Dungrange

My attention has just been brought to this thread, which I missed at the time despite the time that I spend on this site. As the current secretary of the Edinburgh and Lothians MRC, I can confirm that we are still looking for alternative premises, preferably in Edinburgh, although have not yet been given formal notice to quit. As such, we remain at our current premises in Piershill for the time being. I suppose that we are relatively lucky to have had our current workshop since 1998 but despite the uncertainty about the club's future I'm hopeful that we can find somewhere suitable before we are actually asked to leave. We are just working on the basis that that may be sooner rather than later. We have the same problem that many clubs have - we can't really afford a full commercial rent, so whilst there are plenty of nice industrial units around, we generally can't afford them. If anyone is aware of any unused space in Edinburgh, I'd be interested if they can let me know. The club is currently active in both 4mm scale (00 and 00-9) and 7mm scale (0 and 0-16.5) and is open to new members of all abilities who have an interest in model railways. Work is nearing completion on the club’s latest as yet unnamed 00 layout, which has been designed to be used as an extension to another layout, ‘Glendevon’. There is a thread about this on RMWeb. The intention is that this can be used as either an extension to 'Glendevon' (as originally planned) or in the future as a standalone layout once we build another fiddle yard. A new 00-9 layout is currently at the planning stages and we hope to start construction later in the year. Any prospective members are welcome to contact me either on here or through our website.

I agree that a 100 m wire run is unusually long for most of us. The layout that I'm constructing will be about 15' by 8', which means if I were to run a single pair of bus wires around the perimeter of the layout such that the far end were to terminate inches from where it starts at the command station, it would be just 92' or 28 m in length (14 m feed and 14 m return). Using the figure of 36.8 Ohms per kilometre, that means that the maximum resistance of a 28 m 16/0.2 DCC bus on my layout would be just 1.03 Ohms and mounting the command station centrally the resistance to each half would be just half that. I've established that to shut down my command station, I need a trip current above 5.5 Amps, which means at a track voltage of 14 Volts, I need the resistance to be less than 2.5 Ohms. It therefore seems that a 16/0.2 bus wire would be more than adequate for my purposes with regards criteria 1 (the short circuit scenario). The problem is that I'm not sure what to add to the specification for the resistance of connections between wires (eg rail to track feed and track feed to DCC bus) and that is probably why some people potentially over-specify the DCC bus. It's easier to 'beef up' the bus than minimise the resistance of the joins. I've only bought 2.5 mm2 wire because that's what some others seem to use. I guess the uncertainty lies with the more open ended question of what sort of voltage drop is acceptable and how does one calculate that? If the total resistance of my wiring (bus, droppers, track and joins) to the far end of my layout is say 2 Ohms (ie it will meet the short circuit criteria) and the locomotive that is operating there draws 0.5 Amps under load, am I correct in assuming that the voltage drop at that location will be 1 Volt (ie 0.5 Amps x 2 Ohms), which is less than 10 percent of the nominal 14 Volt track output, in which case I can say that this is acceptable? Obviously if I want a voltage drop of just five percent (0.7 Volts) then I either need a locomotive that draws a lower current (eg 0.35 Amps) or I need to reduce the resistance of the wiring (to 1.4 Ohms) or a combination of the two. Increasing the bus specification would seem to be the easiest way to reduce that resistance, although shortening the droppers would obviously also help.

There's no such thing as 'scale time'. All we scale is distance, which is 1:76.2 if we are modelling in 4mm scale. However, we don't all have the space to produce a true scale model and often selectively compress distances. You can also selectively compress time in the same way. That is, you can cut out the pauses between train movements or even run the train a little slower so that it takes about the correct amount of time to cover our compressed distance. However, since the distance is rarely compressed uniformly, it really is just a case of what looks right is right. There is no magic formula to 'scale time' despite what some may try and argue.

I agree with the above opinions, especially that the hotel looks like it may have predated the railway, in which case the road that it originally fronted onto may have changed as a result of the coming of the railway. I also agree that the second picture looks more visually pleasing, so that's what I'd go with if it were me. However, it's up to you to select the orientation that you think best.

Yes, you will need insulated rail joiners in both rails at the position you have marked with a question mark. You also need to feed the points from the 'toe' end, which means in the top part of your diagram, the feed labelled 'X' at the top right will have to be moved to the left of the rightmost point.

DCC allows you to set momentum characteristics that are applied to the chip, which means that you can't go from 0-60 in a fraction of a second. I only have two DCC chips, but both are coded such that even if you whack the speed up to full, the locomotive will move off slowly and accelerate for some time before it reaches full speed. You can of course set these configuration variables to zero (ie instantaneous response) if you want to continue high G force operation, but I'm not sure what impact that would have on a sound project if using DCC sound.

Don't ignore inflation. Even if inflation was to be a relatively low four percent per annum throughout your retirement, prices will double over about 18 years and quadruple over 36 years, which is how long your retirement might last. That's not a major concern if you are fortunate enough to have an inflation protected final salary scheme, but if relying on the purchase of an annuity from a defined contribution pot it's worth factoring inflation into your calculations. I suppose the other thing to consider is your spouse or partner. Many schemes will pay a spouse's pension at 50 percent of the rate that you are entitled to. Will your spouse or partner be adequately catered for in the event of your death? It's true that some of your expenditure will fall once you give up work (such as commuting costs) but these may be replaced by additional costs over and above your increase in gas and electricity. You'll have additional free time, so will you go on holiday more often? Your 2011 holiday expenditure may have to be factored up. Also, do you intend to take up any additional hobbies in your free time? If you decide to take up golf as a way of remaining active then you'll have green fees that you didn't have whilst you were working and felt you didn't have the time to make golf worthwhile. How much DIY did you do in 2011 that you may need to pay someone else to do when you become less able? That said, it sounds like you probably have enough to provide yourself with the standard of living that you currently enjoy, so I see no reason not to retire if it's what you want.

If there is, it doesn't look like they have found this thread. I've not reached that stage in life yet, being just 48, and my intended retirement age has drifted up from 55 to 58 to 60 to 62, which is what I currently think is probably a realistic target for the moment. I certainly intend to retire before I reach the State retirement age of 67 (or 68 if it changes again). However, although not quite the same, due to stress and a period of depression I changed from being a full time worker (40 hours per week) to a part-time worker (32 hours per week) about four years ago and I haven't regretted that change. My gross salary dropped by 20 per cent, but because it was the higher taxed part of my income that I was losing, the net decrease in my take home pay was less. It also means that I'm available one day per week to take the kids to school and pick them up afterwards, which means a reduction in childcare costs. What was originally intended to be a short term reduction in working hours has become permanent and I can now no longer see me going back to work full-time. However, with a better 'work - life balance' I think I'll manage to stick the next 12 -15 years in the workplace. There's always the option of going to a three day week in another decade. As others have said, I think the key is to ensure that you can afford to pay all the bills that you envisage having (acknowledging that these will rise over time) and then go for it. If you can eliminate the financial insecurity, then I'm not sure that I see any downsides.

I think the problem is, how many of us actually know a statistically representative sample of "active UK modellers". I've seen the figure of a 60/40 split in favour of DCC before and looking at layouts in an exhibition hall and reading magazine articles, that would seem a reasonable estimate, but I've no idea how representative that subset of modellers is of the market as a whole . All I can add is that DCC is much less popular in the club that I am a member of. We currently have about 25 members, of which I'd say only two (ie eight percent) are committed DCC users (ie everything they own has a DCC chip in it). One of these members is also a member of MERG. There is about four of us (ie 16 percent), including myself, who are moving in that direction (ie I now have a DCC command station and a couple of chipped units, but most of my stock is still at this point in time DC). The rest (around three quarters of club members) are all still exclusively DC users. For that reason all of our club layouts are still DC controlled. I think some of our members would consider switching to DCC if the club had a DCC layout for them to run stock on, but equally some have no interest in DCC. Their reasons for sticking with DC include cost, but also because some already have a DC layout at home and a large collection of kit built locomotives and they simply see no benefit in changing at the point that they are at in life. However, I agree that the switch from DC to DCC will continue for the hobby as a whole.

Thanks - that sounds a much better way of testing the resistance and gives the resistance of the return and feed including dropper wires in a single reading.

Out of interest, what is the correct way to measure resistance using a multi-meter? I'm assuming that it is in parallel with the circuit (as per measuring voltage)? That is, I need one probe at the output from the command station and the other on the rail head to measure the combined resistance of the bus and dropper between the command station and pick up. I would then do the same between the other rail and other command station output and add these together to give me the combined resistance of the feed and return paths. Do many people actually check the resistance of their bus wires?

I can't comment on how well Xuron cutters cut 0 gauge rail as I model in 00. With regards track panel lengths for you era, it will depend on the company and location. I think each of the big four adopted a 60' standard at some point in the inter-war era, but they would have started upgrading the mainlines first and just as some bullhead track survives in sidings to this day, 30' and 45' panels were probably around on many sidings and branch lines all the way through to nationalisation. A post in https://www.lner.info/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10505 suggests that the LNER adopted a 60' standard panel for new works from 1928. How long it took to cascade these down to lesser lines, I don't really know. Therefore, to answer you question, it could be either - unless of course you are modelling the Great Western Railway which I understand had 32' track panels and 44'6" track panels before the move to 60' track panels - see https://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3809. Sadly a simple question doesn't always have a simple answer.

What's your time period? 45' panels were used by some companies in pre-grouping days, but 60' would have been the norm in more recent times before the introduction of continuously welded rail.

Is it really the "voltage drop" in the DCC bus that we are trying to minimise? I understand that this is what we want under normal operating conditions, where most of the potential difference from the command station will be dropped across the load (ie the locomotive) and very little should be dropped across the length of the DCC bus to ensure that our 12v motor can in fact be provided with 12v at the far end of a layout. However, if the critical test is that the booster shuts down when we have a short circuit, is it not minimising the resistance of the DCC bus that is the critical design parameter? Perhaps I don't fully understand the 'coin test' but I think what this does is remove a relatively high resistance load (a locomotive) and replace it with a load of negligible resistance (a coin). When this short circuit occurs, the command station will still have a potential difference of around 14V across it's output terminals that are connected to the track, but instead of this being dropped across our locomotive, it now has to be dropped across the length of the DCC bus between the command station and wherever we have placed the coin. Looking at the User Manual for my command station, it is designed to trip at 5.5 Amps, which means that for a short circuit to be detected, I would need the total resistance of the circuit between the output terminals on the command station to be less than 2.5 Ohms (14 volts / 5.5 Amps). If the resistance of the wiring is greater than this, then the current won't reach the critical 5.5 Amps that would be necessary to cause the booster to shutdown. This therefore implies to me that it is the resistance under a short circuit scenario that matters more than the potential voltage drop under normal operating conditions. This seems to indicate that it is not desirable to have a DCC command station with a high current output (eg 5 Amps) that is not fed through a number of lower rated circuit breakers, since the whole purpose of fuses and circuit breakers is that these would be the 'weak points' in the circuit; breaking the flow of current before damage is done elsewhere. I guess that this means that there is a trade off between the cost of fitting additional lower current rated power districts relative to the cost of the damage that may be done by a relatively high current flowing, but which is not high enough to cause a shutdown of the DCC system. Obviously it's time to look at intermediate circuit breakers.

Thanks - that's a good point, which I have to admit I had overlooked. I guess the key point is that there is no 'correct' bus wire for all DCC layouts as it depends on the size of the layout (and the amperage of the command station). The larger the layout, the larger the DC bus wire should be. I'm assuming that since Voltage (V) is the product of the Current (I) and the Resistance (R) the voltage drop (delta V) is a function of the current actually being drawn by the locomotive (say 0.5 Amps) rather than the 5 Amps that the DCC system can provide. On that basis I can see why voltage drop wouldn't be a big issue under normal operation. If the locomotive is closer to the DCC command station, the resistance will be lower and with a limited number of locomotives, so will the current draw. Does that therefore mean that the wiring should be designed for the "fault current" rather than the capacity of the Booster? That is, instead of saying "I have a 5 Amp booster" and using 5 Amps to determine suitable wiring, I should seek to find out at what current draw the command station or circuit breaker shuts down. I'm assuming that a 5 Amp system doesn't necessarily shut down at 5.01 Amps?

Are you saying, if I have a 5 Amp DCC system, a layout that is 100 ft long and I don't want a voltage drop of more than 1 volt along the length of the layout, then I should be looking for wire with a total resistance of 0.2 ohms (1 volt / 5 Amps)? This would therefore mean that I should be choosing bus wire with a resistance of 2 ohms per 1,000 feet, which based on the table RobjUK posted above means the DCC bus should be 12 AWG. Based on the table Gordon H posted above, this would have a cross sectional area of 3.32 mm2 and should be rated at 34 Amps. Is that correct (ignoring the issue of higher resistance on the droppers and at soldered joints)? I guess what I'm not clear of here is what is the "maximum tolerable voltage drop at the load" and how should that figure be calculated? My proposed layout won't even 50 feet in length and my intended bus wire is multi-core wire that is around 2.5 mm2, so I'm not anticipating issues personally, but it would be good to better understand the rational behind the selection of particular cross-sections.

I guess there is always the risk that the decoder has been hardwired into the locomotive by its owner, in which case you'll need to do more than just fit a blanking plate. However, if it is a modern DCC ready locomotive that has had a decoder fitted by its owner into a pre-installed socket, then yes, you just need a planking plate for the correct interface, whether that is 8-pin or 21-pin format.

It's unlikely to be another road junction on the M42 as I suspect that the existing junction spacing is substandard or at least close to the minimum spacing in the design standards - ideally they should be about 2 km apart. I think it's more likely to be some of the enabling works for HS2, which is to include a number of structures over the M42 - see https://highwaysengland.co.uk/regions/all-regions/?postcode=&keywords=&roads=M42&status= That said, I'm not entirely familiar with the area.

Well, I suppose that's a good point. Do we all understand and use these buttons in the same way? The answer is probably no. I would tend to reserve the 'Craftsmanship/Clever' button for what I see as a high standard of modelling or an ingenious solution to a problem. I suppose I could claim it's a high class of 'Like'. For a well written informative post, I would tend to use the 'Informative/Useful' button. That is a sort of thanks for sharing type comment: ie it has probably taught me something that I didn't know or given me something to think about.

Well I've hit the 'Agree' button a few times in this thread. As a reader of threads on RMWeb, I hate the pointless 'me too', 'wow' and 'thanks for posting' type posts. I dislike revisiting a thread that I've contributed to in the past simply to discover that the new post says nothing more than 'nice modelling'. I just think, could you not have hit the 'Like' button instead! What I would like to see is a well crafted original post followed by a number of well crafted or at least relevant follow on posts that add to the conversation or body of information. That is, I'd like threads to be a future reference source that are not cluttered up with pointless comments of agreement between the more valuable posts. With that in mind, I therefore read posts and if I don't have a question that I want to ask, I don't have any new information to contribute and don't have an interesting statement or observation that I feel able to make, but I either agree with the sentiment of the post or admire the craftsmanship that has been displayed, then I will tend to use the various 'Like' buttons. If I feel that I have something worthwhile to contribute, then I will do so, irrespective of whether or not there was a like button. As such, I personally don't have any issue with the 'Like' button and see it as a non-verbal form of communication in the same way as a 'nod' or a 'smile' in a physical conversation. I'll leave you to decide whether or not this particular post adds anything to the discussion.

Is that some of each pack being produced, or just one variant?

The URL works for me to, but I think the issues is that when you click on download it comes back with the 403 Forbidden error.

How long did they last in this livery,or perhaps when did CPL stop using rail?

Have you tried simply e-mailing customerservices.uk@Hornby.com?

I'm no expert on tank wagons, but I agree with Royaloak that the three reference photographs in the original post seem to represent three different wagons that have nothing in common with one another bar their TOPS code. I also agree with Jack374 that I'm not sure there is a big enough market to model all variations of large bogie tank wagons of which there are numerous detail differences within each TOPS code. Whilst it is nice to be able to represent variation in a rake, with models from Bachmann, RevolutioN and a forthcoming offering from Cavalex, which all represent different prototypes, I suspect that there isn't a substantial enough market to justify the tooling costs for another new model. I have some of both the Bachmann and RevolutioN models and I am contemplating getting a triple pack of the Cavalex TEAs but I think it would be fair to say that would probably be enough for me and having bought a rake from RevolutioN, I'm unlikely to buy any more than the odd wagon from anyone else to provide a bit of variety.