Joseph_Pestell

Poll might be misleading as it forces you to vote no till you find an entry that you want. 

 

Theres no option for the Northern 180, but I have voted for a Grand Central 180. 

 

The 175 is not in my area, so I voted no to all options there. 

I was not aware of a Northern 180. Have you got any pictures?

Gordon Wiseman will know the full answer in relation to France. But I am fairly certain that there is a similar facility to old-maps on the IGN website.

Yes that's its original form before 1915-16 when it was rebuilt in to 15inch gauge. not sure what caused the wonky coach my guess it would be the track rather than the coach. 

 

Marc

I did not know it had a passenger service in its original form although should have guessed from the platform and building that remains at the upper terminus.. Looks great to model.

Even allowing for some rough track, that first coach has suffered from serious subsidence, a bit like the old Rovex-Triang cellulose coaches.

If you were to model in 5.5mm/ft scale, I reckon that the Electrotren 0-6-0T might provide a suitable chassis for that loco.

Clicking "like" is not really sufficient. The 141P is probably my favourite SNCF steam loco and these MTH models are amazing value.

All fair comments.

My preference would indeed to have CADs/renders available before launching the idea to a wider public. I recognize the weaknesses of a survey here but worth doing anyway as part of the process.

Blue Pullman was greeted with some scepticism at first. And that was indeed something of a success. This may not attract quite the same level of interest but it is easier to do as it only requires one set of bodywork tooling at a time rather than all three at once.

I am fairly sure that the bogies are the same and also the same as the unit used for the 040 diesel shunter.

Well, I thought RMWeb was mostly for steam enthusiasts. But I have been surprised at the lack of interest this thread has engendered. Between the two types, quite a lot of the country sees these units (or has in the past).

Afternoon,

 

Now I hadn't thought of that. I have no issues building my own track. As for Era most likely it'd be Steam, either Grouping or BR Steam. I'd only be looking at a locomotive of 0-6-0 size & few wagons as a test piece. As for the track width - I don't mind, I read the 3mm Society "Getting Started" pages and 12mm gauge seemed to be the easiest to start with.

 

I'd probably see any work in 3mm scale as a 'Photo Plank' or similar rather then an actual layout.

Cheers,

~ Gary

If you are happy building pointwork, it has to be 14.2mm.

I would go for 14.2mm gauge. It is a lot more realistic and is not a particularly exacting set of standards to work to. Apart from if you want to run Tri-and stock I don't see anything to commend the use of 12mm, unless, like me you are modelling Continental TT to 1:120 scale. The standards are basically the same for 14.2mm and finescale 12mm, just 2.4 mm wider. I don't think there's a better scale to work to than 3mm, especially if you are interested in scratch building, dimensions are readily converted, the models are a size where you can see what you are doing without being so big that the cost of materials and the effort of cutting parts becomes an issue. If it hadn't been for problems with the supply of driving wheels back when I was modelling it, I wouldn't have given it up. I think I probably have the world's largest collection of 3mm locos with no driving wheels I keep thinking I should look them out and stick them on eBay. I would certainly go for it, and if it is by way of a small plank to test the waters give 14.2mm a try too. I think you will be very pleased with the outcome. The 3mm Society are a good bunch too, although they seem to keep themselves to themselves to some extent. Their magazine was well worth the subscription in itself.

There are, these days, Romford-style wheels that have been developed for HO. So you may find some suitable options for putting wheels on those locos.

Plenty of photos on t'internet of 2 x 2 175.

Latesr design is a bit more of a challenge. The LMS and LNER had fairly standard Sentinel railcars but the Southern Railway decided to be different. It wasn't very successful, considered a bit of a joke by some, but it is different, and very much 1930s in design. A good first one to experiment with some tricky curves.

 

I have incorporated part of the chassis. It can be cut off to make finishing inside easier, if necessary. The roof will need smoothing down, but that is the difficulty with these multi curve roofs.

I'm not familiar with this one. Very similar to Berliet diesel units for the PLM in France.

Where did it/they run and when?

I have received some advice on the DCC sound issues. Seems straightforward enough to have the units ready for easy sound installation even if it is not offered off-the-peg.

Hi all

 

Trying to lay OO flexi track round a curve. But having trouble getting rails same length. Thought i had it but one rail had moved again. Any tips on what i can do to make sure they stay where they are?  have seen some xuron vertical cutters, would they help at all? Have also seen these, wondering if they might help.

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Pair-of-Flexi-Track-Tools-OO-HO-Gauge-GVFTOO-/401261575040?hash=item5d6d0dbb80:g:OBMAAOSw2xRYf3Ic

 

Any tips much appreciated.

A lot of people prefer the Xuron cutters to a disc.

You may actually find that it works better for the end joints not to be at the same level as each other. It reduces the tendency fot the track to kink outwards at joints.

While there may obviously be some platform occupation issues at Euston, it wouldn't be very timetable friendly stopping a mainline train for a longish time at Queen's Park to detrain a full load of passengers. And difficult to see where else would be any better.

Trains and stations are certainly TfL (MTR).

I'm not sure about the track itself but I think it's TfL. Someone will be able to confirm.

Understand that 12mm seems so much easier but will you be happy with track that is that undersized?

You don't say what era you want to model but if you really don't want to build your own track might be better to go for proper TT, i.e. 1:120. No great problem these days when someone will be able to provide you with wagons etc by way of 3D print.

To start with the easy bit: I think you’re right that interior lighting is more-or-less expected in a multiple unit these days although hauled coaches are only just starting to catch up. Doors unlocked lights? They seem to me to call for opening doors!

 

I love sound but I wouldn’t describe myself as an expert. Decent sound decoders are still expensive and, if anything, getting more so thanks to the prospect of Brexit. I’d say that multiple decoders should be avoided on cost grounds. As to speakers, I think that five would be overkill, however tempting five engines firing up one at a time might seem. Perhaps I’m not the ideal person to offer a view as I’ve been deaf in one ear since my teens but I do recall the arrival of stereo. Obviously, I cannot judge where sounds are coming from but stereo added more depth to sound for me. I have a 37 with a very nice sound project on it from Digitrains using a conventional bass reflex speaker. I was persuaded by Jeremy at Digitrains to try two sugar cubes in a later Class 37 project. I was very sceptical because of the small speakers but to my astonishment, the sound was better. I put it down to the depth of sound coming from two sources.

 

In conclusion (and other views would be very worth getting) I think that a speaker at each end of the train would be enough.

Opening doors has been done now. But perhaps that is slightly overkill. Next you will want passengers stepping on and off (or at least the guard).

I think that it's a good idea.

But, as we often point out on here, model railways are rarely large enough to show the full signalling picture. So I would suggest that it might be better to start from suitable prototypes, e.g. Bradford Interchange, and show the full signalling scheme and then show it as a layout and which signals are left  to model.

And, of course, it depends what you mean by "modern". Stirling was resignalled quite recently with semaphores! And you would perhaps want to show various alternative schemes for 2-aspect, 3-aspect or 4-aspect signalling not to mention "searchlights" and their current equivalent.

I knew that you lot would know! It is indeed a Trojan. There were two at the recent Gillingham Solstice event.

As I posted, I used to cast model kits of these when at ScaleLink. But those, understandably, have the bonnet down, so I was a bit surprised when approaching the real thing to see a bonnet open with nothing there apart from a radiator and a large open space.

A few phone camera pic from last night..

 

First up.. how do you make it easy to plant "double" telegraph posts? Well step up Andy Morris and the 3D printer

 

loads of telegraph posts.jpg

 

first one "planted" last night

£D printed telegraph poles.jpg

 

These will be available from his shapeways site.

 

and just what every water crane needs.. a lamp

 

water crane and lamp.jpg

 

The signal box was on the platform at Chapel en le Frith Central

 

station an dsignal box.jpg

 

Built by Nicktoix

signal box on platform .jpg

 

and of course signal boxes mean

 

point rodding1.jpg

 

point rodding.. a pain to do but worth it?

 

point rodding up close.jpg

 

And finally.. thanks to Andy m again

 

nameboards.jpg

 

 

Baz

Lovely set of photos.

That water crane looks so much better than others that have been available in the past. Hope that it is on the Shapeways site along with those telegraph posts. Any chance of reduced sizes (2mm)?

Bachmann seems to have been holding off upgrading the Voyagers and Super Voyagers. When they were produced, a central powered coach must have seemed a good idea (minimising the number of pushed vehicles) but it has seemingly caused problems with the arrival of DCC. With lights in the end vehicles, either three decoders are required or else through wiring. For sound, a couple of extra non-sound decoders for the lights won’t cost much relative to the cost of a sound decoder and speaker but for non-sound DCC, it triples the cost and seems an unpopular idea.

 

On the other hand, through wiring has not always been done successfully in the past. At best, it’s rather fiddly.

 

For two-car units, one end vehicle will have to be powered. To produce a three-car unit, extra tooling for a powered central car and an unpowered end car will probably cost money. So, probably the cheapest solution would be a hefty powered end vehicle with pick ups and a trailer with simple connections for the lights only and no pick ups. Design it so that the centre vehicle can simply be connected between them to produce a three-car unit.

 

I think you could probably get away with using a single powered end vehicle even for the five-car unit.

 

Are you thinking of lit passenger compartments?

 

Please forgive me. Just musing.

No need for apologies. This sort of thinking out loud is very good for a project.

From a production viewpoint, the nice thing about the Adelantes is the amount of standardisation. I need to do a bit more work on this, but I can't immediately see any reason why the same chassis could not be used on the driving car of a 175 and the central car of five on a 180.

On the sound issue, I need some advice from DCC experts. Ideally, there should be an option for a speaker on each vehicle. Is it better to do  this with a sound chip in each vehicle (they are getting cheaper) or through wiring so that there can be just one chip wired to the multiple speakers. Are there chips that would feed five speakers?

I take your point about through wiring systems being fiddly and sometimes unreliable although continental HO manufacturers have been doing it for quite a while now.

I think that interior lighting is definitely to be expected these days. The knack is getting it not too bright. And I like the doors unlocked lights on RealTracks' latest releases.

I should think the E-types, Astons and Ferraris at least may well be economically viable to restore (some of the Astons didn't look too bad apart from the layers of dust).

I think that I may have seen those E-types. We have quite a few restoration places around here.

Struggling to get pics of my phone and camera into suitable format to show here. Think  I need to use my other (ancient) laptop which has different software.

Anyway, a little puzzle for some of you who are knowledgeable about older stuff. What is this from, pictured in the attachment?

It's a pretty rare car, only about 10 still in condition to run on public roads. I knew of it as a marque but only because I used to cast 1:76 & 1:148 models of them. Those models were not detailed enough to show this interesting feature.Engine.docx

Oddly enough, if auction results over the last year or so are any indication, the unrestored heaps like these seem to fetch more money than restored or tidy examples. It seems quite bizarre.

At least with a "barn find" you know that you are likely to be getting something original and genuine.

Some of the restored stuff has very little of the original car present.

Gloucester station is actually quite convenient for people visiting Gloucester. It is hopeless for Gloucester people going elsewhere, but in any case the service to London is appallingly slow, about 50 mph average on a HST!  90 miles in almost 2 hours.  Quicker to drive to Kemble or Swindon and catch the train there.

Stopping at Cheltenham has a very small time penalty as it is on a severe curve between what should be 125 MPH stretches.

 

The holy grail of a single Gloucester station is unachievable, you need the present one for visitors inward commuters etc as it is handy for City Centre and for Gloucester shire's only remaining fully functional 24 hour general hospital, while the need for the reversal of XC servces or their omission of a Gloucester stop is more apparent than real considering how few passengers wish to use the facility.

 

No doubt the official Monster Laboral Democratic party will drag up the idea again before the next election, but its a non starter.

I have never thought that a Parkway station at Barnwood would/should replace Gloucester Central. But it would be a useful interchange point for travellers on XC services.