Ray Chessum

21 hours ago, t-b-g said:

There ought to be a TV series about grumpy railway modellers moaning.

 

It could be called grumpy old gits but the Gauge O Guild might object to the use of their initials.

I think that you will find that the 'Grumpy Old Gits 'club is already in exisstance , it was formed by myself, Tony Wright and two other friends whilst operating LB a few years ago

11 hours ago, t-b-g said:

 

That looks suitably "busy" underneath now! The balance weights will also make a huge difference when they are fitted.

 

Going back to the tender, it may be an optical illusion but it does look to me as if it is a bit lower at the front than it is at the back. I am wondering if the cab roof heights could be improved without messing up the buffer height by slightly lifting just the front end?

 

If I put a plastic rule along the footplate on my big computer screen, it does appear that the tender slopes but I accept that camera angles and lenses can create illusions like that.

 

 

Why not just put a full load of coal in the tender and say its down on the springs because of the extra weight

3 hours ago, hayfield said:

Tony

 

I see you have a liking to DJH kits an, I have recently have added a few kits to my collection, these are second hand either unbuilt or part built. I have a BR standard 4 class tank to build, other than buying a different make of chassis is it possible to build the chassis in the kit to EM gauge.

 

The main (or perhaps the first) stumbling block is the cast cylinders which would have to be modified slightly if I widen the main frames.

 

Any thoughts please

I built the chassis in OO and added plasticard cosmetic frames glued outside the brass frames, this saves the problems with the frame spacers and cylinders etc, Ray

 have two which will pull 6 Kitmasters with ease but I remember seeing them at Waterloo hauling twelve coaches to the carriage sidings at Clapham, but they replaced 0-4-4 M 7's doing the same job

12 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

Thanks Stephen,

 

It'll pull more than many RTR Pacifics will! 

 

Later on, I loaded it with 20 modified RTR carriages, which it didn't slip with. Any more and it would have been even dafter. 

 

My memory of these attractive little tanks is in and around the Chester area, including the CLC, where they rarely hauled more than two/three carriages. One abiding memory is observing 'The Welsh Dragon' ply its trade between Rhyl and Llandudno, watching from the footbridge at Abergele. Was there ever a shorter named train on BR? 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

I looked all my working life for a job such as this, needless to ay I never found one

12 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

Political correctness gone mad !! ..... and politicians are paid (our) good money to dream up this madness !!

 

The best one in the UK at present is that, if roadworks use temporary traffic lights, there has to be a (at least) two man gang, sitting in a vehicle equipped with a spare set of temporary traffic lights, at all times that the first set of lights are in operation - just in case they fail!!!

 

Now that is a job I could do - even at the age of 70+.

 

John Isherwood.

 

John Isherwood.

what about a 'Lobby'

Could anyone offer any advice about which type of pointmotor would be suitable for fiiting in  an uninsulated area of my loft based layout, temperatures in this year alone have varied between    -12C and +32C. although the loft is perfectly dry. Solenoids are not suitable as the pointwork is handbuilt so is not robust enough to use them. If anyone has experience of motors that are reliable in these conditions I would be very grateful for their advice. The layout itself I hasten to add is in an insulated part of the loft and is habitable in all the above conditions,                                                                                                                                                                                                                     thanks in anticipation,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Ray Chessum

Hi Tony,

 

It's just a measure of how much adhesion there is between two surfaces in contact, and it can be used in relative terms.

 

Two locomotives, identical except for the metal used for the driving wheel tyres. First locomotive has a coeff. value of say 0.6 on NS rail, second one has a coeff. value of 0.3, the first one will pull twice as much as the second before it starts slipping.

 

Conversely you'd have to make the second locomotive twice as heavy as the first one to get equal amounts of traction from both locomotives.

 

Andy

To add to this debate, I recently had to re wheel my Schools class after a disaster [i dropped it] with Romford wheels, the originals were Gibsons with steel tyres. After the re wheeling it would pull 3 less coaches than before .

Ray

Hi Tony,

You make a fair point about the glazing. There are no crew either and the coal is still to be added, all post paint activities on the to do list. Does anyone have advice on how to achieve circular spectacle plates? I tried a liquid glazing option a while back but it results in a poor imitation of glazing so I’m intending to cut them from glazing sheet but can’t work out how to achieve a good outcome as a cutting compass will leave a small hole in the middle?

 

All suggestions welcome.

 

Frank

I use a leather punch, it has 6 choices of size,

                                                                               Ray

That was the year that the son of Canute, Harold Harefoot as king Harold l, died and was succeeded by Harthacnut.

 

G

i have been using kadees'  for years on my coaching stock  and find that they are best affixed to the bufferbeams, they enable any coach to be easily extracted and reinserted and of course all you have to do is to push them together to reliably recouple up

Indeed there are a number of features normally associated with DCC that can be also installed successfully on analogue loco’s.

 

Stay-alive capacitors will work with DC, with a little simple circuitry attached.

 

Adding an orange LED with an appropriate resistor can be used to create a firebox glow, though to get it to flicker will require a little wizardry such as that sold by Train Tech. The advertising blurb for one of Dapol’s new loco’s for 2018 says they will be including this feature RTR.

 

My own favourite is to use DCC Concepts loco lamps, which contain micro LED’s. These work great with DC loco’s too. Wire the lamps with an appropriate resistor and if you wire them with the right polarity, because they are a diode they will only illuminate when the polarity is corect for the direction of travel. I also think they look better than Springside’s cast lamps, more delicate. The illumination as sold can be too ‘bright white’ but this can be toned down with a thin smear of yellow colouring on the lens.

 

These thing are not difficult to do. Whilst some may regard them as gimmickry, I suggest you give it a try before knocking it. It certainly adds an extra dimension to the model, especially when running in the dark, or even with slightly dimmed lighting.

 

Phil

Phil, could you please tell me where I could find more information about the 'stay alive' function for DC, Thanks, Ray

I think Protocab is interesting if you build your own locos (or are happy disassembling and adapting RTR ... but given the investment of the RTR boys into DCC I can't see them adopting it anytime soon - unless I am much mistaken they tend to compliment rather than compete with each other? so it would not be as if one could steel a march on the others by going down this route (I am regularly wrong though!).

 

Protocab are being quite clever in the way they are developing things I think ... as I understand it the next generation of controllers are going to have as part of the display options information on the efficiency of running (a bit like mpg linked to the battery and the way the loco is driven). This could be quite interesting for steam engines at least, as the idea is that it can be linked to displays of water and coal levels.

 

I took the plunge because you really are just driving the loco, and the attraction of having no track wiring/cleaning/short circuits etc was difficult to resist ... it also simplifies track building if you are into that.

 

The risk of course is if Protocab disappear before the technology becomes more general ... or they become the Betamax of model railway radio control - time will tell.

 

Edit - piggy backing the wifi protocol was pretty shrewd as the technology is universal and issues of privacy, or in our case a password or pin protected network dedicated to your model, is well developed and gremlin free.

I think the shortfall with Protocab will be that you will have to remember to charge the batteries before you operate your model railway, are they charged 'on the rails' or by a flylead system?. If you have a substantial fleet of loco's it may be a problem to make sure they are all charged up as well of course the initial costs involved,

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Ray

A little while ago someone posted that they would like to see other peoples efforts, well here are a couple of mine.

The unpainted one is a DJH Merchant Navy and the painted one is West Country 'HOLSWORTY' , both kits were over 25 years old before I got around to building them

           Ray Chessum

This post is more of a question for model-makers, if I may? 

 

No matter how hard I try, my work bench always ends up in a state of chaos and a complete mess.

 

work bench.jpg

 

All I've done is just take a snapshot a few minutes ago, and this is my workbench. My question is, does anyone else build models in such chaotic surroundings?

 

Having completed five locos last month, with a sixth on the way (the DJH A2 under construction will be SUGAR PALM), it makes me wonder how many more might be built if the place were not in such a mess. 

Tony,

           If you think that is untidy you should see mine!

                                                                                      regards,

                                                                                                       Ray

Tony,

 

I finally got round to checking out the dead A2/1 over the weekend. I started by removing the chip and trying it on DC. Unfortunately the motor is completely dead - there's just a short circuit and a burning smell when I apply power.

 

I thought the chip was also dead as when I fitted it into the DJH WD 2-8-0 that you tweaked for me, it only moved at snail's pace. However it seems that the CV values had been scrambled, and on reading the manual and doing a reset, it is purring round with 40 wagons in tow! I think this illustrates some of your concerns about DCC, and in particular, mixing the two systems, however, I'm sticking with the dreaded digital for the time being - I'm too hooked on my Deltic (amongst others) with sound to change! And that's apart from all the wiring.

 

The good news is that I have an old (quiet) Portescap to replace the one in the A2/1, however, given my chassis inexperience, I'm anxious about swapping them over. Is it possible to do so, without dismantling the valve gear?

 

Thanks Andy

You can replace a portescap motor without removing the gearbox from the frames by removing the bolts which hold it to the gearbox sides,

                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Ray

Brian,

 

I believe the Turbomotive is a modified Hornby item. The 3F is ex-Triang, the Stanier Mogul a K's body on a 'funny' chassis of some sort, the 2F another K's body on an even funnier chassis and the 8F a Hornby-Dublo loco towing a Bachmann Austerity tender. In all of these, I was merely following instructions, numbering/lettering them as requested. If any are wrong, blame the owner! 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

May say on my friend  Keith Pearce behalf that all the numbers are based on photographic evidence of the prototypes, 

Ray chessum

You can straighten it but you can't bend it straight !

You vandal, you've bent the mirror

I think that I must claim more than my fair share of the questionable operation yesterday on LB, I was having too much of a good time to fully concentrate on what I should have been doing,

 LB usually performs flawlessly and I hope I did not spoil Simons' visit too much!

                                                                                                                                  Ray Chessum