PatB

It seems to be a recurrent theme. 25 Years ago when I lived in Windmill Hill, some of my less rail-aware acquaintances were convinced that anything with heavy axle loads that banged its way past in the small hours was something secretive and sinister. Probably something to do with nukes or something. No consideration that perfectly normal freight tends to move at night 'cos it's difficult to fit in around daytime passenger traffic. Rather more recently there's been concern here in WA about lead traffic through residential areas. There's probably more grounds for that though, given that one of the companies involved had recent form for a major lead contamination incident in Esperance.

I didn't mean to suggest that the UK and USA's previous position as major manufacturing nations was due to the availability of cheap labour. Poor wording on my part. However, in a globalised world, any future aspirations in that direction might have to be. I suspect that Chinese and Indian factory workers also earn well by local standards. However, again in a globalised labour market, they were and/or are cheap in comparison to workers in the OECD. As for my motorcycle analogy, I'm not quite that old. I'm more thinking of the likes of Hesketh (cough), Silk (ahem), Oasis (who?), Norton's Wankels (not as good as they should have been and a technological dead end anyway) and overpriced, mediocre oddballs like the Harris Matchless G50. And how many equally hopeless stillborn projects? I can think of at least one proposal to build a parallel twin using VW air-cooled top ends, and another for a road bike built around a grass track V-twin (Godden?) lump. All fuelled by enthusiasts determined to do something the Japanese weren't doing whilst conveniently ignoring the uncomfortable fact that the Japanese were making money by making motorcycles and hardly anyone else was at the time. Sorry for the partial thread derail, but I'd reiterate that, when a business is in a position when it needs to make money, management ability to make money is probably a higher priority than management ability to make toy trains. Management who can make money can hire (or in Hornby's case keep) people with the ability and experience to do the technical stuff.

I've had croc and, done properly, it's very nice indeed. More akin to a good, firm white fish than to any meat I can think of. However, it does seem to be quite easy to turn it into flavourless leather instead.

Spotted outside Supercheap Auto yesterday.

Outsourced production will always tend to follow the cheapest labour. 10-20 Years ago that was China. With rising wages and a growing middle class, China is no longer so cheap, so more companies are moving to the Subcontinental countries. In a decade or two it'll be somewhere else, like Indonesia or maybe southern Africa or Latin America. Maybe one day the wheel will have turned full circle and it'll be the UK and USA again, though I'm not sure if I'd want to live in either under circumstances where it might happen. As for management, I think jjb made the point a few pages ago that Hornby need good managers at the helm rather than enthusiasts for their specific product. I'd concur with this. I'm old enough to remember the final death throes of the British motorcycle industry, with Triumph disappearing in a welter of obsolete unreliability and a succession of frankly hopelessly eccentric designs from small, enthusiast run outfits. Each was hailed as "The next British world-beater". Rather predictably, by anyone without rose-tinted eyewear, they all proved to be financially disastrous and functionally questionable. Things only picked up when John Bloor bought Triumph. Significantly, Mr Bloor wasn't interested in making motorcycles but he was very interested indeed in making money. Which he did. The production of a range of largely excellent motorcycles was an agreeable side effect. Of course Triumph have now gone and offshored their production but, AFAIK, they're still a successful British company thanks to competent management.

That sounds about right. There was a Mini as well, which I also built.

I have to admit to having looked at the Dream Steam website with a certain longing. However, once you've added all the upgrades to the basic ex-Mamod loco to turn it into something useful, the cost isn't so very far short of something like a basic Roundhouse Millie which is a significantly more sophisticated design. Oscillators as a species can be made to run more slowly by rearranging the ports closer to the centre of oscillation. However, to do so on anything with a useful stroke length involves significantly more work in making the cylinders, thus losing quite a bit of the oscillator's main advantage of simple construction.

One of the European plastic kit manufacturers (Heller?) did one, which I built c1981. Can't remember the scale though. It wasn't huge but my memory tells me it was bigger than 1/87.

Are we seeing the perhaps inevitable result of demanding Pendon levels of appearance from locos manufactured by mass production techniques? What can be achieved by a craftsman using brass and nickel silver may not translate well to a model assembled by a Chinese factory worker from moulded plastic components.

Fair enough. All I can say in my defence is that Vauxhalls were never really my thing and so my take on the genealogy of the various models is largely guesswork .

ISTR Blydensteins doing some useful tuning gear for the Chevette. I've also wondered, given its Viva drivetrain, whether it would have been possible to transplant the bigger Viva/Magnum/Firenza into it using largely Vauxhall factory components.

IIRC the Chevette turned up c1976 rather than 79. I'm 99% certain it was around well before I left primary school which was 78.

Given that you don't seem enthusiastic about locos which are right for your location and era, but very keen on those which don't, maybe you need to consider changing location and era .

If you think Minilites on everything is bad, you haven't encountered the Australian tendency to put flamin' whitewalls on anything pre-1960. And cutting good, original steelwork to fit the most cheap and 'orrible aftermarket indicators available. And cheap retrims in either red velour or the nastiest vinyl to be found.

Working from my memories of 1984 (not necessarily accurate), I'd raise a few points rather than a comprehensive list. Quite a lot of enthusiasts, and the desperately poor, were still running '60s and even a bit of 50s stuff as daily drivers, so whilst they shouldn't be used too liberally, Morris Minors, Austin A30/35/40s, Farina Oxbridges (the few the banger boys hadn't consumed), Mk 1 and 2 Cortinas, Triumph Heralds etc. are all quite acceptable in moderation in 1984. As for contemporary stuff, Fiat 126/127/128s were still around in decent numbers, as was the 131 and the Strada and Panda were relatively new. I remember quite a lot of Renaults too, with the 4 still in production alongside more modern designs, 5s, 9s and 11s in good numbers, 12s still hanging on, 14s, not many 15/16/17s, lots of 18s, quite a few Fuegos but hardly any 20s or 30s. Talbots (or whatever they were calling themselves that week) were still around, with a few surviving Avengers and quite a lot of the Alpine/Solara variants. Those funny little Citroens using the old Peugeot 104 shell seemed quite common. Lots of Japanese stuff, though not much of their earlier efforts. More common were things like Datsun ('twould have been round about then that they rebranded from Datsun to Nissan) Sunnys and Bluebirds with the contemporary straight line/sharp corner styling. Vauxhall Novas and Astras seemed to be everywhere, also with sharp edged styling. Light commercials were the ever present Mk1 and Mk2 Transits, but there were still quite a few of those 00 gauge Commers (ex PO and Telecom mostly) about, and the Bedford CF was still selling. The Japanese were also around with the HiAce van and HiLux pickup and the Mitsubishi L300. Don't forget all those Honda Actys either. I'm not sure if the Bedford Rascal had yet appeared. Don't forget the motorcycles either (though the manufacturers seem to have) for any comprehensive early 80s street scene. IIRC 1979 had been a record year for motorcycle sales and there were still huge numbers around, with L-plated 125s of various flavours probably being most common. Or maybe that design classic the mighty Honda Step-Thru (surely the Japanese must make a model of it, although probably to H0 scale sadly). If your scene's set in London it must include a courier's grubby and battered Honda CX500 somewhere, perhaps buried in the front wing of a Cortina minicab with the shaken but unhurt rider arguing with the driver. Possibly easier to do would be something under a cover in a front or back yard. When the 125 learner law came in c1981 thousands of 250s (the previous learner limit) became both redundant and financially worthless and so spent the 1980s decaying under tarpaulins before someone labelled them "Classics" as a joke and the world was daft enough to take it seriously .

Pretty sure it was in the listing title.

Does it yell "GAS GAS GAS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 DEAD DEAD DEAD"?

Back to basics. Unplug the lathe (and keep the plug where you can see it so some helpful person doesn't plug it in for you at an awkward moment). First up, check that the plug is wired correctly. Many are not. Make sure it's got the right fuse in. I suspect 3A would be appropriate for the little Unimat motor. Check the lead carefully for damage to the insulation. I'm not familiar with the Unimat motor specifically, but the first thing to do is clean it thoroughly. The sort of crud that builds up around lathes has a high metal content and so is quite conductive. Get it all off the outside first, then have a look in through any cooling slots. If there's rubbish inside you'll have to open it up and clean it internally. While you're in there, check all the electrical connections, looking particularly for stray strands of copper, more conductive crud and making particularly sure the earth core of the mains cable is firmly and conductively attached to the metalwork as it should be. Make sure the live core and anything it feeds only have continuity to anything else through the motor brushes and windings. With the motor apart, make sure the brushes are insulated from each other and from the motor frame. Make sure the commutator is clean. Carefully scrape any deposits out of the insulation gaps. Crud in this area is basically carbon and copper particles so it has the potential to short stuff. All the above can be done without a multimeter just by visual inspection, although a meter (or even just a battery and bulb continuity tester) will help. However, if nothing comes to light up to this point, it's time to check the windings with a meter. None should connect to earth, so that's the first and easiest check. Similarly, none should connect to each other, so you need to identify each end of each individual winding. There should be infinite resistance between separate windings and a smallish but measurable resistance between the ends of any one winding. That resistance should be the same for each. Any that read zero or which are otherwise appreciably different from the others represent a fault. Bottom line is that you appear to have electricity getting to where it shouldn't. The key is to find the route it is taking to do so. In the absence of complex electronics or sealed black boxes this is well within the capabilities of any individual able to work methodically and read a multimeter. Dont plug the thing back in until you've found and rectified all evident faults and then applied your meter to the plug pins to check for three things. First that there is zero resistance between the earth pin and any metal part of the motor that you can touch. Second, an infinite resistance between the active pin and any touchable metal. Third a non zero resistance between the active and neutral pin. Then you can (cautiously) plug it in and try it.

From my memory of these things in the 70s, my Triang minerals were all rewheeled with Jacksons, popped into the existing axleboxes without the addition of brass bearings. ISTR that Limas ran OK through pointwork to (then) Peco standards without modification.

30 years ago I thrashed a rented pov-pack Fiesta 950 around north Wales for a week. Once I'd worked out that you needed to rev it 'til the valves bounced to make it go properly I had a whale of a time, as the chassis, steering and gearbox were all quite pleasant. It was probably even more fun than a proper hot one, given that, even thrashed, the velocities reached were quite modest, causing less worry about death and/or licence loss.

I quite enjoy Murdoch but I find it pays not to have the old critical faculties turned up too high.

Will a CD drawer motor go in? They seem to be becoming the standard fix for dodgy pancake types.

Not impossible, but I don't see anything really familiar there. This is as likely to be a result of trying to identify an obscure bus from a near 50 year old memory which, at best, will be as seen by a 4 year old as to anything else . If it helps, I seem to remember inward facing bench seats over the rear axle, one of which (the RHS one) partially hid a big chequerplate hump in the floor which my mechanical guru older brother (well, he was 8 and good with Meccano) told me was for a mysterious object called a "diff", whatever that was .

I agree that it's been wound up a bit, but the human movement doesn't have the characteristic jerkiness that occurs when it's been really overdone.

Can't you just lay a third rail on the 5" circuit ?