faulcon1

Why is more coal from Uzbekistan not possible. Is it the wrong sort of coal for UK steam engines?, or is it just political reasons.

I bought two pre-owned locos a 42xx 2-8-0 tank and a 72xx 2-8-2 tank from a well known retailer in Liverpool. The 42xx came in three pieces, body, chassis and running plate. All it said in the description was that it was a slightly noisy runner and I found out why. There are two metal weights glued to the inside of the body where the side tanks are and one had come unglued and was rubbing on the flywheel. I have an old Gaugemaster rolling road for DC locos and I test ran the chassis to see if it was damaged and the chassis ran smoothly and silently. The rolling road has a built in amp meter and the chassis drew 0.1 amp. There are two brass collars that are supposed to be in the loco body. The were still on the chassis screws but out of the loco body hence the very easy body removal. Using Araldite glue, I glued those back into the body and with the same glue I glued the running plate back onto the body and glued the loose metal weight back onto the side tank. I then reassembled the loco and test ran it on the rolling road and as before it ran smoothly and silently still only drawing 0.1 amp. Now I could have returned that loco to the retailer saying that the condition of the loco didn't match what was printed in the description. Also the postal services Royal Mail and Australia Post weren't responsible because the 72xx came in the same cardboard box and didn't fall apart when I took it out of it's packaging and it runs faultlessly too. Buying pre-owned from anyone really is just a roll of the dice for if I had sent the 42xx back and asked for another pre-owned one there's no guarantee that the next 42xx would be in better condition or it maybe in worse condition.

If you desire to have you tracks ballasted the NEVER EVER use PVA type adhesives on a garden railway not even the exterior types for they just don't cut it. They maybe safe to use in some slightly damp situations but outdoors they'll get more damp than they're formulated to take. One has to use an SBR adhesive which is like a Rolls Royce PVA not an Austin Allegro which is what Resin W is. Don't worry about scale ballast with people saying that in OO use N gauge ballast. OO gauge ballast will work just fine outdoors and when you apply the SBR to it don't use a pipette like you do indoors. You've got far more ballasting to do outside so a squeezable tomato sauce or tomato ketchup bottle of about 500ml with a screw witches hat type cap. SBR is an oil based adhesive and can probably be thinned with white spirit. Many go without ever ballasting outside on whatever track base they decide to use but a ballasted track base does ensure to a greater degree that the track doesn't shift in climatic condition as track pins will move over time, moving the track out of alignment. The rails will still expand and contract in the hot and cold weather and don't be like the real railways and paint the rail sides white as you'll need an airbrush to do that and a very still day. Then when you clean the rail tops you have to clean the rail side too and by the time you've done it all the sun has gone down or the rain has recommenced.

The trouble is that many people expect to always buy brand new. But many of us when we were kids couldn't afford new models and that was in the so called "good old days". Many a modeller today started their interest in model railways with secondhand models and some at super cheap prices which many today would throw into the dustbin. Dimensionally inaccurate, with no added detail and if there was detail it was molded on. It seems that so many today want the most detailed up to date perfect models but they don't want to pay the high price the manufacturers charge for them and it's always been the same. If production came back to the UK then the models would double or triple in price to what they are now. People in the UK get and expect a higher rate of pay than they do in China and they certainly won't work for a few pennies. People say how can young model railway enthusiasts get into the hobby if they can't even afford Hornby's Railroad range of prices. Well that easy don't buy Hornby's Railroad range buy secondhand models from sites like ebay and don't buy boxed models either for they attract high prices. A 20 pound Railroad four wheel boxed coach new will cost 5 pounds or less unboxed on ebay. Hornby's Railroad range is basically the 1970's main range and I couldn't afford them and neither could my parents. So they bought me secondhand models. The small companies like Comet Models, Dart castings, 247 developments, Alan Gibson etc have been given a new lease on business life thanks to the high prices charged for new models. People can now buy secondhand models and improve or add missing details in long lasting brass or white metal and take part in what the hobby of model railways is really all about and that's creating something not just buying off the shelf locos, carriages, wagons and buildings but creating a modeled scene of their imagination. Parents like ebay because they can buy cheap models for a budding railway modeller which may or may not be a passing interest. If it is a passing interest then they haven't expended a lot of money. Leave those of the upper middle class/upper class to buy the main manufacturers range of models and the rest of us will by secondhand models. I bought a secondhand 8F with no cab glazing, no smoke box door dart, missing cab doors and missing other parts and used the cottage manufacturers to improve it. A loco is released without sprung buffers and some people carry on as if the balloon as just gone up. So buy Alan Gibson sprung buffers and fit them yourself if you want sprung buffers and the model doesn't have them whats the big deal over it. I've just bought two secondhand locos a 42xx (which came in three pieces body, running plate and chassis) and a 72xx. Neither has sprung buffers and so I've ordered those from Alan Gibson and I'm not throwing a hissy fit over it. The description of the 42xx said "slightly noisy runner" and that was because one of the metal body weights had become partially unglued from the plastic body and was rubbing on the flywheel and so using Alradite I glued it back onto the body again. The two brass collars that sit in recessed holes in the body for taking the two chassis screws which keep the chassis attached to the body or vice versa had come out of the body and were on the screws on the chassis and so I glued them back into place and I glued the running plate in place too. I test ran the chassis on it's own on an old Gaugemaster rolling road which has a built in amp meter to show current draw and the 42xx chassis's current draw is 0.1 amp so no problems there and it was smooth and silent. I'm on the other side of the world and I had no intentions of sending that model back to whom I bought it from. I spend more on the weekly shop for food than I spent on those models.

In times past the WSR imported coal from Colombia even though some didn't like it as they thought the lumps were too big. Well you could break them up into smaller lumps with the coal hammer. So UK steam railways may have to look at importing coal from other countries. Oh no sorry you can't do that because it's difficult and if something is difficult in the UK then it's impossible. It's the same reason given as to why you can't have a Great Steam Train Race on the mainline because it's too difficult to organise and so therefore it's impossible. Other countries with different operating rules manage it (Germany and Australia) but not the UK as all you get is pathetic excuses as to why something can't be done.

Here's a cab ride on Trevor's garden railway and notice the difference in the ride to Paul Barnard's cab ride.

Here's cab ride on Paul's garden railway. Strap yourselves in for a wild ride and notice the kinks in the line, the huge lateral movement and the rail joints becoming angles.

Track should be ballasted outside for the two well known OO gauge garden railways I know of in the UK are Trevor Jones and Paul Barnard's OO gauge garden railways. Trevor has ballasted his track with real granulated ballast fixed with an SBR adhesive. The first section laid in 1993 is still in use today although Trevor says any thoughts of reusing the trackwork have to be forgotten because if you take the trackwork up later on it all disintegrates. Trevor's trackwork is stable and seen in a cab ride. He also replaces the last sleeper on any rail joint with a copper clad sleeper soldered to the rails so that the rail joint doesn't move. Paul Barnard has not ballasted his track between the rails or used copper clad sleepers and kinks in rail joints abound on his railway. Here's and interview that Jennifer Kirk did at Trevor's place about his garden railway.

I have a Hornby Streamlined Coronation well Coronation herself a 2001 model R2206 and I've be looking at the latest offering and I can see some flaws in it. Firstly the lining on the lower tender side is in the wrong place. Hornby have put the lining on the lower tender just above the axle boxes but on the real Coronation it's above that where the tender sides meet the tender frame. Hornby have also printed that line vertically on the end of the tender frame but no such strip is on the real Coronation. Secondly on the 2001 model there are four turned brass safety valves but on the latest they appear to be four plastic safety valves. Thirdly the pipework in the cab has been painted unlike the 2001 version but it's been painted or printed in a brass colour which is fine for hand wheels but the pipework would have been copper not brass. Fourthly the centers of the main driving wheels seem to have been painted white as has part of the wheel rim. But on the real loco that would be polished bare steel giving a silver colour not white. I know this is maximum knit picking but this latest version of Coronation is not a 50 pound model it's very close to 200 pounds. It seems to me that either Hornby didn't do much research of that their Chinese factory stuffed up and it was too late to make the changes.

I live in a 100+ year old house in Australia and I use electricity for lighting and power. Power for a reverse cycle air conditioner, all the power points and all lights are LED. I have natural gas cooking and hot water but no hot water tank. Just a box on the outside of my house where when I turn on a hot water tap a flame springs into life and heats the water to the temperature I want it at. When I turn off the tap the flame goes out. I don't know what my yearly electricity consumption is as it varies but on my last power bill for three months my average daily use was 4.68 kWh and the average daily use in my area for one person was 10.98kWh. We also get a water bill and my water usage is low only costing $10-15 but sewerage is much much more and is a fixed charge. It doesn't matter if you're permanently constipated or permanently got the runs for the sewerage charge won't change. I've done things to my old house to make it more power usage efficient like installing double glazed windows, sound check gyprock, underfloor insulation, insulation in exterior walls and the roof space. I can hardly stand up in my roof space and with the fierce heat in our summers a loft conversion is a waste of time and money. One could have a railway and in summertime it would be called Spaghetti Junction because it would look like a plate of cooked spaghetti. I could put in solar panels but these days the government will only pay 13c per kWh of electricity that the array creates. If I put in solar panels then I'd put in batteries too for the solar array to charge with only the excess going to the main grid system.

I have many locos all in their original boxes from Bachmann with their polystyrene tray type to Hornby with the same through to the split polystyrene box style to the latest folding plastic frame to Heljan with their cardboard box with foam. Some coaches and wagons still have their original boxes but most don't as I've made up coach and wagon boxes. Many people on ebay seem to have the mindset if a Bachmann 16ton mineral wagon has it's box and it's in pristine condition, then it's worth double or even triple what they paid for it and if it doesn't have a box then it's worthless. But I run wagons and coaches on railways not boxes for they don't come with wheels or couplings and they're way out of gauge too. Buying off Ebay really is a roll of the proverbial dice for photos of the item for sale can be photo shopped covering up a myriad of years of abuse. I'm always suspicious if a photo of say a coach or loco only shows one side and each end. What's wrong with the other side?.

I've found You Tube instructional videos good but you need to look at the length. Some people with five minutes worth of instruction have ten minutes of waffling BS. I can see all the people in the end battle scene of the Monty Python movie The Holy Grail yelling, GET ON WITH IT! One American tends to be very much in that vein. Ten minutes worth of content and twenty minutes worth of useless blather. Often looking in the comments below someone may put in a time stamp of when the actual content of the video begins saving others from having to listen to the useless blather.

This in one part of many of a cab ride on the XPT in 2004. If you want to see the other parts then please say so.

You're lucky in the UK with a steam ban because of a few hot days. Here in NSW Australia no mainline steam from October to March as there's a permanent ban on steam in the summer and it's state wide. All our locos are coal burners except one and that the regauged Victorian R 766 a North British built hudson which is an oil burner and recently restored to operational condition. As an oil burner she doesn't throw live cinders but is still subject to the Steam Ban as far as I know.

There's an old saying "if it ain't broke then don't fix it" If many people around the world are quite happy with the product as it is (except for certain people on RM web) then why do substantial changes to it.

The NCE throttle is the same shape and colour but the placement of the buttons is different.

A long time ago DCC Concepts went out on a limb and did a run down on DCC systems. For them there was no alternative in their eyes but going to a model shop and actually trying out various DCC systems for yourself. It's like buying a car if the car you want to buy is in the same country you live in. You go and have a look and take it for a test drive and it's the same for DCC systems. Think of the sort of things you'll want to do on your layout and then try to do that on the DCC system you may like to buy. Things like consisting or having multiple locos on one train. Is it easy to set up and delete the locos so that they can be controlled independently once again. Do you need to constantly look at the DCC throttle when controlling a train or is it easy to do by simply feeling the buttons or knobs on the throttle without having to look at the throttle. Do you get a full DCC system with all the functions built in or is it necessary to buy add ons to get a fully functioning DCC system. For DCC Concepts the NCE Powercab fitted the bill as it was a full DCC system in a throttle. The NCE Pro Cab is the same but with 5 amp not 2.5 amp of the Powercab. There is also the Pro Cab 10 which is 10 amps designed for gauges O, 1 and larger. They weren't complimentary of either Hornby Select or Elite with basically return to the manufacturer for a full refund and the other British one that came out in the early days of DCC the name of which escapes me. It was released with great fanfare and in next to no time fizzled out completely. DCC Concepts didn't like Digitrax Super Chief throttles because all the buttons were the same shape and size meaning you had to constantly look at the throttle to control the trains. They also didn't like the owners manual from Digitrax which contained a lot of "tech speak" whereas the NCE owners manual doesn't. Even if you hard wire a decoder the wrong way and in forward the loco goes backwards. Instead of rewiring the decoder you go to the direction bit and it says "forward press 1 backwards press enter". So you press enter and now when you press forward the loco goes forward and the decoder remembers the new setting. NCE started out making components for other manufacturers before launching a DCC system of their own. So they'd been in DCC business for sometime. I will however stress that the "momentum" button on NCE DCC throttles can only be used with NCE brand decoders and no one else's. If you have Loksound decoders fitted to locos and you press the "momentum" is plays havoc with Loksound decoders. It won't stuff the decoder but it will necessitate putting the loco on a programming track and reprogramming all the CV values which can only be done by contacting whoever programmed the decoder originally with values from CV 1 to CV 255 a very long job. I glued a little hard plastic cap over the "momentum" button so I don't accidentally press it. DCC caters for all tastes from complete novices to absolute tech heads and therefore your layout can be as simple DCC wise or as complicated as you want it to be.

What we don't know was it bought brand new or was it bought off ebay. It's really easy these days to get an English plug adapter with an Australian socket as our power voltage is really the same at 230-240V. But as others have said the chances of being prosecuted for using unauthorised electrical equipment is minimal. The radio throttles have been designed by NCE so that they must be able to be interfered with by other devices and not have a dominating effect in the 916.5 mhz yet I've had numerous mobile phones in operation near to my radio throttle and have suffered no detrimental effects to performance of the radio throttle. Of course you can use software to make a radio throttle of your own and yet we don't know if that's legal.

It goes both ways. It may interfere with mobile phone operation or mobile phones may interfere with the radio throttle's operation.

I have a NCE Pro Cab 5 amp radio here down under where it's allowed by law. The only precaution that NCE states is if you take your layout to an exhibition then it's best to plug the radio throttle into the command station rather than use it in radio mode as it can interfere is wireless security systems and mobile phone repeaters. The power output of the radio throttle is FAR less then that of a mobile or smart phone. In my Pro Cab Wireless supplement it states "The transmitter of the Pro Cab is .00025 watts. By comparison your mobile phone can put out about 3 watts or 12,000 times the power of the Pro Cab. If of course you find that interference is being created by the radio throttle then you can always plug into the command station which cancels out the radio function. It should also be remembered that the ISM or Industrial, Scientific and Medical radio band that the Pro Cab radio operates in of 916.5 mhz may cause your radio throttle to become so confused with the amount of traffic on the line that it refuses to work at all. They recommend attaching the base station which is a little box with an antenna to the ceiling to prevent dead spots with the radio throttle held and operated vertically. I've found the radio's range to be around 150m. But of course at that distance you can't see the loco you're controlling without binoculars.

I once heard someone say "there is no best controller or throttle. There is only what's best for you". It really IS an individuals choice. But remember if you buy one to save money later one buy one that you can "grow" with rather than buying one that may suit you now but it may not suit you later on.

Having read the RAIB report, you can have all the experience you like but unless you have the paperwork to back it up, then that experience counts for nothing. It doesn't matter how many years you've been a volunteer on a preserved railway and how many different classes of locomotive you've driven. Unless you have the up to date paperwork that reads that you're competent to drive those locos, then you're NOT competent.

Well here's a rare filming visit into a modern underground coal mine in New South Wales Australia. Australia is now the biggest exporter of the black diamonds in the world. The mainstream media in Australia does it's best to demonise the coal industry and even some people think if you see a coal train on the mainline you will get miners lung disease. I've lived next to a railway line for the last 35 years and I've had my lungs checked and I don't have miners lung disease. I'm more likely to end up with carbon monoxide poisoning from road traffic.

On the Retford layout you may have noticed the large hoardings on the sides of the freight wagons. Those are businesses that sponsor the railway and the hoardings are temporarily fixed to the sides as a thank you to all the businesses and it gives them free advertising in return. According to one member there timetable running nights are taken much more seriously and what we see in the video is an open day for the general public when a lot of trains are run simply for visual effect.