cessna152towser

I recently attended an auction sale of a deceased collector's model trains. There was a dark green unnamed Tri-ang A3, non-runner which nobody bid on. As the hammer was about to fall I bid the 5 pounds reserve, and was unopposed. I identified the model as the Triang-Hornby R850 Flying Scotsman, the version with the firebox glow. The loco just needed a good clean up and some lubrication and it ran fine on plain track, though obviously bouncing on Peco pointwork due to its coarse wheel flanges. I put it aside and ordered up 60038 Firdaussi nameplates and smokebox number and fitted these earlier today. Then I placed the loco on the layout and sent it light engine tender first from the fiddle yard to retrieve a rake of five free-rolling Lima coaches. Today the loco was sluggish and surging and when it arrived back at the fiddle yard the motor was hot. I wonder whether it needs more lubrication or whether the original lubrication was too thick and needs cleaning up again. The lubricant which I normally use came from a local bike shop and has been accepted in the past by Hornby-Dublo and Wrenn locos with no problems.

Are last year's Hornby catalogues already rare enough to attract such a premium? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284785021065?hash=item424e829089:g:DrYAAOSwLrdiZn6f

Has anyone heard of this shop? This past few days I keep seeing sponsored adverts on Facebook for discounted Hornby from them. Claims to be Hornby stockist in Ellesmere, Shropshire. Rather poor website with prices under flashing boxes but no photos and which pledges to obtain items which are not already in stock. Scam Adviser gives the website a low rating as a young website on the same server as other websites which have a low trust score, and adds that online scammers have a tendency to set-up multiple malicious websites on one server. Unless I hear otherwise I will be avoiding placing any business with Senior's Express.

Sorting through stuff today I came across a Dapol box end flap with a price label of 28.89 from Re-Rail of St. Helens. I think this is off a Dapol J94 which I bought from a stall at a swopmeet/collectors' fare in Carlisle in 1989 and which I still have. Can anyone remember Re-Rail of St. Helens? Did they ever have a physical shop or did they only do the exhibitions and swopmeets circuit?

Train tickets now booked with Avanti West Coast for Carlisle-Glasgow and return on Friday 24th. Looking forward to it. Will be my first attendance at a model railway show since Glasgow in February 2020.

Your three guys have worked hardest of the lot and the tales of their adventures have been a great source of entertainment these past weeks. I hope they will earn you a nice prize and that they will go on to enjoy a well earned retirement in a pleasant spot on your layout.

Well camouflaged on the floor of the unit. I must be barking mad too, but when I could only find one member of your team in the first of these patterned floor photos I downloaded and enlarged the image to see if I could spot the other two. My conclusion, after scrolling down and viewing the next pic, is that the one whom I found in the photo might have been the only one present in that photo.

I recently auctioned a Hornby Hull and Barnsley style van with eyes printed on one end, from the former Hornby Thomas range but in wrong box, which went for 9.50 plus 3.35 postage. I received 10.76 from eBay representing the sale price plus postage less their fees. The buyer was based in USA and I see that eBay Global Shipping Programme charged him 33.65 for postage, customs etc, making a total of 46.50 which he would have paid to eBay in dollar equivalent, more than four times the amount which I as the seller received from eBay. I am guessing the buyer was REALLY KEEN to win this auction. Generally though, as @Michael Hodgson said a few months ago, the GSP charges work to discourage international trading.

Many and sincere thanks indeed. I had a look at the offending coach this morning. The starting point was the bogie which did not activate the lights. Then trying it with only one pair of wheels on the track. The wheelset which was the wrong way round was quickly identified and reversed and now I have a full working set of four coaches.

I bought the Tornado Express train pack in 2011. The loco was a big disappointment, wouldn't negotiate second radius points, prone to stalling. Pickups only on drive wheels. I soon sold it. I expect Hornby have made improvements to the model since then.

Coaches came back from Accurascale duly repaired. Unfortunately one of them shorts everything out when it is placed on the track. I noticed the magnetic couplings on this coach were upside down in relation to the others. I followed the tweezers tip from this thread to carefully remove and re-attach them. Still shorting out. With one bogie on the track, no shorting and the coach lights up. With the other bogie on the track no shorting and no lights. Both bogies on the track everything shorts out. I tried reversing the direction of one bogie but still the same problem. This is Accurascale's first attempt at coaches and they have tried some innovations so I am willing to persevere and get the set running properly. Has anyone any suggestions? I really don't want to be troubling Accurascale by sending this back to them again if it is something I could easily fix myself.

It would appear that eBay are now allowing extra time for postal delays when dealing with "item not received". A few months ago I sold a Hornby wagon on eBay on a Monday, posted it on the Tuesday and when I opened my e-mail on the Saturday morning there was already an item not received notification from the buyer. Fortunately the item was delivered to the buyer later that morning. Earlier this month I bought a Bachmann coach on buy-it-now which was never marked as posted and which has not arrived. Checking the seller's profile I find that although he has 100% feedback, none of it is recent and he has only one other item listed for sale, on buy-it-now, which was listed months ago and is presumably auto-renewed till sold or cancelled. So it appears the seller is dormant and I decided to submit an item not received claim. In response I received an eBay automated message telling me to wait a few more days as "your item may still be in the post".

My daughter still lives in Paisley, but we tend to meet either in Glasgow or here in the Borders. Last time I was in Paisley, March 2022, we took a walk through the Paisley Centre and it was depressing to see most of the shops empty and roller-shuttered. There are many empty shops here in Hawick also, so many goods that we just can no longer buy locally. Wife and I always have a spending spree when we have a day out in Carlisle or a couple of days in Glasgow. My "local" model shop is now C & M in Carlisle.

Glasgow's was in Cotton Street. Closed down in the late 1960s to make way for the new town council buildings which in turn are now replaced by new residential apartments. I recall saving my pocket money to buy Dinky Toy buses there - wanted to build up a fleet of the red no.291 with the Exide Batteries advert. White's if I recall correctly was on Wellmeadow, though there was another toy shop on Causeyside Street just below Canal station which may or may not have been another branch of the Wellmeadow business. A few doors up from the toy shop on Causeyside Street was also Cunningham's Dolls Hospital, but they only dealt in girl stuff. Hughes was further down Causeyside Street, near where Cardosi's cafe was. I remember buying a Triang Battle Space Rocket Launcher there. When I arrived home with it, mother was livid as she was anti-war and marched me straight back to the shop with it. Mr. Hughes refused to give a refund but gave her a credit note which went towards some electrical appliance or other for the household. In my secondary school days, there was a hobby shop on Broomlands Street, run by an Irishman. He sold kits and model planes, but if I recall correctly the only trains he sold were Lone Star. I remember MacKay Models which came later. I bought a few model trains there before I left Paisley in 1989.

Glasgow in the 1960s, Clyde Model Dockyard in the Argyle Arcade, Glassfords in Cambridge Street, Fosters Sports in Sauchiehall Street, Caledonia Model Company at Anderston Cross, MacMillan Models on the south side, also model trains in the toy departments on upper floors of Wylie Hill and Lewis's, we were spoilt for choice. I was raised in nearby Paisley where White's, Glasgow's and Variety Stores all stocked Dinky Toys and model trains. Hughes Electricals sold Tri-ang trains as a sideline. Variety Stores was the last survivor of these and became part of the Toymaster group. I was in classes at university with Ronnie Phillips whose parents ran the Variety Stores and I got the opportunity to buy a lot of half price Hornby from them when they stopped dealing in Hornby trains in the 1980s. Most of the stock I promptly resold through clubs and swapmeets but I still have a Hornby blue and grey buffet car with their 1.99 price tag.

So, with the revival of this thread I decided to check my Hornby orders. No mention of R3836 there either. I thought I had pre-ordered this at the start of 2020 and then cancelled it in September 2020 when it became apparent that Hornby had over-subscribed their Captain Tom pre-orders and were unable to honour my pre-order for that item, indeed I posted earlier in this thread about the cancellation. My Hornby account did indeed show cancelled orders from that time but no mention either of a current order or of a cancelled order for R3836. I wrote politely to Hornby asking them to please check the status of this order. This is the reply I received "Thank you for contacting us, unfortunately this item is completely sold out, your order most likely got cancelled if the payment method failed, you should have had received an email back then, but I am unsure of what has happened." Why would payment have failed? Hornby do not usually ask for payment until the item is available. I wonder if Hornby have been conveniently losing some pre-orders so that they don't need to honour the original price?

I bought a pair of Bachmann 66s at a closing down sale a few years ago. They kept de-railing and I soon recouped my outlay by re-selling them on eBay. Now I have six Hornby and one Hattons 66 and none of these give me any trouble of derailments. I am wary of Bachmann six-wheeled bogies. My pair of Bachmann 37s run OK, but my 47 will only run one way round. If I forget that the driver must be in the leading cab when the loco leaves the fiddle yard then it always derails as it comes out of the first curved section.

Same here. I lost interest in railways when I started dating my first serious girlfriend at the start of 1967, though when I went to university in 1969 and started travelling into Glasgow daily my interest was somewhat revived, especially with the wide variety of parcels stock to be seen on passing Salkeld Street depot. Full brakes and vans from BR and the Big Four, even the occasional horse box re-purposed as a parcels van. When I graduated from university the girlfriend moved away to a new life in England and I found myself working in a small family business within walking distance of my parents' house. I developed a nostalgia for the opportunity to meet people at university and in the daily commute and got myself into weekends away at the Great Central Railway where I was involved as an early member of Witherslack Hall loco group. Marriage and a move to trainless Hawick in the Scottish Borders saw interest wane again. I took up flying as a hobby for a few years, from Carlisle Airport, until grounded for medical reasons. At the turn of the new millenium the Waverley Route Heritage Association was founded along with the surge in interest in restoring the whole Waverley Route. Around the same time I started going on a few railtours though none recently as they have priced themselves out of my market. As an aside from my flying interest I took an interest in Easyjet's attempts to establish domestic services from Newcastle Airport and made some very ambitious day trips by air to Stansted and Bristol (4:15am till midnight!) which enabled me to visit the Bluebell Railway, the West Somerset Railway, the Mid Hants and the Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway as well as a Bristol branch lines tour behind Nunney Castle and an opportunity to sample Great Western 125 between Bristol and Paddington, and walking sections of the Somerset and Dorset. I still do some volunteering at Whitrope Heritage Centre during the summer season.

You have my sympathies. I had to lightly glue my photographer to get him to stand long enough for my beer garden scene. When I tried to remove him one of his legs remained stuck to the baseboard. So I glued him back on to his leg and fixed the other two in place to keep him company. So my Accurascale Survey Team are now a permanent part of my beer garden scene and won't get to travel any more.😂

Regarding the issue with the coupling pockets breaking off when you try to change the couplings, Accurascale very kindly offered to send replacement parts free of charge. However rather than risk breaking them again I agreed to send the three affected coaches to their service department where for a small charge they will fit tension locks to the end coaches and a magnetic coupler to the intermediate. I wasn't intending to buy these coaches until I was gifted a Hornby GBRf class 73 as a retirement gift when I left my part-time bus driving job when I turned 70. Then I felt a compulsion to buy some stock to run with the 73 but the Fort William pack was already sold out. I ordered the equivalent four coach pack with the Inverness destinations. The train will run to neither Inverness or Fort William but to a fictitious branch line terminus near the Scotland/England border. This morning I fitted the Inverness destinations on the coach which is currently here. I tried running it with the 73 temporarily fitted with a magnetic coupler but the loco and coach were then too close coupled to negotiate my curves. The coach runs perfectly when pushed by hand, even in my goods loop where the track is less even, so the complete train should work fine with tension locks on the ends and intermediate magnetic couplers.

My layout is a u-shaped end to end shelf layout fitted in a small room 2.1 metres x 1.7 metres. Points are Peco small and medium radius except station throat which is 2nd radius Peco Setrack curved point. All other curves are 3rd radius. Four coaches would be maximum for me, sleeper standard, sleeper accessible, club car and seated/guard. I was too late in ordering and missed out on the Fort William pack but I have purchased the equivalent Inverness coaches.

I do not consider that I was heavy handed in attempting to change the couplings. The plugs just came away all too easily along with the couplings which I was attempting to remove, even though holding the plug in one hand and pulling on the coupling with the other. If the coaches can be put right I would want to be in a position that I would never want or need to attempt to change the couplings again. Tension locks on each end and magnetic couplers within the rake.

I eventually got my coaches when the neighbour returned from work. Not only had DHL delivered to the wrong address but had not left a calling card for them to alert them to a parcel having been left in their outbuilding. Then next a frustrating time with derailments, with and without magnetic couplers and conventional ones. I was on the point of giving up when at last they ran properly, maybe the swing of the coupling mechanism was initially too stiff, as three of them now running OK, still can't understand why fourth one derails. I can now confirm those three will negotiate my second radius Peco setrack curved point even with the magnetic close couplings. Unfortunately in the process of changing the couplings two of the pockets broke off. The attachment of the pocket to the coupling swing mechanism is a very thin piece of plastic, too thin for it to be possible to glue this back on, even with superglue. I've contacted Accurascale to see what can be done.

I thought I was going to be among the first to receive my consignment when DHL notified me that delivery would be between 10:28 and 11:28 this morning. Then I was notified that the parcel had been delivered and signed for at 09:00. This is a lie because I was at home at 09:00 and no courier called here. My investigation, based on the photo provided by DHL, leads me to believe that my parcel is inside an outbuilding in the neighbourhood. Now I need to wait till the neighbour is home from work to confirm this.

Certainly a nostalgia factor and I do still have a copy of that catalogue. However, two years to wait until delivery and a price tag of 320.99 might not entice your archetypal Hornby-Dublo fan who is now an old age pensioner. No thanks, I'll make do with my original Hornby-Dublo D9012 Crepello.