faulcon1

No, It's a TEST train and you want to know how many coaches it will haul so you can use all the coaches you have as it's a TEST train not a service train. In service the Princesses regularly hauled 15 coach trains day in day out.

Nice to see it back but I hope they've learned their lesson and treasure the licence to operate for the former people treated the operating licence with little respect and only obeyed the rules and regulations when it suited them too. That's how they had the head on collision from rule breaking. It's the same on the road in driving road based vehicles in that if you break the rules often enough you'll be caught and have your licence to drive revoked. Of course Zig Zag suffered more bad times but they weren't the only ones when the army decided to have a live round firing on a day of near zero humidity, high temperatures and hot dry winds setting the bush land ablaze and many local people near me lost their homes.

Tony you're running a test train not an in service train so all the coaching stock doesn't have to be LMS. I've found that the a Hornby Bullied light pacific will haul 19 coaches on the level and even a King class managed 24. But the railways are never level and they have gradients. So would Hornby's Turbomotive be able to haul 16 coaches up a 1 in 75 grade or is DCC Concepts power base still needed to provide extra traction. A test train is exactly that, a TEST so you can use all types of passenger rolling stock to find out what the maximum number of coaches the locomotive will haul

Having watch OO Bill in Scotland, the one thing I've learnt is that Chinese made locos have electrical issues as they age. One area of contention is the under the base keeper plate on Hornby steam outline models. The pickups from the locos wheels have to make contact with a small area on the chassis and over time that area becomes less reliable in electrical continuity. One fail safe way is to wire the pick ups directly to the motor but as there are already so many wires and more so with DCC another method is used. That is to place a tiny amount of solder on the pick up where it makes contact on the chassis base plate so when you screw the keeper plate down it applies a little more pressure to keep the electrical contact reliable.

In the 1950's in New South Wales Australia on the railways they imported 20 Baldwin locomotives which came as oil fired locos. To keep the cost down the railways basically filled the tenders with "crud" and it was so thick that it needed a heater in the tender just to get it to flow to the burner. Oil burning technology has come a long way since those early days and even the days when the Ffestiniog and Vale of Rheidol burnt oil in their locos. In Australia Puffing Billy was the first to take advantage of it for they run through a forest area which is prone to suffering from red hot cinders from hard working coal fired steam locos which can set the forest ablaze. They converted one loco a 2-6-2 tank 14A to oil firing but it doesn't use bunker grade oil but diesel. The conversion is a Swiss design and is not permanent so in the future if they wish to convert the loco back to a coal burner they can. The area of line they want the oil burner for is between Lakeside and Gembrook which has 1 in 30 grades that the tank locos are pulling 7-8 coach trains up single headed so they're working extremely hard. When working hard there's little to no smoke from the engine and it's cost effective for the railway for they have diesels too so there's no new supplier to be found to provide fuel. There's no cost involved in disposing of coal ash which unlike wood ash can't be used on railway station gardens. They have a Climax geared loco that's a wood burner. The Ffestiniog and VoR used an old fashioned burner that swirls in the firebox whereas 14A's burner looks nothing like that as shown in the link below. With coal supplies become ever more intermittent and coal being looked upon as a dirty filthy fuel perhaps this new way of burning an oil derived fuel is worth talking a look at. Sure the smell of coal burning will be gone but it's better to have steam locos steaming than no steam locos steaming at all. https://puffingbilly.com.au/news/workshop-blog/would-you-rather/

I think if you're going to make a beef Wellington and you want mushrooms then buy them from a supermarket not from an Asian food store. They may have been toadstools branded as mushrooms for all the customer knew. On the TV show Border Force they showed Chinese people returning to Australia with huge amounts of Chinese food and it all gets confiscated and destroyed and they get a fine for trying to bring it into Australia. Even my local Chinese restaurant refuses to have anything to do with any Asian food suppliers as they said they can't be sure what they're getting or where it came from. They only use Australian grown food.

The other variety is the tiny ones which I and many others have thousands of. Funny to watch them try to get a Bogon Moth hanging on for dear life onto a wing whilst the moth calmly walks away dragging the lizard after it.

I received mine in the post here in Australia yesterday and it's a stunning model. I too now wait for the Wisbech and Upwell coach in Titfield Thunderbolt colours and the Pearce and Crump OB coach. I already have a 14xx lined up in plain black with three distinct smudges on each side tank to cover up the initials GWR. I may need to purchase another 14xx for a street scene. "Left for Titfield, short cut". Maybe have it crashing through the Guinness for Strength advert board. No doubt someone will make a chimney for Dan's coach that can be lowered and raised.

Found this one at the back door of my house. The blue bucket is upside down because for some reason the like to get into the bucket and if left they get trapped starving to death. I also have this species in the garage and garden shed and they keep all the nasty spiders in check or to put it another way I don't have any nasty spiders. I had to move very slowly to get this photo because any sudden movement and it's back under the house they go in an instant. For some reason they don't like the wind blowing and it was blowing a bit yesterday and as soon as it get up to gale force it's back under the house they go. Unlike like other reptiles we have these are extremely timid and will run at the first hint of perceived danger.

It has been said that if you visited a different beach in Australia everyday it would take you twenty seven years so see every beach in Australia.

Virtual reality.

This is a HUGE misconception with voting in Australia put out by the AEC in that you MUST VOTE!. Well no not at all. You MUST show up to a polling place to get your name crossed off the list on the computer and that prevents you from getting the fine. They give you the ballot papers but what you put on them or not is entirely up to you. No AEC official at the polling places is allowed to look at who you have or haven't voted for. Also there's no CCTV camera above you watching what you write or mark on the ballot paper and you name is not allowed to be put on the ballot paper because the ballot is a secret ballot, an Australian invention. So the idea that YOU MUST VOTE or else is misleading. We don't have compulsory voting in Australia but we do have compulsory attendance of polling places.

How about these two beauties often seen clinging to houses. Our good ol' Stick Insect which is completely harmless. Their camouflage is perfect when on the ground or in a bush for they really do look like just another eucalyptus twig. I was mulching up some prunings and one was in the barrow so I picked it up and put it in a plant as i wouldn't want it to go through the mulcher.

I've given up running the gauntlet at elections although when they've tried to thrust their sheets of coloured paper into my hands I just say "no, please, no autographs!" Now I pre-poll going early in the morning about 8.30 on a weekday when there's hardly anyone around and party volunteers are just setting up their poster stands. That's what I did for this referendum and many others have too. It's quick, easy and hassle free. The AEC has FINALLY moved to computers where they ask your name and address because with the old paper lists of name and addresses people could go to many other polling places and vote multiple times. But with the computers they can't because every polling station will show after the first one that you've already voted and that you can't vote again in that election. Every eligible voter gets ONE chance to vote and ONE chance only. This idea that voting is compulsory is a myth put about by the AEC to make sure people got to vote. You only have to have your name and address crossed off the list and you don't actually have to vote if you don't want to. You just go through the motions and you can leave the ballot paper blank, write anything you like on it, draw a picture or actually vote. It's up to you for your name is not on the ballot paper nor is there a CCTV camera above you watching what you do. No AEC official has the right to look at what you've put on the ballot paper. This is why it was called the Australian ballot because we invented it. It's a secret and you don't have to tell anyone who you voted for. Even in an important election if the issues warrant it and media people are outside the polling place and they ask you who you voted for, you can tell them to mind their own business and there's nothing they can do about. In the current referendum those that want the people to vote for it have been trying the guilt trip approach, but we Aussies are a cynical bunch and the head goes back and people often say "oh yeah well I'll decide which way I vote not you".

You could always try this site for fitting DCC to old Wrenn of HD locos https://jamesmodelrailwayco.com/2017/04/10/fitting-dcc-to-wrenn-oo-locomotives-horizontal-motors/

Yes but in the current economic climate I don't think anyone in the UK could be bothered of paying the expence to ship them back to the UK as postage goes on weight and Wrenn/Hornby Dublo aren't light weights. But thanks for your very detailed answer.

Thank you all for your help much appreciated.

I have a number of old Wrenn and Hornby Dublo Castles. Now none of these are mint boxed examples so they're not worth tuppence and were all bought years ago without boxes or instructions. I have six in total and I want to paint them in different liveries. Two in GWR green, two in BR green with early and late crest and wait for it..........two in light BR green. Now living on the other side of the world Railmatch and Phoenix paints are out of the question so does any one have any idea if Humbrol or Tamiya makes a shade of light green which is a close match to the BR light green which was applied to five Castles. I saw a photo of 5023 Brecon Castle in the Wrenn range in light green but that's incorrect as 5023 is not one of the five that received the light green livery as only 4089 Donnington Castle, 5010 Restormel Castle, 7010 Avondale Castle, 7011 Banbury Castle and 7012 Barry Castle were the only engines to receive or be defaced by the light green livery. Wrenn painted Castles in unauthentic liveries for my brother has 4082 Windsor Castle in BR light blue and no castle was ever painted blue. Also what colour was the lining, was it all plain white or were other colours used too? Any help would be much appreciated.

In Australia with it's high amount of sunlight solar has taken off in a huge way which is what the government intended. To start with they were paying 45c per kwh but it's now dropped to 11c per kwh. More people are now retrofitting banks of batteries to power their homes with some taking little power or giving very little to the main power grid at all. Being a hot country in summer we have wide spread use of air conditioners but many people have been insulating their homes and not just the roof space but wall spaces too. Unlike the UK where with your steeply pitched roofs you can have another room area within the roof space via loft conversions, we don't have that luxury as many of our loft areas one is bent double in highest part of the loft so loft conversions are a waste of time and money. My house is fully insulated roof space, exterior walls and under the floor as my house is built on piers about 18" off the ground. My next door neighbours only rent the house and the landlord is not interested in putting in insulation so on very hot summer days they have their air conditioner running 24hrs otherwise they boil and I have mine running for a maximum of 6 hrs or less. I also have whirly ventilators on parts of the roof to allow hot trapped air to escape from the roof space. My last electricity bill for three months was in UK pounds 95 pounds. Our media likes to make great play of people not being able to afford electricity bills, but I put in 50 pounds each month into my electricity, water, gas and phone accounts. So that's 200 pounds into those accounts and when the bills arrive they all show a similar message "you're in credit no payment required". Therefore when they increase the charges there's no bill shock. 200 hundred pounds is not a lot of money these days and over three months that's 600 pounds allocated to utility accounts.

Well if nothing else it will give the NHS doctors something to watch so those that have answered the recruiting drive by the AMA will know what sort of country they're coming to. Yes that's right the AMA has been offering NHS doctors the chance to immigrate to Australia with enticements of higher pay, shorter working hours, more time off and better weather. The UK is only a 24hr flight away.

Coal is a dirty word environmentally speaking so perhaps you'll have to look at oil firing not heavy oil but light oil as in diesel. The Swiss helped Puffing Billy convert one of their engines to light oil firing and like heavy oil firing it's not a permanent conversion so the engine can be converted back to coal firing in the future if they so wish. Unlike traditional oil burners the flame isn't created via a swirling pattern in the firebox as the burner looks like a domestic gas stove with four huge burners arranged in a square with a smaller lighting up burner in the middle. Puffing Billy had the conversion done because they run through a forest which is very susceptible to sparks causing fires on a huge scale. The loco in question 14A a 2-6-2T now producers little to no smoke at all and it's cheaper than coal because there's no ash removal costs that coal has. Unlike wood ash you can't put coal ash on gardens unless you have a great desire to kill the plants. You can find videos about the conversion on YT.

Some modern footage of Titfield Thunderbolt locations

Oddly enough it's upside down but it stayed there all day. But by the time I got home from work that night it had gone, where to?, haven't the foggiest. That's quite a small one for I've had one double that size clinging to the gable on the garage.

Some may fear this but Aussies wouldn't

There are number of railways in this program from a miniature railway to O and OO gauge. The OO gauge is the legendary garden railway by Trevor Jones, the video still below.