Michael Edge

Fell driving wheels were only 4'3" diameter and centre two had a quill drive.

Pantograph looks very good - how well does it work? I presume the insulators were with the loco kit, we don't want people asking us for them!

I could find out but I'm a long way from home at the moment.

I wash out gearboxes with GT85, then lubricate (sparingly) with car engine oil.

No idea, I've no way of measuring any of this, I have fitted them to a couple of locos with gearing to suit the maximum speed of the loco concerned.

Looking at your photos of the original, the slidebars don't extend much past the leading wheel rim.

I'm not sure I've done a full drawing for the N15 although I did build a couple in 3mm some years ago - I must have done cutting drawings and etched motion/frames at least for those but I'm not sure where they are just now.

These motors do seem to get a bit warm in continuous use but performance remains good, I'm not going to get too worried about it. They are extremely powerful though (and very cheap!).

Latest (and probably last) batch of signals now installed on Carlisle. These are all for the goods avoiding lines, some of them are purely cosmetic as the Canal and Dentonholme branches just go into the wall, none of the distants work as they were all fixed in our era. These are the elevated ground discs at Rome Street junction, the only ones on the layout which actually work. I think they were elevated like this so that the signalman could see them from his perch high above the road bridge - certainly it didn't improve sighting for the engine crew. The left hand disc is for the crossover, the other one for the sidings, these used to go to the old gasworks but were cut back to serve the Metal Box factory. The junction in the foreground is the non-working Canal branch. Photo shows that the LH disc still needs some adjustment. Same signal looking the other way, non-prototypical factory building plonked here for now. Dentonholme South down home just past the first bridge over the Caldew, only the RH arm works on this one. Dentonholme South junction, all these signals are non-working, the branch doesn't go anywhere on the layout. The fixed distant nearest the camera is far too close to the bridge but we seem to have lost some space here before the goods shed - unlike the station area the goods lines are not exactly to scale, even at this size the room wasn't quite big enough... Looking back to Nelson bridge past the small MR signal cabin - Dentonholme was a Midland Railway yard. Dentonholme North has two working signals, I was slightly worried about fitting the bracket in with its stay wire but there was just enough room here.

I didn't notice the toilet!

Leaving the fuel in while the gearbox was removed was what caused it to turn over, as I recall it remained upside down for some days while they worked out what to do with it. The photos were kept secret for many years but Don Townsley published some a year or so ago.

Wasn't it one of these that Hunslet accidentally upended on the cranes at Jack Lane? They eventually had to lower it on to its cab and had to rebuild it.

The DJH kit has the boiler quite a bit too high.

Brookes No1 is a 14", considerably smaller and lighter than a 16" Hunslet.

The one at Pontypool and Blaenavon is an 0-6-0, as far as I know unique. I've measured one at Dalmellington and a TH rebuild on the same frame at Peak Rail. I think there's one at Embsay but I've not seen it yet and possibly one on the Derwent Valley.

Let me test it first! Certainly wants to be filthy, Mexborough was a good rival for Gateshead.

Don't forget that turntable wheels are usually flangeless - I made that mistake with the first one I built (although it does still work).

I don't really have time to build pantographs in any number but the one for the EM1 is fairly easy to put together and very easy after the first dozen or so.... The cross arm is a lot more fiddly but it's still as easy as I can make it. There are two problems with Sommerfeldt range, mainly they are HO and nowhere near high enough for MSW electrification (especially near level crossings or water cranes), they also have viciously powerful springs.

Yes, you should definitely have a trap there, probably full pointwork making a crossover with the main line.

The tank fixing bars are not turnbuckles, they are fixed length flat strips but can pivot at each end to allow for boiler expansion. They are quite easy to fabricate if you can't get castings.

Horwich 0F 0-4-0ST We.ve just discovered an error in the parts list and instructions for this kit - parts 40 and 42 have been transposed, 40 is the rear end of the tank with handrail holes and spacing tags, 42 is the front end. Sorry about this but thanks to "beechnut" for pointing this out.

That looks like an excellent idea, when I build locos from scratch I mark all the cladding bands by scribing them from a paper template - only it's flat when I do it. Professional painters all detest bands fitted before lining goes on.

We use an NCE Power Pro system.

Thanks for all the comments above, it's not easy to measure current consumption with DCC, I'm going to try to measure it on DC when I get back to them. It's not the current supply or the voltage, the trips are set at 2.5A and the voltage is fairly constant all round the layout. From experience the symptoms look more like a partially fried motor than anything else. We have plenty of other diesels running on the layout from all manufacturers, these are the only ones showing these symptoms - we even have a Clayton which works OK. We also have two Heljan 47s running without any trouble. There's certainly nothing slipping in the drive train, the locos run smoothly and take up the train without any hesitattion, just won't get above about 15 - 20 mph or so.

It will be on show and described on here as soon as there is any progress. Meanwhile we have been informed that th elost wax castings for the Fell will be here next Tuesday so all looks good for Scaleforum.