Tim Hall

Interesting. Just bought 17 of them 2nd hand via eBay in the last week, and although they'll cope ok at lowish speeds on my outermost circuit, they aren't so good on tighter curves. New wheels, extra weight will also be tried.

Yes, many videos are totally ruined by it. Just watching 40145 on the Central Wales Line from a few years ago. The last run past within 30 seconds of the end of the video suddenly goes to some inane American advert for some software, completely ruining the film.

I was only looking online for a Locomasters video......

"in artificial light. Same light that made mine look that way before. It suggests to me that certain conditions bring that out, while others blend the different colours on these models." It's property called metamerism. Your four locos may well be painted by a different combination of pigments by the different manufacturers. In the plastics industry we typically used white, black, and two hue controllers (to allow adjustment in production due to batch to batch to batch variations in individual raw materials). If the different manufacturers have used a different green and therefore a different blue or yellow to control the hue, then they will have different reflective curves and therefore may well look different in different lights sources. In engineering polypropylene matches which I was involved with for many years, we usually matched in artificial daylight (there was a industry standard tube, which had a finite life), often in tungsten (to replicate household use at the time), sometimes in TL84 (the Marks and Spencer pinkish light), and very occasionally in UV for specialist applications. All done in a light cabinet of a neutral grey, glossing everything to a similar level, and placing the items next to of overlapping each other, no gaps. If the standard was ABS, as they often were, and we were trying to match in PP, we were usually ok matching in one given light source, but switching to an alternative could produce significant differences, as we were restricted to dry pigments, but they could use dyestuffs in ABS. TL84 was an extreme example, Marks fitted it throughout their stores, in 1984 (!), because it was 1) very cheap to run 2) enhanced the red/ pinkness of their fresh meat. However, as it was only 3 discrete wavelengths, not a curve, as most light sources are, it could cause immense colourmatching issues in the clothing departments, which was why (mainly) ladies of a certain age would take items which they were trying to match (coat with bag or whatever) into the street to check, rather than rely on the unusual charactistics of the stores lights. So in the this case, unless all the manufacturers agree to use the same combination of paints to achieve what they believe to be the correct colour (that in itself is very debatable), than the phenomenon that you describe is almost inevitable.

On shed at Loftshire

Blimey, I remember that now. I think I've still got the book in the attic....

Indeed. I'm sitting by the front door waiting until it arrives...... Oh, wait, it'll be a while

Does it have a white and black tile to calibrate it before use? Probably not particularly reliable if not, unless technology has come on in the last few years. If you've got one loco that you're happy with, you could set that as your standard, and measure all others against it. Are you glossing the surface up first? If not, it'll affect your ability to compare other locos of a different gloss level. (Colourist in the plastics industry from 1993-2005.....)

And four of them were backpasses to t'goalie.

Got my BR lined green one from Derails yesterday. The green is slightly darker and probably slightly bluer than my Bachmann 45xx in the same livery (the colour of which I'm happy with) in natural daylight. it's the lining that's quite different though. The black lines are far more prominent and the orange barely visible on the 61xx compared to the 45xx. I suspect the reality with the linings is that both are slightly overscale anyway. I'll post some snaps later. If anyone wants more information about assessing colour and colour differences, I was a colourmatcher in the plastics industry for over 10 years, for much of it supplying engineering thermoplastics into the highly demanding automotive sector to very tight colour tolerances. One simply did not go to Ford Berlin to present your latest matches to Frau Pfister without having done a selection of very good matches for her to choose from. All you had to do then was reproduce the lab sample in production .

I've since repainted the 63xx, cos it stood out like the proverbial sore thumb. It's actually a Silver Fox D600, that I sold when the Kernow one came out (it's quite an old photograph). But we'd better stop, as we're off topic here

Could well be!

But which blue?

Thanks, I took loads over the years, units, 20s, 31s, 37s, 47s, 56s, 60s, one 66 (that's when I put the house up for sale!), an HST and 4472. Can't remember the club, but there was a street corner pub called the Pig and Whistle about 100 yards from the crossing heading towards town. Anyway, we're a bit OT here!

I lived opposite that loop from 1986-2001, here's 37507 on an engineers train in it on 6th Jan 91. West Dyke chippy? My house is just beyond the modern red brick ones.

Thanks for all your comments. I've just discovered that although my local dealer no longer does repairs, a former employee of theirs does, so I've emailed him on the matter. Hopefully he'll be able to assist.

A few snaps of locos running on Loftshire, now that the 1990s have arrived. As I decided not to depict post privatisation liveries and rolling stock, this is about as modern as it gets.

Thanks for that. I don't have a multimeter or a soldering iron, a), but it's good information. Two of you agree that it's a V4 decoder, and where the stray wire needs to go.

Thanks for that. I don't have a multimeter or a soldering iron, a), but it's good information. Two of you agree that it's a V4 decoder, and where the stray wire needs to go.

So is that definitely the type of decoder? That's very useful. Unfortunately, I don't solder, but it does help.

Yes, it's orangy/ peachy. No, I have no intention of randomly poking the loose wire in various orifices (orifi?) on the off chance I make the correct connection. That way lies madness!

A few rather poor close ups. I've temporarily removed the black tape from the chip in case that helps. Looking at the way it's stuck to the chassis block, and the way the speaker is stuck to the roof, I'm inclined to agree that it's not factory fitted, looks a bit messy.

Looks peachy coloured in the flesh, but I'll nip up to the attic very soon. Thanks

No, most of my friends are DC only or 1:12 scale modellers, and my local dealer doesn't do repairs these days (they lost the last loco I gave them for over 4 years (only got it back last month)).

Thanks for that, yes selling it that way is an option. I do have a 30 second clip of it running and making noises. There were two identical bits of paper in the box referring to DCC operation. Is this the standard Bachmann one? I enclose a close up of some of the electronic gubbins.