Manxcat

Tony, I was wrong, sorry. It was indeed the Semi. I can now reply to the question with confidence. Archie

Good Evening Tony, A gentleman who has viewed my video of LB has asked a question to which I do not know the answer(s). Perhaps you could be kind enough to enlighten me please so that I can answer his query. You will recall that you had just completed construction of a "Prinny" which was still unpainted but which you ran round a couple of circuits for me to film. The question is in two parts, namely who makes the kit and what did you name and number the loco? Many Thanks, Archie

I don't mind at all Rob. That's a lot better. Thanks. The weathering was Value Medium.

This beauty arrived on Monday from TMC who supplied and weathered it for me. It is superb. I will add real coal, lamps and a crew and fit the brake rod assembly which is supplied with the loco. This is actually the first RTR loco I have bought where one of the names I wanted was one of those manufactured. I did not photograph on my layout because its in the garage and its freezing tonight.

Tony, Your wish is my command! Archie

Good Evening Tony, I thought you might be interested to know that the video I made of Little Bytham in June 2019, and which I posted on my YouTube channel, has now had 13,672 views. Thank you for letting me publish it. Archie

Checking through some photos on my external hard drive yesterday I happened across several short video clips of my last but one layout Fairhaven Road. I have edited these together to make the video below which I uploaded to my YouTube channel. I made everything on the layout myself apart from the RTR rolling stock and a couple of ready to plant buildings. Those buildings were modified before planting, even if only being re-painted to a more appropriate weathered finish. I fitted all the semaphore signal lamps with amber surface mounting LEDs. When shining through the red or blue spectacle plates this gave an excellent red or green aspect. This does not, unfortunately show up too well in the video because they are not filmed head on so I have added a couple of stills below to show the effect. Spot the SPAD in the video when it first opens due to operator error while I filmed !! The video is from the Bonnybridge Model Railway Club show in, I think, 2014. I was pleased to exhibit it without barriers since I have found in those circumstances people love to come very close but respect the model enough never to touch it. In saying that, we were not in the main hall and footfall through the room was less than elsewhere in the hall. I was very delighted when the layout was awarded the cup for Best Scottish Image Layout. Elements of my layout have improved since 2014 because of Tony. I now have all locos lamped and crewed and tail lamps on all trains. Tony has mentioned his dislike of gimmicks. In the video you can spot at least two. These are the life painting class at the rear of the art college and the broken down car with a serious engine fault and with the AA attending. You have to wait till close to the end for the latter. I have a wedding but it is at the hotel, not the church. Some years later I took the layout to Model Rail Scotland where Tony was the judge of the layout class for layouts exhibited by member clubs of the then Association of Model Railway Societies in Scotland. He awarded me the first prize. That really was the icing on the cake of the sense of satisfaction it gave me to design, construct and operate Fairhaven Road. Archie

Tony, Does that mean that ModelU sell "you"?

When I was about 18 (which was 45 years ago) I was an avid GWR modeller and embarked upon my first OO gauge layout called Hatton Heath. It was very basic but I enjoyed building and running it and it even appeared at two exhibitions on behalf of our club, Glasgow & West of Scotland MRC. One day, quite out of the blue, Scottish Television contacted me to say that they had an afternoon magazine programme and they had decided to do an item about a model railway. They had contacted a Glasgow model railway shop, namely the Clyde Model Dockyard under the Glasgow Central Station Bridge, to get details of any clubs in the city and had been given our name. They asked if we could bring a layout and I said I would bring my own but it would need another two people to set up and operate. They were happy with this and said that on the day of the live broadcast they would send a van to transport it to the studio. When that day arrived we helped load the van and followed it to the studio. STV employees insisted only they could unload the van, which was fine by us, and we were taken into the studio to watch them bring in the boards and all the other bits and pieces. At that point they left us alone in the massive space and we erected the layout and tested it. A short time later a runner arrived to say we were going to the green room for lunch with the presenters and other guests. Imagine my surprise to be seated opposite Rula Lenska and beside Brough Scott. On return to the studio a make up artist then came and applied the necessary face powder to all three of us. A camera rehearsal started at that point and the floor manager suggested a shot of me operating the control panel might be good. Here's a less than good picture of the panel in my then bedroom. In the end the director ruled that this would not be a good idea because I had to stand in front of it, it was behind the layout and getting a camera behind the layout without it being seen by the cameras at the front would be almost impossible. One of my fellow club members was chosen to be the one the presenter spoke to and when the programme started and it was our turn, off we went. Running was great and everything went smoothly. A short time later the floor manager whispered to me that they wanted the closing shot for the show to be of a train arriving at the station. We set up a passenger train just appearing out of the fiddle yard and waited. On cue I started it running having double and triple checked that all the points were correctly set, the signals were off and, crucially, that all track sections were turned on. The closing credits music was audible in the studio and having heard it previously I knew I was going to be able to make the train stop at the buffers just as it finished, if I drove accordingly. The camera was panning along with the train as it approached the final track section, a 10 inch piece of track just after the loco release crossover point. The loco stopped dead, abruptly, and the camera panned on for a split second before jolting back to the loco. Investigation revealed that when the switch for that section had been moved to energise the track it had broken inside and no power was able to flow. Despite that fly in the ointment, and despite the fact that many layouts have appeared on TV, I am happy to be one of only a handful of modellers who can say that my layout was taken to a TV studio to be filmed in action as part on a live programme. The nice little bonus was a £30 fee for each of us for agreeing to appear. Today that would be around £190. Not bad for a few hours work. Archie

Mine. A place for everything and (almost) everything in its place. Most recent item completed, a small wiring loom lying on the cutting mat.

Here is what I am finishing 2020 with on my workbench. It is the main control panel for my latest layout. All the circles you can see on the running lines are 3mm LEDs in holders. For lines which are in the engine shed or goods yard area, and essentially not signalled, the LEDs are green and always lit. They change to show the route set according to the position of the points. Where a line is signalled I am using tri-colour LEDs which can show red, green or amber. Amber is achieved when red and green are lit at the same time. The aim is that when all the signals are at danger the routes set will be displayed in red. The red route indication will change according to the position of the points. When a signal is cleared then provided the route has been set correctly the red route will change to green until the signal is returned to danger. When a shunting signal is cleared the red route will change to amber. The green or amber route concerned will only extend as far as the cleared signal permits. Working through the logistics of it all is progressing well but taking some time. The green LEDs are 12v and do not require a resistor but both aspects of the tri-colour LEDs did require a 1k resistor. So not only did this involve wiring the common return to well over 100 LEDs but a separate resistor to the feed on each side. Regards, Archie

I have recently been told about a new type of point motor which has been receiving very good reviews and, in my humble opinion, is a great design. They can be sourced from DCC Train Automation, with whom I have no connection whatsoever, and like any other point motor can be operated direct with a DC supply or via a DCC decoder. What I like best about them is the fact that the operating wire is inserted and held vertically in the moving part of the motor which travels from side to side when operated. There is no fulcrum point, as there is with a Tortoise motor for example, so no bending of the operating wire. A simple but very effective element of the design is that once the motor is screwed to the underside of the baseboard a single screw is loosened and the wire inserted to the correct height, then the screw tightened to hold the wire in place. So no more having to cut the operating wire above the point tie bar. Should the wire not be far enough to one side at that stage then the wire holder can also be loosened and moved right or left to the exact position for optimum performance. The motor can be adjusted to give 3mm, 6mm or 9mm movement. The motor incorporates a switch for changing frog polarity if required. If you need more than one changeover switch a motor with an attached, non-electrically operated relay is also available. Have a look at the following video to see just how good the MTB M1 and M5 point motors are.

Here is a photo taken from an old 35mm slide of mine from 47 years ago which might be of interest. (Apologies for the less than perfect quality.) When I joined my local club the chairman, Ronnie Cockburn (sadly now very recently deceased) was an avid modeller of the Caledonian Railway. At his request, he had received a Hornby model of a Southern M7 as a Christmas present from his wife. She was somewhat aghast to find him, a few hours later, cutting through the front of the footplate with a modelling saw. At that time there was no kit available for the CR 439 class but a shortened version of the M7 could be made to quite closely resemble the 439. This prompted me to try the very same modification and the loco in the photo is the result of my efforts. I stripped off the SR green livery, cut and shut it, resprayed it and lined it with a bow pen. I appreciate now how much detail is missing, lamp irons, smokebox details, lamps and a crew but I did add real coal and a three link coupling. I was about 17 at the time and I was really proud of it. I sold it three years later for twice what I had paid for it! Archie

That looks great. Do please tell us how you did it and what paint you used.

The American jazz drummer, now 76 years old and real name Kenneth Rice?

A travelling salesman gets lost whilst driving in the countryside. It is getting late so when he sees a light in the distance he drives towards it and discovers a farm. He parks the car, knocks on the door of the farmhouse and explains his predicament to the farmer's wife. When he asks if he could pay to stay the night the farmer's wife says he should come in and ask her husband. The farmer listens and says "Of course you can but we only have two bedrooms, one for my wife and me and the other for my beautiful 20 year-old daughter. However, you are welcome to sleep amongst the hay in our barn and we will not even expect any payment." "Hold on" says the salesman, "don't you mean that I can stay in the second bedroom with your lovely daughter?" "Absolutely not" says the farmer, "What sort of father do you think I am?" "OH MY GOD", says the salesman, "I'm in the wrong joke!"

Good Morning Tony, Does the above mean that you still have your spotter's manuals from all those years ago? Archie

Tony, £27.50 in 1975 would be a few pence short of £222 today. Archie

Hi Martyn, We have a modeller in our club who models in T gauge. He owns a spectacular model of the Pass of Killiecrankie in T gauge and is also a member of an art club. After some very impassioned discussion he persuaded the art club to let him show the fully working layout at their annual art exhibition, because what is modelling if not art. It attracted masses of attention and they have invited it back several times since. I've been to exhibitions with it as an operator several times and often people will stop and say something like "I've been there. Look, I've been in that building.". That is, I think, the joy of modelling an actual prototype. When combined with the novelty of a T gauge layout its a good recipe for success. Regards, Archie

Good Evening Tony, I know how much you and Mo have enjoyed attending Model Rail Scotland and we are privileged to have had you as one of our layout judges. We agonised over whether the 2021 exhibition would be possible but the decision was eventually taken out of our hands, You may be aware that the SEC in Glasgow was set up as a Nightingale hospital shortly after the outbreak of the virus. The Scottish Government have extended the contract with the SEC until the end of March. Since the show is always on the last full weekend in February that made the venue unavailable. We also ruled out staging it later that year. A sad but inevitable decision which pains everyone involved and indicative of the position countrywide. Archie

Good Evening Tony, If you are to have the Viessmann solenoids replaced by servos for signal operation I urge you to consider using a Megapoints Servo Controller for their operation. A single controller board can operate 12 signals and, perhaps you may already be aware, has a "bounce" facility built into the electronics. Not only that, when the signal switch is thrown the arm moves about half way up, pauses momentarily, then completes the upward movement. I have never seen a more realistic representation of the effect when a signalman pulls the lever in the box half way out of the back of the frame then strains to move it to the full off position at the front of the frame. For me though, the best effect of using a Megapoints controller is the bounce which is built into the circuitry for when the signal is returned to the on position. There are four different bounces of varying degree and they are randomly chosen and very realistic. The facility can also be turned on and off when set up so that, for example, ground signals simply move with no bounce. There will be those who don't like the Megapoints system but have a look at some of their videos on YouTube and you may be persuaded, if you haven't seen it before. You may have seen their stand at the York show. The change to servos is the perfect time to install one as part of the upgrade. I think you recently asked that with all the point rodding now in place what more could be done to LB to make it any better. I venture to suggest to you that signals which work so much more realistically would be quite a dollop of icing on the already tremendously realistic LB cake! Archie

Two photos from my, now dismantled, layout Fairhaven Road. Just for a change, no track or rolling stock visible but still integral parts of the layout and, I hope, quite realistic. Archie

What lovely weathering.

I am reminded of a long running joke between Terry Wogan and his Radio 2 producer Dr Wally......................Tintern Abbey.....'Tis.

Tony, I was sure you had taken a steam loco driving experience. Is that not a form of operating a real railway, even though a preserved one? Archie