Michael Edge

I hope you're going to cut that footplate out now, up to the smokebox saddle. I've no idea why they cast this a plate all across the loco but it looks daft.

I've used that motor and it ran fairly quietly - are you sure it's not an out of balance flywheel causing the noise? I have tried some other cheap motors which really scream at high revs though, fine at low speed. I used to use flywheels a lot, mainly to make sure small locos kept moving but since I started applying graphite to the rails they are redundant. I think I did that with the brakes on the first one I built.....

You don't have to gap the copper clad sleepers in the middle, I do it close to one rail and it's invisible - at least from one side.

No need to dismantle anything, just follow the first advice you got and cut the brass strips with a Dremel - it's quite easy and causes no problems, simple solutions are usually best.

You're getting some mixed answers on this question about minimum radius for EM but it is complicated. Minimum radius on Carlisle is 3'6" (although I was originally told it was 4') and I can get anything round that without much compromise but the most difficult locos are 4-6-2s with frames outside the trailing pony truck - i.e. all the ones you wanted. It's possible to get round this to some extent by using the DJH method of shoving the frames out a foot or so but we were prevented from doing this by having to make Carlisle's platforms the scale distance from the track (forced on us by a cock up in the design of the track at the south end of the station). Locos without this trailing truck arrangement mostly present no problems, in fact the vast majority of my production in EM (and most in P4) will happily go round my vicious 28" reverse curve test track - this includes Britannias and 9Fs incidentally, they have no trouble on curves. Like you I wish I had changed to EM many years ago but large layouts and lots of stock make this an unlikely prospect now. Changing the pointwork to 16.2mm (EM -2mm) has made a big difference in running and appearance though. This is 00 gauge (new Peco bullhead plain track) on Wentworth Junction with 16.2mm gauge through the crossings, the narrower flangeways make it look much better and the running is just about perfect. Photos looking directly along the track will still look narrow gauge but at this angle it's not easy to tell the difference.

Can't wait to see that now.

502 had LMS bogies, 503 the same design but shorter wheelbase and smaller wheels. Power bogies on both were simple plate frames.

They are looking very good Alex, thanks for posting the pictures.

The closure proposal was partly based on the stated necessity to replace all the overhead wiring, this was a blatant lie, amply demonstrated if you look at the OLE west of Hadfield. Apart from the insulators it's all the original wiring so this could easily have been done for the rest of the route. The Humber bridge is a very nice bridge but it has never seen very much traffic.

Mechanical transmission wasn't really the way to go for this much power, Hunslet found this out later with an 0-8-0DM for Peru (tested extensively on BR before going there) and two similarly powerful 0-6-0DMs - the gearboxes were as big as the engines. Hydraulic transmission was much better for large power outputs. The most puzzling thing about 11001 is the lack of train braking, there was plenty of room for an exhauster in the huge engine casing.

Thanks for showing the picture of the Hunslet 15", this kit is still in production (and in stock as well), available from us. Michael Edge Judith Edge kits

Chasewater have a 330hp 0-4-0 with an MAN engine which works - it masquerades as an ex BR D2900 but it isn't.

Yes, looking again that's correct, if the SRPS one is a runner (or I think there's another one on the East Lancs) that's the one to record.

That sounds more like it! Seriously though, it would be interesting to know what the limit is with a helix of this sort.

He has to swing them round, luckily there were no overhead wires on the GW then. If he put them back the other way round he would have to handle the hot end - not a very good idea. This demonstrates why later GW practice was to provide a fireiron tunnel alongside the firebox but even so they required careful handling especially when hot.

Some Jinties (not sure about 47445) were never vacuum brake fitted but as the above said the feed clacks were always on the firebox backhead with the injectors.

That's more or less what I have used - bevel/helical gear is a spectacular piece of nonsense - helical = skew gears as I have already described, bevel is what you see there.the crown wheels lower down are much more interesting though, I've been trying to find a source of these, slightly less efficient than bevels but much more forgiving to mesh.

These overscale turntables don't help - biggest UK tables were 70ft and most locos can be turned on 60ft. The manufacturers never seem to have realised that only the wheels need to fit on the turntable bridge, not the whole loco - and on the GW they even got round that with extension rails!

You'll have to push it to the limit to find out - assuming you have enough stock of course.

I like that latest plan but the turntable arrangement doesn't look very likely, although I like the single slip access off the carriage roads. I would push the turntable to the far end of the space and have a couple of kickback roads for extra storage, this would leave room for coal/ash/water on the approach track as well. All these roads radiating off a turntable doesn't look very British to me, unless it's Ranelagh Bridge of course (there's always an exception to everything).

How long a train can you get on the helix? It's intriguing to see it going round the circles but how many can one be on without everything falling off?

02 has a Rolls Royce engine so likely to be different. You need a Paxman engine for this one but I don't know of a working one.

That's a good question, worm gears aren't very efficient but the skew gears I used in the Hunslet 14" are just as good. The spur drive box takes the output shaft down to a maximum speed that is OK for most locos (varies with wheel diameter of course) - all it needs is a 1:1 final drive. The bevel gears are a bit quieter than the skew gears though so might be a bit more efficient. However I only have one set of the skew gears left and I don't know where they came from to get any more. I find the power output amazing and they don't take much current either.

This is my drawing of the 0395 if it's any help to you. LSW 0395 for RM.pdf As you can see from the reference to Slater's wheels it was originally done for 7mm scale.

Have you got 335? That one was quite different to all the others - and had the most ludicrously mismatched tender I've ever seen.