bill badger

This is fantastic stuff. Seeing this thread has got me seriously thinking about having an dabble with some Finetrax and N gauge stock before I completely commit to OO gauge; I've never owned any N gauge in the past and have never really 'clocked' it before. I have now! Anyone here know of a list or thread going through which RTR locos are good 'uns and which are to be avoided (thinking diesel) Will keep watching progress in the Dale with great interest.

As I'm currently without a layout and looking at a small space not much bigger than this, this is a really interesting thread. Must get round to picking up my copy of the magazine. A couple of mentions have been made of making adjustments to suite other companies / eras. Any feel up to going through what some of these tweeks might be? As a L&Y / LMS chap, my choice of prototype for a limited space, rural / small town fiddle to terminus is limited to say the least; I've been looking at the old MR line to Barnoldswick, but am struggling with compressing it. I am close to conluding that, for a first attempt to get soemthing to run on, anything is better than nothing.

Wow! Mine arrived at the office in today's post. What a cracking model. The best I've seen since getting back into the hobby a year or so back. She'll look wonderful on the little Lancashire terminus test plank I have in the pipeline. The level of detail is excellent and I suspect sets the bar at a very high level for RTR OO steam locos. Certainly seems to put the recent Hornby 2-8-x's to shame. As ever (well as far as my three modern RTR steam loco purchases go) she has the 'Bachmann Wobble' when up on the rolling road, which I guess is down to slightly off quartering, but hopefully this won't be an issue when on the tracks. Anyway, seems to run well enough at low speeds on DC and I suspect will be as sweet as a nut on DCC. Some may just have to watch out on 'dodgy track' with only the four opportunties to locate pick-ups; stay alive seems like a good choice perhaps. What a great initiative by Shildon; long may it continue (and good on Bachmann too for agreeing to be involved).