Ravenser

Bang goes any chance of using the chassis for something else

That, to me, is a big warning light flashing. Bachmann must have sunk a substantial amount of money into their new 37 , albeit rather less than has been quoted for their investment in the 47. The need to replace the Mk3 Bachmann 37 wasn't obvious to me , and we've already discussed the point that as prices get higher and the improvement generated by the new tooling gets more marginal the "replacement cycle" breaks down. People are not going to dump their existing Bachmann or Vi-Trains models and buy half a dozen new 37s in the way they did 20 years ago when people were dumping Lima collections on ebay. Historically duplication has tended to lead to both sides getting scalped. It certainly did with the Class 71 and Adams Radial . (Hornby still "own" the 71 - its just the small market has been so flooded it's difficult to see when they could ever re-run the model). But it can take 3 years from release before the extent of the commercial disaster becomes obvious... This is something of a misunderstanding . Take a steam subject which everyone would say Hornby have "lost" to Bachmann - the 4F I was startled when checking to discover that the Bachmann 4F has only been released twice , and the last time was I think 2016. Hornby have produced their 4F several times since then. And this is not a minor class - nearly 800 built with a 50+ year service life, a medium sized mixed traffic loco suitable for most steam era layouts. If you can't keep that readily available it's a poor outlook. How can you "own" a subject if your model only com,es out about as often as Halley;'s Comet?? Meanwhile Hornby keep knocking out and selling budget price 4Fs , 37s, 47s and 66s from tooling which has nothing more to pay off... (this is not totally off topic. I do wonder if the TT:120 37 + 47 are intended to form the basis for a new Railroad 37 and 47 in OO when the Lima tooling becomes life expired, in the way in which the Railroad Mk1s replaced the old Triang models . A fundamentally accurate and subtantially improved budget./mid range model for those who don't want to pay top dollar for a state-of-the-art high spec model There is certainly a market for budget models , whether we like it or not. And Hornby seem to find it more commercially rewarding than high-end stuff. (Although I get the strong impression some folk on both sides of the Irish Sea think the answer to "just how much of the Hornby range do you realistically expect Accurascale (and other smaller producers) to compete with?" is "most of it. And Bachmann too." We will see how that plays out over the next 5 years) It is also noteworthy that Hornby are the only serious player in the high speed unit market. HST, APT, Eurostar, Pendolino, Javelin, IEP... It's not high-end spec , but virtually nobody else goes near those subjects . The Rapido APT -E and the miserable Dapol Pendolino are the only exceptions But for practical reasons, those subjects are perhaps better suited to TT:120 than OO

There was hostility to the emergence of the scale before Hornby were known to be involved - the initial "Peco announce TT:120" thread testifies to that That said, dislike of Hornby turbo-charged that. Much comment could be filed under "Hornby get it all wrong- again!" and "is this what will finally sink Hornby?" 12 months on, much of the dust has settled. It is clear that the new range has not been a commercial failure - indeed it has sold well, and although we can't know if those sales will be sustained over time or if a limited market will be exhausted, the fact that a lot of the sales have been to new entrants bodes well. There was frank disbelief at the proposition that TT:120 could be sold to people outside the hobby when it was launched. Equally it's become clear that this is a niche scale, Hornby have not bet the shop on TT:120 and it is not a case of "30% market share or bust!" The scenario where TT:120 sinks Hornby is off the table - though the scenario where Hornby's failure in the medium term torpedos a developing scale has perhaps been ignored

N gauge is made by Bachmann and Dapol - but doesnt attract the same concern . Nor, interestingly, has Bachmann's OO9 venture - even though Bachmann Europe is well known to be constrained in terms of manufacturing capacity and every production slot given to OO9 is not available for OO or N production There are occasional murmurs that Dapol have lost interest in N and are more O gauge focussed these days , and someone may note that Heljan seem more focussed on O than OO in recent years. But nothing like the heat that TT:120 generates In the case of Gauge O , there are historical reasons for a lack of concern. 4mm ate Gauge O alive in the late 40s and early 50s . The resurgance of 7mm finescale over the last 30 years has been a slow burn affair and it is very much a niche scale for those with disposable income and space available - as indicated by ixionmodels' comment about a run of 1500 RTR models being dismissed as more than the market could absorb. In contrast Hornby must have sold at least 10,000 TT:120 Gresley pacifics so far (I think the count was up around 4000 sets each of A3 and A4 when people stopped counting?) For comparison, the peak year of sales for TT3 (1960) seems to have managed about 8000 sets. N gauge has been around for more than half a century and it plainly does not constitute a serious challenge to 4mms huge market share. Indeed there is some concern from some in N gauge circles that N gauge does not get enough product and support from the trade as it is, and any move to TT:120 by the trade might further reduce the support for N. A further spin on this can be glimpsed in the sidebar - a belief that if Hornby are going to do a small scale then British N gaugers are entitled to their investment and TT:120 cheats N gauge modellers of that support... (For what it's worth I can't see either Dapol or Bachmann going anywhere near 1:120 scale. Their small scale product is N . Hornby have launched TT:120 because they didn't have a small scale product in the British market, Arnold seems to be their strongest range on the Continent, and Margate plainly didn't see much mileage in being a minor bit player in N filling in a few gaps in the Farish /Dapol catalogues. Accurascale made their feelings plain at the time of TT:120's launch, and subsequently by seeking expressions of interest for possible N gauge models ) Perhaps the real nub of it is precisely that N is not felt to constitute any serious challenge to 4mm - but TT:120 as a new venture just might... 4mm's market share is extraordinarily high compared with HO's position on the Continent and North America, and especially given a densely populated country with a housing shortage . Yet - unlike Japan , N gauge is a minor player. You could read that as - a slice of the 4mm market is there for the taking. But not by N gauge. However I suspect Frobisher is right - a lot of the angst directed at TT:120 is simply "redbox syndrome" Nevertheless - a slice of the hobby was quite hostile to the whole TT:120 project before they knew Hornby were involved

The argument has been that Hornby have been struggling to hit their delivery dates and get OO product into the shops. Ergo they don't have enough production slots . If production slots are being allocated to another product range (TT:120) it must therefore be at the expense of 4mm products. Delays in releasing the 2MT would be cited. Similarly Hornby's annual budget for new tooling is assumed to be a fixed sum, X . If Y is being spent on tooling up TT:120 models then the available budget for OO new tooling is reduced by Y... (There is certainly a hint that OO9's place in the sun at Bachmann has been at the expense of Farish production) Against this, ixionmodels makes the very obvious point that the supply of new subjects for OO is visibly running out, and manufacturers are being driven to tool up some very esoteric stuff like Turbomotive, Big Bertha, 4DD units, Boosters, 89s, APTs and the like. We only see what's been announced - if you remember that some of the "untouched subjects" must already be in the development pipelines of various manufacturers the supply of novel subjects in 4mm really must be running out. We are already seeing duplication of relatively esoteric subjects like Newton Chambers car carriers There have been hints that the new regime at Hornby have been unimpressed by some of the product selection in the recent past : in other words they think that some of the stuff that's been tooled shouldn't have been . Hornby patently do not want to go chasing the high-end high-spec low-run/high price business model ("the definitive X" "museum quality models") represented by things like the Sutton Locomotive Works 24s and the Marklin Flying Scotsman. Hornby are signalling they want to stay affordable by a mass market, not go chasing "aspirational" stuff for the high end hifi enthusiast. Others take a different view - Bachmann's investment in retooling of the 37 and 47 is a bet in precisely that direction. Unfortunately both models have been duplicated by others.... And the view has been expressed on here that it is pointless Hornby trying to develop any new steam age wagons because others will always beat them to market So there are reasons to think the new regime at Hornby might be looking to scale back investment in new OO tooling anyway, and rely more on reruns of their very large bank of existing 4mm tooling. It may be much more a case of looking for a sensible use for the tooling budget when sensible 4mm candidates are running out, rather than "TT:120 stole my lunch!" The move away from an annual announcement to dribbling out news through the year could - amongst other things - be a good way to disguise the absence of a substantial programme of new tooling All the same , if the flow of new OO toolings from Hornby does dwindle , you can bet that lots of people will howl that TT:120 has deprived then of that "Definitive" LMS Compound or Class 52 they were entitled to...

I have a hifi minidisc recorder , and a bag of unbuilt 3mm Society wagon kits in the cu[pboard. The minidisc is in (intermittant) use, not in the cupboard

It's fairly clear Hornby have been developing new models in parallel in OO and TT:120 . Hence the LNER Toad B - an odd choice in TT:120 perhaps but explained by the fact Hornby were doing this brake van in OO. Likewise the TTAs - clearly a second strand of the project to develop new TTAs in OO This is where a second trend co,mes into play. Hornby have a track record of running old tooling as a budget model, on and on despite a better model being available elsewhere, in the face of the derision and dismay of the scale end of the hobby. Then , when the tooling finally wears out - instead of quietly dropping the subject they tool up a replacement to a much higher standard. We saw this when the Railroad Mk1s were developed , and it has happened again with the OO TTAs - the basic but dimesionally accurate Railroad TTAs are early 1970s tooling and must now be life expired. Rather than yield the subject to Bachmann, Hornby have tooled up their own high-spec TTA in OO, with a TT:120 spin-off Hornby have had a basic but dimensionally accurate 21T steel mineral in the range since the early 70s (granted the underframe was off). They have inherited the Airfix 21T tooling of c1980 . I'd suggest that tooling is now more or less life expired, and there may well have been a project to develop a new much higher spec 21T steel mineral to replace it as a livery workhorse. Accurascale will have spiked the guns of any such OO 21t mineral by announcing and bringing to market their own MDO/MDV models. But that doesn't affect TT:120, and I suspect Hornby have simply carried on with the TT side of the project to salvage as much as they can (As an aside - the annoucement of Classes 37, 47, and 66 in TT:120 has possible implications for OO. The ex Lima 37 and 47 in the OO Railroad range must surely have been tooled in the 1980s, and the tooling won't last for ever. I can't see Hornby simply ceding that ground when it wears out - the new Railroad Limby motor bogies they tooled to upgrade them were regarded by the hobby as one of Hornby's most misplaced initiatives ever, but over the last 20-odd years they must have been one of Hornby's most commercially sucessful tooling investments. I do wonder if the TT:120 37 and 47 are preparing the ground for new Railroad 37s and 47s in OO in a few years - Design Clever "accurate but affordable " challengers to the high-end high spec models beloved of hardcore D+E , which could be clear of £300 RRP by that stage. There are precendents for that approach in Continental HO from the likes of PIKO)

One possible approach is DIN plugs/sockets . These should be a bit more robust than the 25 way D sockets, and there should be a bit more room for soldering the connections on the sockets A 7 pin DIN plug should give you 3 seperate circuits plus a spare connection. If you are using a common return wiring system, where one side of the wiring is wired as one, and the switching is all on the other side of the circuit, you would get more than that. This means that if you used them as interboard connectors you could have a few sections straddling board joints - and thereby reduce the number of sections you need The one objection I can see is that the wire in the cables is relatively fine, so there may be a risk of slight voltage drop. That is certainly a possible issue with 16V AC supply to solenoids which is high current and will therefore meet high resistance, although once a capacitor discharge unit is involved there is no problem. As a matter of principle I would therefore use the shortest available ready made male-male DIN cables. But I would have thought you could supply all necessary interboard and layout/controller cables and sockets for about £30 all up from the likes of Amazon or ebay or RS Components

It's not a complaint - but can it be seen when the wagon's on the track? At least some of it may be needed to support pipework etc that can be seen when the vehicle is right way . I'm not a fan of underframing when it comes to kits - Parkside wagons with plain flat undersides are much more convenient for glueing sheet lead in place than anything that has chassis framing underneath, and nobody has ever suggested Parkside kits are compromised as a result (Framing on vintage 12T tank wagons is a very different matter - that's exposed) Its just this sort of thing has always seemed pointless and invisible detail. I kind of understand it on Hornby's OO TTA - that's a premium product in a hotly competitive sector and needs to raise the bar on a very respectable Bachmann model. Rapido too are offering a premium product at a premium price, and the underframe can be a selling point even if you can't see it: "You'll know its there" It's just TT:120 has been presented as an affordable (but accurate) product rather than a premium range - and presumably this sort of thing has a cost . I suppose expunging it from the 4mm CAD when reworking for 1:120 would have had a cost too. Not a complaint, merely modest surprise

Not entirely sure why they've gone to town on the underframe detail, though I suspect it might be a one piece moulding, or mostly so. Any dimensional comments will no doubt wait until these are in people's hands . This is one case where representative drawings are readily available in Tourret's book However looks very nice, with a variety of ladder positions available. These should be very useful for modern image modellers as soon as main line diesel locos are available There are a handful still clinging on in revenue service, I believe: pretty well the last 4 wheel wagons in revenue use

I think he means a moving coupler pocket for the coupling , not the coupler itself. A coup;ler on the front is pretty essential Someone reported this moving arm had broken and he had stuck the assembly in place with no apparent detriment to coupling or vehicle road holding. Hence the suggestion it would be better if the couplng is just a rigid mount

That explains . I'd understood Hornby Mag had a TT:120 layout at their own show, so I'd rather assumed this was it

Agree I think what we are looking at is a ballast mat : javis ballast mat Given that Hornbty Magazine must have put this layout together quite quickly , in the middle of a lot of other work demands, that may be understandable. It would be a quick but neat approach. The "TT:120 is about newbies not established modellers" trope may have been a factor too But ballasted carefully and properly , and painted right , and the track could look a good deal better. I'm currently fighting with some N gauge ballasting . It is quite difficult and fiddly to get a result that looks decent to my 4mm eyes, and I can't help muttering from time to time that this would all be a good deal easier if everything except the actual ballast were scaled up by a third...

We may be quite close to 1970s WR being possible in TT120. Several key items are visible there, the 08 fits, we've seen several Hymeks done from Lincoln Locos bodies. 21T minerals, a S Wales speciality, are coming. With 37 and 47 following on , you are largely there - the major missing signature item being a Western . There is a Western body in the Lincoln Locos range, but we need to see someone motorise it in TT120 Similarly, once the 37 and 50 are available a Deltic using a Lincoln Locos body ought to be reasonably practical for the determined. That opens up late 70s/early 80s ER... I hope in 6-9 months we will be able to consign the "but what can you do with Gresley Pacifics????" trope to history (not to mention the "steam isn't where the kids are at" trope) and move on to discussing what can and is being done in TT120 rather than Reasons Why You Can't Do It in TT120 And once the 66 is available, 66+ 08 provides a very useful "package" for smaller scale 21st century freight operations (I find myself muttering that deeper ballasting and suitable painting would significantly improve the trackwork in that picture)

Thanks for those comments. One point I forgot to make is that all the bits were from stock , and had been there for years, so the project cost me a Tamiya spray can. The current RRP for the Bachmann equivalent is £70 (although Kernow are offloading their last BFK for £25), and while mine doesn't have the same finesse and crispness of finish, at a distance of 18" it still looks a pretty decent model Discounting the cost of stuff already long in stock, that whole train in the picture cost me under £50 . Go out and buy the equivalent new RTR - assuming it's available -and you'll be paying £325 . Consumerism is getting seriously expensive

As I've mentioned before, in my teens a CJ Freezer article turned me into a modern image modeller , and I attempted a layout set in contemporary Lincolnshire: Ghosts opf Flaxboro' Eventually the project foundered under many problems, but I hung onto the stock and over the years I've slowly been recycling the stuff as reasonable scale models. In the photo contained therein, you can see an Airfix 31 heading two blue/grey vehicles entirely washed out by the flash awaiting departure for the E Lincs line at "Grimsby Town" . They are in fact a Hornby Mk2a "BSK" and a Lima Mk1 SK , and a second Hornby Mk2 brake brought up the rear of the stopping train set. The Lima Mk1 was resurrected and rebuilt here : Lima SK to TSO . But at the end of the day the contrast between the SE Finecast flushgalze on the TSO and the flushglazing on the Bachmann Mk1 BSK I commissioned from unused stock to run with it was just a bit much. Added to which the set had no first class accommodation. So I decided to aim for consistancy of modelling standard and return to another long-abandoned project, an attempt to make something of one of the two Hornby Mk2 brakes from Flaxborough. The state of play 8 years ago is summarised there: I started trying to flushglaze one, and it became clear the flushglaze wasn't fitting well. I tried filing out the window apertures from behind , it all started to look very messy, slow, and difficult , the coach would need repainting, there were moulded lining ridges... So I boxed it up again and forgot about it. The second Hornby Brake was quietly sold on at the club show a few years later, as I certainly wasn't doing this twice. But the one I had started was now unsaleable, so I kept it. I've been very evasive how I describe these models because what Hornby produced and sold as a Mk2 brake second is in fact a 4 compartment BFK , and not a BSO. Having decided that finishing this project would give me a coach which would sit better against the upgraded Lima TSO , it was always going to be reworked as an actual Mk2 BFK, thus providing the missing first class accommodation in the set. The starting point is here: The moulded lines seperating blue and grey were peeled off with a chisel blade and rubbed down. I'm not clear if that had already been done when this photo was taken The shade of grey was visibly wrong when set against the Lima TSO, the Bachmann BSK - or anything else. I haqd some difficultiers finding suitable aerosol paint - it being the pandemic - and I made do with Tamiya TS-81 to respray it Having hacked away at it to remove the lining moulding, I had to repaint the self coloured plastic in rail blue , and I just about got away with the result. The interior was painted and peopled, and as it is a First , I even went as far as to add white patches for antimacassers Replacement transfers were applied and sealed with satin varnish. I managed to apply white lining neatly, although I did not attempt it on the part of the top edge where the yellow stripe is. Transfers didn't really fit for the stripe , so I resorted to hand painting (I had left the raised strip in place at the top of the grey area) The bogies wouldn't do - they had visible lumps above the B4 bogie frame which looked quite wrong. And as this is to run with the Lima Mk1 TSO with MJT B4s, they had to go. A pair of replacement bogies using MJT cast sides on MJT rigid 8'6" etched frames were built up . These are fitted with the MJT NEM etch. This provides useful extra weight in a good place, low down - they were suitably painted with blue coil springs and yellow roller bearings. Nothing much could be done about the underframe boxes , although a plasticard step was fitted below the guards doors. Replacement whitemetal buffers were fitted The whole vehicle was reglazed with SE Finecast vac-formed glazing .I had this in stock - supplies are getting difficult although I believe SE Finecast intend re-running them. This is the biggest and most critical job, as the lack of flushglazing is the killer with these old coach models. I cut off the flange at the back to get the main pane to seat forward and flush, and I used the glazing for the ventilators as backing and filled up with Glue and Glaze, which was also used to disguise the edge around the glazing. One end gangway was plated over to recieve the black paper gangway from the companion Mk1 - the other had its gangway door painted the correct lime green. Underframe and roof recieved mild weathering And a photo revealed that the orange curtains in First were very noticeable. A rummage in the parts boxes found some MJT whitemetal curtains which were chopped up (Mk2 windows are wider) painted a suitably lurid orange , and stuck in place on the compartment side with UHU Here's the result in its set : It won't stand close up comparison with a new Bachmann Mk2a, but it's a perfectly serviceable layout coach , sits ok with the Mk1 , and is a vast improvement on the starting point. Anyone with a China-made Hornby Mk2a , with its much better standard of finish , has a head start

Very useful , and thank you for providing some hard info. This means that it should be entirely practical to swap these in for an existing solenoid point motor without extensive rewiring. That may be a very useful feature for some. In my own case I had already ordered two AC to DC variable twin-output power supplies from an outfit RK Education I then realised I couldn't find contact details anywhere on the site , the price seemed very good, and I started to panic about a Coopercraft/Modelmasters type scenario. I am very happy to report that the goods arrived about 10 days after my posting with an apology for the delay , and a unit is now installed . There is no documentation available on the RK website for these - the link does not work - so I will report that voltage is varied by turning a potentiometer with a jewellers screwdriver. You know what you are doing, because there are 2 green LEDS and you can see them grow dimmer or brighter ... It took me some time to realise this , and in attempting to get a voltage reading I managed to short across to ta 16V AC circuit tag and blew one output. Since there are 2 outputs I simply swapped the supply wires for the point motors to the other output... I still don't seem to know how to get a voltage reading with the multimeter. YouTube videos suggest you need 9-10V DC to throw points I have reused the existing switches and wiring , and merely transferred the power input to the converter unit. The whole lot is in a constricted area, and taking it out and rewiring in a confined space was a job I preferred to avoid. It is necessary to hold over the switch until the motor has fully thrown and shuts off - which is further than it takes to close the point blades. Otherwise the motor won't reverse I've now ordered a further two motors for use on the other board . I have a further AC/DC converter unit to use there. This is partly because I'm thinking about putting some lighting effects in - a welding flash in the open welding area, building lights and the like, and a regulated DC power supply like this is needed to power them

A 3D body should be available from Lincoln Locos . Hornby are doing a 37 , which had the same bogies. A Deltic with one of Lenny Seeney's bodies powered by a stretched 37 chassis ought to be reasonably achieveable for those wit5h a bit of determination

There is a reference is in PWB Semmens biography , saying it is not known if it was Bill Hoole, but.... The ultimate reference is Ch 6 of I Tried to Run a Railway, where Gerry Fiennes says it was him.... Bill Hoole kept ahead of two expresses from KX to Huntingdon with 266 Scots Goods , running 27 miles Hitchin /Huntingdon in 20 minutes for a 75mph average. Being then sidelined at Peterborough Westwood yard to put off a wagon with a hot box, he found himself behind the expresses. and set out to regain time. The Talisman was the rear of the two - it took him to Retford to catch it...

Hornby Magazine - not my usual , but there was a giveaway that seemed useful - reports decorated samples of the InterCity Executive HST , with the power cars appearing late 2023/early 2024, and the Mk3s in mid 2024. "Other liveries are expected in mid 2024" "Running samples" of the Class 50 are reported, "release is expected in spring 2024" These dates are presumably based on info from Hornby. The giveaway includes a section of TT:120 items, and the magazine is apparently intending to display a TT:120 layout based on the 1960s ECML at a show at the weekend

If the manufacturers had a single nominal standard , which they used consistantly through their range - and if all the manufacturers used the same one - then the QC variations would be manageable . They don't. A little measuring of real wheelsets in OO cured me of any belief that hair-sp0litting about a nominal B2B was meaningful: the range of 0.2mm difference between B2Bs on a model which Mike Harvey mentions is about the manufacturing tolerance at Kadar, although some other Chinese factories seem to be a little more consistant Having sorted out a coherent wheel standard, it would then be necessary to tackle Peco and get them to tighten up the flangeways on their track. The gaping void that passes for a crossing flangeway on Code 55 would be my first target. But many years of 4mm experience suggests sticks of dynamite won't shift Peco by even 0.1mm in such matters. They take backward compatibility to dogged levels in Devon And finally it is evident from the back of the NGS Manual that the NGS has totally abdicated in this area, and wants nothing to do with the subject. Standards are supposed to be a matter for a scale society , so we've got to put something in.... So here is a half page table giving two unspecified stanfdards that we didn't invent and we're not going to be so ill-mannered as to tell you who did . And actually nobody in British N RTR uses either of them (or the NEM standards from the Continent). Duty done - can we forget about the whole distasteful subject now? It is a miserable mess. I quite agree something should be done about it, but as someone just passing by in N I don't feel like leading any charge. Although I am very happy to strongly second anyone else who wants the matter addressed

The MRC's London exhibition at Easter was certainly in existance by 1931 and probably several years earlier than that. A small exhibition by the fledgling Wimbledon club in December 1924 is reported in the first Model Railway News in Jan 1925. That may well have been the first club exhibition ever, as at that point the MRC and Wimbledon were the only known clubs. MMRS was founded late the same year, and I think I remember comment in a Railway Modeller article (early 1976 I think) on a Gauge O layout from Manchester which began in the late 1930s , was from MMRS members, exhibitable and might possibly have been exhibited pre war York was founded by Mike Cook and his band - late 1960s? In the mid 1970s there were basically 5 big shows : London , York and Bristol at Easter, Manchester before Christmas and Glasgow in Feb. In the mid 1960s RM's monthly exhibitions listing was still pretty small. It had grown substantially by the mid 70s , and continued growing relentlessly up to about 5 years ago. Now we see a reaction My impression is that the "typical" show started in the late 1960s in a church hall, arranged by a recently founded club, grew rapidly in the early years, was 2 day by the mid 1970s, moved out into a leisure centre by 1990 . The current show manager has been doing the job for 30 years, and joined the organising club during the first decade of the exhibition.... So large exhibitions started with the MRC in London in the 1930s. Manchester may have started in the late 30s or late 40s - was it a major event by the early 50s? No idea about Glasgow or Bristol - the latter fell by the wayside in the 1980s

As a total outsider - this concept does seem to tick a lot of boxes and include potential for shorter trains . Seems like something to run with and see how far you get. The worst case scenario is a half built layout - the best case is a completed that really satisfies your aspirations. It seems more positive than acquiring different bitsfor different possibilities that don't quit gel, with nothing being built....

Hornby's tiny Ruston is another fine slow runner, though it may not be good for more than a couple of wagons

The manufacturer's notes and the markings on the case suggest these motors can also be powered by low voltage AC, without giving details So: 1. Is this correct? Is the nominal 16V AC output from the Gaugemaster within spec? 2. If this is indeed an option, then how is it wired?