FelixM

Yes, of course. (No offence intended!) Stationary uncoupling magnets are too unflexible. Just as the prototype you sometimes need to let wagons at some places you could have never dreamed of before. Either you are going to build in very much magnets, and at the same time impose everyone else to use magnetic couplers, or you stay prototypically and uncouple mechanical (a shunter / guard with the prototype, your hands in model form). There are very few couplings around which aren't able to be uncoupled mechanically (for example Piko Ganzzug coupling, Bachmann coach "hose" short coupling), and unless you don't use exactly these there is no problem with uncoupling. Kind regards Felix

It is the experience and wisedom of timetable creators / meeting organisers to accommodate both parties involved, those who don't fancy shunting and those who do. I have some experience in this. Kind regards Felix

Koos Harald Brosch sells module profiles to everyone, not just to Fremo members. He can be contacted by e-mail, his English is pretty good, and he does 00 gauge modelling for half a year now too. His range of module ends can be found here: http://www.modulbahner.de/numerisch/html/default.html There is always the possibility of scratchbuilding a flat "box shape" module which just has a simple plank as an end. I currently have two modules at home in various design stages, one with a laser cut valley shape, the other one with a square end profile. I will take photos later today when I am back at home. Kind regards Felix

I have co-written the German version of this document (the translation was not done by me). 2m radius is recommended practice but to achieve to make it possible to use Peco medium radius points the minimum radius was set at 1m (nine hundret something mm for the points). Of course you can build modules with 1 m radius (better than even smaller at last!) but they won't look the part if it carries a main line. There may also be derailments with inhomogenous rakes of stock. These modules probably will have a short lifetime. But for shunting yards, siding and similar a meter radius will be fine. Let's not take couplings and radii into serious accounts. At last, the layout planner can refuse to include too sharp curves. A "standard coupling" can be different from meeting to meeting. For example modellers A and B provide all the rolling stock of a 1960s Southern Region themed meeting and have used Tension locks all life long, then there's nothing wrong with modellers C and D providing stock of a 2010s era meeting with Kadee couplings. This is a microscopic aspect, whereas we are currently talking of macroscopic topics. Is anybody out there who intends to build modules in the UK and then taking them to America to join Free-mo meetings abroad? If not, why not adapting the European Fremo standard? Kind regards Felix

I see another trap coming. WLAN and other remote systems do not have the bandwith to support much controler like smartphones or others. If you are going to become more and more module modellers over the time, you will de facto need a wire system, for example Loconet. I'd say more than 10 wireless controlers aren't possible. A sketch from our norm: On the left it says banana plug and socket (does this word exist in English too?), on the right it says that the plug is always for the right rail and the socket for the left one. Kind regards Felix

Don't get me started on operations! IMG_3360 von – FelixM – auf Flickr Track numbering diagram, this one was handdrawn by me because I forgot the printed one at home. IMG_3362 von – FelixM – auf Flickr The timetable for the "Station master". Trains without comments simply pass by. IMG_3361 von – FelixM – auf Flickr The pile of timetables in chronological order. Everyone who wants to drive a train simply takes the uppermost. It says when to be where and what train you'll drive. I know that 57xx Classes were not push-pull fitted if anyone bothers. The 14xx did not get ready in time so the Bachmann pannier was a stopgap, masquerading for outwardly similar push-pull fitted panniers. IMG_3402 von – FelixM – auf Flickr A special timetable for the Goods Guard. The pickup train was manned by two, the Goods Guard essentially wore the trousers. Every shunting goal was described in it, but how to achieve this I left to the individual when I designed the timetable. Of course I had the track plan and thought before how I would do the moves. IMG_3359 von – FelixM – auf Flickr Fuel for the aircrafts. You can see wagon cards with attached waybills. At Rendsburg we used the easiest method with virtually no destinction between these two. Each wagon made a loaded journey and an empty return working. There are methods of refine this by sequences like A to B loaded, then empty to C and back to A loaded once again. For this you can use wagon labels with rotary imprints, so you have to turn the wagon label after each journey. But this is too complicated for the start as long as easier methods exist. Kind regards Felix

I happily volunteer to create the timetable. In Rendsburg we had a Heart of Wessex line scenario between 1962 and 1964. Our 3rd rail station masqueraded for Yeovil Pen Mill and the Irish junction was the branch to Toton. There was one daily pickup goods majorly remarshalled at the shunting yard at the Airfield (which the real Yeovil never had, but no point in disaccepting offered modules at a meeting). Banana van always behind the loco when travelling loaded, cattle truck as far at the front as possible, brake van always at the rear even after reversing. Quite some challenges for a timetable planner. The semi-fast trains regularly left two coaches for the Airfield branch which was worked twice daily. Edit: Simulation time was 5 times quicker than normal time, startin at 7 am and terminating at 9 pm. This gives you roughly 3 hours for an operating session. Breakfast, morning session, lunch, afternoon session, some freetime, dinner, evening session, bedtime. Kind regards Felix

These are lessons learned. With radii under 1000 mm you restrict yourself to a maximum of ~5 coaches to be operated safely, especially if manufactured by Hornby and coupled with tension locks. The close coupling mechanisms of Hornby coaches tend to become locked in the outermost position with the train derailing every second pass through that curve. A meter radius means that you can turn around a route in 2 m width, don't tell me that your halls are narrower than 2 m! We have started over here with 4 90° curves with 600 mm radii and they are now out of use because 600 mm radius is simply too sharp. Funding meetings by the participants is essential to modular meetings, so there need to be a "club" or "association" either way. Yes, no problems with 46 mm track separation above 600 mm radii. Felix

Hi everyone, do you really want to start from zero and repeat all those errors and bad decisions others have already done? There is a modular system which is already running and just waits to be adapted by you: The Fremo (Freundeskreis europäischer Modellbahnen / Friends of European Model Railways) H0-RE system. H0 means 16.5 mm track (suitable for 00 gauge) with a track separation of 46 mm (suitable for 4mm scale as well) for double track lines, R means regular (standard) gauge and E means Europe. Great Britain is located in Europe and has a rail connection to France, just as a reminder. Modules are wired with two cables for every running line and the rails are 1300 mm above floor. The rest is compatible enough if you desire to deviate from the standard. Just make the scenery in 4mm scale and there you go. What will you do in five years if you decided to wire your modules analogue and discover THEN, that you need a pair of wires in EVERY module for each locomotive? Say you opt for 7 conduits. Then you will ever stick to 7 locos at the maximum, even if one daythousands of you will have built modules. Fremo completed the shift from analogue to digital control in 1998 and succeeded. What will you do one day if you discover that it would be more sensible to exchange certain signals in a given location to suit different combinations of modules? Say one day a junction is immediately following your station. You never had this in mind and have no junction signal at the advanced starter position. Will you THEN start to look around how others have soluted this problem? A standardised slot for plugging in and out signals was invented in Fremo in 2005 and is now widespread. IMG_3344 von – FelixM – auf Flickr A used and an unused (at the opposite side of the track) slot. The unused slot is well hidden. A Fiddle Yard is in the background. Fences are still missing. What will you do if you opt for digital control but not for Loconet control? Discover THEN that it could be dangerous if everyone can type in DCC addresses, because just one wrong digit and somebody else's loco is moving at the opposite side of the room and in worse case is falling down on the floor? Discover that the DCC bandwith just allows ~15 locos moving at the same time? Looking THEN how Fremo uses multiple DCC command stations and a Loconet gateway so that trains do not need to stop to get under the control of another command station? This of course does not work with Xpressnet. I can only warn against hasty decisions which prove erroneous in a few years. There is so much exxperience around, please do not do ignore this. Incidentally, if you one day would like to make friends in Europe there will be noone following a non-standard British modular system because there already is the proved Fremo concept. A channel tunnel module is already under construction in Kent as far as I know. I include you the plan of our May 1st to 4th meeting in Rendsburg. Rendsburg_Halle_2.pdf Kind regards Felix

Thanks Dave. Me and a few modelling colleagues from Berlin have introduced 00 gauge to the Fremo in 2013. Rendsburg as you quotet in your last post was actually our second meeting, presenting ourselves to the Fremo community. The idea of British modelling is spreading out since, lots of modellers who "have enough" of Deutsche Reichsbahn modelling come to me and ask if they could build some modules for us to enjoy e.g. a shunting plank which can be included on meetings. I have made the timetable for the first and second meeting of our group. Furthermore I have planned the layouts too. I also maintain the official pages of 00Fremo: http://www.fremo-net.eu/00fremo.html?&L=6 There will be another small meeting this year in the Berlin area. We are making progress in all aspects of the modelling. On the last meeting in Rendsburg we had a timetabled Parcels Scammell Scarab on the layout. We have plans for introducing block working to our stations. We currently draw plans to create a slotting feature of signals so it could be influenced by somewhere else. There are a lot more projects which I can't list here for time and space reasons. One of the big advantages is that You can do everything in Fremo – personally I am a good rolling stock collector but a bad layout builder. But that doesn't matter. Inside the Fremo there are experts for everything, it just has to happen that the right people meet. That is society. Last but not least we are a young group. Most of us are between 30 and 39 years old with me being 24. If you would like to contact me and other similar "modular addictives" there is a FremoUK yahoo group. As I have said earlier on that list if a meeting is to come in the UK then I offer my help as much as I can and plan to come along too. To give you an impression here is a shunting plank which started off as a 75cm x 25 cm homebased shunting plank which got a few extensions and is now a true module. May I introduce You to Plankwell: IMG_3258 von – FelixM – auf Flickr Kind regards Felix By the way, in two weeks there will be the annual Great-BritN meeting in northern Bavaria. N gauge this time.

Thank you Paul for the information. Felix

Hattons e-mail suggests that there will be a 1948 version instead of a late crest one. See here for the three types planned now: http://www.ehattons.com/stocklist/results.aspx?searchfield=d16/3 I did a quick search but I found no Clauds with LNER numbers with 1948 style E prefixes like some B1 had (which was my first guess). What could a 1948 livery then be? Kind regards Felix

I have bought a secondhand R2420A D5511 one and a half year ago and it is in spotless condition. Kind regards Felix

Did any of the versions produced by Bachmann run on the Midland & Great Northern? They had some 4F but I have no idea of which type. Felix

Now the news is fully announced by Graham Muspratt: http://grahammuz.com/2013/09/02/model-rail-usa-tank-to-now-be-manufactured-by-Bachmann/ Felix

This model is now produced by Bachmann as anounced today: http://grahammuz.com/2013/08/31/Bachmann-announce-that-it-is-to-produce-a-00-scale-ex-london-brighton-and-south-coast-atlantic-h2-class-4-4-2/ Felix

Vermillion Red seems to be much different to BR Crimson. Good photograph here (but not of Birdcage Coaches I'm afraid): http://www.flickr.com/photos/64518788@N05/8502068681/ Felix

Hi http://www.flickr.com/photos/64518788@N05/8695581829/ If I am correct the first coaach is a Stanier and the second and third are Gresleys. Then there would be the situation that between the first and the second coach the BR standard and the Pullman type connectors don't match. Would an adaptor always be used in those cases? Or is the Stanier coach a strengthening coach and therefore there wasn't a need of a connection? Thank you in advance for answering my question. Felix

They today wrote to me: " Hi Felix, Thank you for your email. We are currently expecting delivery of the Beyer Garratts sometime in April. All variants are due in at roughly the same time. If you do pre-order more than one variant, you can request that they be shipped together. I hope this information helps. Regards " Felix

TT scale ever was the second most widespread scale in Eastern Germany behind H0 scale. In Western Germany the most popular scale was N scale with H0 being the second one. TT was virtually non-existant in Western Germany then. These differences continue until today albeit not so strictly. Fortunately! Felix

How long will the scale Beyer-Garratt be? And is anything known about the way of packaging? Will it be in one part or in three or what else? Due to its length it will certainly burst the storage space in my cupboard if supplied in one piece. Felix

Question: How does D5511 came into being? I have bought a Class 31 in plain green, numbered D5511 secondhand and would like to know if that is a faulty version or an already fixed one. Felix

Olive green was introduced in 1967 – correct me if I am wrong. So for the steam era 50s/60s modeller there are just two items left, pity. Felix

Me too. Dont forget we will receive an East Anglian Derby Lightweight with Speed Whiskers. Felix

Had to look it up, now it's clear what you mean: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/WMD Depends on the driver, maybe it's not a good idea to abbreviate it... Felix