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It is nice to know that I have been achieving the impossible for all these years. I will back my kit built locos against any DCC running I have seen any day of the week. My latest will turn a wheel from one spoke position to the next spoke position in 20 seconds. I really don't want much slower than that. I don't know how long it would do it for as I got bored watching it after half an hour. I agree that dead slow running for long periods is not really a feature of real railway operation but it is nice to put a loco on the track and be able to do it, just for personal satisfaction as much as anything. It certainly highlights any tight spots and if they will run smoothly dead slow, they are usually OK at any speed.

That is sad and I am sorry to hear it. I hope that whoever has the layout now will carry it on to completion.

I know a chap who does radio control railways in scales from 7mm to the foot to 12" to the foot. He is visiting tomorrow and bringing a further selection of his radio controlled 7mm scale locos. He has certainly cracked the technology and is planning a garden railway free from wires, track cleaning and voltage drops. I have seen his stuff at work and it is superb. Smooth, powerful, reliable and very responsive. Mind you, he has to get the operation working well on the full size stuff.

Perhaps when we get to see this steam era layout with 50 wagon freights and expresses doing 90mph with 12 on. Until then, we are probably better off keeping off the subject. Apologies if I misunderstood your post. I thought you first sentence was about the club and the rest more general. I am still sensitive (as if!) from being called arrogant and ill informed.

I once got called "The worst luddite since Tony Wright" by no lesser person that Iain Rice. What an honour!

Look back at the problems I have had with DCC, then read that somebody with the experience of Mike Edge have had the same problems and then tell me where you perceive my "lack of confidence" and "embarrassment of lack of knowledge". I raised the problems that I was having with some of the best DCC brains in the country and the best suggestion was "A software glitch". I may be many things but a software glitch corrector ain't one of them! I am embarking on a whole new project in a different gauge and scale and I could start afresh with DCC. The lack of confidence is in the technology, not my ability. If I hadn't seen these unexplained problems and the layout I work on was OK with no problems, I would be considering going DCC. I may yet fit chips and a switch so that locos can be one or the other, so I can run them on layouts that are DCC fitted. The only things stopping me going DCC are that I have seen too many things go wrong and the cost. I would need to purchase the decoders and a DCC control system. Not cheap and not good value for me especially when I have locos and DC controllers that work perfectly well and do just what I want them to do. I am not anti technology. I am a member of MERG and I enjoy making up printed circuit boards, testing them and getting them to work servos, point motors etc. I know plenty of people who use DCC and at least one who uses radio control (which seems far superior than DCC as a concept and in the lack of "glitches) so I certainly don't dismiss them but they are not for me.

Where does that leave those who have tried both, who are involved with layouts that have both and yet still prefer DC? Are we arrogant and ill informed too? I am sorry but this thread has been conducted in a very polite and well thought out way. We really don't need it to descend into using those sorts of terms. If you like DCC with sound, by all means explain why you do and perhaps even try to persuade some of us who don't like it to think again but calling us arrogant and ill informed just because we don't agree with you is just not how we do things on Wright writes (I hope!).

Absolutely. Which is why I expressed my views as my personal preferences rather than something that we should all do. I have had the great pleasure of operating some "big name" layouts over the years, of all types. The two biggest crowds I have ever had round a layout at shows were with Leighton Buzzard the first time we took it out and with "Gresley Beat". You couldn't get two more different styles of layout. To me, one is a layout designed for operation, the other is designed for running trains. Having a layout at home that is so intricate and interesting to operate that I have friends round twice a week for a 3 hour session is a lovely part of the hobby for me. If I had a Gresley Beat at home rather than Buckingham, I am not sure that we would be enjoying those sessions and still be finding new ways of carrying out moves after 4 years as I know that it would not hold our interest over that much operating. I have friends who enjoy all aspects of the hobby, from collecting Hornby Dublo to scratchbuilding everything. Some enjoy operating and some do not. As long as they are enjoying themselves, that is all that matters.

I have often thought the same. On a layout like Little Bytham, or anything similar, like Stoke Summit, Charwelton or Retford, you can have any number of superb, finely detailed locos that spend 99% of their time in a fiddle yard. They tear round the layout at a scale speed appropriate to an express and are gone. So they are on show for less than a minute. Were they RTR, did they have the right sort of wheels, or did they even have brakes modelled? Only a still photo will tell you. Yet the ancient 0-6-0 that brings round the pick up goods and potters about for a while in the yard is visible for maybe 20 times longer. It is one of the reasons I have always preferred a terminus station as a model. You get to see the star loco backing off shed onto the train, it can stay at the platform end for a while and then it gets the signal and off she goes, accelerating away. When she returns later in the sequence, the pilot removes the stock and your star loco backs onto the shed and stays there, on view, even doing a flashy, show off spin on the turntable. Your stock can either stay in the platform or go to a carriage siding but it can stay on view to be admired in detail. Of course you can't just set a train running and watch it go round and round but the properly operated layouts don't have that sort of thing anyway.

I am very glad to hear that the Bulldog is doing what we hoped. I think the there may be a bit of room in the firebox for some more lead if needed. The two screws front and back of the frames will release the body but take care not to lose the brass tube sleeve that the bogie pivot runs on (I can't remember if i soldered it on!). I look forward to seeing here lettered and plated some time. Cheers, Tony

I have written some of those long posts. Can you enlighten me as to which incorrect assumptions I may have made? Everything I have written has been based on real experience of actual problems. I have had more problems that I don't know how to sort out in my two year involvement with a DCC layout than in my previous 40 plus years working with DC.

It happens, not when the layout is switched on but during normal running. You set of a loco at a nice sensible speed and it runs like that for so long, then takes off, then slows down. As for setting the chip to not work on DC, I don't have a clue. If I can do it with a big hammer, I will have a go. If it involves altering CVs with a handset with English as a language and a book that shows me all the screen shot read outs in German, forget it! If some chips work with some systems and not others, then that is a serious flaw in the whole DCC concept unless people are given proper information when they purchase things.

I don't think that signalmen set routes by tapping on a screen in 1907, so I prefer a nice old fashioned lever frame. To use a favourite phrase of a good friend, it is much more "touchy-feely" pulling levers. As for a layout that could be switched on and work automatically, I can't think of anything more boring if you are like me and enjoy operating. It would be all well and good if you just wanted to sit and watch trains but that is not for me. But I would never dream of telling others what they should or shouldn't do. I only ever say what I have done or prefer to do and perhaps give a reason why I have chosen that method.

Guaranteed no fiddling. It is a private layout with one careful owner and one helper (me!). It was me giving Flying Scotsman its new number, taking the loco new from the box. I could give it a number, read the number and then get the "Central memory full" error message when I tried to enter the number into the stack on a controller. We had the same problem with a GWR King, number 6011. It seems that trying numbers with 6s and 0s and 1s is what upset it as it is happy with anything else. We ended up calling that 0011, despite the fact that the decoder was clearly marked as being set up to accept a 4 digit code.The layout owner knows enough to select and run a loco but wouldn't dream of touching anything else. The double heading problem happened overnight from the layout being switched off with all OK one evening to switching it on again in the morning. Can any DCC system be "fiddled" to allow a loco to suddenly run at full speed for a few moments without touching the controller? If there was the slightest possibility of there being any rational explanation for the problems, I would have investigated and sorted them out. I just don't know where to start investigating faults that people tell me can't happen. The best explanation I have had from a top DCC expert is "It sounds like software glitches". It is a Lenz base unit with updated software and modern Lenz controllers. The decoders are from a variety of manufacturers.

That is comparing apples with oranges. I build locos and paint them because I enjoy doing it. I don't enjoy scratching my head wondering why a loco suddenly takes off all on its own. I can't run RTR locos as I model pre-grouping and there are hardly any available and if there were, I would still prefer to build my own. Painting them isn't a complication, it is just part of the fun of making things for yourself. My painting and lining may not be up to the standards of people who have done it full time for years but it satisfies me. During a recent running session on the DCC layout, the controller suddenly decided to randomly select two locos to double head. So when we turned the controller, one train in the station started and so did one in the fiddle yard, which crept forward to a point and shorted the whole layout out. As the fiddle yard is in another room, we looked for a fault for ages before we found it and them spent ages reading through instruction books trying to find out what the little dot on the controller meant and how to get rid of it, as only one loco number was showing on the display. Nobody had set it to double head as nobody knew how to do it. We only use the very basic functions of selecting a loco (how do you know which way round a tank loco is going to run when it could be either way round in the fiddle yard?). I understand how to build a loco. I understand how to paint and line one. I enjoy both things very much. I do not understand why a DCC system suddenly decides to make two locos run together. On my analogue layouts, if two locos run together, somebody has forgotten a point or a switch and I understand what has happened and what to do to put it right. I can also make any loco go and have to press less buttons and switches than any DCC system I know. I set the points, pull the signals, maybe flick one switch (but mostly the signals do that for me) and turn the controller the way I want the train to go. I don't need keypads, computers, mobile phones or anything else, just a direction switch and a speed control knob. But I have always been a bit of a luddite and proud of it. Some people like the advance of technology and some even have that sort of thing as a big part of their hobby. I am a MERG member and work signals via their servo drive boards. If people want to use DCC, that is fine and I would never say that people shouldn't use it. I just say that I don't and if anybody asks me why, I am happy to tell them.

My own modelling has been on analogue systems and continues to be but I have done some work on a DCC layout. I agree entirely with Tony W that all you are doing is introducing an electrical complication that most of us don't understand. I recently spent ages trying to program a number into a Hornby Flying Scotsman in BR livery. I tried 0103 as the last four digits. I got an error message, which I looked up and it said "central memory full". I tried 6010, then 6003 for the first 4 digits, then the first two and the last two. I got the same error message. In desperation, I tried 4472 using the LNER number and the system accepted it without any problems. We have a 9F that runs very nicely but every once in a while decides to go full speed, only when running in reverse and only for a few seconds. We have a Jubilee that does the same but going forwards and for longer. It is a bit worrying approaching a terminus. We have a turntable, where all the locos lurch about half an inch as the table goes round but only if it is going clockwise. All these things are completely impossible for me to investigate and put right. Any problems on analogue and I know exactly what to do. It is the controller, the wires to the track, the pick ups, the motor or a mechanical fault on the loco, like jamming valve gear. In each case, I can look at it and know what is wrong pretty much instantly. With DCC, it could be any of those things plus a fault with a complex control system that may be a software or a hardware fault or an incompatibility issue with a chip from one maker and a controller from another, which I do not and never will understand. If I genuinely thought that I could get better running with DCC, I might have tried it with it but the fact is that my stuff runs as well as I want it to without DCC. Sound is at best a gimmick and at worst an obtrusive assault on my ears that bores me silly after a couple of minutes and I don't like introducing technology that I don't understand into the mix. If your layout isn't divided into sections, it can make fault finding a nightmare, as I know from experience on a big layout where a rail gap closed up, killing the whole layout and leaving me with hours of searching. So many people divide their DCC layouts up anyway and call it districts.. As for running two locos on the same track, I do it regularly using a switch and two controllers to follow a departing train out of a terminus. So the only thing I am missing out on is double heading and I am sure I could arrange that if I wanted to. So no thanks. the extra costs of DCC and the problems in fault finding do not and never will convince me to change.

Reading through the thread, I am not sure that there is any great groundswell of opinion against shows arranged on a commercial basis, as long as that is what they are advertised as. Any objections seem to be against the idea of an individual putting on an exhibition and making it look as if it is for the benefit of a model railway club. Going back to a show like Doncaster, this is a railway town, with a great railway history but for several years, had no model railway exhibition. I won't go over the reasons now but the last time one was put on, it didn't end well for the club involved. Now, at least, we have a show and it is stewarded by members of the Doncaster Model railway Club, who I understand gain some financial reward for the club for doing so. In my view, that is better than no show at all and I am not sure that the club would ever have had the financial resources to hire the racecourse. Alexandra Palace is, in effect, a show organised in part by The Model Railway Club with financial; backing from BRM/Warners (I hope I have got that right as I am not 100% sure). Would I prefer it if the Doncaster show was purely a traditional club show? Yes I would. Would I rather have a commercial show than none at all? Yes again.

My pleasure Rich and very happy to contribute to you project in a small way. Cheers, Tony.

Pretty much what I were getting at. Usually the possessive has an apostrophe, except when it is an it, when it doesn't. I just wondered why. For a very brief moment before I realised that there were more important things in life. Like getting a meal and having a running session on the layout. I may wonder about it again in the future, or I may not.

I have often wondered (well that is possibly an exaggeration, it isn't something that I really lose any sleep over) why "it's replacement" shouldn't have an apostrophe. If the "house of Jim" is "Jim's house", why can't "the replacement of it" become "it's replacement"?

The change iof name came about because in previous years, the EMGS events were known as EXPO EM and EXPO EM North. As both events are now of a similar size and quality, since the North event moved to a bigger venue, it was suggested that calling them Spring and Autumn rather than EXPO and EXPO North (which implied a subsidiary event) would reflect the more equal status. There was also a hope that dropping the "North" might encourage a few more visitors too go to the event in September. There was a perception amongst some members that the names suggested that EXPO EM was a national event but EXPO North was a local one. Perhaps when it was half the size of the Bracknell event that may have been the case but not any longer. When all is said and done, Manchester is more Central than North anyway! Having said that, both shows are well worth a visit. If you want a friendly welcoming atmosphere, excellent layouts, top drawer specialist trade and demo stands, these two are hard to beat. There are no barriers and plenty of chance to chat and pick up a few tips (or even pass some on). They might even let me in with a stand, so maybe I am biased! Tony Gee

Rubbish. Real buffers were never that colour or that shiny. Keep practising. You could get quite good at this......

We went on a Merrymaker mystery tour from Doncaster some time in the mid 70s. We set off heading to Sheffield, Derby and Birmingham and we were handed a questionnaire which included a prize for anybody guessing the destination. Everybody was suggesting Weston Super Mare and suchlike. We handed the forms in, the train stopped just beyond Birmingham, the loco ran round and we ended up at Aberystwyth. It was a drizzly, dull day, a Sunday. Everything was shut. The only thing to look at was a Vale of Rheidol loco in blue livery but we arrived late and there wasn't time for a trip on the line before we were due to leave. Still, we did get pulled by 2 Class 24s (the only time I managed that). We also had a day out in Paignton on a Merrymaker. Not much time there but a great cheap railway journey in the days when you got luxuries like buffet cars, windows and tables! Happy days!

Do you have any evidence that they ever ran as a complete rake? I have never seen a photo that shows a complete train of them but would love to know if they did. There is one photo that shows a few (4 from memory) as part of a train but mostly they were odd ones or twos attached to other carriage types. I have built several, The Jidenco kits represent the carriages with the later LNER modification to the vents/windows above the main windows. The D & S kit has the original GCR pattern, with a hooded vent above each of the main windows.

At least one brake 3rd Barnum and one all third Barnum ended up in red and cream. I have never seen any colour image of one though so many thanks for that! I have seen black and white photos of both types of vehicle in that livery so I can confirm that at least one of each type was so painted.