unknown

6 hours ago, wombatofludham said:

I'm not sure they are as restricted as might first seem - the Centro units regularly covered Northampton, the West Midlands, Crewe and Liverpool, the GM units worked as far south as Birmingham, as well as all over the then electrified network in Greater Manchester including the Glossop branch.   The 320/321/322 family would be a good one for livery and geographical spread, as would the 319 but perhaps Dapol assume Bachmann are working on upscaling the Farish 319.

I suspect the 323 has been selected as the two outer cars are virtually identical and even the centre pantograph car shares similar bodyside panels, plus they have seen a range of interesting colour schemes and will be around for some time to come,  Given they have worked in three of the most populous parts of the country outside London, including single track branch lines, and make a fantastic noise, perhaps they will be more popular than first thought.  Let's face it the Class 22 diesel hydraulic was probably far more niche than the 323.

That said, I would have put money on a 313-508 "PEP" unit being announced before the 323, but I'm not about to moan about that.

I'm glad you mentioned Northampton, definitely frequent visitors. Even ventured as far south to Bletchley TMD; obviously not in passenger service! 

On 15/07/2020 at 16:27, Ray H said:

What happens if you run it without the sound on?

From the limited time ran with the sound off, seemed OK. I'll look at running it for an extended time with the sound off.

9 hours ago, Grovenor said:

Standard axles are 26mm, 25.9 is close enough, with BB W irons and waisted bearings I don't get significant sideplay, that said waisted bearings are not very consistent and I use a Masokits depth gauge (Comes on one of their etches) to sort the bearings into shllow, standard and deep so I can select ones that suit the specific axle/W-iron combo..Standardisation and consistency are not features of our cottage industries!

Interesting that you mentioned something very similar elsewhere, possibly Scalefour society forum, about the depth gauge pictured. Perhaps this 'is' the ultimate issue, is the bearing too deep as such?

 

Out of interest, what brand of waisted bearings are you using? Other than that, finding a longer axle (27mm approx - do they exist?) or trying to extend an axle with some tube might be the way forward but seems a very long winded way to get these to work.

22 hours ago, westie7 said:

I'm in the middle of a similar wagon project

I'm using the W Irons and bearings from Eileen's Emporium. There is a bit of side to side play which I compensate by bending in the sides. 

 

Regards

Mark

Have to say thought about something similar but in reality shouldn't have to do that. I noted in the instructions it mentions used a certain type of bearing, I assume the bearing you are using is the ones mentioned in the instructions?

As above really, had this V4 sound chip for a couple of years now, hasn't had much use but the time I have used it everything has seemed well. Be lucky to have had 2 hours use.

 

Scoped out fitting new speakers and allowed the loco to run on the rollers, ran smoothly and after a few minutes of the sound being on it just stopped, no sound, no movement, nothing. Had to remove the loco from the track to get it to come back to life.

 

This time directly on the track, restarted, ran for about 1.5 minutes of back and forth movement and the same happened again - nothing. Then, I again restarted with sound on, idling away, again similar time, stopped.

 

Swapped the V4 over to an identical V4 but with an earlier 08 sound file and everything appears to work well, allowed to idle for about 20 mins and no issues found. Lovely and smooth. Even put a class 20 chip in for some smiles!

 

I put the existing V4 with the highlighted problem back in and the same issues reappear.

 

Is there anything I can do, such as some sort of mild reset before I seek to speak to the supplying retailer? 

 

ESU Loksound V4

Still with original speaker attached

No mods to any CVs except CV54 for smoother running.

Legomanbiffo sound, class 08 in Hornby loco.

Supressor capacitor previously removed

 

Thanks

Simon.

Hi all,

 

I'm currently building a series of Cambrian SPA kits have have chosen to represent the W Irons/axle guards by using the Bill Bedford sprung units.

 

I have folded them up as per the instructions but not having used these before I'm concerned that there appears to be approx 1mm of side to side play of the axle and that, to me, doesn't appear to be right. Are the bearings I'm using a mismatch for the the W Irons? Can't confirm the brand of them as I 'borrowed' them from the old man - and he doesn't remember either!

 

Using Gibson wheels, axle length measures 25.9mm using the vernier calipers.

Waisted bearings of unknown origin.

W Irons folded to 90 degrees.

 

Whats anyone else thoughts if they have/have not encountered similar, or what is the ideal combination, what works for you?

 

Cheers, Simon.

On 23/02/2020 at 21:54, 37058 said:

Evening all. 

 

A little snap shot that was taken before the lighting rig was installed. A little wishy washy, but still captures the feel. Resident Gronk 08601 with 3 OCA / ZDA 'BASS' wagons. Beings the inspiration for the layout came from Northampton CMD and 08601 spent a short while out based at Northampton in the late 90s, I just had to model it. Not sure if 601 ever made it to the CMD, but I certainly remember viewing her in Castle yard circa 1998. The new (gorgeous!!) Revolution N YBA 'Tench' can just be made out at the rear.   

 

 

Cheers

Anthony 

This looks great. I have a few memories of the CMD in the 90's.

 

601 did make it down to the CMD as it went further along the line to Brackmills on at least  a couple of occasions. Cobbler will confirm this.

And Nobby.....................................................................

Feeling left out?

 

People forget you were responsible for the gay signal box.

Cook-noe is how a lot of Northamptonians pronounce Cogenhoe. And some say Cog-en-hoe!

 

Good luck with the building of this layout, nice to see something based in Northants. I know both Cogenhoe and Whiston relatively well living in nearby Billing and used to pass through on the way to my nans in Yardley. And strangely enough, those industrial buildings near to where a level crossing would have been, was a farm & 'Pick Your Own' site back in the 80's and 90's.

 

I wasn't aware of the quarries until a few years ago when I purchased the Northampton area Tonk's book. I can well imagine the line from the quarries to the old LNWR to be very steep as it's quite an incline from the road and up the hill. Also strange that I would have picked strawberries right next to the rail line as I walked up the hill! Shame I didn't know at the time.

 

Simon.

We love DoMH really.

You could also research into Geoff Amos who were based in Eydon. Sadly no longer around.

So wot is Dave T doing there?

Every one has it, the village idiot.

I've been giving my 31 a once over and all appears to well with the chassis however I have noticed these plates at the base of the cab bowed and fractured. One of the screws was an absolute pain to remove securing the plate. Are these an early sign of the dreaded rot setting in or is it that these plates are just cheaply manufactured tat?

Who's doing the ribbon cutting at the opening  this time ?

 

Stu

A baby............ hopefully!

 

Still waiting.........

Absolutely right G, I think the bottle of wine and 1/4 bottle of Talisker affected me (hic)

The BRM/Fenchurch St. Peter premiere was a heavy night then? How did George cope?

No, but it was very close to someone else's nuts

Would love to have a sit down, unfortunately I would image the Chuckle Brothers will be signing autographs and blessing babies, muggins will be running the layout on his own

Only joking

Speaking of autographs, some bloke phoned me up earlier coughing and spluttering claiming he wanted a welcoming committee for a week Saturday whilst out seeing adoring fans. He sounded pretty pissed if you ask me.

 

I think we should round up an entourage of screaming girls or something to make him feel honoured. Are there any girls near Derby?

 

And for the other Chuckle Brother a screaming Paul Gambaccini.

Thank you BRM, a couple of photos taken from your Facebook page.

 

IMG_1582.JPG

Tractor driver can barely see over the dash but [cough] wtf is that black thing in the background, right hand side of picture?

Hello

 

    Utter rubbish, it's only car-parks I have trouble with.

 

                                                                Cheers

 

                                                                            George

And walls!

Only one sleep to go before it hits the shelves !

Been counting down the days using my converted Thomas the Tank Engine advent calendar, unfortunately the chocolates have already been eaten !

Unsure whether to ask them to sign my copy, not sure if an unsigned copy would be worth more in my pension portfolio fund

Pictures or it never happened!

Possibly quite hard to find out but up to what sort of RPM is sufficient to use these DVD drive motors in place of an old pancake?  I won't be needing full throttle on a 12ft layout but I do want some controlability of the loco.

 

I see some of the lower voltage ones are rated to around 4000rpm and 6v up to 12500 rpm!  That would be a proper screamer.

^{Yes, only one more day to go.  Remember this years highlight, no Tailby layouts!}

 

^{And of course there will be good quality and reasonably priced refreshments served as usual.}

 

^{The weather looks to be sunny throughout the day, so why not make it over to Market Harborough.}

 

 

^{Charming of Desborough.}

Do I hear it's less than two weeks to go?

Sitting here in a B&B with Simon and Mick Bryan (York Show) they want to know why they got a mention in the article.

Mick I could answer, Simon I explained that we had to re-programme most of our rolling stock after his "go" at operating........

I sat out with a migraine, did Dave not 'play' with it???

You still on lorry shifts or something? I'll consider that, might pop over.  Who else is coming?