PaulT

The chairs look Ok to pretty good. Sadly the sleeper looks like plastic, a criticism I level at all the ranges of plastic track I have seen. Even with grain and painting it will be hard to represent wood. I daresay lots of surplus ballast and grot will help. It would not suit me for mainline or branch line.

I went to nElevator website again and regsitered "an interest" and signed up for the newsletter. The owner confirmed that they ARE trading but not accepting new orders until the backlog is cleared. He will let me know when order book reopens. It worked for Ultrascale!

I did not mean they had ceased trading. I did mean that kits were too much pain under warranty and they only took orders where they could install the gear. Their manufacturing woes mean that the rate of production doesn't keep up with demand. ASAIK they are still trading and working to complete orders in the pipeline, so not (yet) taking new orders. I wish them luck.

If you look at nelevator website you will see why their deliveries are very slow. Of course a 9ft long OO version is doable. A skilled engineer with relevant experience could design it and either DiY or get it made and it could be very reliable. Whether you would be able to afford it on a hobby budget is another issue. If I did it for the market place I would be looking at mechanical development costs > £10k, software development cost may well exceed that. Then component costs in the region of £1k per device. To recoup , one would need to sell an awful lot at £1k x N to make it feasible as a commercial product. I would face exactly the manufacturing/labour challenges as the nelevator chap is struggling with. IMHO there are two ways the average modeller is going to get a machine like this at an affordable price. One is a one off DiY where the development and design would be a hobby project in itself for a year or three OR a Chinese entrepreneur spotted a world market.

I saw a demo at a show when launched at least 5 years ago. I have an Engineering background and was impressed by the quality of their desgn and implementation. I had in mind to buy a part kit for an application that could not use the full straight works. They informed me thjat they stopped releasing kits years ago....too many comebacks and no control over the installation.

Various bits of info came to light about what has been published or thought about early slotted post signals. I summarise what is easily available from secondary sources : 1. Some dimensioned diagranms on pp 32-33 in Early Railways A Guide for the Modeller ISBN 978 52670 016 2 2. P. 58 in 19thC Railway Drawings in 4mm scale ISBN 0 7153 8006 0 3. Mike Smiths website at igg.org.uk/rail/3-sigs/sigs-1.htm 4. A diagram, details and photo of an example on Ffestiniog Rly No link here because I don't know if copyright applies. If you want these apply to Mark Tatlow or ( ? Ffestiniog Socy ) 5. Pictures and a drawing of a model in 7mm scale of Farrington St. early Met. Again copyright may apply so if you want these, contact me for the owners details. I rarely look at RMWeb since it was reorganised last year so if you want to contact me use 4mm_scale@broadgauge.org.uk

I don't have any info myself but need it like yourself. I am enquiring from those who should know and will come back asap. -- Paul Townsend Broad Gauge Society 4mm Trade Officer

I had a good day watching trains at Railex yesterday. This has become a finescale show to rival the single scale societies exhibitions. More than 3/4 of the models were up to the best standard in their scale and and ranged from 2mm FS to Scaleseven. Many I saw were as good as P4 , "my scale", but bigger or smaller. It was great to see so many 7mm layouts which ran well, were beautifully sceniced and with decent backscenes. A great improvement over the last decade or so. Many 7mm modellers have now achieved good weathering too...at last! My observation on several 7mm layouts was the tendency to run trains too slowly. Yes, its good to see slow, smooth movements but prototype running round and station departures were not usually so leisurely. Now that 7mm models are so good I find myself working hard to find an imperfection so now lay down a challenge to them: When shunting, bunker first, at least one of the crew should face the direction of travel. Surely in the senior scale there is room for a little mechanism to rotate a bod? I look forward to seeing this in action next year!

I agree. Gordon has defended the new RMWeb when I have criticised it. When a long loyal user like him requests a change the boss really should act. I am losing the will to visit the site now as it is so inefficient.

I delayed responding until I could make the two pix attached. The baseboards are shown plonked onto their normal high domestic underpinnings but not joined together. They are taken from a high position to give an idea of how it will be seen at Scaleforum in Aylesbury in two weeks time as part of the Scalefour Society Bristol Area Groups demos. The state of the layout is most track laid and wired and currently under test and debug for simple dc operation to suit the rolling stock being lent for the exhibition. A test load yesterday has proved that they will all fit into my Skoda Octavia Estate. ( Phew! ). The current task over next few days is to rerig it onto the lower trestle and girder underpinnings which will be used at Aylesbury. For this first outing the layout will be a bit over 1Metre above floor...this "low" display height will make debugging easier at the show. Because all is very new, I expect some faults will develop in transit and re-rigging. There is no scenery, buildings, lighting or backscene yet. These are planned to be on separate narrow boards behind those shown here. They will eventually travel in another car. Inevitably I have not progressed as much as I hoped.....every job still takes longer than expected! This winter my tasks will be to complete my first two Broad Gauge locos which will enable the conversion to dcc and continue developing the MERG electrics towards the goal of partial automation which will allow operation by one bod. Some scenery and backscenes will also start asap.

If you visit Scaleforum in Aylesbury come September you will see a model under construction. Afficionados have seen bits before, but this will be the first outing for all baseboards. Dartmouth is a real town with a real station. Most historians believe that it never had track or trains. In my parallel universe, the Acts of Parliament of Mid 19th Century which enabled both the Totnes and Dartmouth Rly Co and the South Hams Rly Co actually led to the construction of both lines. If you read the wrong history books you will read that the slump of around 1860 prevented the Directors raising the share capital so both Companies failed. We have recently learnt that banks can do no wrong so the 19th C slump was a myth. The standard gauge line from Plymouth, promoted by LSWR, reached Dartmouth soon after the Broad Gauge line from Totnes, sponsored by South Devon Railway. Both lines were profitable until 1902 when a shipping disaster demolished the River Dart bridge from Dittisham to Greenway and severed the fast route via Churston to Newton. This led to closure by 1905. Traces of the old line have been found with other evidence of its existence. Much of the station’s and the trains’ character were derived from the sponsoring larger companies. Some locos were provided by Slaughter & Gruning (later becoming Avonside works) in Bristol, others by LSWR, SDR, and the Cornwall Railway. Traffic on the lines was local passenger, through occasional Expresses to London and the Midlands to cater for the very new tourist market together with coal imported by sea for distribution in the S. Devon hinterland. A major generator of goods traffic in and out was the local engineering company, Newcomen Gruning who were maintaining Cornish mining engines of great age and venturing into agricultural, stationary and road machinery and were very prosperous. Livery followed best glorious practice of that era. The model is set in 1875, just before the all powerful GWR took over the SDR, B&ER et al and spoiled the independent small lines.

I have only just reached your thread so my question fits your posts of last Autumn. My pre-grouping British layout will have part automation and will use free software to control it. The electronics will be by MERG for flexibility and low-cost. I am having trouble choosing between JMRI and Rocrail as both have pros & cons. I would value input from you and others who have made the comparison and can tell us the reasons for whichever one of those two they chose

You mentioned baulk road so may want to look at this: www.broadgauge.org.uk

Then there is a geezer in Bristol who wrote something similar but oriented to UK practice. There is a windows version. It was never commercial but if you pm me a request I could forward it to him as he doesnt appear on here.

First, await the funeral for Steffan, then enquire re family and executors