The E5000 body shell was definitely derived from the Re4/4i, the bogies were copies licensed by SLM. IIRC. SBB designs that predated and might have influenced the design of the roarers were the Ae6/6 (1952) , Re4/4i (batch 2, 1950) the Ae4/6 (40) and the third Ae8/14 (38 ish). There's an evolving family look through these and the Landilok had particularly raked cabs, like a roarer mated with a GWR railcar.
  8. If scenes on trains are eligible, then The Spy Who Loved Me (all time fave) , Live and let Die and From Russia With Love. Oh and Daniel Craig getting "skewered" in Casino Royale.
  9. May I ask what are your tree building techniques/source materials please? I had stockpiled a lot of Woodland Scenics fine leaf foliage but I'm having second thoughts and am looking at Noch or Heki foliage instead to go on seafoam stems.
  10. Now if only they'd salvage and restore the wreck of the Caspian Sea Monster ekranoplan....
  11. I asked Ben Ando (Revolution Trains) at Model Rail Scotland as to whyt they weren't doing an OO Pep unit. He said another firm had it in R+D but didn't know or wouldn't say whom. I wish RT would make an announcement and smoke out the other firm.
  12. Yes, yes, yes! Like in Chris Leigh's review, I too had a childhood punctuated by being dragged from Waterloo to the west end for parental shopping trips. We'd occasionally skip the odd 59 or 72 stock train to see if a 38 showed up, especially when a clutch of them re-entered service. The sound of the compressor was different and you could make a dash from the escalator if if it kicked in on time. The lush green partitions and wooden interiors and springy seats were a classy throwback to a less austere era.
  13. What's not been mentioned here yet is whether the traction motors are fully suspended (HST,81-5, 86/1, 87,90) nose mounted (86 except /1, most diesels ) or body mounted (APT-P, 91 and 370). if they forked out for fully suspended, then the design would be good to 100 at least. If bog-standard nose suspended, then the unsprung mass would be prohibitive much above 75mph. What was the arrangement in the 89 and 92s?
  14. The CC6500s date from 1969 and I think the CC72000 diesels were a year or two before that. I liked the monocabines- I made an effort to track down the last of the Luxembourg fleet interrailing twenty years ago. They reliably showed up around the southern steelworks in the early evening; unexpectedly I had haulage behind one on the local up to Troisvierges. It was the school run and all the kids were giggling about Herr Flick of the Gestapo and doing impressions of the rest of the Allo'Allo' cast. Not what you'd expect deep in the Ardennes.
  15. Any idea what happened to 47711 Greyfriars Bobby? Neill Horton
  16. The NYCs Boston & Albany subsidiary did have tank engines (2 classes IIRC) for use in the Boston suburbs on the main line out to Framingham and Worcester and the inner loop that's now mostly the light rail Green Line out to Letchmere. (Boston+Albany vol 1 Robert W Jones, Pine Tree Press). They lasted right up to dieselisation with ALCO RS2s in the late 40s. Neill Horton
  17. No there were 2nd class orange Eurofimas (I remember them in the Roco catalogue) but not necessarily all nationalities- ie 1st class was more common. The orange stock was still much in evidence on my first trip in 1991 but many more had adopted national liveries. My Dad and I rode in one from Lausanne to Brig on a very hot August afternoon in a first class compartment with dodgy air con, further "enhanced" with a dud can of Feldschlossen that was more aluminium than beer. The next trips were 1994 and 2000 and the only orange cars I remember were the UIC diners (as per Lilliput HO model), usually spliced between 2-tone grey Eurofimas. They were quite common on the Gotthard: the morning Basel-Milan EC we rode from Luzern was Panorama, 1st, restaurant, grey seconds then a block of EWiv that were detached at Chiasso. We walked the Dazio Grande the following day and caught another consist at Faido with 3 panoramawagons, an orange diner then 2nd class eurofimas, followed by a scratch set subbing for the hastily withdrawn RABe sets (an axle had sheared in half IIRC), Eurofima first, orange diner and 2 x 2nds. This was also the make up of the Zurich-Munich EC consists which we caught less than an hour apart at St Margarethen, headed by Re4/4iis with the wider OBB/DB-spec pantograph heads for working to Lindau. FWIW, the only red EWi diner we shot was on its way to Chur at Ziegelbrucke, the rest were in Buffet Suisse purple and gray except for the few Cheese Express cars. We saw one of those northbound at Rodi-Fiesso and another parked at Brig with its pantograph up (the only time I've ever seen a diner drawing power) . All the EWiii diners wore BS livery and were separated from the rest of the EWiii sets, which were still in 70s Swiss Express paint at the time. The EWiv s were red and gray as delivered but we did catch the Migros and McDonalds repaints at Olten and without exception were in consist with other green and gray EWivs on the east-west internal services. I don't remember seeing any on the Gotthard or Lotchberg routes. Got to get the prints digitised some day...
  18. Yes, these exactly. I think they look a lot more handsome than the Ae4/7s thanks to the equal sized windscreens and lack of corner quarterlights. The symmetrical chassis arrangement looks better too. Ive seen the one in the Mulhouse museum and there's supposed to be a mainline certified one, but no idea on its status.
  19. At 11,000hp, the third Ae8/14, the "Landilok", was more like three Ae4/7s. The Ae4/6 were the direct descendants technically , albeit a more upright bowed cab front, but weren't that successful either due to design flaws or wartime corner-cutting; aluminium wiring that was prone to overheating and dodgy transformers IIRC. I believe they were all gone by the mid seventies, while the Ae4/7s, in spite of being 15 years older, lasted another 20. I remember shooting them at Olten in 94 and a handful might have been around the next time I visited in 2000.
  20. One of the early SNCF 2D2s -the 5500s?- of swiss design - on expresses and something like the Emmental/Bodensee Be4/4s for freight and stoppers would have my approval.
  21. Absolutely loving this thread! Any recollections on the ride quality in the SDP40s? By this time, they'd derailed a few times, mostly on BN IIRC and the F40s were coming in. Jim Boyd delivered the earlier FP45s to the Milwaukee and their ride was apparently much worse than an SD45. Neill Horton
  22. www.shapeways.com/shop/ph3d will get you to PH Designs, or if you go via www.shapeways.com/marketplace then filter in OO, British then put "eth" into the search box. Once they're painted up, it's a revelation how much detail is on them and how much difference they make to a bufferbeam. Yes the loop is 0.8mm
  23. Forgot to say that the ETH connectors are from Shapeways, IIRC in set of 6 or 24. The coupling loop is 8mm brass wire. 86010 and 87008 are intended to be a regular pairing; there's a shot from March 83 of them on a coil trail in the centre tracks at Carlisle, coupled pans-in, which does look a bit odd. 87008 is on a Limby chassis; the no1 end has a wire loop, and the no2 end uses the NEM pocket and small coupler albeit with the hook shortened (by cutting and overlapping it) to eliminate slack. 86010 (and the rest) have wire loops both ends.
  24. This is my sole 86/0 rebuild/furb. I've done two 87s an 86/2 and a Trix 81 and a 303. I tend to do these as a refresher between US projects. The mods to the chassis are; 1.a notch above the bufferbeam to let the light through to the offset headlight. This is a lens liberated from an Atlas HO numberboard/light group, IIRC off a SD35 whose drive I pinched for another project. A ring of heat shrink tube is then pressed over the lens prior to attaching. 2. the triangular restraints aren't seperate part but whittled down from the /2 flexicoil springs that are integral with the chassis and bits of strip and rod attached to the outside and apex respectively. The mu cables were removed from a broken class 50 shell off ebay, pipes and coupler are Hornby spares. The lamp brackets are Shawplan brass, and these also fold up nicely to make the triangular stirrups behind the buffers (which are A1 models). Wipers are also shawplan, the glazing is SE finecast. The cab interior is painted mid gray as are the sides of the windscreen pillars - which looks better than black to me. the control desk surface is gloss navy blue and the controls are black. The plated headcode is an etch by Jim Wright-Smith of New St P4 fame. The modified sand fillers were also on that etch but might be acetate (overhead projector transparency) on this model. The cab front handrails are 0.33mm nickel silver for the grabs by the light, and 0.5mm brass for the full width one below the windscreens, mounted on three pins of the same. Getting the curved rail to sit level on the pins is the most irritating bit of the rebuild. Paint is Revell 15 for the yellow and Phoenix rail blue and various enamels for the bus bar. The panto is the Judith Edge kit with the simpler variant of top hinge. It does work and is fully sprung. I've done three of these now, and they get marginally easier with practice, but all three have a tendency to ping overheight, then the top bit folds over comically. I also haven't been able to make them stable enough to prevent tipping in contact with catenary wire (or a ruler edge simulation). I've done different versions of the thrust rods that sit beside the springs to no avail. I think the key here is to minimise friction through weak springing. Novelty is on my to-do list as its less work than Sans Pareil and maybe another 0+3 mu'd. Neill Horton
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