Michael Edge

The Q4 is in my list of etches to be produced, I'll need one for Wentworth Junction.

Only two switch failures in well over 400 tortoise point motors on Carlisle, these things are remarkably reliable. Are you sure it's not just dry joints on the tag strips?

Very nice but I can see why you only powered one bogie - they are a bit expensive. Thanks for the pictures, as you may have gathered I have more than a passing interest in EM1s - initially in 4mm scale though.

Thanks Nick, looks good, one more question - how is it driven?

I like the W1 but I would be interested in some details of your EM1 as well.

When the Stockbridge bypass was being built there were placards along the M1 advertising something rather ludicrously called the "Liverpool to Skegness trunk road". The M67 hasn't been built because it incoveniently would have to go through the Peak national park.

I've been using graphite now for 3 years on my own layout, Carlisle and LMRS Chapel-en-le Frith. The track does get an occasional clean with a very fine abrasive rubber pad but I haven't cleaned any loco wheels at all in that time. If a loco does seem dirty it's run up and down a few times on freshly graphite rail. At first glance the wheels may appear dirty but the "dirt" conducts electricity. DCC or DC control is irrelevant although I did change part of Herculaneum Dock to DCC partly because there is always full voltage on the track. The comment above about Portescap motors is relevant, their very low current consumption results in far less arcing between rail and wheel which is responsible for much of the problem of dirty wheels - this is also why shunting locos with frequent reversals give more trouble than those simply running through trains. Graphite on the railhead eliminates all this and all locos always start and don't stall, it is applied with a graphite pencil to the top and inner corner of the rails, it doesn't gum anything up and it doesn't appear to affect adhesion. It isn't exactly new technology, I've since found references to it in pre-war magazines. That's a rather long reply for a very simple solution but I do find it very difficult to convince others that it works - just try it.

Yes, drill 1.4mm to tap 10BA, if you try to just crew it in you may split the wheel moulding. The trick in soldering fasteners (I use slices of 1mm I.D. tube) is to do it quickly.

A full size crankpin is a piece of plain steel bar about 4" diameter sticking out of the wheel face, old fashioned Romford crankpins are 3" diameter so fairly close. The loose bushes people are persuaded to use are usually too big resulting in large holes in the rods - full size bushes are pressed into the rods, not loose. The nuts provided are much thicker than full size ones and can't be recessed into the face of the rods - and this is sometimes necessary.

There's actually quite a lot of the LOR structure remaining when you know what you are looking for, at Wapping a fairly long stretch of columns has been turned into a fence and the underground station/tunnel at Dingle still exists, used as a garage.

Possibly but I'm not promising anything yet.

I did use flywheels routinely for quite a long time, mainly in the hope of keeping the locos running better but since moving to mostly compensated frames and more importantly using graphite all over the railhead this problem has disappeared almost entirely. Flywheels work better the larger diameter they have and this makes them even more difficult to fit in the space available, if they are not reasonably well balanced they can produce a lot of vibration. They are an advantage in many ways but make shunting more difficult, don't forget our locos don't have any brakes apart from a non-reversible worm gear.

I haven't done that with the balance weights anyway, could put some more layers in for modellers with masochistic tendencies though.....

That's what I thought but they could have used the Bootle branch from the docks. I'm not sure when Waterloo tunnel was closed but that was used earlier for MDHB movements, I have a photo of a Hudswell being delivered this way.

I didn't say anything about errors, this is what the loco is like, they are extremely narrow in all dimensions. Modeller's difficulties arise from using wheels which are overscale in width (such as Markits in EM) and using greatly overwidth crankpin fasteners - particularly the loose bush and nut types. The connecting rod has to pass cleanly outside the trailing crankpin and behind the cab step. In the event of things fouling in EM or P4 the only solution might be to crank the steps out slightly but I might build the next one in EM to see how it goes. P4 modellers do of course have wheels of nearly scale thickness.

The bollards were necessary round the point levers because much of the shunting was done by rope and capstan, powered from the hydraulic mains which ran all through the docks. The huge coaling cranes at Herculaneum were moved by this method as well.

There are a lot of errors in the Roche drawings as you know and many are not obvious - the dimension over cylinders is about right but the width over platform is 8' 10 7/8' according to the LMS diagram, I don't know what the DJH kit measures, I've not got one here at the moment. The quoted width over cylinders is measured at the valve chests, i.e. maximum width at this point. They fitted on the SR main lines with no difficulty as was seen in the locomotive exchanges, only needing bigger tenders to compensate for the lack of water troughs. The Templot track drawing was made before we started building the layout as was much of the pointwork, I laid the track as shown in the drawing and only later realised that there wasn't much width for the platform ends relative to their position over Crown Street. Carlisle's platforms are at the correct distance from the track according to loading gauge dmensions, unlike those on the vast majority of layouts. Incidentally, loco cylinders clouting platform edges wasn't exactly unknown, especially if they were in run down condition. As to Templot, it's the most incredible piece of software I've ever used (although it drives me mad at times), it produces accurately designed pointwork for any scale/gauge/track/wheel standards you want - I wouldn't dream of not using it now, only wish I'd used it earlier.

New loco finished, MDHB Hudswell no 45 will be well out of period for the layout but I would like an example of all the dock locos. It might also foul the LOR structure, especially the bumpers round the columns, my Craftsman 02 does. We may or may not put this into production, it's been on display for quite q few years now but very little interest. The type is more or less confined to the MDHB locos but most were sold off for industrial use after the dock system closed, mostly NCB South Wales and at least one is preserved. Similar locos were supplied to Ford and still work at Dagenham but they don't have much detail in common. Livery will be green with wasp stripe buffer beams, these will be painted before the buffers and jacking brackets are fitted.

Test etch build nearly finished now, this one will be SR 600s.

Fowler 150hp 600s nearly finished now, just a few more patterns to make for various air reservoirs, exhaust etc. The connecting rods are very close to the backs of the steps, there isn't going to be much room for error here in EM or P4. Cab fittings and sandboxes done but not moulded yet, 600s still had the remains of headlights on each end and a strange arrangement of low level wooden buffers which will be added to this one but might not appear in the kit.

The original route would have been done at walking pace, that was the limit on the public road sections of the MDHB - with a man walking ahead carrying a red flag. If you look at the map it's a long way round by other routes, I don't know the details of the route, there's more than one possibility, information came from a former driver.

The width over cylinders is less than 1" wider than the platform and that's the valve chest, the cylinders themselves are noticeably narrower. The Carlisle platforms are set up at scale distance from the track but a great many models are built with no regard width whatsoever, DJH LNER Cartazzi axleboxes are way over gauge. The platform setting was forced on us by an error in the Templot trackplan which left insufficient room for the platform ends at the south end of the station. While building the platforms Geoff Taylor asked for some stock which had the biggest throwover to check them - I gave him a Princess a Fowler 2-6-4T and a 12 wheel restaurant car for this but while these were the right choices unfortunately both the locos were mine and were built at the correct width. The restaurant car was for centre overthrow and was fine but we subsequently discovered the all the 12 wheel sleepers had out of gauge steps on the ends. Although this was forced on us the appearance of trains running through the station is greatly improved with very little gap between train and platform from normal viewing distance. I've had a lot of work since re-gauging locos in this respect, mostly kit built ones, the few rtr ones seem to be essentially correct.

Definitely looks like a broad gauge RH.

Nearly all the motors I have bought have arrived within a week or so and usually before the predicted date. I've had much poorer service from UK suppliers in the past.

If the LOR had been built like that it might still be there....