DCB

I find the early Triang Hornby 9F / Evening Star with permanently coupled 6 traction tyre tender is a very powerful beast, the later 2 traction tyre detachable tender type only about 60% as good and the current Railroad loco drive only about 30% as good. I find loading the current RTR with strips of Lead Flashing and lots of running in improves the traction, doubling it in the case of te 42XX, ROD etc, while Pacifics are more sure footed than 4-6-0s as the weight is more evenly distributed, some 4-6-0s actually pull less if you weight the smokebox without adding weight at the back as the weight is all on the leading drivers. Tender drawbars need to be arranged to be neutral or lift the tender when pulling not lift the rear of the loco, the Hornby Dublo Duchess being a text book example of how not to do it. We were playing the other evening and had a Wrenn 8F pulling 40 Hornby Dublo metal chassis open wagons which must be equal to 100 modern all plastic pin point wagons up 12 feet or so of 1 in 100 which was supposed to be level. Didn't try the 9F, but both a Farish 81XX on Triang Chassis and a Wills 61XX beat the 8F with the Wills pulling 53 at one stage. We filmed the Hattons 14XX on over 35 Hornby Dublo wagons, sort of cheated by using the 61XX as banker, must put it on YouTube!

Sounds like a tired /faulty X04 to me, 1.5 amps stalled is very high, I use a 1 amp breaker and it never pops when I'm playing with X04s. Assuming you have insulated both brushes from the brush spring and added an extra wire on the live to frame side are you sure the brushes are not shorting to the motor frame? Touching the frame or pole pieces? X04s will sometimes do this as the windings either foul the pole pieces or short internally to the armature shaft. I would change the motor for a known good one as first step. Some M7s have 1 insulated and 1 non insulated wheel per trailing bogie axle, I would check to see if they are live to the frame and if so that they are the right way round

A 240 V illuminated switch of this type is going to have resistors to operate the illumination on 240 volts and hence its not going to light on 12 volts. I sort of understand what you hope to achieve but it won't be easy with DC as the voltage applied will vary over the range of 0-18volts and anything that lights on 1.5 volts will go pop at well below 12 v......

Its your railway, you can add or remove as much detail as you wish. Even painting and lining only one side of locos and stock has been done, even by BR when experimenting with liveries on black 5s, or painting one side in one livery and the other a different livery as the Rev W Awdrey did with some of his stock. I find painting the inside of coaches to be the single most time effective way of upscaling stock. The white partitions on some not that old Hornby stock was hideous so I paint them brown with a simple dash of blue or green for the seat upholstery. Passengers, well mine in early 60s so a lack of passengers is probably prototypical, but a lack of footplate crew on a moving loco is to me as bad as not having any valve gear on a BR std 4. Fireman pirouetting on one foot is nearly as bad so my figurers are just standing around. That's just my take on it, its not set in stone, at least not until I get better at using a chisel.

I habitually double head and bank trains. The trick is getting both locos to run on the same voltage, or accurately pairing similar locos up. I use Morley, On Track, Playcraft and H&M variable Transformers. All these control track voltage, and will provide a progressively higher maximum voltage as the knob is turned even off load, and I can double head a Hornby 42XX with a Triang Hall despite a 3 or 4 to 1 disparity in maximum speeds. I have a YouTube clip of them on a 24 wagon freight. This also means my Triang chassis GWR Prairie tanks can bank most locos up the 1 in 30 without slipping. With resistance controllers, Duette, etc which show 14 to 21 volts off load on minimum speed you have to accurately match the locos. I haven''t used a feedback controller for about 20 years, but I suspect they are totally confused by two sets of back EMF and double heading may well be completely impossible with them, unless the locos are essentially identical. On my floor layout with Triang super 4 track which has graced holiday houses and patios from Devon to Scotland, I find dodgy fishplates cause power drop problems so I simply put two resistance controllers on one track, at opposite sides of the layout. As long as they are turned the same way its fine. Radio Control is the answer for banking, and double heading, two operators/ drivers for one train real teamwork, just like the real thing. Not sure if you can control two locos on separate controllers on the same track with DCC.

As someone using DC (and working on simple R/C) I am rather jealous of the flexibility DCC affords for operating 2 or more locos on the same track, for instance, double heading, banking, and shunting where locos follow stock out of platforms. However I never see or read of anyone actually using this ability. Does anyone ever "Drive" the train loco while someone else "Drives" the pilot or banker? Is there any technical reason why this can't be done. It was a highly skilled part of a driver's job in steam days. 40% of my trains are banked or piloted up the bank. Ideally I need the train loco to pull hard all the way but for the Banker to push gently until the junction pointwork is cleared and then open up on the 1 in 30 gradient and to balance the load so the banker is not doing all the work or the train engine slipping furiously. Does anyone do anything like this?

The track spacing is set track so points Points 99% + certain to be Insulfrog as Hornby and Peco don't make electrofrog versions. Controller has a keypad so DCC. If the track is pinned down 100% can be recovered and reused. If it is glued down you will have problems getting the glue off the bottom of the sleepers so it sits flat when reused, [ Incidentally I rip the rail out of ballasted track for reuse and bin the ballast and sleepers] The Aircraft Carrier is out of scale. The layout looks like a good re entry level project, should be easy to get running but with limitations. The viewing angles have not been thought about and the track spacing and track layout will always shout "train set". I guess it is 8X4 My incomplete 6'4" X 4' 6" double bed layout operates 5 coach trains, with 6 as an absolute max, and the best viewing angle is from the short end at track level as trains approach head on, yours has scenery blocking this view. On the plus side three circuits means three trains running simultaneously, passenger overtaking goods always looks good, Trains racing each other is fun too, if you are a child, (at heart). The turntable, saves handing fragile highly detailed locos, station provides somewhere to stop and start trains I would check that the baseboard is flat and level, many "level" baseboards slope at 1 in 100 (1%) and many sag in the middle. Sawing bits off legs sorts the gradient, safer tan using the other halfs table mats or Mills and Boon's for packing. Sagging is more difficult, jack it up with a car jack and add extra legs? Have fun.

There are a couple of other threads on J83s on this site including drawings etc. The Hornby body appears to have been stretched to fit a longer ,8'+8'3" chassis instead of a 7'6" +8' which makes things difficult. I suspect that a Hornby J83 body on the correct wheelbase chassis would look most odd . I have never persuaded a Hornby sprung rear axle chassis with traction tyres to run smoothly and remember the owner of Froude and Hext in Swindon advising a lady not to buy a Thomas the Tank engine with one for her son because they ran badly. I guess non traction tyre wheels would help as would following the Johnster's advice re springs, or even replacing the springs with brass bearings. The older non traction tyre non sprung chassis centre axle drive can be made to run very smoothly and powerfully if weighted enough but I don't think they fit the later body, There is also a front drive non sprung chassis I believe but I don't have one and if they are like the plastic gear front drive Std 2/ chassis need a lot of work and or brass gears to run half decently. It looks like there were 12 Westinghouse/vacuum braked J83s for station pilot duties and 28 steam brake only shunters with the N10 and N11 0-6-2Ts being favoured for trip workings, so they were not branch locos.

Churchward designed the Saints to run with 5' 8" wheels so there was no need to do anything but fit 1ft smaller driving wheels to a straight framed "Saint". That is why the GW 2 cylinder 4-6-0s had such deep buffer beams so they could move the buffers up by 6" to accomodate the smaller wheels. They would also have needed to alter the rear drag box to allow the tender coupling to fit . Maybe they could have fitted smaller splashers, et voila a 1902 Grange, except a non superheated 5'8" wheeled Saint would have been lighter than a Manor, a better steamer with no need to design the Manor's silly little boiler. One sad examples of locos that should have been was the LNER B6 2 cyl 4-6-0s, designed by Robinson to compete with the B7 4 cyl locos using the big 05 class 2-8-0 boiler which were later replaced in the 2-8-0s by the 04 type or 100A etc Only 3 were built, yet many parts were standard with the ROD 2-8-0s available cheap from the WD and with little work by using the slightly smaller ROD boiler the LNER could have had a couple of hundred very effective mixed traffic locos in 1925, instead of 408 rather less effective B1s from 1942.... The GC 2-6-0 looks a potent beast.. The Double 04 Garrett Wordborough bankers would have been impressive beasts, again using second hand ROD chassis the LNER could have built a couple of dozen quite cheaply instead of the one incredibly expensive six cylinder monster Gresley came up with.

Pics would be good. Or the model of the controller, or trains, any details on the controller case or on the bottom of the locos would give clues. For instance the Orient express can be DC or DCC, the R1038 came with a double track capable DC controller while the later R1073 is DCC. I would be wary of any layout from the estate of a deceased person as it may not have been operational when he last used it and it certainly won't have been finished. If its DCC there will be some form of key pad to input the loco code, without this it won't run. My suspicion is it will be DC, the owner may well have DCC locos but did he run them at home? Did he convert them back to DC?

The problem I find is getting wire stiff enough to remain straight or curved after being bent to shape. If the wire bends to shape easily it gets bent easily when the loco gets handled. I use piano wire and just bend it by eye for the smokebox curve using two small tapered long nosed pliers, available from poundland. working round the big bend progressively and constantly checking against the loco. I usually scrap 66% of my attempts 1 in 3 success rate. The awkward bends are where the smokebox curve goes horizontal and then turns 90 degrees. I make the sharp bends leading to the smokebox curve first then form the big curve and finally judge the sharp curve where the handrail goes horizontal by eye. It is absolutely vital to get this bend right as there is no scope to adjust it and like the front numberplate in BR days it is the face of the loco. It is also easy to get the vertical to horizontal bend wrong, and also the double bend where the handrail kinks round the ejector pipe on the right hand side of the bigger locos. Many people make a right hash of the double handrail "Knob" which supports both ejector pipe and handrail on the right hand side.

I too have various lengths of wire, some through diodes, some through dodgy connector blocks but I use big thick wires, car wiring loop multi strand good for 10 amps and a very big Capicitor, like 40 against your 2.2 so big it needs spare point motors as dead loads so at least 4 points throw together so the rails dont rip out of the tie bars. However for the past 15 years my 3 way point has behaved just like your crossover, only 1 set of blades moves first time and the other set when you try again. Its Gremlins. I humour them by leaving them alone, they know the 3 way point is the most inaccessible on the layout so they target it, It takes 2 hours to remove and replace the lower hidden sidings baseboard to get at it. However I know it operates 2nd time so it's not a problem. If I fixed it the Gremlins would have to find somewhere else to play, loosening layshafts on Q1's and chassis bottoms on 28XX for instance, or worse still migrate to the car. Swearing loudly is a good albeit temporary way to remove gremlins.

Sorry, City of Truro never had a Parallel boiler, it had a Std no 4 boiler, a short cone taper boiler like a Black 5 or BR Std 5 as there ever was a long cone fullly tapered std 4, It was unsuperheated, and had slide valves. Due perhaps to lubrication problems the pre WW1 non superheater locos were generally faster than the superheated versions and neither GW 4-4-0s nor LNWR Experiments ran as fast when superheated, more economical more powerful, not as fast. Swindon was the leader in Walschaerts valve gear, MSWJR no 4, the incredibly useless and unreliable Fairlie with Walschaerts gear would have been a source of merriment and amazement around Swindon pre 1890, and Swindon built more Walschaerts gear locos than any other company pre WW1, most of them Railmotors. The Stephenson gear used on most swindon products produced more torque at low speeds than Walschaerts and the inside gear allowed regular piston and valve examinations without disturbing the valve setting. Interestingly when Stanier took GW methods to the LMS and introduced his Mogul it was less efficient then the Crab and the Jubilee worse than the Patriot. Sadly he didn't take GW Piston Valves as they would have saved many struggles as fitters struggled with heavily carboned multi ring piston valves firmly stuck in their liners, where GW valves simply fell away from the liner when steam was shut off. Stanier's innovations, Sloping Throat plates etc produced the GWs worst boilers, County and Manor, while Staniers best performing Jubilee "Rooke" had the GW Churchward derived straight throatplate boiler. Holcroft's Swindon designed 2 to 1 conjugated valve gear did good service on a few hundred Gresley designs and some Union Pacific monstrosities. Right to the end of steam no one else had a repair facility to equal Swindon, the A shop was for many years the worlds largest, They ran the worlds fastest train, and longest through run by a loco prior to the non stop Flying Scotsman and Silver Jubilee. Best of all the GW didn't like outside valve gear and used cast number plates which makes modelling GW locos just that bit easier.

It does not fit, It is too long, the H/D chassis is much shorter at the front, between leading and centre axles. If you want to keep the current loco going into the 2020s you can re drill the H/D chassis to correct the wheel spacing for an N2, rewheel it with 22mm Romfords and the current models coupling rods and I'm pretty sure the current Hornby body will fit . The H/D 0-6-2T is as much like some Rhymney or Cardiff rly 0-6-2Ts as it is the N2 and pretty much nothing like anything which ran on the LMS or SR. You can saw through wheel spokes, I have done it, what I never managed was to glue the wheel back together afterwards.. I have success fully drilled out dull mazak H/D 3 rail wheels to take H/D 2 rail insulated bushes to fit the 2 rail (larger spline) axles, but my success rate is only 50% 3 rail dull mazak wheel flanges can easily be filed down to suit code 75.

Plenty of useful advice above, however, all our layouts are different and what works for one may well be a disaster for others. Things to consider, Point radius and whether you propel stock over the points or only pull it. With tension locks I find close coupled coaches which will pull over 2nd radius curves cannot be propelled over 2ft (5th?) radius points or reverse curves, as the corridor connections foul, that is after "Retracting" the buffers. If you want close coupling and want to propel rakes of coaches through pointwork you should be looking at Peco medium radius (3ft) points as a minimum. BR Mk1, Pullman, and Gresley stock used buck eye couplers and the buffing was done by coupler and corridor connection. Buffers between coaches were "Retracted" and never touched, the buffers were only used when coupled using the screw couplings, mainly to locos or pre nationalisation stock, This is why Gresley Buffets outlived all the other pre nationalisation coaches in express service. Buffers within sets need the buffer stocks trimmed back so the buffers don't touch, I use Hornby Dublo/ Peco couplers on wagons and Tension locks between coaches within semi fixed rakes. I use some close couplers in a Hawkesworth set and they are a bit of a pain not liking reverse curves, tending to derail. The old Lima stock can be improved greatly by sawing off the couplers and screwing replacement (I use 1960s Triang) couplers to the remaining coupler stub. I close couple locos and tenders usually by hacksaw and drill methods and find the scale distance works well down to 2nd radius. Most RTR Tender locos are limited to 2nd radius by the loco wheelbase anyway and the long coupling position is pretty much redundant. Present day RTR is a minefield, some dealers have 10 year old stock on sale as new and manufacturers change details, even where the items are made, on a whim, colours, couplings, coupling pockets etc all change, and former Lima, Mainline, Airfix, and Hornby stock is sold as "Hornby" for example so if you need consistency for coupling pocket height, or even presence of NEM pockets the advice must be check every piece of stock you buy. Support your local model shop. I find my local model shop Cheltenham Model Centre to be most helpful

The old dublo 0-6-2T have either a horseshoe magnet for the very early locos or a block magnet with pole pieces which is far more common Wrenn continued the body but fitted to an elongated 0-6-0T chassis with a detachable motor. If you have the block magnet type a 2 rail conversion is quite easy, swap to a 2 rail version of the chassis code 75 is a bit more difficult. For code 75 the easiest way is to use Markits Romford wheels, you can choose anywhere between 18mm and 22mm, depending on whether you are representing a south wales valley loco or a suburban tank like the LNER N2. I would use standard 1/8" axles which are a direct fit, and 6 X Insulated wheels, which would leave the chassis electrically isolated so DCC compatible and 4 flanged wheels and 2 non flanged if you have 2nd radius curves. Where I vary from the normally accepted practice is to shim the gearwheel with washers so it has around 10 thou clearance and does not bind on the chasssis. I use 1/8th washers and Romford spacing washers. I also space the wheels away from the frames with Romford spacing washers to restrict sideplay. I also use Triang coupling rod screws which screw directly into the Romford wheels but need the "Point" filed off. The coupling rods should have enough meat on the open out with a needle file, I have done several with few problems. The rods need spacers behind them to stop the rods shorting on the wheel tyres, I use the flange off romford top had pinpoint bearings! The only other part needed is a pickup, a piece of PCB will fit to the 3 rail pick up mounting and from that you can lead phosper bronze contacts to the 6 wheel tyres,and either one side to chassis and the other to the brush or to a decoder in the bunker. The vertical motor is a bit power hungry, but has great torque and one of the most realistic performers out there while graappling with a very heavy load, well worth upgrading and using, probably out last the current Bachmann chassis by about fifty years.

Can anyone explain how the Peco switch works? I have never owned one and the old passing contact switches I have work by having two fixed contacts, one for "Left" end of the motor and one for "Right" end with which the movable contact with. As designed working off AC From extreme left to extreme right the sequence is dead section, left contact, dead section, right contact, dead section. Thus when you change a point from left to right the movable contact brushes the Left contact and the motor pushes the blade hard left before it brushes the Right contact and the motor pushes the blade across for right hand road It works well as the motor and blade jump before moving across. With a CDU on these switches when you change a point from left to right the movable contact brushes the Left contact and the CDU discharges through the left motor and pushes the blade hard left, if there is any charge left in the CDU after this when the moving contact brushes the Right contact and the motor pushes the blade across for right hand road at greatly reduced power, or doesn't move at all. In some cases you get the point actually working backwards. Just wondering how the Peco switch is arranged to avoid this, if all else fails I will have to buy one and take it apart.

Hi Can anyone point me in the direction of the tread and flange profiles I need for running on code 75 track as I have some old Triang wheel tyres I want to turn down. I have done some tyres for code 100 which seem to be working well so I am wondering about going even finer now I have made a mandrel to take the tyres as I have quite a few wheels in my scrap box.

Just wondering which locos you are using to require 24" radius, The old direct worm drive locos with all flanged Romfords and hardly any sideplay used to need 24" radius and Probably the Hornby LNER pacifics with flanged trailing wheels need 24" radius but as 66c says the old "2 foot" peco points were actually a fair bit less than that (as are set track points a fair bit less than 18") so that min radius may refer to the Peco points rather than the actual track radius. Modern locos with spur final drives are generally fine down to 18" radius and will also tolerate kinks down to a tighter radius.

Follow Johnsters instructions but also turn it upside down and just check that the coupling rods are not bent in slightly as this can easily be done through handling and derailments and leads to lumpy running. Bachmann are usually very smooth with their flywheels, however they do run rough on some PWM controllers and on half wave on resistance controllers, so if the vibes are quite rapid and occur at very low shunting speed it could be a controller problem.

I tried a Peco code 100 large radius point and it took a brand new 1.2mm drill as a tight fit in the operating hole in the tie bar. Would probably work best with a 1 mm rod

A scratch build should not be too difficult, Just keep the centre raised portion to 14mm max and use black plasticard as the paint will get rubbed off in operation. Its too long for a 4 wheeler so it will need inside framed bogies and It may be necessary to cut away the sides to give the bogie wheels clearance to swing, I am wondering how the L&M staff lubricated the axle bearings, were there covers? Subterranean storage sounds good. Vertical lift? Been planning one myself so empty wagons can enter the goods shed and loaded wagons can emerge. Getting a smooth operation is challenging, started with an electric motor, now looking at hand operated through a system of levers.

Well worth using ferrules in screw connectors, I have used brass tube cut down with a stanley knife. Even solid conductors benefit as I have seen conductors almost severed by overtightened burred screws which subsequently snap off even on mains cabling. Soldering the ends of multicore flex where they enter the choc block is another quicker not quite as good ploy. Ohms law states V= I R and also I = V/R. The devices Crosland describes rely on the Controller setting and the resistance of the circuit including the loco motor to regulate the voltage and speed, V = IR and are greatly affected by track and wiring resistance. [a] The ones I describe are I = V/R where the controller controls the Voltage so the current changes with resistance and the voltage and thus speed remains pretty much constant. The Diode controller can drop voltage by up to 14 volts in 1.4 volt steps assuming the oft quoted diode drop actually is 0.7 volts virtually irrespective of the current.. The OnTrack varies the voltage from + 12 volts to -12 volts seamlessly with no dead spot, the H&M is a variable transformer, possibly an autotransformer, which delivers 2.5 to 16 volts. Very little difference in off load to on load voltage on any of them. Going back to the original topic, you will get less trouble with "Voltage drop" if your controller controls the Off Load voltage.

If you have plenty of time and a limited budget and don't want to bin tension locks the Brian Kirby uncoupler is very good, however with the very cheap 20p or less each Chinese super neo magnets it might be worth using Turbosnail's cam system to raise and lower magnets (in pairs) around the goods yard etc to give multiple uncoupling places. I am thinking you could detach a single van at an end load dock and still recouple if you used a movable magnet.

Maybe to get that period feel we should model in black, white and shades of grey. My photos of the layout always look more real when I grey scale them. I wonder if anyone has done it? As regards rain, the real thing is quite bad for a layout, our roof leaked and destroyed a metcalfe engine shed.....