All Activity

Goodnight all.

What about the single link Leeds (LMC) couplings. I used these on my 'O' coarse scale layouts to prevent buffer locking.

Hi This is what I used https://www.mbfg.co.uk/polycraft-moulding-casting-resin-kit-mini.html I managed to get quite a lot of castings out of the set and I would gather together anything you might need in the future and cast it all together as the resin once opened has a limited life. A rough estimate I got the following out of the set 50 BOC tank ends plus around the same number of vents 60 Freightliner bogie side frames 30 GPS bogie side frames 100 ferry van vents 50 75mm long seating strips 30 mk2 coach roof vents The above doesn’t include the castings that weren’t perfect. Cheers Paul

Evenin 'each, @New Haven Neil Neil, great to hear some excellent news from Fraggle Rock. And a bit of goodish news here as the replacement Sim card turned up at last. I also received the promised phone call from "Kate" who is now dealing with our mobile phone plan changeover. This should happen tomorrow morning with a bit of luck etc. 🤞 What didn't happen was the promised phone call from "Joe" regarding the new date for the broadband and land line change over. Pah! is probably not strong enough but as I keep getting reprimanded by Management for turning the air blue I shall leave it at that.....for now.

For ships in need of a lick of paint, I can offer the ‘Aliki Force’ seen here approaching Liverpool:

Sadly I never got to the museum in Riga on my visit to Latvia in 2012. I did however come across this "L" at Gulbene (where there's a narrow gauge line), click on pics for details, It appears to be another Voroshilovgrad example, Have great trip! John.

Encounter Bay (and sister ships) were quite significant historically if I recall correctly. Whilst my library is mostly railway-themed, there is a corner of it containing books on containers and container ships and I do have an unhealthy fascination with the developments in the 1960s.

Apparently the number of Z21’s aren’t an issue because of the low power they won’t interfere with each other as they conform to toy regs. At past NEC shows those with pc based wifi has similar issues while we didn’t but the number of personal networks has vastly increased and that appears to be a problem for all systems as the channels are now so crowded. The handshake they were forced into every couple of hours made them more vulnerable to the ‘fog’ though. Glad to hear you’re already sorted, the first time it happened to us it was really frustrating while we figured out why it suddenly went down after years of very reliable operation. At Calne we were able to instantly switch to the alternatives so it wasn’t noticeable to the public. It so happened Alan was there on his time off operating so out came his laptop for proper investigation. So within a week I also had the Armageddon option 😁

Top Banana's in France. I went for the mixed box set to supplement existing vans on my BR stock (or run smaller trains). I did the honor of leaving out the old Dapol BR Banana van type but mixed them with Bachmann ex SR types and other BR types. Here they are placed next to the loco for a bit of steam heat...

Cumbres & Toltec on my July 2014 visit:

Thank you, appreciated.

As the title. Can anyone help provide details on the Freightliner workings and the box types / liveries for trains to Bristol flt and South Wales in the early 70s? I have scoured the net for months on and off, plus bought Life & Times of Freightliner book and come up with next to nothing. There are some snippets on RMWeb but no great detail. Photos would be fantastic, or be pointed in the direction of publicised pics / books / mags what have you. As well as box types and liveries I am after information and pictures of loads in open containers. How were they loaded, secured and sheeted? Did Ford have dry boxes or curtain side containers (for South Wales)and how many ford boxes to a train? Where non ISO and ISO containers included on the same trains? I did find a photo on the web of a container crane that could lift both types of boxes but can't find it again for the life of me. Typical.... Thanks in advance Tony

Things are still not so great over in Ukraine. Meanwhile, I am very much hoping to visit the railway museum in Riga at the end of the week, and in particular I will be looking out for a Series L steam loco in their collection, which I hope will be on display. This is a mighty Soviet 2-10-0 freight hauler with 'Boxpok' driving wheels that first appeared in 1945. The design originated at the Kolumna Works near Moscow and the first Ls were built there. But from 1950 Ls were also built at the Voroschilograd Works, AKA the Luhansk plant celebrated by the Ludmilla mug project from two years ago. This has set me thinking about fundraising mugs again. With large steam engines on them. No promises whatsoever, and maybe there won't be any interest anyway... To give some idea of what I am talking about, here is the Russian language Wikipedia article on the L and a some photos of a preserved Series L at the rail transport museum in Kyiv [edit: and a live one in celebration of Euro 2012 - I really needed to look more carefully]. I can't resist including this photo of the plaque on the loco's dome casing, from that second page: It's a bit scrambled to this very poor reader of Cyrillic but basically says: Mintransmash USSR Voroschilograd Works [named] October Revolution, 1951. Credit for the photo: Gennadiy Moysenko 2012

That first one!!

A couple of pages ago, we were talking about if anyone had done anything to motorise GBL static models. I've just come across a pic of the other go I had, its the copy of a Bachmann J39, all I did was plonk a bog-standard Hornby 0-6-0 chassis* under it (you can tell by the mismatch between the wheels and the splashers) and made a simple chassis for the tender. But it works ok, and trundles about nicely when it's allowed out! * From a Railroad 08.

Situation: JMRI installed and running, currently connected to a virtual DCC++ base station - can see the traffic back and forth in the monitor. so far so good, have had this working on an actual layout which is not currently in service to experiment with (hence the simulator). have also got an MQTT broker up and running, and JMRI is quite happy to talk to it. Can talk to sensors, turnouts etc nicely. However a few issues which may be 'features' or may be me having something wrong. What I'm wanting to do is to connect a throttle over MQTT and have it drive trains with DCC++ controlling the track (currently a wired connection, will be a wifi one eventually). aware of WiThrottle and have had that working but trying to stick with a unified solution if possible. now I can open a DCC++ throttle, fiddle with it and see the DCC++ commands, but this does not generate MQTT messages. I can also open a MQTT throttle, fiddle with it and watch the MQTT messages, but this does not generate DCC++ output. the documentation appears to suggest if I set up MQTT as a default, I can then open a DCC++ throttle specifically and it should generate messages when empirically it does not curiously a DCC++ throttle allows clicking on the power button, which does generate MQTT messages, but not DCC++ ones to actually do anything. this appears set up so it requires a base station to also be using MQTT and not the direct connection. has anyone gotten this sort of set up to work? Specifically using MQTT throttles to drive trains on a "normal" base station and get that link to feed back train state via MQTT?

I stand well and truly corrected but must point out that on most Sulzer type twos relays were packed out with match sticks while in BR service lol

I will certainly be more careful with my phrasing in future!

Here its just a spot of the old Ross River fever and Japanese Encephalitis, Murray River Encephalitis, Barmah Forest virus, West Nile virus along with the occasional Dengue Fever! In the tropics when there are outbreaks of one or the other of these, council rangers can do spot inspections of your property to make sure you have no standing water (plant pot dishes, old buckets etc) on your property. On the plus side, nature has developed some outrageously colourful frogs up there to help deal with the mozzies.

Sorry if that came across as rude, didn't mean it that way!😁

Good news @New Haven Neil . I too have been told that I have no big C and very relieved I am too.

The relief after six months of panic tests, confusion and mis-information is quite something, the local version of the NHS in parts is good but they fail to talk to each other. Still, got there in the end. Feel like a deflated balloon though, the wind is out of our sails.

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Done a bit of shopping this afternoon. Tess Coes done the usual supermarket trick of moving the shelf contents around since I was last there. Just as well it wasn't a big shop today, only milk and eggs plus some fruit and veg. I did treat myself to one of those fancy breads with added cheese, thats tomorrows lunch when it will be stuffed with salami.

Excellent news @New Haven Neil glad to hear Mrs NHN has a good final report.

Well I beat the system, I’m skint so the payment would have bounced anyway!