Budgie

6 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Were slightly tracking off topic, though, and its depressing to think, that the only manufacturer of a 4/ 5 car BR era DMU is actually Dapol... they made 2 cars of the class 124’s back in the 1990’s.

 

But the road map for DMU/EMUs is easy.. pick a prototype where two or more cars are the same or very similar tooling slides, then it comes down to being a sale of 2x number of vehicles sold for every model to reach brake even... which is.. er 1/2 that of a loco... I dont see why its not attractive.

Realtrack/Rapido follow this quite well with Pacers/156 and APTE.

 

I do think the 175/180 family is a good idea.

I think the Electrostar family is a good idea too.

On 03/02/2021 at 18:00, The Johnster said:

A bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale has been purchased in Aldi.  

I'd have thought you would go for Brains Dark.

5 hours ago, CF MRC said:

I have just got round to reading Prof Tony White’s superb and evocative article on his model engineering developments over the years. Interesting that he used ‘contrite’ gears in some of his mechanisms, which I expect showed a suitable amount of remorse when running. He probably, more likely, used ‘contrate’ gears. 

Was he a cockney? They are the ones most likely to pronounce 'contrate' as 'contrite'/

15 minutes ago, Baby Deltic said:

Therefore, what is wherefore?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wherefore

On 30/01/2021 at 23:02, Baby Deltic said:

***ERROR***  "Wherefore" does not mean "Where".

5 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

Bachmann DCC Pannier chassis anyone? (Although it may yet get re-purposed.)

Yes, please, if you're serious.

On 31/01/2021 at 14:16, Wickham Green too said:

AH ............. the good ol' days when Great Aunts were proper Great Aunts an' squirrels were proper squirrels.

Great Aunt Maria was a particularly horrible specimen, but she was in the Lake District, and so is off-topic here.

While we are on the subject of DCC, as illustrated by @Rising Standards a couple of messages back, can anyone suggest how one might go about obtaining a few printed circuit boards with the Next18 decoder socket on them. I have several ancient 57xx and 8750s that have ancient wires-only decoders fitted, and I'd like to retire those decoders and use them for other purposes, such as lighting, etc., and replace them with more modern ones such as the Zimo MX618N18.

Yesterday I had a bit of an ooh-nasty with my 94xx. It was running at step 96/128 pushing my track cleaner and pulling two coaches, when it derailed and fell four feet from the baseboard onto the floor. Three things broke: the chimney broke cleanly at the bottom of the "copper" cap (which looks more like brass to me); the left-hand front buffer, which is bent out of shape; and the front coupling assembly which broke into four parts. So I need to ask Bachmann if they can supply me with 2 spare parts: one buffer and one of those dovetail NEM pockets. A new coupling is not required as I had replaced the tension-locks with Kadee 19s, and I have a few of those in stock.

Replacing the loco on the track, I found that in all other respects it works perfectly.

4 minutes ago, Bernard Lamb said:

I was locked in a room and told that I could not come out until I came up with a suitable pun.

 

 

I said opun the door.

 

 

Bernard

Hi, Bernard.

Why is your avatar an east German flag?

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

 

Many seem so obsessed with their phones that I honestly think there's nothing they'd fear more than losing the phone, even the car.

So confiscate both. And if the miscreant complains they are not theirs, tell them that they are responsible for the value of the goods confiscated to the owner(s) thereof.

3 hours ago, rob D2 said:

there MUST be a better way to ensure people aren’t bringing it in, and why the hell wasn’t this done at the start 

There is an obvious answer to this question, but I'm likely to get banned if I bring politics into our discussions here.

Mine arrived just before lunch today. As I have a hospital appointment this afternoon, I shall defer playing with it until tomorrow.

16 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

Yes. Because it's by some bloke called Mozart.....

 

 

Based on an old European tune.

It's not by Mozart (1756-1791), as I think you know. Mozart wrote a set of twelve variations (published 1781-2) on the tune, which Wikipedia says dates from 1740, but was first published in1761.

16 minutes ago, Tankerman said:

- Why do you have to "put in your two cents worth", but it's only a "penny.for your thoughts"?

Because Americans call a 1-cent coin a penny.

On 23/01/2021 at 08:15, Zunnan said:

 

In the same vein, I'd have to look up whats running out there today. Given that the modern day railway pretty much anywhere can be represented by a class 66 and a class 150, aren't modern railways generic as a whole anyway? 

Not round here they can't. Passenger trains (which is the majority of the traffic) are all EMUs, with class 66s on the relatively few freights. No DMUs at all.

On 22/01/2021 at 01:10, Pacific231G said:

In the 1970s I built a North American H0 layout but that was the first time I ever encountered frog numbers and I'd never heard or read about any modellers using crossing angles for British prototypes, Even though I was building some of my own #6 turnouts using NMRA gauges I think I assumed that the use of crossing angles rather than radii simply reflected the different geometry of American pointwork. It certainly looked different.   

As I understand it, the first time crossing angles were applied to British track was in the Protofour series of articles in the Model Railway Constructor in the 1960s.

On 23/01/2021 at 11:50, Markn said:

Thanks. I tried the btb but they were alright. They lift off the track randomly, so I guess it's either not enough weight or not enough pressure. I'll have a sit down and experiment with it. Maybe a shim/washer on the retaining screws or something might help. I havnt weathered any locos yet, just stock and buildings. I'm building myself up to that level 

Have you tried undoing the pony truck fixing screws half a turn?

Is this any help?

7 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Not an issue for bogie stock, where there are additional degrees of freedom. In any case, the Roco type have enough "give".

Yes for bogie stock. I had that problem with Hornby's 2Bil and 2Hal units running up and down the helix on my layout. My solution was to couple them within the units with Kadee 17s with the coupler pin cut off and inserted upside down into the NEM pockets

59 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

However, they are only wholly effective when used in conjunction with coupler heads that lock rigidly together (e.g. Roco, Keen, Fleischmann Profi) or solid bars (e.g. Bachmann). Then, buffers can and should be touching when the train is on straight track. Unless, of course the prototype coaches were buckeye-coupled, in which case the buffers would be retracted. 

Coupler heads locking rigidly together are bad news, as that will result in derailments when the track twists, as it will when it curves going uphill or downhill, as in a helix. You shouldn't get buffer-locking if you only have one buffer on each coach end, and a rubbing-plate for the buffer to contact.

Quote

Tension lock couplings ... don't lock together

Oh yes they do, unless you run short trains; that's why they have the word "lock" in their name. I complained about them many times in the past when they caused derailments on my garden railway because they locked the train into a straight line and it wouldn't go round the 10-foot and larger radius curves on my garden railway.

I am looking to reproduce the SECR sets that there are photos of in "Railways of Beckenham".

How would one go about making close-coupled sets with these coaches? Obviously one would have to remove one buffer from each end (which side?) or would one remove both buffers and replace one with a shorter buffer? Then one would have to find a shorter coupling, making sure the set will go round radius 2 curves with no trouble.

Anything else?

4 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

They have done - both the non-corridor shorties and the corridor blankies appeared masquerading as Midland clerestories. (The horror! The horror!) The shorties have had a long afterlife in faux teak, as LNER ex-GER carriages but perhaps their greatest honour is to have been repainted by Peter Denny as GCR carriages.

I think Hornby ought to issue the clerestories with non-clerestory roofs, as another set of generic coaches.

On 14/01/2021 at 09:52, melmerby said:

No. That's a censer.

It would provide authentic, if unusual smelling smoke to your layout.

Before I decided that I didn't believe in all that stuff, the Catholic church called their censers thuribles.

On 13/01/2021 at 23:09, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Keith,

 

I actually quite prefer that HE still has his trousers on !!!

 

Gibbo.

Hi, all.

I'm rather surprised that he is still alive.