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davepallant

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Posts posted by davepallant

  1. Good news for Hornby! Full disclosure I bought some Hornby shares a few weeks ago after avoiding them like the plague. I own a few Hornby locos and a full length Pendolino to run on our club layouts even though I own an N gauge layout and lots of stock for that. Hornby had seemed to 'bottom out' over the last few months and I thought maybe there was somewhere to go after all.

     

    The other thing that made me interested again around Christmas was one of the large shareholders in Hornby (Phoenix Asset Management) forcing Stanley Gibbons (stamps) into taking the company back from shareholders and giving control back to Phoenix who owned their debt. Phoenix had apparently been trying to get Stanley Gibbons to stop behaving like they were selling investments and get back to being a company for stamp collecting hobbyists. Before that Phoenix were a major investor in Games Workshop which has been doing enormously well for quite a few years now. If there was a company that needed to be creative to create and build a market for hobbyists of tabletop games and figures then it was Games Workshop.

     

    The investment manager and co founder at Phoenix seems to understand how a company needs to keep the customers and hobbyists happy rather than investors. There's a Phoenix employee on the board at Hornby so hopefully the same ideas are working at some level to steer Hornby in an appropriate direction for gaining new customers and making stuff that they can afford and keep them happy.

     

    Dave

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    • Informative/Useful 4
  2. Layouts at the show...

     

    Alderford                    OO    BR 1970s into the 80s
    Sparkel                        HO    Winter steam in Bavaria
    Millhouses                  N    Sheffield in the 1970s
    Merthyr Riverside     EM    Post grouping South Wales
    Scarlington                 N    North East England 70s 80s
    Lewis Lake                 On30    Early 1900s Wyoming
    East Jackson MI          HO    US switching layout
    Laurencekirk             OO    North Scotland 1960s
    St. Seeb                      OO    1970s North West small town
    Lily Lane                    N    Modern Image
    Headingley                N    North East 1950s
    Hillport Goods         O    North Staffordshire late 70s
    Auswiss                     HO    Modern image Switzerland
    Ffarquhar Branch    OO    The Rev W Awdry's Thomas layout
    Bryony Lane             OO    BR 1960s
    Arun Quay                O Fine     South Coast Quay 1960s
    Parrot Hall                OO    1970s to 80s Manchester
    Stanley Junction      N    1960s Scotland
    Glenties                    OOn3    Irish narrow gauge steam
    Axebridge                 OO9    South West quarry line

    • Like 1
  3. Our Preston Model Railway show is on again this March 2nd and 3rd at Preston's College here in Fulwood, Preston.

    Sports Hall, Preston's College, St Vincent's Road, Fulwood, Preston, Lancashire PR2 8UR

    https://maps.app.goo.gl/Caot9SvTrQmsQPM39

     

    The show is open from 10am to 5pm on Saturday 2nd and from 10am to 4pm on the Sunday.

     

    Adult tickets are £8, Children's tickets (under 15) are free. The show has wheelchair access from the car park and throughout and tickets for wheelchair and scooter users are £4 and an accompanying carer can enter free.

     

    This year we have 20 layouts, 15 traders and numerous demonstrations and associations.

     

    • Like 5
  4. 4 hours ago, JSpencer said:

     

    So I guess anyone taking it to a show would need to use their Telephone as a personal wifi hotspot.

     

     

    I would hope that the Kenesis Hub has its own wifi router built in. There are numerous cheap modules that Bachmann could have used.

     

    The handset was introduced as using its own 2.4GHz implementation which would not be Wifi as it would eat through batteries. It would have to be something similar to Zigbee or Bluetooth hopping around different frequencies trying to find gaps between the wifi channels. The test will be whether there is as little interference over greater distances (larger layouts) in smaller halls surrounded by wifi hubs, hotspots and other layouts running wifi and 2.4GHz systems. There were a lot of wifi routers at Warley, many of the shops had multiple and there were several layouts that were using wifi. However Warley is a lot bigger than the average model railway show hall!

    • Thanks 1
  5. Problem with bench testing going from DC to DCC.

    Just been converting my Northern Rail 319 from DC to DCC. Brilliant that Farish has got the conversion down to a single DCC  decoder and I can see that moving to sound will be easy as well.

    I ran the train on DC, so I knew it worked, and then waited for the Next18 decoder to arrive. You need to have both of the middle cars on the track to get them to move so installed the decoder, coupled them up and tried them. Nothing. Took the decoder out and refitted the bypass board and still nothing. Came on here to see if anyone had had a cimilar problem but nothing. It was only after stewing for a half hour or so trying various things that I realised there are two ways round to connect the two centre coaches. I reversed them and now they work fine. I can see its now obvious that the pantograph goes as near the centre as possible but with just two coaches on the track its easy to miss which way round the two centre coaches have to go!

    • Informative/Useful 1
  6. On 28/02/2022 at 08:59, Steadfast said:

    @davepallantthe one stanchion I've had a play with seemed to be held on with a strong but rubbery glue. There is a pip in a hole where the stanchion meets the chassis, if you very gently try to wobble the stanchion left and right, rotating about the mounting point, you'll feel the glue become weaker and eventually the stanchion becomes very wobbly.

     

    Jo

    I must have chosen the most difficult one to try first! I have the hang of it now. Wobble the stanchion back and forth a little bit to get a couple of nice little cracking sounds and then grasp it right at the bottom and pull it outwards off of the chassis while still wobbling. The biggest problem pulling them off was being careful not to catch an adjacent one with your hand and bend it. Once I got going it only took half an hour or so to take off half the blue stanchions off of my 10 wagons. Now need to fit the red ones. Will give it a try with Roket Card glue rather than PVA since they should set in place quicker.

     

    Will probably leave weathering until the future of the bogies and wheels are decided.

    • Like 1
  7. Has anyone yet had a go at using the spare pack of red stakes supplied in the N gauge timber carriers? I have tried gently moving some of the blue stakes back and forth to see if there was any movement where they are mounted to the platform but I dont see any give. I dont want to break one off half way down leaving difficult lumps in the chassis. The instructions mention fixing the red stakes with PVA but the blue ones fitted at the factory seem to be glued with sterner stuff!

     

    Dave

  8. I've spent a few hours this afternoon installing Kato loco and lighting DCC decoders into an LNER 800 Azuma. Found a Youtube video that was very useful and a couple that were not so useful! However, once it was all together running on Address 3 I could only get the rear lights on each end working. Direction worked fine but no white lights. I was actually thinking that maybe there were no headlights to start with but had not run it on DC to check it before conversion.

    I finally found the Tramfabriek website where the issue of DCC lights not working correctly is covered. Apparently the contacts on the lighting decoders do not always press hard enough onto the decoders to get lighting working in full. So I stripped the chassis of the driving cars down to stretch the contacts as detailed on the Tramfabriek website https://www.tramfabriek.nl/kato-800.html  and put it all back together. Now the lights work correctly.

    A great model for the price but a little annoying that the ultra easy DCC install fails on a small design issue that, from what Tramfabriek say, affects alot of conversions using the Kato light decoders.

    • Informative/Useful 1
  9. Just getting the Show Guide written up now!

     

    Layouts

    Old Oak Yard     Gn15
    Carrowbeg    OO
    Great Endon    OO    
    Wolfe Lowe    O    
    Swiss Pass    HO & HOm
    Hadley, Stonybrook & Swale Railway    O16.5
    Westbrook    N
    Newhaven Harbour    OO
    Heworth Sidings    N
    Fen March Depot    OO
    Bodmin Generally    OO
    Nordhafen    HO
    St Andrews and Guardbridge    N
    Rannoch    OO
    Clayton End Signalman    OO
    The Coeur D'Alene Railway    O16.5
    Lily Lane     N
    The Circle Line     N

     

    Traders

    North Western Models
    D.C. Kits and D.E. Video
    Stevenson Carriages and Millholme Models
    Squires
    Country Park Models
    J.S. Models
    Geoscenics
    Bespoke Signs and Print
    Vintage Prints
    Crafty Hobbies
    J.G. Pre-Owned Models
    Going Loco
    MTFG Hobbies
    The Junction Box
    Footplate
    Hornby Dublo 1938 to 1964
    Along Classic Lines

     

    Associations and Demos

    West Lancs Railway
    7mm Narrow Gauge Association
    Tony Wright Demonstration
    Lakes Line Rail User Group
    Cumbrian Railways Association
    North Turton Demonstration
    Eric Farragher Scenic Demonstration
    Poulton and Wyre Society
    Les Green and Co Demonstration

     

     

     

     

    • Like 1
  10. I've got a bunch of the Revolution IPAs closed and open and a load of Ford Transits to go on the open ones. Has anyone got any suggestions for how to attach the Transit vans to the open wagons without making a permanent fixture? I'm thinking a blob of Black Tack or four glue dots but wondering if I'm missing something!

     

  11. I find one day enough to see everything with enough time to have an early brunch up in the cafe, a cup of coffee later in the day and possibly an ice cream from the van outside! A nice enjoyable low stress show particularly on the Sunday.

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    • Agree 1
  12. I've just gone through a lot of stock to sell some of the older items and found several class 47s and a couple of class 66s with newly cracked cogs since checking them a couple of years ago. All are older Farish items (2000-2010) and have been kept in a central heated room so just mild cycling of heat day to night and in the dark. I dont think there is anything particularly you can do with storage environment and that it is just related to age and the quality of the original cog mouldings.

     

    Ended up buying a pack of cogs and a pack of axles from Farish N Spares as I had 7 broken cogs.

     

    Not sure we can yet say the newer ones are not going to have the problem until they are 15 years or more old. We can hope!

  13. On 27/03/2021 at 19:19, Kaput said:

    Panic averted.

     

    Reseated the decoder and reset both decoders for good measure and they seem to be fine now.

     

    Bit weird but the joys of 6pin decoders.

     

     

    Did get me thinking though, with the 2nd run planned to have Next18 sockets (I believe) is there any possiblity of opening up the option to buy a pair of power cars (or chassis only) for owners of the originals to upgrade? Assuming the body's would even fit straight on.

    Admittedly I'm guessing the chances are about zero though.

     

    There's usually a function to turn off rear lights so that when locomotives are pulling wagons the rear light is not on. Even though it is not appropriate here it could still have got glitched and resetting the decoder has put it back on.

  14. Just spotted Revolutions email as well. Got my order in.

     

    Been watching a channel on Youtube called Ashville. He has an building and aggregate company near Heathrow and gets several trains a week loaded with aggregates from the midlands.

     

    Here's last weeks edition with some shots of GBRf 66742 and a lot of JNAs arriving. Look like Revolutions VTG Silver and the GBRf dark Blue with and without the leasing stickers.

     

     

    This is the delivery last Wednesday,

    https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/train/H03156/2021-03-24/detailed#allox_id=0

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