Corbs

They say that a picture tells a thousand words, so surely these short video clips are the equivalent of a dissertation. Test trains running on RC

This looks proper gorgeous. Did you use the original loco frames?

Ooh that's very cool. A couple of years ago I did a conversion on some Hornby 43s using Class 67 running gear (so not as refined) - reason was at the time the Cl.67 motors/driveshafts/bogies were very very cheap. Not sure on the cost now though. Love the well-engineered motor mount, wish mine was as neat as that!

No worries! Good news - a replacement wheelset for the Hornby 'Star' class arrived, fitted all 3 wheel/axle combos to the 'Saint', and they work! Hopefully this means both the Saint and the County can get a proper run out this weekend. Does make me wonder if the older-but-not-as-old-as-the-ringfield Castle was retooled to become the Star model as these axles do not have bearings, unlike the newer Castle chassis. One of these days I'll replace the Tri-ang tender wheels and even out the running height - looks like the rear springs are sagging a tad.

Further to the above, I did an endurance test with the County this evening, where I run it flat out and time it until the battery runs out. It managed a decent 28 minutes which means if I start a 25 minute timer at the start of a running session, I should have good warning to get it back to shed for refuelling before it comes to a stand (given that in actual use it isn’t running flat out consistently).

I am absolutely loving the way the overall roof is looking already. The platform level view is great!

Excellent! Looking forward to seeing how you get on.

Sure thing! Here's the spec.: Deltang Rx41 Receiver 240mah battery (1-cell, 3.7v) 9v upconverter Deltang Tx22 controller The RC components are from Micron Radio Control.

Interesting alternative take on this published in Steam World Magazine

On the subject of Duchesses, A.N. Wolstenholme sketched out what a semi-streamlined Coronation might have looked like: For completeness, here was a sketch of a streamlined Thompson pacific from the same series:

Robin Barnes in his book 'locos that never were' pontificated on what a semi-streamlined A4 might look like, with P2 styling. Samarti Smith on FB sketched out what a de-streamlined A4 might look like.

Yay, much smoother.

Did they ever get repaired/replaced or did they tend to leave them broken?

Mixed fortunes with the Westerner fleet over the past few days. The Saint and the County have both been wired up for RC. In both instances, the receiver, battery and 9v upconverter are all in the tender. This means only 2 wires need to connect loco and tender. On the Saint the on-off switch is hidden behind the tender frames. Off is back, On is forward. On the County the switch is positioned here due to the holes in the tender frames. Left is off, Right is on. A quick clip of the Saint's first movements on RC. You can see it's a bit tight, I did lubricate the drivetrain after this. but something was clearly 'off'. It later embarrassed itself on the layout by making it halfway around one level before conking out. The drive gear is spinning on the axle 🙄 loc-tite didn't cure it at all sadly. I think there is something 'off' with this wheelset as there was glue smeared around some of the spokes. Unfortunately this series of 'Castle' didn't last long before it was redesigned, so driving wheels aren't easy to find. I've ordered some 'Star' ones which look like the correct fitment. The original aim with the County was to retain the tender weights, but this wouldn't fit unless I removed the 'low coal' space in the tender and replaced with a large coal pile, so the weights were taken out. Both the County and the Saint have 240mah batteries. Again with the tests, again with the tight spots. If you listen you can hear a distinctive 'knock' every rotation. This 'knock' got worse and worse on the layout to the extent that the loco started sounding like a helicopter and was bouncing up and down about a mm on every wheel revolution. The loco went from haring up the helix with 18 wagons to being unable to drag 2 coaches around, presumably from the lack of traction caused by the jumping. It seemed like it could be another split gear but I couldn't see any cracks when inspecting it. Handily I have the remains of the smashed/dropped ringfield drive Castle on the workbench which donated its entire wheelset and rods. I'll check the quartering, gears etc. on the old set at some point but it's one of my least favourite things to do. At least it seems to be running smoothly now! It was pretty good when it was working. Here it is in company with the Cathedral (which was on charge).

I'll need to check dimensions when I am back in there but here is a rough sketch of the track (not to scale) on the bottom level. We used to have sidings for bankers but this was badly affecting the curvature/length of the through roads in the fiddle yard so bankers will be dispatched from the MPD instead. The shortest road in the 'up' and 'down' yards will generally be kept clear for through running. Small trains will be kept in the kick-back sidings accessed from the switch on the removable section, while the long mineral train (20 ish wagons) and the express (approx. 5-6 coaches) will be kept in the longest through roads. Trains can be strengthened to be longer but will either need to be kept on the inside of the helix or be broken up when they are being stored. Note that Northbridge is now a 2-platform station with the inside helix line joining the Down Main before the station. This freed up the MPD line to have a coaling stage.

Ok, an update now we have more progress. I've restored most of the missing images to the thread. A sign has appeared! Newly renumbered and renamed No.8001 'Bristol Cathedral' has been our clearance checking loco as it's got quite long overhangs. It revealed a few spots where the track needed to move, such as this gap where it clouted the wall (in true Swindon style). The safety valves were also scraping the roof in places (which I think actually happened to a King on a mainline tour), so we adjusted the helix to suit. In the interest of 'lets run some bloody trains' we have built and installed a temporary top deck with duck-under section coming off the top of the helix. The 4th and 3rd radius lines form the dog bone around the reversing loop, while the 2nd radius has a balloon loop all its own - climbing trains can scoot across to this in order to descend on the inside line rather than the middle one (the inside line may end up being used to store long trains). Whilst the DCC hasn't been fully wired in, I did bring over some RC locos which enabled us to run trains around the entire layout for the first time! The inaugural train was a 2-wagon goods hauled by the WSPG Co. Borrows 0-4-0WT (a TSdesign body on a Hornby Pug chassis, utilising a 3-6v motor with RC rather than the massive 12v motor). Here it is running 'wrong road' around the top deck. This was joined by the Cathedral hauling a mineral train (later strengthened to something like 26 wagons with the addition of some Rapido ones). We then spent the afternoon retracing our steps with the DCC. We have 3 power districts, each is protected by an EB1 board as show here (with a reset switch wired in in case of short circuits). So far we have connected up the fiddle yard district and tested it. We have also begun to rationalise the track feed wiring, previously we tended to use the scotch connectors to feed every track dropper into the bus, but in busy areas we are replacing these with soldered connections (3 into 2 into 1 etc.) that then feeds into the bus. This is followed by taping up and securing the dropper wires under the board which is much neater and less risk of snagging anything. Track power is the priority here, point wiring will follow when the track feeds are done. Finally feels like a layout again! We also worked out that at a scale 45mph the Cathedral took 4m 42s to traverse the entire layout, we estimate it's about 67 metres of track in total.

They did tend to pile it high on the Big Goods.

I know it's dangerous to equate correlation with causation, but could the relocation of the brake hangers be as a result of the change in buffers? With no transverse spring, could that allow the vacuum cylinder to be moved?

Would a little dab of black tack or similar on the nub help to secure it in place while keeping it removable?

Thank you to everyone who bought a set of plates. Today we were able to donate the profits (£194.07) to the Jessie May Childrens Hospice :)

The real things ran badly and were very unreliable.

Why's that, Ian?

I am guessing there was no air in the tank? Leaked out maybe?

I think Kyle (TRS Trains) offers an installation service :)

By then hopefully we'll have the animatronic passengers working! 😃 Not sure how I am going to get the bespectacled gentleman to turn the pages of his 4mm scale newspaper though....