George Leacon

6 hours ago, 37114 said:

Hi, welcome to O gauge. Short answer - Generally ok. They have a high current draw so you need an o gauge controller (Gaugemaster do one) to provide enough Amps for some of the bigger locos, likewise DCC you will need O gauge suitable chips. If you are only pulling short trains or have a shed layout you can remove a motor which tends to bring the current draw below 1 amp so can still use a wider range of controllers/chips; I did this so I can use a Gaugemaster feedback controller which gives amazing slow speed control for shunting and I am really pleased with how my Heljan locos now run.

 

Historically some of the locos suffered split gears but replacements are available and later locos had this fixed(circa 2017 onwards I recall). Gaugemaster stock spares and have been great in my experience when I have needed bits for a Hymek and a class 60.

That’s grand, thank you for the detailed reply!

I’m very new to O Gauge - what’s Heijan’s record like with mechanisms / performance / quality control please?

Based on the excellent listing page on your Modern Image O Gauge website, Sprinter (and Pacer!) DMUs - something I’m keen to acquire - have only been produced in kit form by Peter Clark. 
 

Any recommendations for a kit building & painting service please?

SEARCH CONCLUDED - thanks to Bill!

I’m looking for the Bachmann / Scenecraft Great Central Railway resin models of the Booking Office and Canopy + Building (so not the subway, stairs or toilet). OO Gauge only. Will pay above retail price depending on condition! Cheers.

You're making two separate arguments:

 

- Monaco is too lucrative to drop, which I agree with

- the cars are, in part, designed for Monaco, which I disagree with

I think Hobby is right and whilst the circuit maintains the glitz and glamour and whatever, the cars have outgrown it. It's 20% shorter than the FIA's "mandatory minimum race distance" because it's so slow. It's not that it's the slowest by a whisker, it's in a whole different league of slowness! It doesn't make for interesting racing.

 

The cars don't really need to be designed to handle Monaco because it's all about mechanical grip. They could do away with most of the aero accouterments and go no slower. The fastest lap in 2017 was less than 6 seconds quicker than in 1985!

Where did you get those fastest lap numbers from Captain? From Wikipedia....

[1985] Pole = Senna 1.20.450 // Race Fastest Lap = Alboreto 1.22.637

[2017] Pole = Raikkonen 1.12.178 // Race Fastest Lap = Perez 1.14.820

In 1985 the New Chicane after the tunnel had not been added yet either, it was a fast left/right flick, although the Swimming Pool section was slower.

Informative, but when you start with "mouthing off media morons" then I start to doubt whether the rest is going to be truth or propaganda. Certainly I will be inclined to check your info with other sources.

Seeing as you asked, it came from Network Rail directly.

Forgive my emotional outburst, but I, and others here evidently, find the media assumption that the railway is atrocious immature and tedious. "More Railway Chaos Ahead..." seems to be a default template for headlines. 

Media outlets in general appear to be enjoying a race to the lowest common denominator, where sensationalism wins the day. But I suppose that is just a reaction to what the great British public want.  

Network Rail's response to this latest episode of mouthing off media morons:

Network Rail is not cutting down 13m trees. There are approximately 6m trees on Network Rail land, with a further 7m neighbouring that land. There are no plans to remove every lineside tree and colleagues actively consider the natural environment and the impacts of vegetation management on local communities.

• There is no ‘£800m five-year tree felling programme’ and there are no plans to create one.
• Network Rail has a biodiverse lineside and wishes to keep it that way.
• The vegetation management programme is not secret – the policies are available to the public on Network Rail’s website.
• Every year during nesting season (March - August) we curtail our vegetation management work and only remove trees that are a safety risk or which could impact on the efficient operation of the railway would be considered for cutting back or removal. Before we do anything we have our ecologists carry out a study of the area.
• As a result, only trees which are a safety risk or could impact the efficient operation of the railway are considered for cutting back or removal.

The owners of F1 might have changed, but the laws of aerodynamics haven't. The team's aero guys and anyone with a technical interest in the sport have known how the car's aero works and hence why it is difficult to follow and overtake. Info like this and this has been freely available for ages, long before this "amazing discovery" by the FIA.

The point is not the FIA has made an "amazing discovery" (wherever you're quoting that from), its more the recognition that: one, aero has developed thanks to team research and various rule changes (such as the 2017 ones to make the cars faster) to a point where overtaking on normal circuits in normal circumstances is very difficult; two, a "whole package" review is the only way to go from understanding the basic principles to actually creating workable rules that don't have unintended consequences.

So their "major discovery" was what all the teams already knew? Maybe they should have done this before creating the current regs and avoid an about face on things like making the rear wing bigger again. They just don't seem to have a clue what to do.

Things are different now. These latest changes are down to Liberty Media, and their masterstroke appointment of Ross Brawn as Director of Motorsport & Technical. He's leading a comprehensive FIA/FOM review of the future of F1 for 2021 (current contracts with the teams end in 2020), and these 2019 proposals have come from that research.

It's light years away from the Bernie era of short-term wheeler dealing.

Any updates coming soon Captain?

I like the look of the coaches behind the "streak" to the right but you could uncouple the ones further round the curve (to the left) and leave them out of shot?

 

Pity about the water crane lurking behind and over the loco. 

 

How about using a couple of pairs of low opens, one on each line, with a board across to support the camera while its under the roof? Use the self-timer to delay the shot so that you can roll the camera into position. Worth a try?

 

Chaz

Some people are so picky ;-) 

Even amongst so many fantastic shots, to me the photo of the GN Hotel on post 17,557 really stands out. The way the structures are properly grounded and realistically weathered really sells it. 

This is at Norbiton station (on the LSWR Kingston Loop), on the Platform 1 subway steps.

Saw this on FB today, which might interest you. It shows the method used to transfer mailbags across the pltform lines.

93B5AE4C-A8B9-43FB-A0F5-D402969BFC27.jpg

I think I've seen that somewhere before.

Michael's pic would give today's safety gurus apoplexy. The "porter" has stepped onto the foot-crossing, and is casually watching the diesel arrive. He is thus oblivious to anything approaching on the road he is standing on. Now, of course, the PSR through the trainshed area means he is at no great risk, and any oncoming driver might see him anyway and sound a warning, and he probably did this every day and lived to collect his pension. Nowadays he'd be court-martialed. 

In fairness though, most of today's trains are so quiet that you often don't hear them until they are close to you. The first thing you hear are the running rails singing.

It seems like Porter #2 is keeping a look out.

Seeing the retaining wall in place, even pre-painting, really makes it feel like Euston. Great stuff.

Tis a beautiful signal that. I wonder why you're not including the Distant signal on the far left hand route?

It's deadly combination of V6, which usually has a boring exhaust note, and a Turbo, which muffles even that, and relatively low rev ranges (they normally run about 12,000rpm, the V10s and V8s ran at about 18,000rpm).

It's a massive shame F1 can't follow the example of LaFerrari, which has a V12 (approx. 700hp) - electric hybrid (approx. 200hp) combo, is very modern, and sounds amazing.

What paints do you use to achieve that subtle yet evident bogie / frame weathering on the Mk 1s? It's very effective.

Many thanks

Maybe it's because I'm a scoundrel, but I really like the Red Bull livery, as do the majority of those polled on Sky Sports apparently ;-)

Should Red Bull keep their launch livery all season?

Where?

Now I remember why that 02 shot was so difficult. There was so little light I had to stop up to f2.8, and thus lost a lot of depth of field. The moral is that I shouldn't try pointing the camera into that dark corner on gloomy days. Speaking of which, today is, again. There was no more light when I took the next two, featuring the last train in the sequence, the 1001pm arrival from Grantham.

1207 1.JPG

The slightly different angle avoided the worst of the shadows under the bridge. I suppose this does look a bit as though it is taken in fading light, so that's OK. The fact that it would be pitch dark by 1000pm at PN in mid to late August is immaterial.

coaches.JPG

A close up of the formation, which required nothing more than a CK and a BSK, topped and tailed for some reason by BZs.

 

Anyone who even contemplates playing golf today must be mad. I don't think I am, but I'm not absolutely sure.

If you find yourself wandering around a shopping centre without your shoes, and can't remember why you're there, then it is almost certainly a case of madness. I'd recommend asking shopping strangers though to be completely certain.

The GW electrification started off badly with the DaFT expecting NR to hit the ground running, but there werent the required numbers of qualified engineers available so it started off really slowly as people were trained and got the necessary experience, (in my opinion) the slow start was one of the main reasons the costs spiralled.

 

The annoying bit is that it was going really well with some of the delays and cost overruns being reduced when that #@£$%& Grayling pulled the plug!

Now it is going to cost millions when it is restarted to train up more staff because the present ones will have moved on to other things and most wont be interested in going back to something which ended so badly for them.

Plus the loss of economies of scale, re-planning, etc.  

That announcement came about the same time the Government publicly committed to the end of fossil fuel road vehicle production by 2040. True genius.  

Ayo - great layout, great descriptions! 

Please can you demonstrate how you modify tender locos to move the two parts much closer together?

Cheers!

I don't envy you having to keep clean all of that beautiful track...