AdamsRadial

I'm not sure what the modern trainz modes are but if you are saving screenshots as jpg files the results can be disappointing, the best results I got were using png files.

The toffee-hammer is your friend...

Tried to sail around the world in the 1960s Golden Globe race in a trimaran, "Teignmouth Electron". Didn't make it back. Teignmouth hyped up the attempt for all it was worth. I just saw the year ranges for the posters so no, it isn't him.

Is that Donald Crowhurst setting sail in the Teignmouth poster?

That reminded me, I got two Triang maroon coaches with the end driving compartments a year or more ago, from ebay. I just looked underneath but there isn't an R number so I can't advise how to get the. The side number is M43171 but I doubt that's sufficient for identification. I ought to have a look for a similar coach without the end driving compartment, I'm sure they would have made some. ETA checked the second coach and part obscured by one of the bogies is R120/222

It can be a struggle finding pre-nationalisation RTR coaches, I've got a couple of Graham Farish 00 suburban coaches that I hope I can mod to come close to the MSWJR coaches, and I picked up three Ratio kit-built LMS coaches that are going to need some work before I can even run them. The Triang Clerestory coaches are possibly the easiest ones to chop around into SR stuff from between the wars, there were lots of articles back in the late sixties from Terry Gough on converting them, but I am still suffering from over-sentimentality: I have a drawer full of clerestories in GWR, Maroon, LNER teak and engineering department olive-green, but each time I open the drawer with a razor-saw in hand I hear these little voices telling me they're too nice to slice and dice.

Actually, there was, in Kent, the perfect excuse to run what you want regardless of the setting. The Kent and East Sussex sometimes took trains that were out-of-gauge on the narrow tunnels of the line to Hastings, especially during wartime when they weren't too worried about the axle-loadings on the bridges, given the Luftwaffe was trying their level best to bust them anyway. Set your scene in WW2 and anything goes... Or then there's hop-pickers specials, of which Kent is again a perfect setting: Hawkhurst, which usually just saw an H-class tank on the passenger services and a C-class on the goods, saw some of the bigger 4-4-0's with lengthy trains taking families and friends to and from the farms. The other way to justify it would be running powers... It's what I use on DeSawderLeigh Junction, which is inspired by the MSWJR, so apart from MSWJR stock (of which I have zero right now), there would be LSWR, MR and GWR locomotives and stock going hither and thither.

There was a sort of keep-alive system called a free-motor back in the late sixties I read of (either RM or MRC, can't recall which). It was a small DC motor connected in parallel with the traction motor, and it had a flywheel on the output shaft. When you applied power to the loco the free motor started up first because it had less load on it. As it ran up to speed it drew less current and the traction motor then began to turn. With both motors running at whatever speed the controller determined the system was in a sort of equilibrium. When the loco passed over a dodgy track and lost connection with the controller supply, the back emf from the free motor's flywheel inertia was supposed to keep the traction motor turning enough to get it across the dead spot. I don't know how effective it might be, but it's one of these ideas I've often thought about giving a trial, especially now that motors are so small and comparatively cheap.

Making granite setts was a common activity in the workhouses, a simple product that didn't require expensive tools or machinery. The area of east Kent I'm modelling had a workhouse at Eastry then produced them. I don't as yet know where the granite came from, Kent tended to be clays in the middle and chalks on the uplands. The finished product is mentioned in at least one of the books on the East Kent Light Railway so it probably got shipped out by rail.

I thought the idea of the fish-plates was also to accommodate some thermal expansion. When I resumed modelling back in the 1980s I made a small 009 layout which had all the rails snug-fitted. It stood in the corner of the room and the sun got on it and caused the rails to expand and buckle. Two lessons learned there: allow a small gap in the rail ends, and keep the layout away from the sun. If you suspect you have poor conductivity through a fishplated connection, a dash of switch cleaner will soon prove that one way or another. Or just apply a little IPA with an eye-dropper.

It works for me, change your monitor If you really do think it's too bright, just overspray with a white mist coat until it's not so blue.

The Paddlebox is wonderful.

I'm going to have to dig out some notes from yonks back but I think I can see a way to make the key invisible during operation but visible when the engine is at a winding-spot. It's a trick with changing textures: when the engine is running the key is textured fully-alpha, but when it's alongside a designated winding spot the texture changes to make the key visible. I suppose the ideal is that you place keys around the layout, they act as triggers, when a loco stops alongside them the scenic key goes alpha and the loco key goes visible. You could actually ask on the N3V forums about this, of course, and probably get a more current response.

I think that was cotton wool?

An era that is to railway modelling what pre-grouping was to railways.

Great memories - "All London Brothels display a blue lamp"

Belt and pulley is not only the quietest you're going to get, but also should allow you to get some ridiculously low speeds with minimal losses due to friction. You should be able to turn suitable pulleys out of wood or plastic and use rubber bands for drive, or try the mamod type springy wire drives. I have experimented with making belts out of strimmer cord but it isn't happy with small radii that you would have to use on the motor shaft.

Well as we're onto place names I'd better add Loughborough, pronounced "Loogah-Baroo" by a friend from Sydney

Well, there *are* occasions when you might for example be using the chuck key as a lever to slowly work a piece of round bar to and fro with a die held in a tailstock holder, but the thing to do in such cases is unplug the machine. I have found this method useful when making long threads because you can reverse the rotational direction to break the chips inside the die. My first attempt, when I thought I'd be very clever and just slowly power the work around mangled the threads when the swarf in the die blocked it solid. Using the chuck and key to go half a turn forwards and then a quarter turn back to break the swarf did the trick. There is a lot more you can do with the lathe than just spinning something with a tool up against the work. Broaching square holes with a small cutter clamped to the cross-slide and rotating the work through 90 degrees after chopping out a side, for example...

A very nice upgrade. I like the Airfix engines, the tender drives seem happy on my tight curves where other conventional chassis creak and groan their way around. I have two of them, one I got in a charity shop, one I already had in non-running condition minus cab and smokebox front, but after a lot of work all I have left to do for both of them is to replace three missing buffers and find out why one of them will only run forwards, not backwards.

Yes, but looking at the firebox and cab, I have a feeling the way ahead here would be the James chassis and tender drive, and a Triang B12 body... Annoying, I have the opposite, the James body, and a B12 chassis and tender.

Chadwick gives details for both the early large-boiler 7fs and the later small-boiler rebuilds. The lengths were obviously greater in the 7F, the firebox in particular requires cutting and inserting an extra length. I suspect the 4F boiler diameter would be appropriate for the early large-boilered version.

Chadwick does give details of this conversion in his book. He chose a Patriot body but I've also looked at the Airfix 4f several times. Another body source might be the Hornby "James the red engine" which I got in a mixed lot of shells a while ago and have yet to lay on top of a drawing, it's got promise.

Get something big like a tiger, less chance of it getting underfoot.

You might mill or turn PTFE and nylon with no trouble anyway, most of the problems I experienced were trying to work ABS and styrene and recycled video cassette plastic, all of which had a tendency to melt instead of cut. You can try reducing the speed with the reduction gear and belts, if you buy a second countershaft you can get the speed a lot lower. Another trick I realised after buying some secondhand parts is to run them off a 6Volt or 9Volt battery setup. The long bed I bought had a 3-prong socket for the motor plug in one end cap and when I opened it up I found it was designed to have 4 D-cell batteries inside so it was an off-grid system.