DCB

I think it would benefit from more roads or longer roads off the turntable and forget the cassettes. You can never have too much loco storage and modern RTR and elderly Kit built locos don't take kindly to being handled and seldom survive falling from a cassette onto the cold hard linoleum or your soft warm foot. I would try to operate so locos from the down side can can access the turntable via the upside roads from the left hand end rather than popping out into the scenic area at the right hand end. I would have have tried to get one more through road on the up side for a loco line to facilitate this. Using the old Hornby Dublo "Railers" or a home made version on the end of a couple of roads would facilitate changing stock

DC and on board battery power for me.

Getting locos especially old direct worm drive locos to run smoothly downhill is a problem, hunting and slowing randomly causes (annoyance on my layouts and Spectacular) derailments on other people's layouts where they don't use Peco H/D style couplings. PWM works better than smooth DC but I run locos Half wave which makes the gears rattle and stops the worm winding up, flat out on half wave works well for most of my old locos. Getting up again is a bigger issue, there is a lot of twist in sharp radius spirals in the 2nd Radius range and old fashioned long wheelbase steam locos even Pacifics only have 3 wheel tyres on the track with the 4th guided only by he flange, It is less of a problem as the radius increases or track gauge decreases but always have the uphill track on the outside if at all possible. Notable the train on the Pecorama spiral goes downhill never up...

Which age groups are we talking here? To be honest 4 X 2 means N gauge for continuous run which is terribly fiddly for beginners, or a 00 shunting layout. Oddly enough British TT gauge is almost bang on the industry standard of 1 : 100 for architectural models and plans for many thousands of buildings are available at 1;100 on local authority planning websites. A TT gauge continuous run could be a possibility but the stuff is a bit like Hens teeth. I think you need more space for a layout. Even thinking laterally 4X2X1.5 only gives enough storage space for three 4X2 boards which is still only a 6X4 single level layout. G scale outside sounds really good. Lets face it with Battery Radio control you don't even need metal track. For straights Run a plough plane along some timbers to make two grooves with the inner edges to gauge, dowel the ends in a jig so they fit together. Or Use old aluminium Green house frames bolted together separated by wooden spacers, Curves probably have to be bought in but technology students may find a way to make it, and that would really stretch the kids abilities...

The Lima power bogie should run nicely, they growl but jerking suggests dirty wheels or a bad connection between pick up wire and the trailing bogie pivot pin or pin to pick up strip. Remove the body as described and have a look see. I think the buffers go through body and chassis so have to come off, mine is/ was modified to have cut away skirts so mine are on the chassis. Lube is a two edged sort of sword, the metal armature bearings like a drop but oily gears pick up abrasive dirt especially if the track is ballasted which wears the pivots and teeth. The ModelTorque and similar motor conversions run more smoothly and don't have the power and speed of the Lima original which makes the gears last a lot longer but I wouldn't want to try hauling scale length passenger trains at scale speed (100 for a 47/7) with one in the way the Lima original does. The Hornby 47 power bogie from earlier years is worse than the Lima, the inline with X04 like armature is absolutely hopeless with short life plastic armature bearings, and the Ringfield not much better. My Ringfield version has been retrofitted with a Hornby Tender Drive unit with is a direct replacement and has nearer to scale wheels if you ignore or fill in the spokes and with matching wheels on the trailing bogie and looks and runs a lot better.

A couple of points, Jaguar LandRover seems to be making a go of production in the UK. Peco seems to. Perhaps the realisation that the Hornby range needs a few people working full time in a small production facility not a lot of people just doing a bit now and again between banging out all sorts of stuff for competitors in a huge one is overdue. There is no way to repatriate moulds and dies from China so companies should factor that into their calculations before outsourcing production beyond EU laws. Model Railways are terribly sensitive to fashion, first it was GWR, now its BR LMR, a tiny minority model the SDJR, the MSWJR, First Great Western, Scotrail, M&GN, RHDR and Dajeeling Himalaya, with their weird liveries but the number of units they can expect to shift off model shop shelves of these items is tiny compared with mainstream BR LMR or BR/GWR. or even Thomas the Tank It makes sense to make models of what kids and parents can see. 42XX, 64XX, 57XX, Kings (With cropped cabs) Castles, Halls, Tornado, Flying Scotsman (In this years livery/chimney/Smoke deflectors) with the right numbers in preserved condition so folks can buy what they saw running.

Just a little warning for those not building a cake box diorama. Forced perspective is great if you have a defined viewing point, but it looks mighty weird if you look from anywhere else. Of course if you are modeling Port Merion... Not sure colours change with distance in the way many modelers represent, it always seems to darken to me, greens turning black, the opposite to Hornby's infamous Khaki GWR / BR passenger livery.

The answer is to bring production back into the UK and have a dedicated facility working 45 weeks of the year producing stock which is pre ordered by retailers instead of stuffing a container with Chinese imports and basically dumping them on the UK market for what ever they could get for them. Which was not much when they missed the Christmas market a couple of years back. Maybe stuff a container with Chinese low end Railroad "Smokey Joe's" and 4 wheel carriages and Thomas stuff every October to keep the kiddies interested or get a few more hooked. But a loco which doesn't have to be dismantled and rebuilt before it will pull trains shouldn't be beyond them, Hornby Dublo managed it, and one of theirs will pull two modern Hornby backwards...

I think you have a good workable layout now but for me the scenics let it down. The terminus above the sea is pretty naff, and the pretty backscenes are great from the best viewing angle but pretty unconvincing otherwise. I would revisit the vertical between terminus and low level and try to blend it between upper and lower levels, retaining walls are good as are arches but it does need to work for both levels. I would also look at the station on the lower level, many real stations have their platforms at ground level and the tracks at a lower level. I think if you brought your station buildings up to platform level and in filled the area between the platforms with fibreboard or similar it would help. There is no reason why the lift out section cannot be scenic, I have 6 or 7 tracks and half a station on a lift out.

Probably a very bad idea, it will tend to collect and solidify on the sides of the rails and maybe get into the contacts of pointwork. It is both a solvent and an abrasive. It is good for all sorts of other stuff, getting scratches out of Poundland reading glasses, polishing brass even polishing cars if they are old enough not to have clearcote paintwork.

Looks like it might be a good solution for 00 stock what ever the era. Just a bit concerned about a Garratt or GW 28XX starting a heavy freight...

The number, non auto ones were 58XX.

White LEDs are a different breed to Coloured as in yellow / orange/ Red/ Green and the Vf is considerably greater, white LEDs need 3 AAA cells to light them while coloured are good on 2 AAA cells. I use yellow and orange LEDs for steam era coaches and White for HST era stock The white lights of late 70s HSTs was quite dramatic, we used to watch them from just west of Wotton Bassett on both Bath and South Wales lines. From other posts on this forum some DCC controllers deliver over 25 volts which is excess of the NMRA standards and leads to fried chips, 24 volts would light 10 yellow leds very nicely 16 volts would be good for units of 5 in series with suitable resistors. My anti flicker capacitors are as big as possible and probably a higher value than the typical stay alive as in too big to fit in most locomotives.

If the layout is to be used long term get well seasoned /reclaimed timber and plane it up/ sand it. Scrapped builders vans are a good source of this timber, nice and dry. I have spent hours this summer truing up baseboards where the 2 X 2 and 2 X 1 timbers bought from Bodgit & Quick which have warped with age. My reclaimed timber is still fine 30 years on, if it hasn't warped after 10 years in a van it probably won't warp on the layout. Ply is more awkward, reclaimed ply doesn't come in big sheets MDF is an alternative.

The key thing is to make sure your purchases are not "Hot" especially if buying on Ebay because a Police caution for receiving stolen property as well as losing your purchase can leave a nasty taste in the mouth. Just look at Paignton Model Centre which was turned over last week, I bet someone has had a great bargain buying some of that stock off ebay, or at a show, probably not at a car boot or put. Swinging open ones demob mac to reveal a package while whispering "Pssst, wanna buy a BR Green DCC fitted Dublo Flying Fox mate?" is going to attract unwanted attention down the Fox and Rabbit innit? The big advantage of buying a loco over the counter is a decent model shop will test the loco for you, that way they can legitimately say "It was fine when it left here you must have muggered it up or dropped it." That said my local model shop, Cheltenham Model Centre, does some good deals for mail order and I am a very satisfied customer for something like 40 years. If you are going to super detail locos buying second hand is a good way to save a few quid as long as you get a relatively current model, likewise there are a lot of old locos still unused for sale new to catch the unwary, My father in law bought my son two "New" Bachman split chassis locos at Christmas so beware. Odd liveries are notoriously unpopular so a blue SDJR liveried loco plus a can of Poundland matt black spray can be a good solution for a BR Grime liveried loco..

The resistance problem will be the rolling resistance of the pickups not anything electrical if you are not careful. The old split axle Mainline and early Bachmann wheelsets let you use pin point bearing pick up which will run away down a 1 in 75 or wipers on the axle journals which will run on a 1 in 50 whereas the recent wheel back pickups I have seen won't run down a 1 in 30 which will really compromise train length. My DC LEDs are in parallel, project through a false ceiling under the roof, 1 per compartment, this is important for compartment coaches, and the compartment ends need to go to the ceiling. The LEDs are fed by a bridge rectifier with the biggest electrolytic capacitor I could hide in parallel with the LEDs and a resistor to keep the LEDs from frying if the power is left full on. This gives a nice steam era glow at line speed. My pickup is pinpoint through Lima wheels which are insulated one side only in Hornby Dublo bogies, one bogie positive the other negative. DCC is easier, in some ways, the line voltage is constant and as long as you measure it and don't guess or rely on the sticker on the back of the controller you can set the resistor to give a good light. I would daisy chain the LEDs in series in this instance as you should get at least 10 to work in series on 16 volts AC through a standard 1 amp diode, maybe more, resistors can be an issue as you may find you need a negative value resistor to increase the brightness! I would reverse the connections on half the coaches to balance the load across both waves of the aC as each coach would be using only half wave. The refinement of a capacitor or ten is probably a not on with DCC as it may affect the signal so flickering lights will spoil the illusion unless everything is spotlessly clean [my life is too short] Another approach is to use button cells to operate lighting. If the train spends most of its time in a hidden siding a button cell or two operating the LEDs through a resistor with a change over reed switch mounted low in the battery box or under a bogie can be arranged to switch off the lights when at rest over a magnet or 12. This is easy to cobble up using chinese super neo magnets at £1 for 10. That way the batteries last a surprising time. Poor quality batteries are available for about £3.20 from motor factors for key fobs or better quality ones from Poundland as packs of 24 assorted sizes. Some say "You get what you pays for." Then again some believe the earth is round as well. Coach lighting is great, especially at night with the last train of the day heading back down the garden to the terminus at 9pm on a September evening. That way you can't see the loco is an ancient Airfix Prairie with oval wheels and the coaches 1960s Triang Suburbans...

You can get cheaper scalpels from the likes of Poundland but they are basically junk as the clamp for the blade, which the serrated nut tensions is plastic and snaps like a carrot. The little clamp inside the serrated nut can just be seen and are usually blue plastic whereas the good ones are aluminium. The Swann Moreton handle has a metal clamp and lasts for years, 30 plus for mine. However I find the blades from the cheap sets have their uses at £1 for 16 but don't use the handles [as knife handles.]

Most GWR expresses terminated at through stations, Temple Meads, Plymouth Hereford, Worcester, Wolverhampton (Some stopped at but didn't terminate at termini like Swansea and Carmarthen) and many changed engines at others, Swindon, Oxford, Gloucester (Reverse) Temple Meads, Exeter/Newton Abbott, Plymouth North Road. An engine would arrive and sometimes very rarely turn and take the same train back (MSWJR Cheltenham post 1957 was an example) but more often there would be a decent break and another crew would take the loco over maybe a couple of hours later for another turn. Another GWR trick was to use an engine as station pilot between passenger turns, so the Banbury station pilot could be a Swindon 43XX, See Swindon Engineman by Mike Sturmer. The one GWR thing few of us have room to do is to divide trains, it really needs about 8 coaches minimum, the first 3, a dining car set with a King coming off, leaving 8 for a Manor or Star would be good, I think thats what the Merchant Venturer Paddington to Weston-super-Mare did at Temple Meads, and several Bristol Trains were reconfigured at Swindon. Through stations can be far more than just scenery on a continuous run.

A lot of termini had loco turning facilities either within the station precincts or nearby with the actual loco depot some way away. Kings Cross had a small servicing point to save sending locos to Top Shed, as did Marylebone, a 4 platform terminus, to avoid light engine trips to Neasden, however these were mainly for visiting locos. Locally allocated locos would normally work in from and back to their depot tender first. A turntable and a few stabling roads with pits a la Ranelagh bridge at Paddington is probably the ultimate unless you want somewhere to display those Hornby and Bachmann freight locos which won't pull the skin off a bread pudding. Turntables are a problem, the Hornby 76 footer is huge and pretty pointless as a 65ft will swing a Duchess and saves a lot of space and is visually much less dominant on a small layout. Cheltenham St James a 4 platform terminus had a Turntable and little else as the depot was at Malvern Road 1/2 mile away beyond the road bridge and junction with the main line. I used a low relief engine shed once, just the front 1/4 of a Dapol shed widened to two road with the back of a Dapol 61XX in one road and the front in another to block the view. However that was on a Welsh branch line. A4s and the like did work to some unlikely places on filling in turns so maybe arriving on a local made of non corridor suburbans or leaving on a fitted freight is more likely than arriving on a short semi fast. The A4s were high value assets and finished their days on express passenger work.

The only way to maintain a price point and not flood the market is to bring production within the UK and supply a steady stream of products from a small production facility instead of using a small proportion of a large overseas production facility to cram a container chock full of product that then has to be shifted quicker than unrefrigerated ice cream on Filey seafront on the only hot day in 1870. As for Hornby BR Khaki well its half the fun repainting the green with railmatch while keeping the lining. Actually Poundland Matt Black rattle can is a good match for post 1963 BR steam loco green as I remember it. The other half of the fun is taking the model apart in the vain hope enough lead can be found to get prototype performance. In a King 12 coaches up a 1 in 38. Failing that if all else fails they do look good on the mantle piece or on shed

I don't think the motor or gearing is the issue with the Hornby 61XX. I have experience of the Hornby large Prairies, they are not good runners We tried a couple as replacements for a Farish 81XX on a Triang chassis on banking duties but even after much running in it still ran unevenly as if it had a wheel out of round or quartering issues. Relegated to local passenger turns they still makes the coaches shuttle back and forth at low speed After much investigating I found the unevenness was due to the axles moving around in the chassis which gives the impression of poor quartering. I suspect it is incurable However the Bachmann 43XX chassis is silky smooth until the wheels fall off and should fit the Hornby 61XX bodyshell as the prototypes were almost identical forward of the rear coupled axle, and cobbling up a rear pony truck should be a doddle.

Plenty of places to shift unboxed items "Broken from sets" Ebay, local paper, car boot sales, anywhere no questions asked so ask some questions. DCC added or removed, weathered, even used on the thief's layout maybe. He may even break them for spares as per LandRover thieves. Ebay changes are making it easier for thieves, they don't want buyers to contact sellers or even know who sellers are. No one knows who TeaLeaf234 or whatever is he may even have multiple accounts. It would be good if the stills from the CCTV pics in the press could be shown on this thread, someone may recognise him. As regards Paignton Model centre I live 140 miles away and seldom get to south Devon but on a visit last autumn I found Paignton Model Centre to be an excellent shop. Very competitive prices, good stock. When my father in law bought an ex display model the guy even took it upstairs to make sure it ran ok before we bought it. Real first class service so its so unfair he gets targeted by low lifes. Even if the guy is insured he will still be seriously out of pocket come renewals time... I just hope the thief is caught and the magistrates deal appropriately.

I think you are blaming the wrong bloke. Most of the closures were pre Beeching, Ashburton, Princetown, Kingham, MSWJR etc on the WR just the main lines were really Beeching, GCR, Waverley, MR Manchester Millers Dale etc. Marples did far more closures of the branches we loved.

DC or DCC. If DC divide your layout into a number of sections such as branch line, Depot Entry, Depot headshunt, up main, down main and use DPDT or Rotary Switches to connect the sections to one of two or more controllers. One controller per section is very 1960s childs train set MO. In my experience the Morley and OnTrack controllers have the best walkround hand held units with leads up to 3 metres and very light handhelds which have only 3 wires and only a potentiometer in the housing, they don't get hot and the lead pulls out of the DIN connector if you tread on it. A two track Morley with two handheld slaves should be adequate if you only want to run two trains max simultaneously

I have somewhere in the back of my mind the idea that H&M had to cease selling the Variable Transformers due to a change in regulations, probably in the 1970s so they could well be Autotransformers with the attendant dangers if connected backwards. It would be good if someone (else) could have one apart and check with a multitester. It may be technically incorrect but for me a Rheostat is wire wound and has a number of steps in its variable resistance as the wiper moves across the winding, several hundred perhaps, while a Potentiometer (pot) has a carbon track giving a seamless change. Some of the old wire wound rheostats are so coarse you can be stuck between too slow and too fast. The big difference in practice between Variable Transformers and Variable resistors in where gradients change, Set so my trains climb my gradients on a Duette or similar the the trains race back down the other side like a rocket, set to run down the gradients they stall when confronted with the climb. On the Variable Transformer the track voltage stays much more constant and the speed remains reasonable downhill when set so the trains climb the gradients. Morley and OnTrack electronic controllers also display this feature plus have very light 3 wire handheld slaves so that why I use them. For shunting I prefer a Minic hand throttle as my super low geared Gronk only really has two speeds and goes everywhere flat out.