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taking the leap..Perhaps


urbancohort

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Hi there again:

 

right, well, i have sold a load of my old stuff and I have enough money to make a start, but.....

 

Before I do, please can anyone give me feedback about how T is doing these days? I have read the older blogs and they aren't all positive.

 

What is running like now? I want to do a 1980s prototype, but is there anything other than the HSTs in BR Blue?? How good/cheap/realistic is it to laser print?

 

Any T gaugers or (perhaps better!) EX-T gaugers can give me a steer before I commit £200-£300?

 

Thanks

 

Graham

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As nobody else has jumped in yet, I will share some of what I know

 

The running now is far better than it once was when the slowest reliable running speed would put a bullet train to shame! With the new generation chassis and a pwm controller (purchased or built) the locomotive are now quite controlable and will run smoothly at a slow speed. There are several videos on youtube showing T gauge running, one of the recent ones is; 

 

For your period the only ready to run item is the HST that you know about, however there are many locomotives bodies now available from shapeways to fit the motorized chassis from tgauge.com. I have the Warship body, which would fit the BR blue period. I had been aprehensive myself before ordering this, but the needed modification to the chassis is minor - just 2 small posts to cut of the front which can be done with a craft knife with no dismantling needed - after which the body fits straight on. Add in the other locos avaialble, DMUs, plus printed coaches or else printed coach sides for the bodies from tgauge.com and you could easily build up a number of trains to operate.

 

Running is helped by having more than one motorized chassis in a train - either by double heading or else using a motorised chassis under a coach body (easy with the printed coach sides). 

 

The one weakness currently is the points. These are not the smoothest, and have a long plastic dead section, so can affect the running to such and extent than many layout builders chosse not to use them and just go for a continuos run (as in the video above, if my memory serves me correctly), however people are working on alternatives so hopefully there will be something better soon.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

This is a bit of a belated response, but after I stumbled across NeilMac's post with a video link to my own layout :boast:, I thought a few quick comments might be appropriate.  Obviously, these are my opinions - others may differ.

 

The current mechanisms and PWM controller do give reasonable slow running, with reliable starts and stops, as long as you keep the track and wheels clean and use two power cars per train.  Mine has now lasted through a two-day exhibition with no signs of distress.

 

I have tried out the one-way points, but wasn't particularly impressed - especially with 4-wheel stock and slow running.  The standard points look OK (but I haven't tried them), and I certainly wasn't willing to use them on an automatic layout.

 

Don't think about shunting, or even backing a rake of 4-wheelers, and coupling up is a very manual operation using tweezers (much like using 3-link couplings!).

 

There is quite a lot of 3d printed BR stock and some basic buildings available at Shapeways (by OzRail, ivanf, cce614 and yeswac).  You can get quite reasonable results with hand-painting even without masking, especially when viewed for a foot or so away.

 

DSCI0101_zpsff414ef3.jpg

 

In summary, I really do consider T to be quite viable, but not as a full general-purpose scale.  If you are happy with running complete trains and/or a watching-the-trains-go-by style of layout, then it does offer quite a lot.

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