Dominion

I lined up models of the 3 Thompson pacifics being discussed. All from very different sources but it still shows how different they all look. In front is my version of an A2/1, still unnamed and unnumbered, and missing its smoke deflectors. It uses Graeme King's resin castings, method, and Graeme and Simon Martin's inspiration with a Bachmann V2 body and A2 chassis. Hornby's A2/2 in the middle. The A2/3 is from a PDK kit, built by them some long while ago. For the photo I lined up the leading driving wheels, and pistons. Perspective makes it difficult to compare but the A2/1 has a much shorter boiler as mentioned earlier in the thread and also shorter frames at the rear. The A2/2 is the longest of the 3. The 3 different cabs are very noticable too. The valve gear on the A2/1 is a spare from Bachman's V2. I have a Morgan Gilbert-Graeme King etch made up on a different chassis for an A2/3 that I had in progress and it does look better. But both approaches work well. The A2/1 is the crudest of the 3 models, but it was fun to do, and is fun to run.

Low melt solder, brilliant. Thanks Martin

I just noticed that the Hornby tender on 60501 has a higher front plate than on the 60505 model. I think 60501 had its front plate cut down to be lower at some point. Not sure when relative to the livery change.

Thanks John, what I know about track building I have mostly learned from your thread; and Martin and Gordon. Thank you to each of you. It's no coincidence that I built them the same way as you describe. My problem now is that I discovered an issue I didn't find when testing before installation. I am trying to figure out how to adjust, move out, or "thicken" that check rail now. The check rail is already soldered to the 3 shims, and the shims are already glued to the plastic sleepers. That is my conundrum. Any suggestions welcome. Tom

I am hoping for advice, inspiration or courage. I have a single slip crossover formation installed. The short check rail in the centre of the diamond needs to move out a little I think. Construction is Exactoscale chairs on plastic sleepers. However The K crossing rails are soldered to thin brass shims. Unfortunately the shims are already superglued to to the plastic sleepers below. The check rail in question is soldered to shim above the central timber plus one on each side. So I think it would have to get pretty hot before giving up its joints. The heat would also almost certainly melt the joint of the tips of the closure rails which I would prefer didn’t move. It works well on all routes and directions except one in reverse. It is on the inside of a 100 inch radius. It is not ballasted yet. But I fear making it worse. One risk is melting the timber’s, another is fumes from the cyano acrylate glue. Replacing distorted melted chairs near by would be fine. Is it ever successful to try to “thicken” a check rail ? Perhaps with nail varnish or something else, or do I take the plunge and use an iron, a big fan, and hope ? Thoughts experience and wisdom appreciated, Tom

Explaining incorrect correct crest reminds me of cricket, the side that is in goes out, until they are all out, when they come in etc.

Deleted. Wrong thread !

Agree, I would love Hornby to do another release of these. Tom

I built a single slip with a 5 angle. It was the first slip or crossing I had built. It worked fine which surprised me. The bullhead rail was flexible enough to do without joints. I soldered the moving rails in the centre 3 timber’s (or 5 ? I can check if you want). I let the other plastic chairs float. Their movement is not very noticeable. The passage of stock through it is a definite improvement over the similar rtr option. I think mostly as the blades are longer as they get closer to the common crossing than on the commercial product. Though the angle is fractionally less steep too. I suspect a double will be more difficult though, mostly because of the need to insulate between the blade tips. I have not built a double yet. Take your time, and good luck.

A couple of people here have mentioned getting theirs from them. I ordered on the day Hornby announced these and I have not heard anything yet. I “chatted” with Hattons last week and they indicated they were still waiting for most of theirs to arrive, and were expecting them soon.

When I were a young lad I remember my elder brother telling me that our Hornby Dublo Prestwin silo wagon was known as a Sabrina wagon, after the actress.

I read that there was an ideal number of hours before the arrival at market to deliberately trigger the ripening process. Consequently some journeys from port to destination started with the van heat off, only being turned on at the appropriate point in the journey.

I think they are similar but not the same. R2441 represents the loco while it had an A4 style boiler. The wash out plugs in the lower firebox sides but above the running plate are angled. The R3099 model represent the loco at a different stage in its preservation when it was fitted with an A3 style boiler, 94A I think. Those 2 wash out plugs are level with each other. The dome on the R2441 model is a couple of mm further forward too.

I had some fun with my N7 yesterday. (sound fitted) ESU has a function called "Automatic Calibration of the Motor". I prefer the name Rapido gives it, they call it "Awesome slow speed thingy". If you haven't tried it before it is worth a go. When I first did this last year it put the steam chuffs out of sync so I reset the motor control to the factory settings, but now I was able to do both steps. Set CV54 to 0. Make sure the loco has 4 or 5 feet of open track ahead of it, preferably flat and straight. Press the bell function. The loco will take off at high speed forwards for about 2 seconds. During that step you have no control over the loco so make sure the track is open with no risk of disaster. When the loco stops the ESU chip will have monitored the motor and back-emf behavior and automatically tuned the motor and BEMF settings. It worked really well on my N7. It runs extremely smoothly, even better than before, and also very nicely at very low speed. The process upsets the factory steam chuff calibration but that wasn't quite right at the presets on mine anyway. Following the Loksound V5 manual, by trial and error I increased CV 57 to get the cuffs synced on speed step 1 (I used 128 speed steps for this though I did not find that explicitly in the ESU instructions). I settled on 240 as the best sync for my loco and BEMF settings. Then I set the speed to 4 (from 128) and increased CV58 till the chuffs were synced there too. (settling on 80 for mine) It was the first time I have altered the chuff settings on a loco and it worked fairly easily. Tom (CV8=8 goes back to factory presets on all if necessary)

Looking at mine several of the stretched ones have their steel chassis painted in body colour too. They look attractive that way, but are still too long.

They used that branding on some of each I think. If they measure 17’6” in length and 10 ft wheelbase and have black plastic steel soul bars they are too long. Typically the 33-xxx series. If they measure 16’6” in length and 9 ft wheelbase and have body colour painted wood soul bars they are generally correct in dimensions. Typically the 37-xxx series. Tom

I have some Peter's spares Lima replacement wagon wheels. They worked well. Before that I turned down some Lima flanges with an electric drill and a file, as per a suggestion I found on RMWeb. It sounds a bit crude, but it worked fine. Tom

For functions, I contacted South West Digital before Christmas and they very kindly sent me the following ... ---------------------------------- The function keys are assigned as follows: F0 Lights On / Off, F1 Sound On/Off (Slot 1), F2 Whistle, Playable (Slot 3), F3 Whistle, Toot (Slot 19), F4 Blower (Slot 21), F5 Exhaust Sound Hold, F6 Safety Valve (Slot 12), F7 Injectors (Slot 20), F8 Dynamic Brake, F9 Flange (Slot 15), F10 Drive Mode (Light or Heavy), F11 Guards Whistle (Slot 10), F12 Drain Cocks (Slot 23). F13 Coupling clank (Slot 8), F14 Shunt mode, F15 Auto Uncoupling cycle, F16 Master Volume Control, Toggle On/Off to change or leave On for Mute F17 Aux 2, F18 Shovelling Coal (slot 5) / Aux 1 (Fire box Led), F19 AWS Bell (Slot 22) F20 Water Fill (Slot 25), F21 Disable random Sounds Auto sounds, Steam Hiss (Slot 24), Intelli-Brake (Slot 27), Blower (Slot 21), Westinghouse pump (Slot 6). Random Sounds when Stationary: Shovelling Coal, Safety Valve ------------ Also I notice F16 in the above list says "master volume". I wonder if playing with that may help the volume issue mentioned above. Tom

I have had success adding a small washer and tightening the screw too. You may have to remove the wheel first depending on the exact position of the screw head. However I now find it simpler to just remove the NEM pocket component and introduce a small bend. The tab with the hole behind the NEM box will take a small bend easily, using the join to the box and the bend line. When reassembled that tends to keep the NEM box pushed up against the floor of the chassis, with the couplers at teh right height Be careful when in reassembly to sit the NEM box between the two small spring tabs that centre the box. Tom

Forgive the poor photo but I thought perhaps useful for illustrating the 16.2 to 16.5mm transition. The accidental finger obstruction is close to where some Peco bullhead is joined to the OO-SF formation. To me the transition is not really visible and not an issue. The slip and turnout formation is built to OO-SF throughout, except I sometimes leave the inner chair un-glued on the last 2 sleepers if I can get away with it. But If I have to glue the last chairs solid the flex track can still accommodate it, perhaps with one sleeper undercut or removed like we may have done for the old longer rail joiners.

I think ESU allow you to download the Lokprogramer software interface without actually having the hardware. Within that you can change logical settings and functions with the interface for a saved file. The beauty of that is that there is a tab that allows you to see the cvs that it is about to change in what order to implement the programming change before you write the changes. You can do that step by step. That might make it much easier for you to keep track of the index cv changes and function mapping etc. and you can then change the actual cvs on your chip in which ever manner you are already doing. I saw that on one of the ESU USA tutorial YouTube videos. Tom

Thank you Martin, that is very helpful. I am modelling the LNER, ex GNR, so it sounds as though I should not have used the ones I already used. Never mind. Thank you for the info.

I have a question about modelling the A timber supporting the nose of the common crossings. On each Exactoscale timber sprue there is one timber wider than the others, and I believe that is for the A timber location. I have used most of mine up but the sprues each provide enough timber’s for 2 to 3 turnouts, and I have several more to build. What do others do once you have run out of the extra wide timber’s ? Should I just use a regular timber as not so noticeable when ballasted ? Tom

From memory, there is a square on the update decoder page that is normally blank, labelled update defaults I think. If you click it by accident it does change the default CV settings. I think it may also stay checked the next time if you don’t uncheck it.

Mine had one of those too. I think it fits in the liquid reservoir vertical tube shaped space.