GordonC

Just found your thread. Hope the eye op went ok - I had a similar op a few years ago. It was knackering using just one eye while the other healed and was blurry and I went though several glasses prescriptions as the astigmatism from the op gradually returned to my pre-op prescription

I'm surprised because I'd have thought that would limit the flexibility at Newcastle of being able to depart the station from either end or turn complete sets around when heading south

why is that? does that apply even to things like 91s and HSTs which would be lighter than most diesel locos?

15% is quite standard from a number of shops

Did the RSO/RTO differ much from a standard SO though?

Is a 2-car one not even more ideal for smaller layouts?

Completely random question Charlie, but do you know if anyone has butchered any of your lovely Class 144 models to make a middle coach for a 3 car set? That could be an interesting conversion to see

The Triang models were a bit before my time and I cant think what the pantograph on them was like. I remember the enormous ones on a Hornby Phoenix Class 86 with the sliding switch. Were the Lima Class 87s not capable of taking power off the pantograph too? I remember the initial models having a little slotted screw switch at the cab end of the pantograph which was missing on later models. I dont remember their pantographs looking too bad scale wise

I'd expect they could probably be wired up enough to be able to release brakes on any unit being dragged in case of failure, but not to operate the power controls

There was a railtour that took 205s up the West Coast Mainline to Carlisle I think it was. They couldn't work in multiple with 419s

I think that might quite quickly turn into something that the manufacturers couldn't win with. Did the Tri-ang AL1 and EM2 locos have 'scale' pantographs? In bulking up pantographs or shoe-gear for robustness would that make the appearance worse which is likely to cause more complaints than having them operational in the first place? I would have thought with the difficultly in what you're trying to achieve, not that I've ever tried, but I'd expect one of the easier issues would actually be getting the loco pickups fitted and that the associated trackwork and consistency in fittings would actually be the hardest part. Electric modelling seems to be deemed enough of a 'niche' market that I'd be reluctant to see additional things added to make it even more niche and increase prices for little benefit

... and its very impressive that it is possible like I said, but if you're going to the trouble of wiring or 3rd railing up every inch of your layout including tunnels and fiddle yards to avoid dead sections where the trains stop, then I wouldn't think it would be beyond your capabilities to come up with a working shoe arrangement to attach to bogie frames and move the wheel pickups over to or a metal pantograph on the roof to wire up. What are you expecting the manufacturers to do? wouldn't that spoil your engineering fun if they did it for you anyway?

All this talk of powered third rail or overhead is very impressive that it can be done, but really must have little practical use for the vast majority of purchasers. So is it not little more than appendage waving that it 'can' be done? More electrics to the standard of the Class 85 would be perfect

can you imagine trying to get it serviced? ... changing the oil etc. doesn't sound very practical to me and I'll stick to electric and with sound chips!

Is that the unit that often appears on the MERG stand at exhibitions? I presume there aren't too many around with opening doors, door warning beeper or the orange bodyside lights when the doors can open

those ones look far better in pretty much every way. Are the chamfered ends deeper on that one? What happened to those then if they were never produced as a kit? Was it intended to be produced then just dropped? I'm surprised they got that far and didn't progress them

Its looking good ... I think the gloss black around the cab windows is very unforgiving when photographing close up in bright light conditions. You might even want to use matt on that area rather than satin varnish

If London didn't suck up more than its fair share of investment, jobs and wealth from the rest of the country then there wouldn't be so much need to commute from further and further away.

No Inverness on the list?

Prices are getting steep enough without additional costs for things that cant be seen or have limited use

I struggle to understand the benefit of working pantographs, if it looks right then I couldn't care less whether the power comes from rails or the overhead. I'm sure it was mentioned in one of the magazine features recently where a club had found that when working with DCC and their electrics used overhead for power and commands that it was causing problems where the locos were presumably also getting the DCC commands through the rails and they ended up disabling the overhead because of it.

There must be class 40s and 47s due soon as catalogue models - I wouldn't be surprised if it was one of those. Are there any anniversaries or special dates coming up perhaps?

so are the periscopes fixed in position then? I assume they cant raise up since they'll quite quickly go out of gauge, but from where they are it doesn't look like they'd see much above the radio roof pods

What was in the raised roof sections of these coaches?

ah it must be that I was thinking of then, yeah you're right it was only 2014 that it was announced