Banbury in N scale - A great time at the Abingdon in March 2024

[GWRPhil]

It was a great day at fare ham yesterday. I will be posting some videos of the day once I have had chance to edit and upload them

[GWRPhil]

Here's the first video. Unknown 168 arrives at Banbury from London. Then 221101 xc super voyager leaves Banbury for london

 

[GWRPhil]

And the second video

 

Dbs class 60 passes through Banbury on an oil train. A 168 chiltern emu leaves Banbury and 66301 passes through Banbury on its way to didcot and suffers a coupling failure

 

Edited April 24, 2016 by hawkingetippyd

[GWRPhil]

Thirdly

 

168 arrives at Banbury London bound, then a harsco rail grinder passes through in the opposite direction. This is followed by the structure gauging train and a Wrexham and Shropshire set arriving at Banbury bound for London. Finally 66152 arrives in the up goods loop with a container train.

 

[GWRPhil]

Fourthly

 

Sir Nigel gresley arrives with a railtour. It is signal checked on the main platform then departs. Then in the opposite direction is the second oil train of the day to pass through Banbury with 60052

 

Edited April 24, 2016 by hawkingetippyd

[GWRPhil]

Then...

 

221101 XC Crosscountry super voyager leaves Banbury headed for reading. Dbs 66152 leaves Banbury heading towards London. Gbrf 66731 then arrives at Banbury on a staff rail tour this is followed by fastline freight 66301 arriving in the good loop with the reformed coal train that suffered coupling failure earlier on.

 

Edited April 24, 2016 by hawkingetippyd

[GWRPhil]

Next 66301 leaves Banbury for did it and colas 66843 arrives from didcot with a rake of coal empties. All the while several chiltern dmus are shunting in the sidings with one ending up in the bay platform ready for a service later in the day

 

[GWRPhil]

Fgw 165 arrives from London at Banbury. 70003 arrives at Banbury in the up goods loop with a rake of PCs wagons. 66135 works a very long departmental train on the down main. Finally 57309 passes through Banbury on a flask traffic with the Drs escort coaches.

 

[GWRPhil]

Three car chiltern 168 arrives from London. 70003 leaves the up goods loop and heads for London. 66301 passes through Banbury on its second coal circuit of the day heading for didcot. Another harsco rail grinder passes through Banbury headed up north from its base at didcot. Then another Wrexham and Shropshire set arrives at Banbury on its way to London

 

[GWRPhil]

Finally 66731 arrives in Banbury for its second run through of the day on the Gbrf staff rail tour whilst 37133 waits in the up goods loop with some damaged coal wagons needing repair including the one to suffer coupling failure earlier in the day. A chiltern mainline push pull set arrives from London. Virgin voyager leaves Banbury bound for London. The structure gauging train then stops at the signal box to allow for a good look at it before it leaves very promptly for a duty in the Midlands.

 

[Revolution Mike B]

Mike

 

Look forward to seeing you on Saturday.

 

Just a few days to go before Rotarail show

 

Great to see you again Ian and thanks for explaining how you run your layout to my mate Dave. Your comment to me 'that Banbury had been around a while now' was quite interesting because I don't think that people will ever tire of it! Personally, and without any disrespect to anyone else, it's one of the best N Gauge layouts I've ever seen.

 

I've remembered who was selling the fence now, it was P&D Marsh but they can't get it anymore

 

Cheers

Mike

Edited April 24, 2016 by scoobyra

[roundhouse]

Great to see you again Ian and thanks for explaining how you run your layout to my mate Dave. Your comment to me 'that Banbury had been around a while now' was quite interesting because I don't think that people will ever tire of it! Personally, and without any disrespect to anyone else, it's one of the best N Gauge layouts I've ever seen.

 

I've remembered who was selling the fence now, it was P&D Marsh but they can't get it anymore

 

Cheers

Mike

Mike

 

Good to see you again. Thanks for your comments.

 

Shame that P & D marsh dont do the fencing any more. Give N Brass a try.

 

Thanks to our team  - Phil (thanks for the photos and videos),Gordon and Mike for helping on the day with my other half doing the unloading and loading plus driving me and the layout home.

 

We had a good day operating the layout but a few small issues mainly iwth rolling sotck coming uncoupled. Them ost annoying was the failure of the NR class 31 after I had fitted lights and sorted out a split gear, it ran fine till Saturday. Just wouldnt go at all.

 

Next show is Burgess Hill in May.

 

Ian

[shanks522]

Great set of photo's and video's Phil, thanks!

 

Layout looking great as always Ian, Nice variety of stock.

 

Graham.

[roundhouse]

Banbury is out again this coming Saturday.

 

We will be at the Burgess Hill show. A few evenings this week to work on the stock that gave us grief a few weeks ago.

 

The Dapol Falcon wagons were particularly troublesome. The coupling mechanism is very temperamental on curves so will have to see what can be done otherwise I see them being removed form service.

 

Hopefully we will have Gordons sound fitted locos working again.

[GWRPhil]

Hope you have a really great weekend. Sorry I can't be there.

 

Phil

[Revolution Ben]

The Dapol Falcon wagons were particularly troublesome. The coupling mechanism is very temperamental on curves so will have to see what can be done otherwise I see them being removed form service.

 

Hi Ian,

 

Yes, we have had to do the same on Horseley Fields.  I spoke to Chris Marchant about this and he had to modify the couplers by reducing the springing, shimming the mechanism to make them sit level, and he switched all the wheelsets for Kato ones (which have the right axle length) as they have slightly larger flanges.

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

[roundhouse]

Hi Ian,

 

Yes, we have had to do the same on Horseley Fields.  I spoke to Chris Marchant about this and he had to modify the couplers by reducing the springing, shimming the mechanism to make them sit level, and he switched all the wheelsets for Kato ones (which have the right axle length) as they have slightly larger flanges.

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

Morning Ben

 

thanks for the info.

 

I managed to generally get around the accidental uncoupling by using the Easi Shunt couplers although last time one or two did uncouple but its the mechanism thats very tight on some of the wagons that gives the most grief.

 

Ian

[MRDBLUE17]

Hi Ian,

 

Nice to see all the photos of the layout, it remains superb as ever and hopefully will get to see it in action in person again soon.

 

All the best

Mark

[roundhouse]

Thanks Mark

We will be heading North later this year but only as far as West Yorkshire.

I spent a good part of the evening taking one of the Falcon wagons apart and trying to get the coupler mechanism to work properly. It's better but not perfect.

What I hadn't realised is that when I replaced the fixed a Dapol knuckles with the Easi Shunt, I hadn't reapplied any canopy glue, so this has been carried out on half the fleet so far. Hopefully the rest will get similarly treated in the next day or so.

I had a delivery of Easi Shunt couplers which have had a tiny bit of canopy glues added to one end of the spring to hold these steel springs in place as they are a real pain to replace if they pop out. The next task is to complete the remainder of the old rapido couplings on the remainder of the locos and end coaches / wagons now that Mike is doing the same with his.

Edited May 12, 2016 by roundhouse

[roundhouse]

I have now serviced all the Dapol Falcon wagons. All Easi shunt couplers now glued in place using canopy glue. I now hope that this has cured the derailing and uncoupling issues. One of these wagons has had a ballast load added. The rest will follow but not sure how many more i will get done before the weekend.

 

I really want to fit a flashing rear lamp but there isn't anywhere to hid the electronics and battery. Might have to fit pickups to the bogies and install a tiny function only decoder with a removable ballast load. I will wait to see how well they perform this weekend first.

[roundhouse]

Tonight I decided to do a bit more work on the FGW 165. A little touching up of the paintwork and repalcing missing bits of cantrail stripes and its now ready for a coat of matt varnish on one side. I sitll need do do the barbie stripes on the other side though.

 

Another task was to find the dodgy coupler on the FEA container flats. I found one with the spring partially hanging out of the Easi Shunt coupler. However a more pressing job was to clean all the muck off the wheels. A fair few done but more still to do. These vehicles do a  lot of mileage at a show.

[roundhouse]

Last night was a wheel cleaning one. 21 coal hoppers and 5 container flats cleaned.

 

This morning the programming track was in use to check a few addresses. We now know that our late friends structure gauging train is 4000 so we can now switch the later on!

 

Come see us at the Burgess Hill show today if you are in the area.

[GWRPhil]

Last night was a wheel cleaning one. 21 coal hoppers and 5 container flats cleaned.

This morning the programming track was in use to check a few addresses. We now know that our late friends structure gauging train is 4000 so we can now switch the later on!

Come see us at the Burgess Hill show today if you are in the area.

Hope the day is going well today.

 

How's th structure gauging train looking now the wagon is light up?

 

Phil

[roundhouse]

Phil

Layout running well but not sure about us!!

The Dapol Falcon wagons have run well so far today and the laser train is working. Someone asked us if it was safe to use it in public but we eventually convinced him it wasn't a real laser.

Edited June 3, 2016 by roundhouse

[C&WR]

Please forgive my ignorance, but what is a fan wagon and why does it have escort coaches?