DCB

SR locos tended to migrate West as electrification displaced them and many were simply withdrawn as redundant as per the LBSC Moguls withdrawn en block. In many ways the SR lines in Devon are easier to model as long as the lack of MNs and SR 4-6-0s West of Exeter is not a problem. Curiously WR 4-6-0s were found on the LSWR west of Exeter where the LSWR /SR ones were not allowed

A line around the Christmas tree is fine for inexperienced novices but can be hazardous for enthusiasts relationships. Sadly ballast and deep pile carpets are not entirely compatible and drilling holes in the floor for droppers risks putting holes in the under floor heating pipes. Partners should always ensure experienced modellers put down a "baseboard" around the tree before letting them loose with the trainset, PVA glue and a soldering iron.

I try to keep to specific types for the area and period of my layouts, BR WR pre late 1962, before yellow ends, before the Kings were withdrawn, but BR Black Dean Goods and lined black Saints mingle with and double head with 9Fs and locos with post 1956 late crests. Outside it is BR Scotrail 1987 as near as possible, Large Logo 37/4s and just the one class 156. Several LNER monstrosities are half built for the "Bed" layout and a whole series of weird free lance locos planned for a future "Isle of Skye" layout, as for out of period and wrong gauge stuff, its going on Ebay! That won't stop me buying anything no matter what scale, gauge or period as long as it is a bargain...

I have the same problem with a 1 in 36 ish gradient, I put a video on youTube of a Bachmann Tornado slipping to a stand with 5 coaches while a 1960s Triang Britannia sailed past with 10 or more on. Sequentially I add lead weights to locos and reduce the weight and drag of tenders by sawing lumps off tender chassis or replacing the Hornby chassis with Triang trailing bogie castings which are a direct replacement. Recent Hornby Black 5 and 10XX County had their haulage just about doubled to taking a 6 coach rake up the 1 in 36 by adding weight and removing tender pickups, and the 42XX improved greatly from 15 to 30 plus wagons on the l1 in 100 "level" section. The weight needs to be centred over the driving wheels so lots of weight under the cab on 4-6-0s and maybe rest the weight of the front of the tender on the back of the loco chassis. With DCC relocating the decoder in the tender is a good move to free up space for lead in the loco slots of running in. Powerbase may well be a solution and the old magnadhesion certainly works well on steel track. Banking and double heading is a solution and 90% of locos will run together if you have a decent controller like a Morley, however some oddities like the Hornby 42XX and Bachmann B1 are too low geared to run with most other locos. I use a Triang chassis under a Grafar 81XX body and a similar Wills 61XX as bankers but you really need H/D Peco couplings or Kadees as the awful tension lock couplings ride over each other when being propelled. My bankers also have the couplings arranged to float above the bogie and below the buffer beam to prevent the coupling lifting the pony truck wheels off the rails either will push 7 coaches or 18 heavy wagons up the 1 in 36 so when banked anything from a 14XX to a 9F can take the maximum load of 21 wagons the reception sidings can take.

The amount of shunting depends on the length of the siding. With a classic Inglenook operation is more like a card game than a real railway but with a good length of main line to use as a shunting neck you can have some prototypical "fun" as the wagons nearest the buffers need to be removed and to be really awkward if you have an end load facility a wagon needing to load or unload at it is arriving with no loop you could end up pulling 20 wagons out of a siding with a 20 wagon train. (My kind of fun) though I can only manage about 20 in total, and going out and back several times to sort the wagons. Midford S&D station siding was an example of a siding off a single track main line without a loop.

A lot of 45XX did not last long enough to get Lined Green, most of the pre WW1 locos in particular were scrapped before 1958 and logically would not have been overhauled at the 75 000 mile intervals the WR used post the introduction of 1956 green livery. The 45XX were being replaced by DMUs, by surplus 41XX displaced by 61XX displaced by DMUs and by a surfeit of 57XX Panniers displaced by diesel shunters and reclassified as Yellow route availability instead of Blue 1951 allowing them onto the 45XX usual routes so retaining 1927 built small prairies locos when there were lots of newer alternatives made little sense. Post 1962 when they stopped doing planned maintenance the 45XX proved long lived and they found problems finding work for these machines so several found themselves replacing 57XX on Paddington ECS duties, working harder than any small prairie had ever done in the preceding 60 years! Post 62 basically if a 45XX needed significant repair it was scrapped, only locos such as Granges and Halls, 56XX, 41XX and the like which had yet to be replaced with diesels were overhauled after this date needing axlebox attention circa 80K miles, Locos with relatively lightly stressed parts like 45XX and indeed Castles could exceed this by a considerable margin, but the powerful inside cylinder 57XX, 94XX and 2251 needed more attention and being newer were in some cases overhauled and so ended in unlined black livery or Unlined Green (I think Halls remained Lined Green) So basically the 45XX overhauled in 56-62 many at Newton Abbott were lined green and as far as I am aware none were repainted after 62.

On the Castle fitting odd bits of clear perspex to the cab windows, I just cut them dead size and press them in and there they have stayed for 20 odd years, and fitting a new tender drawbar to close couple the tender makes a huge difference to the appearance and the motor virtually disappears. The Duchess / City also benefits from a new tender drawbar especially the Montrose/ Atholl where the tender has a downward facing pin as this lifts the rear of the tender under load, the City has the pin facing up which lifts the tender instead increasing traction. Sadly those Hornby City wheels are badly undersize, late Wrenn was better but mine has 26mm Romfords, couldn't quite get 27mm's in.

I am wondering how big the layout is and so how serious the slow running is?

It looks to me like a heavily modified Hornby Dublo crane, the Jib and the front end of main turntable and rigid section of the frames look like H/D with fabricated rear end and bogie

Lots of people have different ideas on wiring most of which work if the script is followed. Some people have an agenda to push their own products, some come to model railway electrics from other parallel fields. some people know what they are talking about from bitter experience others extrapolate. The extrapolators will send you quietly mad, mixing up DCC with DC until you wake up at 5am shaking from a nightmare involving soldering droppers. Best answer post your questions here and decide between the 15 different solutions offered. Railway Modeller pamphlets on how to wire your layout etc are pretty good for advice.

This is a non DCC section and the LED solution won't work with DC as DC voltage fluctuates drops to zero as trains stop. The two switch solution will work for DC as long as long as there is room for the additional microswitches in addition to frog polarity switches and routeing switches. The short is an issue for both DC and DCC, DC as it destroys plunger pickups on the Airfix 14XX etc and damages the thin springy pickups on most current RTR, and DCC because it shuts the layout down, trains stop abruptly and like as not the trains derail. Making sure the crossover is reset is an issue, I use direct finger prodding and diode matrix and switching half a crossover back and not the other half is a regular occurrence!

The coupled wheelbase would have to be longer at 8ft + 8ft 6" to keep the lads at Derby happy. The excess boiler length plagued all the 4-6-0s (and 4-6-2s) with drive solely on the leading axle except the B12s and hampered a lot of UK 4-6-2s. The CR Cardeans had the front tube plate recessed into the boiler barrel to make the smokebox appear shorter and Great Bear was supposed to have had the same feature but ended up with ridiculously long tubes at 23 feet or so. The GWR did some studies and concluded that shortening barrels and raising pressure was the way to improve efficiency so the County Boiler was born but originally intended for a Castle chassis. I believe Gresley was the only engineer who cracked the drive problem on big engines by driving the middle cylinder on the middle axle. Just look at the elegance of the A3s. I think if development had continued streamlining would have been essential as boiler barrels became progressively shorter and smokebox fronts migrated rearwards. It is noticable how the short barrel version of several boilers were regarded as excellent steamers while the long barrel versions were not, see GCR Directors and GCR Lord Faringdons, though the Faringdons were on the hardest turns...

The smaller the chunks the better for fault location. To keep the show on the road wiring breakers by route should keep something moving but consider ways of isolating sections of track for fault testing, either switches or on portable layouts arrange the multipin plugs so you can isolate each baseboard in turn. Faults are elusive and one which is only mildly annoying on a DC layout will render a DCC one unusable, Loose point blades and wheel backs brushing point blades are favorite breaker trippers, and my most elusive to date a Hornby Q1 where the wheel flange hit a displaced layshaft.on one specific track kink. Watch for high power consumption in loco depots and carriage sidings with carriage lights on and sound equipped locos on shed. A battery powered diesel for track testing and recovering stock from dead power regions is always a good idea. as its difficult to tweak track after you have drilled holes and added droppers.

Ftting a 101 smokebox to Smoky Joe really Westernises Smoky Joe. Fitting Grafar N gauge Black 5 motion might make the Hornby 101 look like vaguely like 101. I have 2 X 101 s and that double Fairlie sounds better by the minute. As for the chassis, I have turned the middle from some non see thru wheels and they are not too bad but the motor is useless for railways but handy for scalextric and the rest of the plastic chassis probably belongs in the scrap box.

The early 3Fs with non see through wheels and screwed together chassis can be made to run really nicely if fitted with Markits Romford wheels. Bushing the chassis and soldering the gear wheel to an axle bush and to a 1/8th axle makes a good solid job but the motor pokes into the cab. I plan to shorten an X04 by fitting super neo magnets at some stage for mine and with the screw together chassis the front weight can be shortened to leave a void between the frames which cutting away the under boiler skirtings would reveal.

I think the cab roof and spectacle plate give too much height to the center of the cab roof, the current Hornby Scot has a much flatter roof profile. The cab sides seem to match the tender which is the critical visual cue.

That looks like something several smaller railways might have cobbled up circa 1900 when the LSWR were retiring Adams Radials and offering examples for sale. Several railways butchered ex Metropolitan 4-4-0Ts into improbable tender locos around that time. I think a severely hacked B12 tender would look the part better than the LNWR one, thinned and lowered the B12 tender is not unlike the MSWJR 2-4-0 tender..

The 2-6-4T could well have been rebuilt from the 3150 class instead of the 31XX 2-6-2Ts of 1938. Both 3150 and 31XX had the same Std 4 boiler as the 42XX and 72XX 2-8-0 and 2-8-2 tanks and were an accountancy wangle which would have worked equally well for a longer range tank instead of a more powerful smaller wheeled banker. I is believed the 31XX were worse as bankers than the 3150 as with higher boiler pressure and smaller wheels they were more prone to slipping. However they were very successful suburban passenger locos, doing exactly the same sort of work the 2-6-4 T might have done. The 31XX and 3150 are among the few GWR locos not available RTR in 00 nor do I know of a kit so why not build one of those instead of a 2-6-4T. I have a 3150 planned based on a Grafar 00 81XX. I don't really know what use a 2-6-4T would have been compared to the 2-6-2T unless it had the Std 1 firebox on a Std 4 boiler barrel, something which Swindon could have built from standard parts The LMS 2-6-4s had longer fireboxes than GW locos which pushed the cabs back on the frames and necessitated the trailing truck rather than extra coal and water capacity while the LMS Tanks ended at the cab spectacle plate I believe whereas the GW ones continued to the cab doorway and both were nominally 2000 gallon capacity. There is little doubt the LMS 2-6-4Ts and BR Std versions were excellent suburban passenger locos but so were the GW Prairies. Sadly no other UK railway managed to make a decent passenger 2-6-4T The southern's Rivers couldn't stay on the track and W1s had no turn of speed, while the LNER L1 seemed to be unable to stay together at high speed and L2 and L3 were goods locos. Maybe if the L1s had had 3 cylinders with inside stephenson's valve gear NER style they would have been on to a winner.

We ran an M&L Star for ages, it has been usurped by the latest Hornby Star which is better in every respect except haulage power. It went through several iterations, the wheels would slide due to the draggy pickups the tender jumped about and so it was re engineered to have a Hornby Saint Ringfield powered Tender chassis with the Airfix 4000 gallon body. The loco wheels were removed and the axles bushed with brass bushes in the plastic chassis which were then connected by wires to a Hornby tender connection to suit the Saint Tender. Finally fine wire was trapped between loco tyres and plastic wheel centre and between centre and axle to make the loco live on one side. It then ran very nicely and was one of the last tender drive locos in service. Finally succumbing to the Hornby Star a few weeks ago. Its just outclassed by the Hornby. To be honest I would put the Comet chassis under a Hornby Star body and sell the M&L on Ebay.

With no spring there is a good chance the point blades will move under trains and cause derailments, I would suggest finding what the issue is unless the spring carrier having been pushed too tightly towards the tie bar was the original cause of the problem.

I can't see a 11 X 7 being extendable to 20 X 15 without some extensive compromises but best of luck. Check out CJ Freezer, watch the gradients as he designed for big hairy chested Hornby Dublo and White metal kit locos which were phenomenal hill climbers compared to todays feeble equivalents. Freezer often used a curved diamond which is no longer available if it ever was available, so beware, but basically he used streamline points and 2nd radius minimum, often 2ft radius minimum and if you allow 10% extra its usually fine. I have a CJF Inspired unfinished layout which is 6'4" X 4'6" which takes 6 coach trains (Just) with terminus continuous run and spiral to reverse loop on 3 levels so 11X 7 should be a doddle. Check out Crewlisle if you want a master class in how to cram several gallons into a pint pot!

You sort of have the pointwork but not the proportions, the sidings were a lot longer than the platforms. Both Ashburton and Moretonhampstead served the same Dartmoor area and both were where their respective valleys became narrower and steeper. Together with Princetown they ensured most of the moor was not too far from civilisation though the upstart line from south of the Thames did not deign to sent any tentacles onto the moor from the north. We went to Ashburton and Moretonhampstead this summer and my wife in particular was struck by just how hilly South Devon is, the hills start at sea level and both Ashburton and Moretonhampstead are ringed by hills and MoretonHampstead station site with loco shed and what looks like the station building now part of a transport depot is down quite a steep hill from the town. If the line had continued I think gradients would have needed to be in the 1 in 40 range as the line was close to the valley bottom already. If you want a GWR south Devon South Dartmoor feel to your terminus big hills are going to be essential and a gradient into the terminus would be good. Loco sheds are usually on a kick back to stop locos escaping and to allow locos with axle driven pumps to pump water into the boiler by buffering up to a stop block and slipping the wheels which was the only way to add water to a hot boiler before injectors and steam pumps became reliable and commonly used. I believe GWR no 2 only had axle driven pumps until 1948 or thereabouts

I have never seen a realistic powered model turntable. They need to start slowly and accelerate as they turn then slow as the road is approached before moving back and forth a bit to get the locking bolt in. Models always seem to creep round ridiculously slowly and index with a jolt. Just waiting for the chinese to come up with a couple of DCC controlled 1:76 blokes to push the table round and then clear off to their bothy for a brew...

There are lots of references to GWR standard 4' 6" dia wheels becoming 4' 7 1/2" when thicker tyres were introduced in the 20th century but the same didn't seem to happen to the 5'8" ones. On models there is often a wheel dia/ footplate and splasher,/ buffer height trade off. Triang used a 1mm higher than scale buffer centre line to get large wheels onto some locos and that has carried over into more recent releases, H/D used reduced diameter wheels and correct buffer heights. you pays your money etc.. but I use the Hornby Dublo setting and turn down flanges and sometimes tyres to make the wheels fit. Plastic splashers and footplates can save a lot of grief on otherwise etched brass or monkey metal bodied locos. You can turn some RTR wheel tyres down but they really need a mandrel as using the axles will usually rip the axle from the wheel center. Smokey Joe wheels are redeemable if you cut out the disc and reduce the flange using a mandrel to hold the tyre. I fitted Romford 24mm tyres to Triang Hall wheels once, Big mistake, I since found turning the original iron tyres works a lot better and fitting H/D castle wheels works better still and you can turn those down in a black and decker drill with an old file if your hand is steady enough.

Whacking any old tat on for a smokebox numberplate has ruined countless otherwise excellent models,the (G) WR ones seem worst as some people just can't understand the plate goes on brackets and fits along the top door hinge. I made plates for a number of locos years ago on a computer and good quality photocopier and it was a devil of a job to get a font that was anything like right, and when I did the letters had to be spaced apart, something like 36 point letters with 8 point spaces between to get the proportions right which I then had to reduce on the copier to get the size right. 30 years ago I could paint them on 00 locos and think nothing of it... Can anyone identify the font Swindon actually used or a very near equivalent, because sadly various computers have departed and fonts come and go and I no longer have the data for the plates I made.