34theletterbetweenB&D

The good news is that the model runs; and the implication of this is that it is only a poor connection somewhere resulting in no power to the decoder and/or motor. To find out where to concentrate the search, first a question. When the 'poke of a finget' is required, is the sound playing or silent while the loco isn't moving? If the sound is playing, then the fault must be in the motor power circuit from the decoder to the motor, including the interior parts of the motor. But if the sound also starts only when the motor starts after poking with a finger, then you are almost certainly looking at a fault in current collection from the pick-up wheels contact with the rails, via the pick up wires and all the connections to the decoder. It is often very helpful to 'go back to basics' in solving such a problem, which means disconnecting the decoder, putting a blanking plug in the socket and using a basic DC controller for testing, if you have one available. This is because the DC controller can be set to a much smaller output than the permanent full power of a DCC system output, making it far more sensitive in detecting where the poor conductivity is located.

I feel you made an effective start: 'poor, old' never ranks very high in interest, add 'and mutilated' and that completes the sorry story.

In addition to the good advice above, check the controller too, if the rated output is less than 1A per controlled channel it will be liable to tripping out. A great many had this trouble when Heljan's class 47 emerged in 2001, and the CoCo mechanismn of your Kestrel has the same design layout.

On the theme of undervaluing kit builds, today's purchase of an immaculately constructed and finished DJH S&DJR small boiler 7F 2-8-0 in LMS livery. Under £50 for a subject not available from RTR! Although sold as a non-runner, I was confident that it would work due to the wear on the wheels and its immaculate tidiness. And it does run - only very sweetly - perfect.

The pacifics required a 70 foot turntable, thus a through train might have a pacific in regions where these were available, but it would come off to avoid going much distance into a region without 70 foot turntables. Pre WWII from the LNER Southern area Ivatt atlantics, B17 and B12/3 4-6-0's were used for through workings off the LNER to the South and West, with photos of such locos at Oxford, and post war the B1 4-6-0 was the usual traction.

Once a country or region has the majority of its population educated in school to age 18, with a competent technical management team, light industry can be introduced and brought up to full output in three years is the established rule. (This will even work in the UK once the global economy is uniform, but that's several lifetimes away... )

I am pretty certain that this will be achieved with an ultrasonic nebuliser, widely applied to make mist and fog effects for a range of purposes.

I am likely not the only one redistributing the bogies on the recent Thompson coaches around the inherited LNER stock working on my version of BR(ER) to this end. And there will be more of the same around my BR mk1s with the most welcome range expansion there.

Definitely so! All previous versions have been significantly lacking in the vital matter of being an overall convincing model. This new introduction 'gets it' sufficiently well to be worth purchasing and going to work on it, for an ordinary filthy LMR workhorse.

Thus it isn't going to happen any time in my lifetime, was the conclusion I reached in 1999. Up to that time I had been planning my 'last grand project' using HO, North American flavour, for the reasons you describe, enabled by crossing the pond very regularly. But I really wanted BR(ER) in the final decade of steam. And then Bachmann started with scale models of two absolute essentials, the WD 2-8-0 and BR 16T minerals, produced to the standard of a competent kit builder. Not as sophisticated as RTR HO, but good enough for me, since it it integrated well with my DIY UK models various. And the situation has been generally rosy since, but quite often two steps forward, one step back occurs... Those retrograde moves have to be corrected and/or campaigned against.

Properly engineered isn't present in respect of these devices in RTR OO, on the evidence to date. Now, by your own admission you are not interested in RTR OO; but I am and thus feel quite justified in twaddling on. You can probably avoid seeing my future wastes of words by a user selectable setting. 😎

A reverend gent came up with the DUFA corporation, whose product was the holes for toothbrushes; seems as good an option as any...

That's very mild, coming from one of us, what was the charge 'Internet Taliban' 😉

I have briefly had a RN dirk that was most likely produced when George V was on the throne, (inherited, I'm not that old!) given that the great uncle concerned passed out of Dartmouth in 1929, and the top of the hilt has a hairline crack. It's in the 'mazak/zamac' alloy family (I had access to two tons of laboratory XRD when it came into my possession) and isn't lead contaminated, nor is there evidence of impact damage. But there it is, with a crack, cause unknown. (It's in Oz now, with the cousin named for its original owner, as that seemed right when we had the 'great family memorabilia sort out'.) The RN dirk my FiL passed on to his daughter (reader, I married her) probably circa 1940 manufacture, is lead contaminated and the hilt has split full length, but still in one piece. So even the Senior Service didn't always get it right... Having spent a significant part of my career in novel and exotic materials work, I am perhaps sensitised to claims for longevity of such things, for which there can as yet be no reliable data. I have been regularly surprised at how many people are concerned that novel materials arising from invention to deliver current technologies, may not keep on working indefinitely.

What impresses me in keeping up with scheduled operation, is how briskly the 'local' moves (inner sub terminus, two branchline with both passenger and freight, goods yards on up and down side with tripping to rail served industries, loco shed for all the local work, had to be executed, around both the non-stop and stopping through traffic. It looked busy enough in reality (even though you couldn't see the whole scene) when I watched it, doubtless copious tea required.

It was inspirational on first reading of this lovely layout. Each to their own. It took me fifteen years to fully grasp that operation is absolutely 'where it's at' as the reason for having any model railway gear. If someone else will do the construction that's great. A French friend many years ago gave me a name for my layouts: 'trainodrome'. There's the track formation per prototype layout, and ballasting in the on-scene sections because I like the noise it provides. Nothing else scenic provided, cannot form trains of buildings, shunt road vehicles or operate trees to timetable, etc. no point having them.

Ho ho ho. DCC took off when the option for most with a model railway was soldering in wired decoders to convert their existing locos. As far as the UK was concerned, the modeller with experience of a club or private layout wired up with cab controlled sections, running kit or scratch built locos, was fully equipped for this task; and having begun on it was a rapid convert to the many resulting benefits. The commercial imperatives that have led to where we are now, have to be accepted. On a positive note Mr Ripitout has thus far had no serious trouble altering RTR OO models to conform to his (wholly correct) ideas of best practise.

The constructional plan has already altered as Bachmann's mk1 range has expanded, to no ill effect. As the late Mr Rice observed, consistency in modelling standard is key. Thus what I liked from the get go with Bachmann's blue riband releases: they were an all-around good match for a competent kit or scratch build, and anything that needed adjustment was thereby within my capability. Judging from the way most of the first decade's releases flew off the shelves I wasn't alone. 'Gashy' is rather strong ('ghastly', 'hideous') all they really need is the cosmetic surgery to remove the mountainous roof ribs, and a coating of BR(ER) coach roof standard filth. Which reminds me, now the sun is appearing I have a few more cheap acquisitions to be given the treatment; always in good daylight to ensure a clean job...

Operating? Does anyone try to run a realistic sequence? Why else would anyone build a layout?

Because as fitted between loco and tender on RTR OO, none of them come even vaguely close to 'better things' already long available in RTR OO! For optimum appearance on any OO layout, the mechanical link should accomplish five things, all of which have been frequently demonstrated by Bachmann, and at least once by Hornby. A simple rigid metal drawbar of near scale appearance mounted through the dragboxes. Spacing adjustment provided from scale to sufficient for specified minimum radius curvature. No appreciable slack between loco and tender. Cab and tender front always correctly aligned, no skewing on straight track. Any model 'tackle' to enable this fully concealed, all you see is the drawbar between loco and tender dragboxes in a side on view. Per a response above, Bachmann have triumphed since circa 2010 with the drawbar in the right location combined with an adjustable screw locked spacing slide concealed behind the tender frames, perfection. Hornby just once TTBoMK, on the 2006 Britannia/Clan, with just two fixed spacings, and easily rpelaced with a DIY replacement to adjust spacing if the owner requires (caveat, I haven't looked at all their product.) And finally, there is no general need for camming connections on UK steam models: few real monster steam loco prototypes, and short tenders. A RTR OO 9F as an example can go round 24" radius with a simple scale spacing metal link, give it slightly overscale spacing and it's good for R2; the BR standards and other late grouping steam designs really benefit in appearance by using a simple drawbar, because so much is on view. KISS. As for electrical connections, a small plug on thin wires engaging in a concealed socket, as the wires can be dressed to look like the hose connections dangling beneath the drawbar. (I would be quite happy to 'prune out' any excess over the four which is the maximum I require should the decoder be best placed in tender, the wires make this an easy owner option. KISS.

Strictly, that is an invalid statement. No one has the data to support it, because this is a relatively new alloy. On the evidence to date it appears to be stable for the upper end of a human lifetime, (which to my mind is good enough for the classes of goods made using it) but that's no guarantee of permanently free from degradation.

Not really, it was retired when the Bachmann 9F became available and is now with a friend, and outside the UK.

Usually there is sufficient of the factory grease to tack the driveshft in place to ease reassembly. Without this assistance my arthiritic fingers would be in trouble.

There's a long term pattern of model railway production migration to the next low cost location. No reason to believe China will be any different, it's not if, but when.

I would gently suggest that the engineering challenge of such a mechanism is making the inadvisable into a working proposition. It was very noticeable that diesels with a pair of worm drive bogies for improved traction, wore out far more rapidly than a pair of spur gear drives used in the same way. And those paired worm drives were not directly mechanically coupled... The Bachmann 9F is a proven workhorse as your benchmark. My small fleet is coming up 18 years in service, carrying extra lead ballast, and totally trouble free, will exert 85g force, which was required for a reliable restart with a total 3kg train entirely on a 1 in 80 rising gradient. (I have now revised the gradient to 1 in 160, so nothing like this force is required, but have yet to remove the added ballast on these and other locos, since they are all performing without complaint.)