highpeakman

I note that the number given on the home page is different to the number shown on the catalogue (this has been mentioned previously so no correction has been made). The later number is 01619029645 (from Nov 2014). Is that the one you called?

You could well be right but I am not so sure why they would treat a letter request any better than an email. Even with a S&A envelope it would take more time to deal with it.

Perhaps wait a few days and see what happens to our orders? I fully realise and accept that some of these small businesses are just one person and that they have a lot on their plate. We are told to make allowances for that and not be critical. However, as one who has started a business at home and been a co-founder of a second similar business which ran sucessfully for over 20 years then I do struggle with this attitude of "I haven't got any time to respond to phone calls or emails". The single biggest struggle for any business is finding and, importantly, keeping customers. While we do have to make allowances and accept the time constraints of one man businesses, customers also need to be treated with some respect. Communication is essential. People will be patient if they know what is going on. That does not mean that the business have to answer every single call or email at any time, I fully accept that is impossible, but some time should be made available to provide some form of response within a reasonable period even if it is a "general" message to say that orders are currently likely to be delivered within "x" days. In some cases, I know, it is a hobby business and the proprietor still has a full time job or other issues to cope with (I am not sure what the situation is here). However there are several well known and very sucessful small businesses out there serving our hobby where the owners are full time employed elsewhere but which have a wide and developing range of parts and yet still find the time to ship their goods, go to exhibitions, research their products (and show the deveopment on the web), sell the products and talk (pleasantly) to their customers so it is possible. I really hope this issue is sorted as I would not want to see these products disappear and I do hope that the new owner will be sucessful.

Possibly a good job that my project is not an immediate one then! I will withhold any further comment until I see what happens with my order. Let's hope they deliver without too much delay.

Any news as to whether product is still being delivered OK? I placed an order today on the web site as I hadn't realised that there might possibly be a problem. It was only when I looked at the Howes site and they state that they are "uncertain" about the future supply of Craftsman parts. That triggered my search on here and finding this thread. I have paid my money over so, hopefully, everything will go OK.

I'll tell you after I've got mine!

An alternate map website that shows quite a lot of detail is this: http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=15&lat=54.8505&lon=-1.8313&layers=10 There is a choice of various maps from diferent periods and I have found it quite useful to trace old lines.

I already follow that one avidly! Thanks for all of the pictures, Flicker included, and thanks for taking the time and making the effort to allow all of us to see them.

I have only just discovered this thread. Just Brilliant. Thank you very much indeed for posting them. Especially the ones around Derby and Nottingham. Brings back so many great memories. I know many are on Flicker as well but is nice to look at them along with the comments made by forum members. As many have already said, even the ones which are not up to your usual high technical standard are still very interesting indeed and evocative. Hope we can see more of these in future.

So glad there is more than one of us!

Hi Not for the first time!! I stand corrected. Thanks. As you can tell I am not very clued up on Western classes or operating areas. I can tell a Castle and King from Halls, Manors and Granges but struggle with differentiating between the latter. Growing up in Derby this would have been one of the first times I saw Western engines (that's odd, they only have 4 numbers!). Subsequent holidays in Devon gave me an improved (but obviously not complete) education though. I decided Swindon had to be a good place because they trained Stanier who became the best! I'll go now!

Seeing the post by Grosvenor above prompted me to dig out this photo. A family (very wet) holiday in North Wales in 1960 complete with de rigeur pacamac and school cap (did we really even take them on holiday with us?). My first sight of and ride on a narrow gauge railway! Followed by the Vale of Rheidol and The Ffestiniog. Halls and Granges on the Cambrian coast line as well - great holiday apart from the continuous rain. Incidentially Peter I think the school cap is Spondon Park Grammar School although I was there a few years before you. I only spent 8 months there before moving to Nottingham. I lived in Alvaston and bussed to school on one of those new fangled Atlantean buses with engines at the back! As the school was new the playing fields could not be used and we used to walk down to the Celanese Sports ground to play Rugby which was great as we could see all the trains heading in and out of Derby from Trent. Many hours spent spotting by the double crossing gates at Spondon station. Edit: Just noticed my rumpled woollen socks - were they part of the uniform as well?

Ah! I have reread the post and I see what you mean - "the rail route that went under". My mistake, sorry.

I think you will find that it was still open when that section M1 was built and opened. The decision to close the GC had probably not been made when the M1 was planned. Further north the bridge built to carry the GC over the M1 is still in place next to Whetstone Golf Club.That's probably why the track bed was not built over by the new road. I can remember travelling down the M1 (hitch hiking, every weekend between Nottingham and Luton) in the late 60s and seeing DMUs on the line between Nottingham and Rugby/Marylebone(?).

Thanks very much for the information. Much appreciated.

Thanks very much for the information. I have lived near Lincoln for the last 10 years but was not aware this part of local railway history. Can you give any approximate indication of dates that it was on display please? Have family living near Ludborough and went to see the Lincs Wolds railway but it was shut on the day I went. Will be travelling there in a couple of hours but won't have time to go and see this time but will visit again sometime in future. Thanks for the info.

Hi I'm really curious. What is the story behind the 08 on the isolated track "D3167 (08102) - Lincoln Central, 3rd June 1989" please?

Thanks very much for those shots. That one of the station brought back so many memories of Radcliffe on Trent in the early 60s (Gas lamps, L1 tanks on the Grantham trains, Aussies on coal trains, etc) when catching trains to go to Grantham for day of spotting. Even now I can't help but think of the Cotgrave branch as a "new addition" in the area. I do even remember the freight trains heading off south from Saxondale junction near Bingham over the GN & LNW. I lived in West Bridgford and went to school with many of the kids from Radcliffe on Trent plus some Canadian Air Force children from the nearby Newton Airbase which I think were connected with Langar airfield where they flew Shackletons still at that time. We used to cycle off to investigate the Quarry lines in the Vale of Belvoir (Denton, etc). So many great memories rediscovered by these photographs. Thank you. Love this thread.

Thanks for your comments RFS, very interesting and spot on. It was port 0 that failed. I have two switch 8s and they have been installed for about a year now but this is the first time I have had this happen but I will keep a watch now. Unfortunately I have no "spare" ports available so cannot avoid port 0. I would also not want to return these to NCE. Curiously I am not aware of anything happening, like a short, to cause this. I am quite careful about switching off the track power while working on wiring. It was very frustrating to have re-installed everything and then found a motor not working. It was initially tempting to think the motor had failed so I removed it from it's mount to test and then found it worked when I used the plug from the next point. I should have realised from the reputation of Tortoises that it was unlikley to be that. After checking the wiring I decided to reprogramme the Switch 8 and then it all worked fine again. Thanks again for your help. The only curious thing I noted with the switch 8s was when I had a problem with a short circuit a few months ago. The short was imediately removed but none of the points worked although the trains ran normally. A mains switch off/switch on restored everything to normal. I now have proper short circuit protection fitted by the way!

Thanks for the suggestions. Bit the bullet and pulled up all the trackwork. Bonded the point underneath by wiring in links using the sleeper gap as suggested by RFS. That cured the original problem (as I think we all expected it would) but relaying was not without it's aggravation. Trying to get the point motors perfectly aligned again proved awkward but then something weird happened and one motor would not respond at all to DCC commands. As expected there was nothing wrong with the motor (after removing it for the third time!) and after reprogramming the output on the switch 8 decoder (only for this single output) everything is now working just as it should. Why on earth did that happen? Lots of swearing involved in sorting it though! My apologies as I realise this was probably entered in the wrong forum and it should have been put in the wiring forums.

Thanks for your response Izzy. Yes I realise the problem (please see my reply to Hayfield above). I think you hit the nail full square with "prone to unreliability"! (Perhaps understated in this case!).

Thanks for the info but I am positive it is not a wiring problem. The problem is that the blade is not making the electrical connection to the running rail when it is physically moved over. Whatever mechanism the point is supposed to employ to make that contact is just not working. I know that the answer is to wire permanent straps in place but that now means that i will probably have to lift the point out of position to do the work thus also lifting a couple of metres of track I have only just laid. I will probably also have to refix the point motors again and all of this is in an awkward place to get at. I raised the question on here hoping that there may be a simple quick fix but that seems unlikley. Oh well, off now to dismantle the last few days work! Yes I know now I should have done this before I laid it, as I have done with all my other turnouts, but I find it irritating that I should have to do it at all on a brand new point that has only just been laid. When searching this and other forums for information before I fitted the 3 way assymetric point I could not find any recommendation or guidance on what should be done whereas there is loads on the standard peco turnout. I guess I misinterpreted that as meaning it would not be necessary. With thought now I suppose it is obvious that it should be treated as two separate points and strapped in the same way. As so many people modify the turnouts like this I find it surprising that it is not done at the factory.

Thanks for the response. I am also using DCC but I think this would be a problem with DC or DCC. It seems to be a problem with the point itself then (design?). As I said I am reluctant to lift the point again but I think I can solder droppers to the relevant rails and join up under the baseboard. I should have known better really than just leave it as it came from the pack so I'll put that as a lesson learnt.

Hi all Have searched for this problem but every answer seems to relate to to frog polarity switching and that is not the problem here. Before I mention the problem I should sday that I have 14 fully operational points (all Peco code 75) of various options including a double slip. I use Tortoise motors and have made use of the inbuilt switching for frog switching but have also used a hex frog juicer sucessfully in some areas without any problems. I have just installed the Peco code 75 assymetric 3 way in my fiddle yard area which is replacing two successfull separate points used previously. The two frog switches used previously are those built into the Tortoise motors which also switch the frogs. No problems there at all. I effectively used the same set up on the 3 way using the same two Tortoise used before and making use of their inbuilt switches again. I am aware that the first two frogs are wired in common to one switch and the frogs switch exactly as they are supposed to. However the problem is that one switch blade appears to be completely dead. It is marked on the picture below. As for tracks 2 & 3 it is the common rail then the problem appears when the point is set for either of those tracks. [i know the picture is a N gauge point but the principle is the same]. Locos run perfectly down track 1 but will not operate over 2 or 3. They stall on the point itself and not on the frogs which switch correctly. I have a home made dcc tester and that shows this blade to be dead. I have tried pressing it harder against the running rail but that does not appear to make any difference. I have cleaned the insides of the rails and, again, no difference. By making a bridge to the running rail then the loco operates fine so there is a failure of the switch rail to make a connection to the running rail. My question is that when wiring ordinary points it is usually good practice to solder a link between the running rail and the blade to improve reliablity of conductivity and not rely on the blade contact itself. I looked but did not find any recommendation to do that on the 3 way so left it before installing. The point is in a really awkward spot so I am not too keen to take it up and start again and I can solder wires into place which should solve the problem, effectively placing the link in place used on ordinary turnouts. Has anyone else experienced this problem with the 3 way assymetric and what did you do to solve it please?

So, could the next follow on batch be "Radstock" locos? (Pretty please). Yes, I know it has already been said many times already and I probably know the answer already but it's worth a try!