JDW

I have used SEF on a Lima Mk1 (the fictitious BRT one) and a Loadhaul 122 converted from a 117. I kept the orginal Lima glazing and used it to hold the SEF in place on the Mk1, which seems more secure. I've knocked a couple out on the 122. No major problem, easy to refit, but having the Lima glazing behind didn't seem to cause any major problem. I agree it doesn't look great in the small opening windows, but at the same time it still looks better, I think, than the original.

Damn, and I after I saw how good it looked, I was so just about to email you and offer you the unique opportunity to paint my (STILL!) unpainted 144 centre car conversion in Northern blue. *delete's email*

An interesting discussion. My two cents are that as Phil said, its a much smaller part of the hobby so there's maybe a bit of a catch 22 in that it features less in magazines, so gets less publicity, so less people do it, so it features less, and so on. Most people (myself included) start out with a Hornby set, so OO is pretty much the 'default' these days. For me, I completely agree that N is excellent for running full length trains through flowing scenery but I just find it too small and (to my mind) fiddly to be enjoyable, even with the advances in fidelity in recent years. There are some great layouts out there, no doubt, but it depends what you want.

Not much happening of late, I did a bit today on the 466, and during the week built a Gaugemaster supermarket. Scenery on the layout is progressing but nothing really worthy of pictures, some big items being put in place so I can start to build up around them. I decided to sort out the interiors of the 466, so a bit of hacking and slicing produced one non-toilet and one toilet centre car interior. Essentially the cab bulkhead was removed, and a section from a spare moulding spliced in. Looking at the spare bits I have, I could bodge together a third centre car, so might do that to use them up. I also did more on the chassis. I cut off the faring, and after lots of filing started to build it back up with filler and plasticard. I also dug out this from the back corner of the fiddle yard and fitted new pivots. It was the first thing I ever built, after an article and drawings in ModelRail. Far from perfect, and a few bits have gone missing over the years. Sadly the sides I drew and printed have wrinkled. I had one spare in a drawer but the others still look a mess. Might try and re-do them one day.

Excellent! Very characterful models, unique, and inexpensive too. Do you have any others planned?

Yes, that does seem an odd place for it to migrate to! Has @Andy Y pressed the wrong button or was he just hoping that if no one could find it they couldn't moan about Ebay?!

And for once all those models where you can't turn the loco tail lights off and they light up the front wagon bright red will be right...

In that case, if it'd be a complete separate system, considering how much ummm-ing and ahhhh-ing its taken to get this far, I'd go ahead and build this layout first before thinking about adding something else. You're not going to get much above the existing tracks in the same scenic area, you don't have space for a separate oval on a higher level one behind the other, so I'd just get on and build what you have. Something like the EMU sidings could be on a slightly lower level (or the main lines a slightly higher level) for variety, but that's more a centimetre or two difference rather than a whole new level.

Yes, I think context is the key. There are some undoubtedly dangerous roads in some parts of the worls, mountain passes on high ledges, but for the most part we mean the UK, where there are few genuinely dangerous roads, though as with the recent discussion on the pavements across junctions, and as @Giles said above, some road planners do seem to manage to design more and more dangerous (or at least poor) ones that seem to be trying to solve the wrong problem.

Again? Really? Yes, KR Models didn't get off to the best of starts, and the skepticism was understandable in the light of what went before. But things have moved on, we've been round the same circle a dozen times or more. At the end of the day, they have designed and manufactured from a standing start a model that, for 99% of people out there is perfecty acceptable, it looks like a GT3, sounds like a GT3, appears to run well (and will hopefully remain reliable), with more accuracy and detail than most people could manage from a kit or scratch. It might not be perfect, there may be errors, but in the main it has achieved its goal. Anyone could have done it, and stiill could do another if they feel they could improve. There are opportunities to improve it, yes - but that goes for the latest releases from Bachmann, Hornby, and the others too. Despite claims of inaccuracies, problems, whatever, I don't for a second believe KR set out to design a model that was "wrong" and they've no doubt done the best they could with the combination of time, money, materials, information and skill available. It is what it is, like it or not, its here, and for the majority its a GT3 - and one which is probably more accurate despite not having the real thing to measure, than many Hornby, Lima et al models were when they had the real thing to measure. But do we really, really need to keep going over the same old ground with slightly different words? It is what it is, it was what it was, the points have all been made already, and it's getting pretty tiresome. I saw pages of comments since my last one, came back to look at more pics of it, and ... nope, just more of the same. Can we just draw a line under all that and start enjoying the model as it arrives?

I have to say, for all the ups and downs of this thread, whether or not there are any minor inaccuracies, as a model it definitely looks the part. I like it a lot.

Have you only checked the wheel treads? Running through points causes the wheels to move around. That can cause the pick-ups to lose contact if they aren't set up properly. Have you checked that they all maintain good contact even when the wheels move side to side within the frame? And maintain contact on both sides at the same time? And that the pick ups and pick up sufaces haven't been contaminated with debris or stray lubricant?

Surely the answer to that (considering that as far as I know they use the same motor etc) is that actually what you've found is that one model runs better than the other, it just happens that one is a 59 and one is a 66. You can't really conclude that class 59s run better than class 66s based on one model. I suspect if you tried a 37 or 47 with similar basic motor bogie, you'd be able to conclude that (say) the 47 runs better than the 66 or the 37 better than the 59. Different production runs, made at different times, variables such as how well the pick-ups contact the wheels at all times as it moves, any dirt or grease that may have worked its way onto pick-up surfaces in transit or in use,... Ask anyone who had a fleet of the original Lima versions how much difference there could be in what was superficially the 'same' standard motor bogie!

The answer to that I'm afraid is a bit 'how long is a piece of string'. I just had a quick look on Ebay, to buy a new motor bogie, trailing bogie and chassis from one of the regulars who dismantles models and sells the bits would be around £80, which (in my view) is excessive. The individual parts could likely be bought much cheaper from spares outlets such as Lendons or Peter's Spares, but that would depend on them being available. It might be a case of buying what you can when you can. Considering that you could buy a whole Lima unit for around the same price, I wouldn't be spending £80 on a Hornby chassis. For me, around £40 is what I'd 'value' a new chassis at as a good balance between getting a unit that's worth more back in service and not going over the top. But what I consider right and what sellers consider right is not necessarily the same thing! I've no idea if Hornby might be able to supply one complete direct. Last resort of course would be to look for a cheapish (around the £100-mark) Hornby unit and use that for parts - i.e. swap both chassis over, better wheels all round! Selling on the remaining bodies and Lima unpowered chassis on Ebay to recoup a little of that would bering the overall cost down but I'd guess you'd still have spent around £70 overall. And of course if you do that, depending what livery yours is, if its Provincial you might as well then have just bought and used the new one!

Hi @313201 The easy answer is yes. The Hornby chassis is a straight swap for the Lima one. However be aware that Hornby modified the chassis to take their standard type of motor for its ex-Lima range, and so the Lima motor bogie will not fit in a Hornby chassis and vice versa. The Hornby one is mounted from above at 'ceiling' level, the Lima one as you will know uses four lugs on the bogie frame. I have plenty of 156s and 153s (in case anyone hadn't noticed!) with the new Hornby motor bogie and for what it is can't really fault it, so I'd be tempted to just fit a whole new Hornby rolling chassis, with the added bonus of better wheels on both bogies, so better pick up.

Unfortunately with any junction there's bound to be a make or type of vehicle where the pillar lines up perfectly, be it a vertical lorry/bus pillar or a raked back coupé, especially if the approaching vehicle is also traveling at just the right speed to remain in the blind spot.

...to which I can't help but wonder: Why?! Why is that allowed, the risks are obvious, as well as the disruption, there must be a safer and less disruptive alternative, especially when the result is pretty predictable on a busy day like that.

Looks very much like a case of "We have to do something. This is something. We'll do it" with little thought to the big picture. Yes, it seems to give pedestrians the right of way, but as both an experienced driver and even more experienced pedestrian I can see a host of problems from every angle. As a pedestrian, it's confusing. I'd be walking up to it wondering if it's a junction, if it used to be a junction but has been made into a dead end (such as to stop it being used as a 'rat run'), whether I should be expecting a car to turn in across the pavement, whether a car is going to understand any better or just treat it as a normal junction,... It looks like a pedestrian has priority as the pavement continues (same as, say, entering a petrol station) but as a pedestrian I wouldn't trust that to be the case. The double yellow lines on the main road suggest it's no longer a junction. As a driver, I'd be thinking the same - driving across a pavement is a no-no anyway (with obvious exceptions) so is it a through road? Has it been closed? Can I drive across? The yellow lines across it suggest it isn't a junction any more, and I'd half be expecting there to be bollards where the give way lines are to stop people turning in. Plus, give way lines don't generally mean give way to pedestrians on a pavement, they mean give way to traffic on the main road, which is what drivers will be expecting to do. And as has been said above, how do you see the road? Stop, give way, move forwards, stop again, give way again,... It looks completely un-thought through. As with the hard shoulder situation above, loo at European junctions and the markings they have, the chunky white dashes denoting a cycle lane and/or footpath across a junction for example. It might not solve the position of the give way lines but the intent would be a lot clearer for all involved. Car drivers see that there is a pathway crossing, pedestrians would still be aware that they are crossing a road and there may be moving vehicles. I think if I had to do it like that, I'd carry on the dipped kerbstones, but leave the give way lines in the usual place, meaning that vehicles can still negotiate it as normal but with the visual reminder of the pavement crossing. I get the idea behind it, but it seems like it was thought up because they needed "a solution" and this is a solution, without any thought of how people actually use it regardless of intention - something which seems way too common. I can think ofa few new junctions where you can see they've applied 'new' ideas on how things should work and 'safety' but which actually neither seem to improve safety nor traffic flow.

I think another part of the problem in that regard is that people don't know how to react. Ok it's not always avoidable to stop - but some people just haven't got a clue. Some just don't plan ahead, some don't look for an "out" or escape route to safety, some will just stop and panic. If I had a puncture and thought it were that dangerous to stop, I'd keep moving - even at 5 or 10mph, you're still a hazard and in danger of being hit, but you're a hazard that's on it's way to safety, a hazard that's only a hazard for a few minutes. That said, I'm still embarrased to admit calling upon my breakdown cover when there was a whoosh of steam from under my bonnet in a queue of traffic. I pulled over (safely!), there was green liquid around the radiator area. After much head scratching, the AA guy realised that it was my air conditioning pipe that had burst, the green liquid being the dye they had used when looking for an air con leak years ago. I'd sat there for about 90 minutes and got home well after midnight - for nothing!

Problem with that argument though is that by the exact same logic, if they're too thick to understand it the German way, they'll not use it and carry on in lane 1 as if the hard shoulder were a hard shoulder. If they're too thick to understand the British way, they just barrel along in lane 1 without a second thought. The German way seems designed to fail safe, whereas the British way seems destined to fail in the 'dangerous' mode every time, whether it's driver error, sign error, power cut, tech failure... Definitely a valid point that lots of dual carriageways have no hard shoulder - places like the A303 or up north, once you pass Perth the M90 becomes the A90, same speeds, almost as much traffic in places, but just a dual carriageway. I wonder whether part of the issue though with smart motorways is the amount of traffic, the density of it, as well as the speed. There may be an element of (conscious or otherwise) assumption on the part of drivers when they're in a "motorway" environment that its safer, no junctions, crossings, etc, so less need to concetrate on hazards ahead, whereas on a dual carriageway people are more tuned to that kind of thing.

Yeah I don't understand how we've gotten that so wrong - compare to somewhere like Germany, where similar things have been going on for much longer. I don't have statistics to compare but I'd suggest that their way of doing it - which is to keep the hard shoulder and make it available for use when traffic is busy and it is clear - is much safer, as the default setting is still that its a hard shoulder unless indicated otherwise (by overhead/roadside signs). Compare that to Britain where the default position is its a running lane, relying on people to see signs saying it isn't to make it safe. I simply don't understand how or why anyone could conclude that is safer/better.

To prevent future disappointment, may I politely suggest that you send all packs to me for -ahem- checking.

Slightly O/T but does the 91's pantograph hit something at 2:32 or is it just a trick of the light? It seems to jump and there's a clang noise at the same time - coincidence?

Yes, that all seems a little confused from listening to the video! The HST power cars (not Mk3 DVTs!) ran with Mk3 sets and a 91 at the other end, essentially a HST with one power car replaced by new 91. A Mk4 set needs a Mk4 DVT!

I've seen it suggested before but only thought of it because I happened to read it on another thread yesterday! Yes, good idea, or paint the dividing bar onto the glazing.