Michael Edge

It's not just what it looks like, the "instant reverse" crossover doesn't work very well either.

DGs were designed to be used double ended, the loops do sometimes interfere and prevent coupling but not very often. The thin p/b wires easily slide over each other but the etched Dingham loop won't readily do this.

My experience is only in 7mm, I've not tried them in 4mm where I use DGs.

Instructions for the NBL/Paxman kits duly altered.

The Garratts didn't have the J hanger spring arrangement seen on the 2-6-4T, just the spring ends mounted under the frames.

These locos have their axleboxes fitted outside the frames rather than inside, they aren't very visible as you suggest but they are provided in the kit as overlays. I'll have to check what the instructions actually say buI I have been in contact with Daniel to offer some advice.

Dinghams are definitely not suitable for double ended operation, I also find that the loop is very vulnerable to damage since it usually sticks out beyond the buffers. The delayed action uncoupling is very useful though.

Looks like the old Cotswold kit but I think the number is wrong, 50644 had a short bunker although it was push -pull fitted. The long bunker locos were later batches - 50844 might be right if that one did get a BR number.

I used to do that many years ago with my Wigan Wallgate layout and it does work. Come to think of it Wentworth Junction is getting a lot of running (testing/playing?) at the moment so the same process may be going on.

Throw the Peco rubber away and use some a bit less aggressive - you will be making deep grooves in your railhead with it. Pre-graphite I only used 1200 grade wet and dry to clean the railhead (with many complaints from the rest of the team) but the result was that it gradually got polished rather than scratched and improved over the years.

Handrail pillars are from Markits, M4HRKS1.2, wire size varies but 0.5mm for the ones fitted in pillars. This is slightly overscale (0.45mm is nearer) for most handrails but looks better in the overscale pillars in my opinion.

Some of my older (30 years +) Evostuck aluminium models have started to come apart a bit - Araldite is more permanent but needs the surfaces roughened a bit first.

The original electric blue livery faded very rapidly, there were big variations soon in service in the early 1960s.

We run dozens of locos with exactly that setup on Carlisle but I've never seen this problem, Frank's suggestion above is a good one though.

I thought that was north of Doncaster or York?

Most motors aren't that big now, the 16mm diameter cans were a problem in many locos.

Everywhere is the simple answer.

Look at the width of the gearbox as well as its profile, some will be too wide to fit between DJH frames in 00 gauge - most are OK though.

Smaller is OK, all wheel tyres get turned down during their lives - up to about 2" off the diameter.

The Sharman reference is right for the loco but tender wheels vary, I'm not sure about the GE style ones for the Sandringhams but most of the GS tenders for the Footballers had disc wheels. I think one B17 may have had a bogie with 10 spoke wheels but I don't know which one.

The "graphite revolution" was just that, it has completely transformed layout operation - and it's not new either, I've seen references to it in magazines from the 1930s at least. It started for me at Scaleforum some years ago, Bernie Baker was doing an S4 demo and had one of our Ruston 88DS locos running up and down on track made from two lengths of aluminium angle. The loco was running so slowly that I had to look away and look back to confirm that it was actually moving. When I asked how this was possible the answer was "graphite". We applied graphite (with a graphite pencil from Hobbycraft) to the Herculaneum Dock track for the Southampton show in 2016 and I've hardly cleaned any loco wheels since - I've not cleaned the track much either. Since then no locos with tender pickups have ever stalled and the tank locos very rarely - if they do they are run up and down on a stretch of freshly graphited track and they run perfectly again. On the DCC side (the dock railway) the results were even more spectacular - we have two locos on the system which were always unreliable. One is a Hornby L&Y 0-4-0ST which usually made one run out from the fiddle yard and back before needing it's wheels cleaned - since the start of the graphite era it has run continuously and still not been cleaned. The other is the Barclay 0-6-0F which caused consternation to Andy Ross working the dock when he realised he'd been shunting with it all weekend. There was of course much speculation about a reduction in adhesion but I hink Wentworth Junction has cleared that up - there's no visible effect. I know all the down trains are banked but going the other way all the up trains have to be lifted up the same gradient out of the fiddle yard. I've been promoting this for six years now, once I actually get someone to try it they are usually converted but as always there are lots of theoretical objections - I've said on here in other threads that I don't care how or why it works, I just know that it does. Try it and you'll see what I mean.

I first used DCC on Herculaneum Dock when the Overhead Railway was added, simply because I couldn't see any practical way of wiring this up with conventional sections. In the long run another benefit appeared with the ability to add automatic colour light signals (powered from the DCC track supply) with the addition of two connecting wires along the structure. The next step was to convert the dock railway system to DCC, the expected benefit was more reliable running with full voltage on the track all the time - and all with very small locos. Nothing was changed in the wiring apart from severing all the connecting lines to the CLC, this wasn't an operating problem since locos never cross these, only wagons are propelled across. The control panels simply had all their sections switched on. That's where it has stopped, the main line part of the layout will remain DC. Since the graphite revolution running reliability has been all but perfect and there is very little difference between the two systems - I'm not really interested in sound (all the locos on the dock system should have continuous bells!) and I find shunting almost impossible with any deceleration delay (and no brakes). Adapting the fiddle yard to Wentworth Junction produced some complication at the ends since parts of it connect to the DCC part of HD, this meant adding two changeover switches at one end (these will need some sort of locking system) and a different connection in the plugs at the other. One of the biggest benefits of DCC on the dock system was the ability to leave locos anywhere but this part of the layout is not signalled, all trains ran visually. The big disadvantage is that the operator needs to know the identity of each loco and there's no way of seeing what's inside the loco shed. This isn't much of a drawback with the dozen or so locos involved here but it's an enormous problem on Carlisle with more than 200 locos, any of which might be 100ft away. Noting Frank's comments above about banking operations on Clayton, I don't think DCC is really feasible here - it certainly isn't on Wentworth Junction. On WJ all down trains must be banked so any one (or more) of 5 or 6 banking locos have to be matched with any of the train locos running in that direction. The complications of setting up and using the DCC "consist" system for this would be totally impractical and otherwise you would need another operator/driver for each banking loco. The simple solution of running all the locos (and there might be four per train on the Worsbrough) off one controller works very well in practice. The DC/DCC debate so often turns into a matter of almost religious heresy, I just use whatever works best in the situation.

Fair enough, that's a prototype for it but I still think it doesn't serve much purpose on your model. They had to use the running line for shunting there - there's nowhere else to shunt the long sidings from - your layout's goods yard can be easily shunted from the loop.

That would be extremely unlikely - the loop would always be used for shunting but that wouldn't prevent you from putting a train in there when no shunting was required.

I think it's probably the high pivot point, I have a pair of these which I've run together for many years but never reliably. I've tried all sorts of springing arrangements, mostly out of a pig-headed desire to make these old Hornby Dublo models work, I have no use or place for them on any of my present layouts.