OFFTHE RAILS

It's a Bulleid Irish experimental rebuild of an old loco for turf burning. Bulleids bogie turf burner followed. Ian

But the pannier is not to 2mm scale, it's British N which is 2.0625 mm/foot (1:148) and that means it's nearly 8% bigger in size (volume) than a 2mm scale loco.

Whilst on the subject of correct naming - because the locos kept their frames, 2 cylinders, wheels and boiler, British Railways called the Jarvis rebuilds "Modified Pacifics" rather than rebuilds. This was presumably because British Railways was still "rebuilding" the Fowler Scots and in BR and LMS parlance a "rebuild" didn't use anything of the originals....... Ian

I brew my own beer in 5 gallon batches from crushed barley malt grain, hops and water but always test the professional offerings at every opportunity !! I love the “new wave” of golden citrussy beers and for those who like this style I recommend OAKHAM CITRA (4.5%) and OAKHAM GREEN DEVIL (6%) I've had both in draught form (the best of course) and bottled and reckon they're stunning. OAKHAM CITRA is on the shelves in Waitrose. Of course I've no connection with Oakham Brewery though I do wish I lived closer!

My point was mainly that for around 3 years Dapol have stated the BR black Bulleid chimney version would have the BR black livery with the small logo and I'm annoyed they didn't describe accurately what they are going to produce. To change this it's more than just a logo change. Schools in BR black with the small logo had different tender lining (applied only to the vertical part of the tender side) so that would have to be changed as well. See the photographs of the full size BR Shrewsbury in both liveries earlier in this thread. Ian

As I suspected, the Dapol website still describes the BR black version as "SCHOOLS #921 'Shrewsbury' BR Lined Black small early logo" but the photo just published on the Hattons website shows it has the large BR logo - which I don't want. I've cancelled my pre-order.

I thought I could resist buying another Hornby Super Detail Schools 4-4-0 but my £48 final bid bought me a new boxed DCC Fitted "St Lawrence"..

But Dapol and the dealers continue to advertise the BR version of 30921which I picture below. So if Dapol advertised the lemon you show above then we should expect a lime!

Dapol are hopeless at making clear what they are going to produce ! The livery of the BR Black Schools loco on the Dapol Website (and those of big online shops) is described as: 2S-002-002 Schools 30921 Shrewsbury BR Lined Black small early logo and this is what I pre-ordered. 30921 did have this livery in the mid 1950s (as on the Hornby 00 locos) but all the photos of Dapol pre-production models shows the (ugly) early 50s livery with lining all around the tender and a large BR logo. I wonder what is going to be produced..... Ian

A slight correction: The BR 3MT locos used a boiler manufactured using the tools for the GWR standard no 2 (as on the 51xx, 56xx, Bulldog, Atbara etc). The 3MT boiler was shorter than the GWR no2 and was therefore, as stated above, similar to the GWR no3 boiler, itself a shortened no2 and used on the 36xx 2-4-2T and some Bulldogs. The GWR standard no10 boiler again used the same tools but was shortened in the boiler and the firebox. The no 10 was first used on some absorbed Welsh locos and then on the 2251, 94xx and 15xx. Ian

Great News ! I'll buy for my next 00 branch line when there's a matching point or two available. My last 00 railway used SMP track and plastic based point kits - nice looking but don't have that robustness of Peco track (which I admit I used in the hidden areas...) I was enticed away in 2015 to N gauge for my current project, impressed by the quality of the recent Farish and Dapol locos and FiNetrax track & point kits, but I still have quite a few 00 locos needing somewhere to run... Ian

The livery of the Dapol sample is typical of the early BR lined black repaints at Eastleigh but those painted at Ashford had the smaller rectangular lining with a small crest. The latter scheme became more or less standard for the Schools as the 50s rolled on. Ian

D1072 disagrees in his earlier post Posted 14 June 2010 - 22:51 I've had a search through several books and compiled a list of West Country based 45XX's - most of these photos are from 1957-62. The information is incomplete due to a combination black and white photos, dirty locos or distant shots. Note - no lined black locos noted. Bachmann have released 4557 and Lima 5574. 2213 also lined, likely to have all been c. 1949/50 when the livery was new and WR tried to see what they could get away with - such as fully lined crimson & cream autocoaches! NB: This is not an inclusive list of all 83 division locos. KEY Tanks: O origional (lots of rivets!), R new section at bottom, rivited, W new section, welded, w new section (lower height: most tank repairs were up to the middle of the numberplate) 2 = 2 steps on front of tank (otherwise 1) Livery: B black, B/ lined black, G green, G/ lined green, ? uncertain Locos with early crest almost certainly black Crest: E early, large, e early, small, L late, large, s late, small Other: H High safety valve cover, N GW buffer beam number [4549/91/92 apparently painted at Launceston shed c. 1960] Number/Tanks/Livery/Crest/notes So 5544 O2G/L has tanks which have not been repaired by plating (all rivets are visible), 2 steps on the front of tanks, Green (lined) with a large late crest, and low safety valve cover. 4508 O ? inside steam pipes [May 57] 4526 OBE 4540 OBE 4542 OBE [58] 4549 wBE N inside steam pipes [Oct 1960] 4552 O?s 4553 O?E 4554 O?? (i.e. filthy or dificult to tell from b/w photo)) 4555 RBE 4559 4561 OG/s 4563 W 4564 WG/s *numbeplate higher than standard on bunker 4565 WG/s *tank on drivers side appears rivited, but has had extra plating added 4566 OG/s *last loco overhauled at Newton Abbot c. 1959: anything still black at this point unlikely to have received green 4567 OG/s 4568 OBE *photo 1955 so may have become green 4569 ?G/L 4570 OG/s 4571 ? dirty 4574 WG/s *welded lower tank plates post 5/57 4583 R?E [1956, prob. black] 4587 OBE clean, may have stayed black 4591 O?? 4592 O?E [1956] 5500 O?E 5502 O?E [1956] 5505 O 5508 W or R 5509 OBe 5511 RBE [sept 60] 5518 w?E at withdrawl 5523 W 5525 2 patches to front botton corner of tak, firemans side 5530 O?E 5531 OG/L 5532 WorR 5541 OG/s seems to have recived high safety valve cover c. march 61 5544 O2G/L 5545 O2 5546 O1 note there is not a complete batch with 2 steps on the front of the tanks 5557 ?2G/L 5558 WorR2 5560 WorR2 *auto fitted 5564 W 5567 O?E [1955] 5568 R 5569 WorR2 5572 O 5573 WG/s I can't make my mind up if it has a high safety valve cover, June 61 - but it is certainly the only polished brass one! Note I've not mentioned buffers which would mostly {all?} have been parallel by this time. No doubt if I had been at Plymouth in the 1950's (rather than 20 years later) I'd have some notes. My introduction was to 4555 at Buckfastleigh - it definately had a polished cover! Hope this is useful! ​

First - locos have brake gear not break gear ! Second - I have in front of me the BRM magazine of June 2009 which has 8 drawings in 4mm scale by Donald Taylor of the R and R1 class 0-6-0Ts with all the tall and low boiler mounting versions and the Stirling or Pagoda cab versions. If you want a copy of a particular version or all of them let me know by PM and I'll send them to you. Some time ago I compared these drawings with the Hornby Dublo model and decided that the latter wasn't worth bothering with Ian

An update to be fair to Microsoft - having made a bit of a jokey remark in my previous post : I was annoyed about the loss of my calendar entries and decided to revert to Windows 8.1 - an easy process if you do it within the 30 days that Microsoft allow you. I then decided to upgrade the various laptops that my wife & I have accumulated over the years. This is how I got on: 1] An Acer 7720 17" screen laptop that came with Windows Vista. It has a great screen but was always a very poor performer. I bought a Windows 7 CD and activation code cheaply on Ebay and did a fresh install to avoid any any Vista cr*p carrying forward and found that the performance was much better. I then downloaded a free Win 10 upgrade ISO DVD image and ran that. the update ran smoothly and I now reckon Windows 10 is even faster than 7...My wife has now "bagged" this laptop and prefers it to the new one (PC 4 below) 2] A tiny Samsung N110 10" Netbook (used to keep up with RMWEB on holiday etc.) which came with Win XP. Again I bought a Windows 7 activation key on Ebay and downloaded a Windows 7 ISO CD image and again went for a complete fresh install. WIndows 7 ran OK so on to Windows 10!. In fairness to this tiny machine I upped the RAM to 2GB (from Ebay) It runs very well though some of my software, particularly MS Office 2000, doesn't work at all but I've installed Windows live Mail (free) to replace Outlook and Open Office (free) to replace Excel and Word. 3] After the success with the first two I had a go with an ancient Acer 1691WLMI laptop which crawled along with Windows XP on 512GB RAM. I only use this machine for use with Hornby Railmaster and E-link (I mostly use a ZTC 511 but occasionally use the PC) but it's performance was lousy. After de-activating the Railmaster and saving it's data files I upped the RAM (cheaply) to 2GB and did a fresh install of Windows 7. Ran into display driver trouble here but a search on the internet found an Intel driver download (a later XP version) which worked OK on 7. At this point I was very pleased with the improvement on the old machine being a masochist I had to have a go at windows 10... It worked OK but this time I couldn't find a suitable graphics chipset driver and rather than leave it with a low resolution display I used the Windows 10 backout process to go back to Windows 7, I now have a very nice performing PC for DCC operation at least! 4] Having now got used to Windows 10, and actually liking it, I took the plunge and re-installed Windows 10 on my main Windows 8.1 Samsung laptop (Samsung NP350E7C). OK it again lost my calendar data but this time I was prepared and re-entered everything! Ian

Yes they are Roy, but, in my opinion they are not produced to the detail and dimensional standards of Dapol and Farish recent locos and what we hope for from DJM. Ian

How about some N gauge 4-4-0 locos? I'm not a manufacturing expert but I imagine the chassis design and manufacture is the costliest part of producing a model loco so if a number of models can share a chassis then that makes things more viable to bring to the market place. All the following were inside cylinder locos, had 10'0" coupled wheelbases, around 6'8" driving wheels and 6 wheel tenders so could share common chassis. The bogie wheel base may vary in length and position but that's (I reckon) relatively easy to incorporate into chassis design. SR/BR L1 ran 'til early 60s SR/BR L ran 'til early 60s SR/BR D15 ran 'til mid 50s SR/BR L12 ran 'til mid 50s SR/BR T9 ran 'til early 60s SR/BR B4x ran 'til mid 50s LNER/BR D11/1 ran 'til late 50s LNER/BR D11/2 ran 'til late 50s All the following had 9'6" coupled wheelbases, around 6'8" driving wheels and 6 wheel tenders: The 4P compounds had outside cylinders but no outside valve gear. SR/BR E1 ran 'til early 60s SR/BR E ran 'til early 50s MR/BR 2P ran 'til early 60s MR/BR 3P ran 'til early 50s MR/BR 4P compound ran 'til early 60s LMS/BR 2P ran 'til early 60s LMS/BR 4P compound ran 'til early 60s Ian

An update : Following problems with some of my other software I decided to go back to Windows 8.1. Microsoft offer this option for the first month after you upgrade to Win 10. My calendar is back again and my other software works too.... I will wait for the inevitable WIndows 10.1..........

My upgrade from Win 8.1 to Win 10 on my laptop seemed to go very smoothly and took around 90 minutes. All looked OK but I found that all the entries in my Calendar app have disappeared. Perhaps Microsoft has cancelled all my future appointments so I have time to attend to the rest of the Win 10 glitches to come....... Ian

I Agree ! Back in post #287 in this thread I wrote: "In summary of the thread so far (excluding history and why are where we are, fascinating though it is...) : Yes ! C&L and SMP are visually better than PECO !!! So for " Ready to Run" or "Ready to Lay" - whatever - we need (someone like) PECO or Tillig to offer their existing track and points with something approaching UK sleeper spacing/proportions. Anyone agree? Ian P.S. I use SMP track with SMP plastic based 3' radius point kits for my simple end to end because I can't stand the appearance of PECO H0-ish code 75 and code 100 track (even though I admit it's robust and well made) I would much prefer a PECO or Tillig code 75/Code 83 range of ready to lay points with sensible 00 sleeper proportions (in future projects)

In summary of the thread so far (excluding history and why are where we are, fascinating though it is...) : Yes ! C&L and SMP are visually better than PECO !!! So for " Ready to Run" or "Ready to Lay" - whatever - we need (someone like) PECO or Tillig to offer their existing track and points with something approaching UK sleeper spacing/proportions. Anyone agree? Ian P.S. I use SMP track with SMP plastic based 3' radius point kits for my simple end to end because I can't stand the appearance of PECO H0-ish code 75 and code 100 track (even thoughI admit it's robust and well made) I would much prefer a PECO or Tillig code 75/Code 83 range of ready to lay points with sensible 00 sleeper proportions

The OP asked : I'm trying to figure out both the technical and budgetary limitations that my simple DCC layout will have to be designed within. I might want to use a reversing loop. I realise this cause problems with the track polarity. I'm looking for a cost effective solution. Whilst there are many auto reverse modules available for DCC I believe there's only one which will fully automate the loop. That is, reverse polarity AND set the point at the exit of the loop. It's the PSX-ARSC (for single coil point motors) and PSX-AR (for tortoise etc. motors). Ian