Les1952

No chance sorry, the three that I suspect are the old tie bar still are fixed to the layout which is stacked in the corner of the workshop with Bregenbach in front of it until a week tomorrow. Then Bregenbach moves onto the stands and I can reach the layout but not open it until after the N Gauge show at York in May (my TT operations are on hold until then). Les

I would definitely recommend using them for paints and glues- as they sell war games they keep the full range of Citadel and Vallejo paints as well as the more usual Tamiya in acrylic and lacquer, together with a small range of spray paints. A member of my operating team worked in the labs at Croda Adhesives until they moved it to Germany, and he says Access are good for glues. A sound recommendation from one of the inventors of No Nails... Les

My two long points that failed were one straight out of the packet as I was fitting fishplates, and the other very shortly after being laid, indeed only about half a dozen throws of the switch. I bought four (two left and two right) in my first batch plus a replacement from Malc's Models. That would make five early points, of which two failed. The other three of these are in place and seem to work OK, though I am always careful when I throw them- the levers are behind the backscene and I use wire in tube, with a little "give" in the plastic tube in case I am over-enthusiastic with the lever. The second batch of four from Peco took a long time to get to Access Models, so I suspect these are the later version with the strengthened tie bar. The two that fell apart Peco repaired and the engineer's report sent with them states these were then were fitted with the strengthened tie bar. In all I have six Peco points on the layout (those behind the backscene are Hornby as these are a little shorter). Three of these are early and the other three are from my second batch, giving me one of those plus the two repaired ones as spares in case of another failure - which Sod's Law says will happen either just after I've ballasted the track or during the layout's first show.... I'm still waiting for my short points to appear at Access Models. The delay in issuing them after they were first advertised would lead me to believe these have the strengthened tie bar from the start. I won't be using the ones I have on order until Bregstadt is finished and on the exhibition circuit and I'm ready to start Broken Scar. Les

The Hornby points are fine for fiddle yards, and certainly more robust overall than my first Peco ones, two of which fell apart and were repaired by Peco. Having said that I'll probably use Peco throughout on Broken Scar, where all locos will be small and the space saving in the fiddle yard by using the small radius will be welcome. Bregstadt is now past that stage. Les

There aren't many others. Sherwood Models has a wider range of trains and associated bits in OO and are ready to order stuff, but doesn't really stray into other areas of modelling. I'm not sure what Ian's reaction will be when I tell him I'm building a layout in TT (I'll find out next weekend, he has a stand at our show - South Notts at Cotgrave). Geoffrey Allison in Worksop is too far from me really to look. Over 20 years ago they did a range of their own Bachmann Private owner wagons andas I was collecxting Bachmann PO wagons at the time I visited them, a model shop upstairs in a bike shop. The collection stared getting seriously out of hand (as these do) so it had to go and I've only been to the shop once since. Having said that the collection all raised more money on eBay than I paid for them.. Benhams of Edwinstowe I've not visited but watching him in action (from the adjacent layout) with the hard sell constantly at a 2-day show I'm not convinced I want to. I like to buy only stuff I want, not get the heavy duty sales treatment to persuade me I can't possibly do without something he has too many of.... I'm not sure if the Goods Yard at Tuxford is still trading. Having said all that I can walk to Access Models in about 45 minutes, or 15 mins on the bus. Generally I visit on a Wednesday when I'm in town anyway. They do like to get to know their regular customers by name, and to greet you by name when you walk in. That sort of service you don't get from bigger places. The range of stock was a bit run down when Steve was having problems finding a buyer but Tim and co are building rapidly and always looking for suggestions, particularly with model railways where they admit they have a lot to learn. All the very best Les I should have added that I'm chairman of Bingham MRC which is the nearest club to Newark.

I've gone through the first 16 pages of this thread then done a search with nothing found. Access Models of Newark changed hands towards the end of last year. Owner Steve Clark who started the shop around the time I moved to Newark in 1980 (as Portprince Models and Hobbies) decided that he wanted to retire and sell the business. Tim and team are now fully in charge and building up stock. Not a model railway specialist as such, also selling radio controlled cars and aircraft, war games, a good supply of Airfix and similar kits, and a vast range of kits, bits and glues etc. Very willing to get things for you in any scale if they don't stock them. (So far I've had points in TT:120 and Continental locos in N sourced by them). 43-45 Castlegate, Newark. Les (just a satisfied customer)

Less likely to get damaged.... Les Coming up from N where separate handrails are rare.

Two of the latest three arrrivals - the other being a Ferkeltaxi railbus set by Kres. This gives another impression of just how much smaller the UK loading gauge is than the German- the BR80 is quite a small loco by Continental standards. You can tell the BR80 is one of Roco's earlier models in TT gauge with the rather prominent worm visible in the cab and the citcuiboard visible at the other side. Still at under £100 including postage from Germany its price compares well with the Hornby stuff that is to come. I'll wager my J94s won't be as cheap, though they will be a bit less tall. The BR80 is now out of stock at Roco, though Elwira and Donnerbucsch Koln are both showing at least 10 in stock. When I can set the layout up again in May after the NRM N-gauge show I'll experiment with Dapol Easi-shunt couplers on these two. My BR vans may have manifested themselves by then also. Les

It now seems Victoria isn't coming after all- after we put a picture of it in the show guide... It looks like this one is coming instead. Les

Oh good. Put me down for half a dozen some time in late 2024, early 2025... Les By that time I'll be building Broken Scar to run my Hornby J94s on.

He seems to do them in batches, coloured differently each time. Worth bookmarking him if you are an eBay user and checking back from time to time. Les

If your coaches always run in the same rake have you tried a short and a medium length together? The disadvantage would be that you then need to mark the underside of each coach to show which end is which for when taken off the track... Les who had problems with standard plus short pairs of couplings on Mr Simon's 8-car class 101 multiple unit in N.

You do have an operational issue that you can't get a connecting coach from one side of the station to the other, or get a loco from the top two roads to the turntable without cluttering up the centre road and the exit past the signal box with an extra loco shunting move. If the layout is to be portable, would it be an idea to have your two rectangular boards the same length? Makes it easy to transport as they could then be bolted face to face. If it is a fixture that doesn't matter.

Look nice. I can see some of these finding a home on Broken Scar. Any chance of an NER 20 ton wooden hopper? Les

For those wanting to add a Kof shunter or even something a bit bigger, the Arnold section of the Hornby website has a promotion on at the moment. Sign up for their e-newsletter and you get sent a code that gives you 10% off any Arnold products bought there for a month. As I found out some time ago, if you sign in to the Hornby TT Club first and are registered for points then you get Hornby points as well, as I found out when I was given 3910 points for buying my sound-fitted 2-10-0... Les

I've now remembered where I had posted that I was waiting for Dapol magnets to try out the Easi-shunts. Tried out on the shortest wheelbase stock I've got. Uncoupling and recoupling is much more reliable than using the same couplings in N gauge. Given that N is a poor scale when it comes to reliable shunting first impressions are encouraging. The bump at the far right of the screen is a blob of solder on the track (since removed). The layout is now packed away so I can get NO PLACE ready for South Notts show in 2 weeks time, followed by Bregenbach at Syston Club's show then at the National Railway Museum in May. After that I have a month or so on this layout and some time for further experiments. I might even have some UK outline wagons by then.... Les

Thinking of traction tyres- as well as Bregenbach im Schwarzwald being almost entirely run by traction tyres Croft Spa had a huge number- 17 A3s, 14 A4s, 6 each of A1 and A2, 9 B1s, 4 WDs, 6 J39s and so on... Again not a single tyre shed in 19 shows with this layout and 20 with Hawthorn Dene before- the two had much the same fleet. My locos all used to run an actual mile (1760 real yards) in the course of a 2-day show, and regular performers knocked up very high mileages. If a loco started to get a little lumpy it was a sign that the tyre was ageing and the loco probably had about 25 to 30 miles under its wheels (a lot for N gauge). That meant time to send off to DCC Supplies (usually) for a strip down and full service. The trick with traction tyres is not to let locos run fast into a dead section, and not to drag them forwards by hand, both bad practices I see to often on other layouts at shows, and which I grot at my operators about if I catch any of them doing it. Les

Unless it is TT;120 scale I don't want one.... Les

I run almost exclusively locos with traction tyres on my N-gauge Bregenbach im Schwarzwald. No issues with residues and only one shed tyre in 2 years of exhibitions so far. The only problems with pickups on the layout have been the N Gauge Society Hunslet diesels, and these don't have traction tyres, but have a wheelbase short enough to ensure they stall on Fleischmann points and are geared low enough to ensure the stay-alive won't get them as far as the next juice.... Les

I'm currently disposing of significant quantities of N and OO gauge stuff, and Hornby are providing me with a steady supply of boxes to ship it in.....🙂 Les

I've lost the plot as to which thread or forum I was going to report back to with Easi shunts and TT:120 stock. At the moment with Hornby and Peco not yet having got round to issuing wagons I've had to play with Tillig wagons and a Piko diseasal. First clip shows the ensemble going round Bregstadt, which is at the soak test stage. The curves at the end are Hornby R2 setrack and the points in the fiddle yard are Hornby. Note the stuff handles these well- OK for Bregstadt. the tunnel mouths are still approximate but show more or less where the bit the punters will be able to see ends. The second one is a juggling with too many hands job but shows the uncoupling. The wagons are bouncing up and down at the right hand side because of a blob of solder that had dropped on the track when I was soldering in the power feed... The long wheelbase DB wagon has a long arm to reach the coupler socket, and it is less reliable than the two shorter couplings on the other two wagons- the only ones I have that are that short. Early results are encouraging- Broken Spa will be largely an 0-6-0T plus short wagons affair, and it looks as if all stock will be able to work magnetically. Les

Oh good. The Victory will most likely miss NO PLACE's next outing at South Notts show on April 1st and 2nd, but it will have arrived by the following outing in October...... Les

I think I fall under all three 1. NO PLACE (OO) has a firm booking for September 2025 so there is still development there and Bregenbach im Schwarzwald (N) has bookings to November 2025 now, so the upgrade due to take place before it goes to the NRM in York in May will have a shelf life of at least 2 years. 2. Bregstadt is my new Continental TT layout- and as suitable Hornby and Peco stock arrive it will be run in on that, and given occasional spins to keep it from siezing up. 3. Based on what I'm learning with Bregstadt I'm now planning Broken Scar, also TT:120, for construction in about 2 years time at my present rate of building. The aim is that Broken Scar will eventually replace NO PLACE on the exhibition circuit. Les

Narrowing a chassis from another scale probably defeats the object of TT:120 being a correct scale:gauge ratio- if you are reducing a 3mm chassis to 2.5mm isn't the wheelbase now also going to be 18% out? Just a thought Les Hornby's designers said quite categorically that reducing CAD from one scale to another doesn't work- clearances fail and bits become so thin they can't be made. That also seems to be why locos chassis can be converted from OO to EM or P4 but not the other way round.... Wouldn't upscaling from N and finding chassis blocks there that are the right length be more profitable? L

I'm looking forward to a pair of Dapol easi-shunt magnets arriving. I thought I had some in stock left over from Croft Spa but I haven't. I've already tried fitting Easi-shunt couplings into the nem pockets on Tillig wagons and my Piko Class 290 and had no trouble with them on Hornby Radius 2 curves either pulling or propelling. The next step is to try the auto uncoupling. For fixed rakes I'm going to stick with the Tillig couplers supplied on (most of) my stock but I want to shunt without the hand in the sky appearing on the front of the layout- the side seen by the punters. Backstage a home made uncoupler stick is fine for these. I agree with the description of Continental modelling having much more emphasis on kitbuilding the scenery. Having done two Continental layouts in N and gone much further than most on both occasions I've been happy to stick with the pattern. My brass kits inhabit the OO shunting plank NO PLACE, though hardly any punters spot that they aren't r-t-r. This latter isn't because I don't talk to punters. The complaint I get is that I talk to too many! I see TT:120 in the UK leaning more to the Continental pattern with kitbuilding for buildings- more so as people discover the laser-cut and 3D printed ranges from Igra and DMToys on the Continent and as West Hill Wagon Works and LCut Creative amongst others get their ranges expanded. The main thing is how many will have the patience to wait anther 9-10 months for Hornby to get a tank engine off the blocks or a few years for Peco to get its wagon range up to speed. When we have the Class 37 and the small tank there should be the opportunity for bodyline kits to be 3D printed, starting a pathway for those newcomers to move towards more complex building. Until then we are still in the realms of speculation as to what proportion will follow that path. Some will, but I think most who want to engineer will already be happy elsewhere. Les Building up the courage to weather a £400 Roco loco......