Mike Harvey

By the time you have added the international shipping, VAT and clearance charges, and the risk of a strengthening JPY, there won't be much advantage over discounted UK prices (about £212) plus shipping I suspect.

Just needs Class 31, UK gauge ferry vans and UK gauge tankers and you are there. The prohibition on hazardous cargoes passing through the Channel Tunnel did for several regular international flows. I campaigned for some train ferry capacity to be retained for hazardous cargoes but it was felt that retaining maritime capacity could undermine the non-hazardous flows switching to the Tunnel.

Gaugemaster has now announced the GWR Paddington Bear version for the UK with a regular DC train set with an oval of track and controller, but also with 3 standalone trains - DC only, DCC fitted, and DCC sound. The sound fitted one appears to have on board sound rather than using the Kato Sound Card shoreside system. https://www.gaugemasterretail.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=kato+class+800+paddington https://www.gaugemasterretail.com/catalog/product/view/id/101355/s/gaugemaster-gm2000106-gwr-class-800-and-0-paddington-bear-premium-train-set/?utm_source=Main+Lines&utm_campaign=1984ccade7-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_10_18_10_29&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-1984ccade7-[LIST_EMAIL_ID]

Worth looking at Revolution Trains and others for that in 00. A high proportion of Revolution's N gauge output has kinematic couplers to facilitate close coupling.

The new themed WonderWorks will feature Hornby, Airfix, CORGI, Scalextric and Pocher. No mention in the mailshot of Oxford Diecast or Oxford Rail., or any of the other continental or minor brands.,

Courtesy of Mike Hale at GETS, I had a look at the underside of a powered car. I am now confident that the tube train will be hugging the rails and, from what I was told, the running tests on smaller radii have shown that the design is reliable. I think that there is the tiniest compromise in height as a result of using outside bearing axles which means that the bottom of the car side is above the top of the very low profile side frame. This fuzzy picture is cropped from a shot taken through the perspex of the display cabinet.

In later times (1990s) derailment of 2 axle wagons at 60mph on continuously welded rail was often due to cyclic top - where the trackbed “remembers” where the 60ft joins were and the unevenness resulting from slight dips in the rail at 60ft intervals set up an oscillation which resulted in one wheel eventually climbing over a rail.

My Royal Mail units both have red tail lights. I think the models follow the prototype so earlier liveries have no red lights.

The Paddington Bear GWR Class 800 was the top selling item at Hobby Search Japan last week.

The substantial price increase over the previous batch is probably the impact of licensing costs, smaller production run and inflation. Not sure what the level of worldwide following is for Paddington Bear, but it could appeal to a non-model-rail sector, I suppose. It will be interesting to see if Gaugemaster will feature it in a starter set with an oval of track and controller, as with the first batch.

There is a detailed article by Mike Cosgrove in the July 1996 Railway Modeller.

Be interested to see the Shapeways reply. Usually I find it my misunderstanding of the itemisation of the invoice lines. When I look more carefully that 20% is the VAT.

think this link might work better. Double deck trains film

Go to Youtube. Search for Oxford Diecast Live. The Oxford Rail discussion start just over one hour into the video. I am out in the ocean so no real bandwidth to research the precise link.

There are other public links available on the Oxford Diecast website.

I would be happy to see the old Corgi Cortina Mk2 Estate resized even with the woody sides.

Hiroshi Kato was at Swindon and the International N Gauge Show a week ago. Hopefully somebody asked him directly.

This evening Oxford have announced a large number of new items - 69 I think across all ranges. New shapes include Bond Bug, Mazda MX5, Volvo F88, two missing Ford Transit van variants, Bedford CF van, Ford County Tractor in 1/76, Packard Clipper, Ford Country Sedan, Chevy Corvair wagon in 1/87 and 4 items in 1/120 - Routemaster Bus, Mini, VW T2 and Ferguson Tractor. Info to the trade tomorrow.

From my observations there are still a very large number of the continental railway brands’ autumn deliveries to come……Arnold, Electrotren, Lima, Jouef, Rivarossi etc. and some of the smaller accessory brands too.

The problem with back to back standards is that they need to relate to track standards, notably flangeways and check rail positions at points and crossings. I honestly do not expect there to be a single back to back answer to suit all the various track systems. On the other hand whilst we might expect consistency for all the wheelsets on a particular piece of rolling stock, a variance of 0.2mm can be make or break for smooth running but may be acceptable in a production environment. I have tried to QC this post for spelling but not grammar and that has taken longer than I would have expected because there were correctly spelled words which were not the word I intended. QC has a time cost which translates to financial cost in a production environment.

I have had some dialogue with my contact at Oxford Diecast, and fans of a bog-standard MkV Cortina will not be disappointed. Look closely at the next Oxford new items announcement on Friday 15 September on their Facebook page and their other social media channels.

If the N gauge market is mainly railway modellers then I would be surprised if a souped up version would put most of them off. Authenticity of road traffic is very much a secondary consideration on most layouts. The launch Cortina model is supposed to be Cardinal Red and the original artwork did not include the go-faster fitments. Having said that, for once it would be good if Oxford has tooled a standard version hiding inside the spoiler etc. The Cortina is the only one of the new Fords not available in 1/76 so there is no guide from a larger scaled version.

Interesting research. One general observation is that couplers fixed rigidly to a bogie are much less magnet friendly than ones with pivoting couplers or kinematic couplers. On a curve the contact face between magnets becomes much smaller and couplers can part or easily misalign, especially when propelling. Not surprised that the NEM couplers were not ideal for bogies without NEM pockets. Almost all of my stock is equipped with NEM pockets in either pivoting mounts or in kinematic self-centring close couplers and I do not have derailments on curves or unplanned uncoupling incidents. I am careful how I use vehicles with couplers rigidly mounted to a bogie or underframe whether fitted with magnetic or mechanical couplers. I am working in N but the laws of physics apply equally well to 00 gauge.

@Luke Piewalker I had forgotten about the diagonal disc brakes on the HAA fleet. A high proportion of the 2 and 4 axle PO wagons had the same configuration. I remember doing some extended field trials on a PGA in the Peak District which produced some interesting results namely that having disc brakes all round rather than diagonally extended disc pad life by a factor of 4 which was not so surprising. There was also negligible disc wear. What was surprising was discs all round also extended the miles between tyre turning by a factor of 4, and the wear pattern was such that overall wheel life went up by a factor of six by comparison with a diagonal disc set up. It is hard to imagine the financial benefit across the whole HAA fleet if they all had disc brakes on every wheel. Installing from new must have been an option rejected in favour of lower initial outlay, but running costs over 40 years might have been much lower.

@njee20 Looks like a convincing print of a wagon type I have a soft spot for. These were originally hired to Rugby Cement (15 wagons) and Blue Circle Cement (52 wagons). At the time of the Railfreight Exhibition in 1989 we had one spare which was put into an all white livery and carried red CAIB logos on the tank sides and ends. All of our vehicles for the exhibition were white with red lettering. Keeping them looking clean in a still sooty Cricklewood atmosphere was a major overnight undertaking and needed to be done after the dew had settled. So if you have a problem with finding the right grey, one in white would be authentic.