Broadway Clive

Very simple. An Irdot from Heathcote Electronics wired to a relay that isolates the siding. (An Irdot-P can operate a solenoid to switch points) Alternatively locomotives and multiple units can be fitted with magnets to work reed switches in place of the Irdot. I have several remote and 'hard to see' fiddle yard sidings that simply have a cut rail wired with a diode to halt the shunting locos I keep there to remove stock from arriving trains. Obviously if you are wanting to halt completely uncontrolled trains running at express speeds then you'll need to drop the speed before then - cut rails with resistors being the roughest and cheapest way, but Heathcote and others can supply modules to decelerate.

Very sad indeed - a few seconds either way and it might never have happened. Certainly a bad omission in the rule book not to cover it though. However, it must have been obvious the loco was 'live', so maybe he mistakenly thought the other driver had seen him. In the darkness anyone inside a lit cab is very visible from outside, but reflections often make it much harder to see out. Back in my sixties spotting days I remember a shed permit for York being cancelled following a lad being killed inside by a new class 20 the previous day. Many in the coach party were quite cross about it but we were able to visit again later in the year as the culture then was somewhat different and people were expected to take responsibility for their own actions.

Does that chassis have a conventional motor or a coreless?

Identification of train types can be obtained by attaching magnets positioned north/south, and left, right, centre, similarlto how its been done for switching junctions on the Faller car system. But I think you are in danger of unnecessarily complicating matters if you have too many types. Performance of individual trains was often varied, particularly in the steam era.

A simple and cheap way to switch points without the need for diagrams, panels and lever frames are these miniature micro push buttons I bought recently on Ebay at just £2.32 for 100. Measurements are 6mm x 6mm x 6mm, and they're spring loaded 'push to make' and easily hidden on the layout as seen in this photo. They were bought in this instance to operate points in a yard at the far end of a loop and save me getting up every time!

Whilst London is struggling with an epidemic of knife crime, much of it connected to gangs and drug dealing, Lambeth council in a notorious area of South London has targeted this famous hobby shop known to many of us. A covert under 18 age investigator bought a kit of tools containing a knife and now they've been heavily fined! https://www.wandsworthguardian.co.uk/news/18184395.ian-allan-book-model-shop-fined-thousands-selling-knife-teen/?ref=fbshr&fbclid=IwAR1iRR-tegRkdW1TPS6FjS2pl9Q0ULpO74vlAfek1kusqf3PJK1JFdjPFD4

Beautifully produced video as usual Paul. Trouble with sound on steam for me is that it draws my attention to the lack of smoke and steam, especially on starting and shunting. Can't say I noticed the flickering fire in any of its incarnations - rather like I never did when I was spotting them. That and the brown cab floor and the grey and red lines carefully picked out between the frames all seem a bit ridiculous to me - but perhaps it might be a 'boring' loco to some without them!

Simply incorrect. It's a development in the progression of model railways and that progress is usually driven forward by the manufactures. I'm sorry if the current developments don't suit your own personal desires but sometimes, not just in model railways, change is forced upon us. I rarely see many clockwork locos being run at exhibitions nowadays. I'm not incorrect, its the reason Dave Jones gave when he announced in MRE that all his DJM models would be having coreless motors. And its not just my 'personal desires' that are not suited by their use, its all analogue DC users, and everyone who has invested in the DCC decoders that cant be adjusted for coreless. Better that people who care about diversity in the hobby speak up now, because the sure way to have change forced upon us is to keep quiet and think its inevitable, or not care because it doesn't effect 'me' - yet!

Not so sure this is true. I still have the emails from Bachmann and Gaugemaster and a letter from Bachmann and there was no mention of blanking plugs at all. Gaugemaster commented that they had recently become aware of problems with recent Bachmann sockets so it could be that they differed from others.

I've thought about hardwired decoders but my understanding is that coreless motors will demand different settings so that would make it impracticable for my layout which is semi-automatic and where I do not always know, or even want to know, what loco is on what train. My feedback controllers are Gaugemaster HHs and one KPC switchable, and the oldest locos are some split chassis Bachmanns. I've an 'On tracks' feedback controller on order to experiment with, but unfortunately production of other DC feedback controllers seems to have been stymied by the bigger money to be made out of DCC. There are designs that would work, and also operate some features of decoder fitted locos, but unless one builds them one's self then they don't seem currently available to purchase. I imagine some big players prefer it that way and dont care about analogue DC users. The fitting of coreless motors has simply come about in order to squeeze in more gizmos and bigger speakers for DCC and its notable that both Dave Jones of DJM and the designer of this new J72, are N scale enthusiasts, which is where the idea originated. Its funny your valuing feedback as a feature in DCC because in 2005 when I had problems caused by Bachmann's first decoder sockets, their service department denied it was possible and suggested I ditch my feedback controllers because 'real trains do slow down and speed up with gradients'! Even their MD at the time defended their stance but his letter in referring to the business opportunities of DCC did rather suggest that was their priority, whatever the truths were. Later, after others complained, they quietly invented blanking plates for their sockets. So my feeling is that they probably prefer to keep quiet about their fitting of coreless motors so as not to inhibit sales, and that they anticipate many dissatisfied analogue 'newbies' and 'old duffers' will just blame themselves and become shamed into buying a lot of new DCC stuff!

I remember Dave Jones making a similarly confident prediction on the demise of non coreless motors in MRE's 'Have your say' several years ago, but since then of course it is DJM itself that has disappeared! I remember well the animosity towards analogue users back then and I was hoping it had abated, but maybe not. Is it really so unreasonable to want to use feedback controllers to maintain a steady speed and replicate the inertia of a full size train?

Yes it definitely has a coreless motor as the designer told Andy in a video interview a year or so ago. Terrible jerkiness on Gaugemaster HF handheld with feedback and also on my Kent Panel Controls handheld - but improved by operating the feedback cut-out button. But I need feedback controllers as I run trains semi automatically and they keep the speed steady despite unavoidable gradients caused by loft timbers. I wonder if anyone could fit a conventional motor in the damn thing. Second thoughts are that maybe the flickering fire or other electronics is interrupting feedback and causing the problem, as I had similar troubles when the first DCC sockets were fitted by Bachmann several years ago on the then new K3 and Ivatt 2-6-0 'flying pig'. At that time I cured it by cutting them out and rewiring direct to the motor.

As the link between the class 21s and the Hither Green re-railing exercise offered by adb968008 has been discredited I searched for another. The great new book on the NBL type 2 classes 21 and 29 by Anthony Sayer (fantastic piece of work, mate!) has a photo of the event with the caption 'Lukas Demonstration'. It just so happens that this is a German company still producing re railing equipment and other hydraulic products today. So there is a potential link via NBL's German engineering associates to the Scottish Region authorities that could have enabled the latter to offer D6122 to that event in the South of England. https://rerailing.lukas.com/

But are you seriously saying the only out of service vehicle available to the SR with Commonwealth style bogies in October 1967 was this particular locomotive? That was patently not the case even when considering the other redundant class 21s! But your reasoning may well have substance as quite often with cover ups someone takes advantage of an opportunity that presents itself, and that is a more plausible explanation than pure chance as to why D6122 (aka D6121) became the only one to be disposed of outside of Scotland. In mid October 1967 the decision was taken to halt further modification expenditure on the class 21s and straight away this loco is away and into Barry scrapyard by the time the National Traction Plan is published in November 1967!

But if one is too concerned about avoiding a certain conclusion then objectivity can get lost! I've bought Anthony Sayers's excellent book on the North British class 21 and 29 in which every single member of the class is pictured and chronicled and I recommend others to do the same. There is a great deal more evidence he brings to the D6121/2 discussion but I wont spoil it by divulging here. Suffice to say I agree that the evidence supports an identity swap beyond all reasonable doubt. As for a motivation to swap identities he points to the trial between a newly overhauled D6122 with its MAN engine and D6123 with new Paxman Ventura engine, that was interrupted by the accident to the former. Transferring the overhauled MAN engine to D6121 and renumbering it to D6122 had the benefit of allowing the trial to continue smoothly without confusion. My own observation is that it would also avoid NBL claiming the trial had been compromised - something that might be significant if the BTC tried to claim compensation from them, as I believe they once intended. Finally, the disposal of one of the pair all the way to Hither Green for a week's re-railing exercise and the associated trip to Barry scrap yard would also need explanation if it were not simply to prevent the swap being discovered. The cab swap theory is also unlikely because it would have needed all four cabs to be swapped in order to get both ends matching with regards to the eyebrow vents.

Unfortunately the Caboose product isnt similar to the points levers that were seemingly most used on BR and LT, which I believe to be known as a Williams. My solution here is to have a cosmetic representation above the board and use Peco traditional points motor bases underneath, connected by rod from the drive hole and using the slider to pull and push. On boards where this is not possible I use a bent metal spike tool as a 'portable points lever' and engage it in the centre hole to change points. Having worked on LT and engaged in a bit of shunting in depots there I find it more enjoyable to operate points in a 'hands on' way if representing manually operation.

Alternatively, for sale, 3D printed by a fellow enthusiast. https://www.shapeways.com/product/6PCQP7HSN/lu-trip-cock-levers?optionId=56596930&li=shops

Speak for yourself, I've had a vasectomy!

If people were more rational and genuine in concern about damage to the planet then the rapid and never ending growth in the human population and over consumption would be the main issues (too much motherhood and apple pie)! The global population has already doubled in my lifetime and is forecast do so again, but here we have people worrying about model railway packaging FFS! The UK population alone has grown by 8 million in the last two decades yet people will blame everything and everyone else as we creak under the strain of overcrowding and shortages of housing, and other essential infrastructure and services.

Further to the above, the Piccadilly and possibly the Central ceased uncoupling from 21.3.60, and the Northern and Bakerloo ceased from 26/3/61. The Northern City Line ceased uncoupling in 10/64, having used two car Standard stock trains, off peak, comprising driving motor and control trailer. This being the only scheduled use of these control trailers driven in passenger service since the practise was discontinued in the 1930s - a useful fact for modellers who might otherwise be tempted!

I have a District and Piccadilly lines timetable for 1959 which also shows some 6 car Q stock trains being brought up to 8 cars for the peaks. 7 car standard stock trains, 7 car 1938 and 7 car 1956 stock trains were reduced to 4 cars off peak by uncouping 3 cars to sidings on Mondays to Fridays and Sundays. The 3 car 1938 stock units contained an uncoupling non driving motor car at the inner end (no cab, just shunting controls behind a panel at the car end). I believe the 3 car standard stock comprised a control trailer at the inner end, whereas the 1956 stock would have normal driving motor cars at both ends.

By the time I started on LT at the end of 1964 off peak uncoupling was confined to the District Line where some R stocks were reduced from 8 cars to 6 cars after the morning peak, then increased in time for the evening. On the Metropolitan the A stock was worked as 8 cars apart from two 4 car trains on the Chesham shuttle and some 4 car workings on Sundays, whilst on Central 4 car 1962 stock would sometimes substitute for the 1935 and 1960 units on the Woodford and Ongar shuttles.

I dont know if this has been discussed earlier but it appears from the description on the Accurascale website that the model will have a 'stay alive' capacity of up to ten seconds. I'm wondering if this will be operative in analogue DC as that would be a first in RTR and had been thought impossible until we saw the amazing Hornby 48DS modified by Paul Chetter (RM Web and current Hornby Magazine). However, I have slight reservations:- will feedback controllers and HF track cleaners be compatible with the Accurascale version of this feature? For those relying on track isolations to prevent collisions and enable automatic stopping, a 10 second 'stay alive' could be disastrous (!) so will it be possible to reduce that to a fraction of a second or disconnect it completely?

I have found this very inspirational and tempting, but as an analogue user with a rather large loft layout that gets only intermittent use I find Relco high frequency track cleaners invaluable. I understand that they are usually fatal to DCC decoders, so is that still the case with the Zimo? My three HF cleaners are switchable but I cant guarantee I would not forget to turn them all off or ever get a link across a section boundary. One other foreseeable problem is the feedback controllers I use to keep speed steady around curves and gradients, though I could avoid those by confining Zimo use to shunting in one of the yards.

Simply apply Johnsons old Klear, or new Pledge. Its water based, can be applied in thin coats until the required gloss is achieved, and can be removed with ammonia.