Les1952

While waiting for Hornby to get enough stuff together for me to buy - I've got all I can on pre-order (an Easterner, an A3, a couple of extra coaches and a rake of freight stuff I can re-livery to 1957-1968) - I've been investing in Continental - largely so the proceeds of Croft Spa's sale and its stock slowly selling don't disappear into non-railway projects. Today's parcel was a Roco BR38 4-6-0. A spur to get the layout back on its trestles and test the bits I've built so far. I don't know how long 3SMR had it in stock but it took a lot of persuading to run at all. I only got chance to run it in for 5 mins each way today - the instructions say 30 mins - and it now runs quite smoothly at 50 speed steps out of 128. The loco is factory DCC Sound fitted. Is it money well spent? £350-odd. It looks good on the front of the Pullman coaches, though it can't couple until I've swapped the Fleischmann Profi-coupling it came with for a Tillig one from stock. Not the most expensive loco on the roster- the Arnold 2-10-0 was more, and gained me a pleasing number of Hornby points. Next loco in should be the A4 from the Scotsman set, which will be off for sound fitting almost as soon as it arrives. There are 5 locos in the current roster to play with - one each from Hornby, Arnold, Tillig, Piko and Roco. In the meantime I'm also waiting for Peco to get the small radius points onto market- I need a couple for the yard area. But as I've said before I'm not really Hornby's target market for TT:120, and Simon Kohler agreed when I talked to him about it at Gaydon. However he also said he would appreciate the sales he got to modellers like me. No pics yet of the BR38, but here's one of Blink Bonny head to head with the 2-10-0. Shows how much smaller UK stuff is than German, more noticeable when they are the same scale. Les

Any examples for the rest of us to look at? And what items in 1:120 scale have you actually ordered? Les

So far I've counted about sixty posts on the various Facebook groups from people who are totally new to railway modelling and are asking for information/assistance. I don't know what proportion of TT:120 sales it represents, but if it is the same proportion as RMWebbers to serious modellers it means Hornby have found a good supply of new modellers to sell to. Les

We are on the brink of the Nuremberg Toyfair- I wonder if we are about to find out what Arnold Class 66s are planned? Les

Oh good, I prefer being one of the chosen few...... Les

I don't know, but my A4 might be the first one to Digitrains for proper sound to be fitted.... Les

The dead frog itself isn't an issue with most locos, but the switch blades are rather relaxed as there is no centre spring to hold them over. The problem is that on some points once the loco is sitting on the switch plade assembly its weight causes enough movement to cut the power to the blade. All short wheelbase locos have the same problem. Fleischmann have contacts built into the bottom of the frog which the wheels are supposed to contact- finescale wheels have flanges that don't touch these. Hopefully this photo of one of Bregenbach's points under repair will explain the construction of the thing. Sorry I haven't one without an overhead wire in the way. Hope this helps. Bregenbach uses Fleischmann track as Peco doesn't have the geometry to make the layout work and my preferred option of Tomix was unavailable due to lockdown. The layout is at the N Gauge do at the NRM in May if you want to examine the offending points more closely. Returning to TT, once the Scotsman set arrived I looked at the point and compared it with the Peco ones I had already got. The length of the Hornby dead frog is horrendous, the sound-fitted 08 will need quite a large stay-alive top keep going, and I have serious doubts as to how slowly the analogue ones will run through Hornby points. My smallest loco for Bregstadt will be an Arnold Kof, a 4-wheeler with a short wheelbase. With Peco points it has a chance of running very slowly through them. Les

and still does, though it isn't yellow any more... Pictures taken in the early seventies and 2007. A lovely little engine, smaller than the 16" Hunslets and just ripe for Rapido or Planet to consider as their next industrial..... Les

"Are we nearly there, yet?" Les

Sadly the low speed of the Hunslet and the size of its stay alive almost guarantee that it has neither the speed nor the coasting distance to avoid stalling on Fleischmann points, where its weight is enough to take the blade away from the stock rail. Its nice fine flanges then mean it doesn't contact the strips at the base of the frogs so it stalls as it can't coast to the next power, even at maximum speed. hence my Hunslet isn't a lot of use for shunting Bregenbach in Schwarzwald. On the new TT gauge Bregstadt I'm using Peco points with a firmer action and a very short frog, which can become electrofrog if I wish to switch it. In this scale I should be able to use 4 wheeled shunters without stay-alive with no problem. The only fiddly issue is connecting Peco and Hornby track together reliably. Les

I've started building my next exhibition layout (funded by the sale of Croft Spa and eventually the 150 locos and 500-odd pieces of rolling stock that ran on it). When I did the first planning it would either be Broken Scar as UK outline, or another location on the semi-fictional Bregtalbahn, Bregstadt with both being done over a five year period replacing eventually NO PLACE and Bregenbach im Schwarzwald also. Given that I've reached 70 these are likely to be the final pair of exhibition layouts. With Hornby being a bit sluggish starting, not surprisingly given the state of the world at the moment, Bregstadt will be built first, using a mixture of Hornby and Peco track. Indeed tracklaying has begun. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that a Hornby A4 and A3 will appear in the roster- after all if the UK could host a German 01 class Pacific there is no reason why a German preservation group couldn't have bought a UK Pacific..... Broken Scar will follow, and by that time we should have plenty of J94s, an 08 or two and maybe other small suitable locos. The beauty of this is that I can build a layout I can shunt on that will take Pacifics on an exhibition baseboard I can stand behind. In the meantime I can listen to my Arnold 2-10-0 and Roco 4-6-0 chuffing slowly round on fairly appropriate trains. or maybe inappropriate trains would be more fun..... Les

With Metcalfe kits all being a bit overscale it should be possible to use some of them in 1:120 scale layouts, again closer to the back than the front. Les

You have a bar of soap that wears glasses? Impressive... Les

The Hornby website also has the NER footbridge in the list of "available soon". I received mine before Christmas. I would trust the sorting algorithm on Hornby's site almost as much as I trust the search engine on eBay, which is not a lot..... Les

Hornby are saying the Easterner Analogue sets will be at the warehouse on or around next Monday (ie are about to dock) . Perhaps it is the DIGITAL Easterner set that is at the back of the queue. Les.

For a lot of years I was one of the three members (four until Trevor Webster died) who judged the Gwyn Humphreys trophy at Warley. It was awarded for innovation- a bit of a poisoned chalice as some years it was almost impossible to find anything relevant, and other years we had 5 or 6 excellent candidates. The trophy was awarded for the final time in 2019 and Andy Forty of Dapol got it for the pull-out smokebox DCC fitting system. Previously Hornby have had it for Elite, Modelu for putting the modeller into their own layout, Brant Hickman for a layout that can travel to shows on a bus, and all manner of others for innovations great and small. Had we been looking for a 2023 award Hornby would be in contention twice as follows- Jointly with Peco for TT:120 in the UK, and individually for being the (commercial) firm that is doing the most to attract new entrants to the hobby. Indeed it sometimes looks as if Hornby are ploughing a lone furrow here. Like everyone I can find plenty of things about Hornby I don't like, but the new scale is an achievement, and looking at the number of posts from new entrants on (at least 5 groups on) Facebook, a substantial proportion of the sets sold so far have been to those new entrants the hobby needs to keep it alive as cantankerous old farts like me and others on RMWeb die off..... Les

Some more bookings- Ruddington, Loughborough and Nottingham shows, all confirmed for this year. I've been selling off those locos that have pantographs mounted too far from the pivot point of the bogie- in the case of bogie locos it is those with pantographs near the end of the loco and bogie pivots a lot further back. The 1-Do-1 and 1-Co-1 locos also are going. These would really need the pantograph at the centre of the body. In each case the loco moves on sharp curves to take the pantograph away from the centre line of the track. As a result they spring sideways. I was keeping them for Bregstadt, which is to be set on an earlier version of the Bregtalbahn. This would have had larger radii and the locos would have coped. However Bregstadt is now being built in TT gauge. Whatever I make on loco sales from Bregenbach will fund new N-gauge locos with sound. Bregstadt is being funded from the sale of Croft Spa. Pic is from Paisley show. Les

I have had quite a few Farish tender drive locos that locked solid while pulling a train round the track- including at one show a Bachmann engineer denying it could happen while watching a quite new Jubilee haul a train along under his very nose with driving wheels locked solid. I gave up on the Farish BR4MT 2-6-0 as I couldn't get one that didn't lock up, and still see locked-up examples being pushed by their tenders at shows. Fleischmann locos suffer from it, too. But ONLY tender drive locos. As the TT:120 beast has the motor in the engine the only way it can slide along the track is if DCC fitted and being shoved by something much more substantial.... Les One way of spotting if a you forget to stop a Union Mills loco in the fiddle yard is that it will happily push the train in front of it with that train's loco wheels locked solid....

V2s did run to Catterick Camp on troop trains. They ran twice through Croft Spa on each trip- once chimney first and once tender-first. This was because the lead for the Richmond branch faced North, so the V2 ran round its train before pulling it back the 7 miles to Eryholme Junction. It then ran round again at Catterick Bridge as the lead for Catterick Camp faced Richmond... Pic on my recently sold layout. Les

More to follow. Les (former show manager, now chairman, Bingham MRC)

They sound just like the Bachmann/Farish mafia on here- when I had the nerve to suggest that some Farish WDs couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding (including mine) I got no end of unhelpful (and in a couple of cases vituperative) comments on RMWeb. It was only a couple of years later when the A2 came out that Dennis Lovatt finally admitted that there was a milling issue with the wheels with traction tyres on the WD and a significant number had traction tyres that didn't actually touch the rails. Mind you, to get that admission I had to present him with an A2 wheelset with tyres and no groove..... Les

Those in the set don't have lights. The stand alone Pullmans have lights and cost more than the Mark 1s etc that don't. Personally I prefer them without, and usually isolate lights on any coach I buy that has them- the slightest hint of dirty track and/or wheels and the flickering is irritating... Les

WHO SAYS it is below par? RMWebbers or the people who buy the stuff? A lot on this forum are saying that they aren't going to buy the new stuff. Big numbers on the many Facebook groups seem to be indicating they will buy. Looking at the number of FB groups I am offered and the numbers each has these groups may well outnumber RMWeb by a considerable margin - no proof but a gut feeling that grows more with each new group I encounter. Even Sam's Trains has 131,000 subscribers, which seems to be up by 20,000 in the last three months..... The Railroad Plus stuff and a lot of the rest will sell well to those who either haven't got or begrudge spending £200 plus on a new engine or £50 plus on a coach. Les

I didn't ask about 2 and 4 cylindered locos, just using the Gresley Pacifics as a single example. I'm not interested in the smoke effect, but if I'm using sound with locos moving slowly they need to sound right. As someone old enough to remember sounds and smells of steam I am a bit particular about a loco sounding right. On my OO shunting plank NO PLACE I sold on a Hornby Factory sound fitted class 08 because it just didn't sound like an 08, keeping a Bachmann one that isn't as good a model in a lot of respects, but which has a sound file (which may be a Pauliebanger file) that sounds exactly like an 08 should- quite a distinctive sound. I agree about water and try to avoid modelling it. Les

With the chips I use you alter CV267 to give the number of chuffs per revolution (some chips are a different CV just to be different). If you set it so a distinctive beat is at a certain part of the revolution you can get it on most locos so that it takes quite a few metres of running before the distinctive beat has slipped far enough in position to be noticeable. My layouts don't have enough metres of track visible for it to be apparent. Les