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Major Clanger

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  1. Tony, I think the goods line distants are fixed - I can see right through the post where the green spectacle ought to be. So they mean "go, but not too fast as you're likely to be stopped at Queen's boards as well". Andrew
  2. There may be some difficulty contacting us by phone over the next few days as the line is being switched to digital voice. The website and email should be unaffected, although we won't be able to access either for a short time whilst the changeover is actually being made.
  3. It's working for me, but perhaps a little slower than usual. Izzy - we have never sold card kits...
  4. Wizard carriage and wagon bearing codes starting with 4000 are made by Alan Gibson; those starting with BPP are made by Markits. The two are never mixed up. Hope that clears things up.
  5. And me. One of the locos was a Standard Class 5; I can't remember what the other one was, but I don't think it was an A2. The commissioner was someone in the Bradford area.
  6. All are worked by servos except for one, which is a relay with a bouncing mechanism, and looks quite odd in operation compared with all the others. Generally the servos perform well, but a few are overdue for travel adjustment, particularly Queen's boards. One or two on the GC gantry do exhibit "chatter" , despite having a dedicated power supply. Another thing to have a look at in due course.
  7. Hi, I am wanting a Comet Dean Goods chassis.

    Do you know when they will be available again please. ?

    I have built one or two Comet chassis before, and I like the way they go together. 

    Thanks in advance.

     

    Rob

    1. Major Clanger

      Major Clanger

      Rob,

       

      I've only just seen this. The Dean Goods chassis is expected back in stock in the next two weeks or so.

       

      It's best to contact me by ordinary e-mail (andrew@modelsignals.com) - despite looking at RMWeb twice a day, I very rarely log in, and until today was totally unaware that my profile was yet another messaging service.

       

      Andrew

  8. Bill, The electrics aren't a problem as such - they are just there to translate the operators' wishes into volts and amps in the right places. The problems probably lie in there not being the familiar (pre-DCC) control panel with section and cab selection switches - with a very few exceptions, all track power is set by the route and knowing which is the correct controller to turn. Simply running trains round the circuits on both the GN and GC is not that difficult, but making them cross from e.g. up side to down side is not intuitive, and very few operators got familiar with the procedure. The wiring is going to be documented - I will be gathering all the diagrams that do exist, and then as a first step start ferreting around underneath labelling everything. Luckily all my leg joints are still up to it! A track plan would also be a great help - I'm not sure one exists, other than the original BR surveys which were used to plan the layout. Scan, reduce, edit; scan, reduce, edit...
  9. Robert, It doesn't have to be both levers - either one will do for the appropriate direction of travel. I would like to interlock these with the signals - at present you can go past a clear signal in the up direction and end up in the ballast because 38 hasn't been pulled. The down direction is not as critical - if 98 is not pulled, you will run out of volts when you get to the crossing before you derail on the catch point. BTW, 38 is a trap point, not a catch point - traps stop movement in the right direction; catch points work for the wrong direction - the classic use being runaway unfitted wagons going backwards on a rising gradient due to a broken coupling. As modelled, 98 is not a true catch point as you can't trail through it in the right direction, it being worked by an H&M point motor.
  10. Robert, On the real semaphore railway, home and distant signals on the same post are "slotted" in the balance lever arrangement so that the distant arm cannot come off unless the stop is also off. However, provided the box in advance has given line clear and cleared all his stop signals (which implies line clear from the box next in advance), there is nothing to stop the distant lever being pulled off too. Once the box in rear pulls off the associated stop signal, both arms will come off simultaneously. I regularly used to see that at my local station of Castleford. On Retford (the model), there is no mechanical slotting but it is done electrically. In the up direction, South box can pull off the distant arm on Queen's boards so long as the appropriate platform starter is also off, even though North box has not yet cleared the Queen's board starter. Once this is pulled, the distant arm will also rise. To the best of my recollection, all the distants on Retford are electrically slotted in this way. There is thus no reason for each box operator to watch what the other is doing. The train drivers are the ones that need to do that! To reply to another point, purely in signalling terms, platforms and signal locations have nothing to do with each other - a signal does not need to be present to admit a train to a platform or another one for it to leave. It's just that most station signalling was laid out that way due to the presence of other features such as level crossings, crossovers, siding connections etc.
  11. Sandra, Roy's intention was to build a rake of carriages (possibly a 6-car rake) to recreate the Leeds excursion which was advertised on the back wall. What the attraction of Leeds for 6 carriages' worth of Retford citizens was I don't know, but apparently it was a fairly regular excursion. Be careful if you put stock in the siding as I don't think it's level, so it might need spragging. I don't know who or what demolished the ground signal, but I think its remains were in a wagon in the fish dock sidings.
  12. It's South box's no.64, for entering the down lie by. It was there in 2012 - I built, installed and photographed it... Its partner for coming out of the siding can just be seen at far right.
  13. Wizard Models has a product to solve this problem - put test in the website search box to view...
  14. Our phone line is faulty again. Internet service is intermittent and the phone is not working. We are switching to a backup for e-mail and receiving and processing orders.
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