DCB

Sounds like John Ks is right, but it is the lousy Hornby tyre profile which is sitting flat across the frog instead of being coned and running on the gauge corner causing the trouble. New wheels should solve the problem, or don't run Hornby. Hornby point Clips, Peco Insulfrog points and some Hornby wheels are incompatible. You could (should) use electrofrog points, or wire the insulfrog points like electrofrog with isolators at the end of the short rails leading to the frog and feed the rails beyond separately from the buses, obviously you bin the clips and don't bond the stock rails and either rely on the point blades to switch the polarity of the short frog rails or switch them with a pair of microswitches.

I feel the first plan is better, you can operate two trains in the same direction, one on the branch and one on the main on the original plan which always looks interesting. I don't see any purpose to the "Bay" run round loop without the branch. The MR stations I know have two trailing crossovers to allow running round and just a simple bay road and sometimes a parallel end load/loading dock. With the branch the loco can run round and simply go back again so the loop makes sense. All the plans require a train to reverse around a curve to enter the goods yard, or for the loco to run round before shunting which will be awkward.

There will be a lot of stress on the "cranked" crankpin if it is a Grass hopper loco with vertical cylinders on the centreline and that crankpin will need to be very securely attached to prevent it twisting. A 3d printed insert for an existing wheel might be a better solution.

This is a great time to buy new 00 stock, loads of bargains, all the unpopular models Desiros etc, Wouldn't really fit in with a 1950s GW branchline but at £89 its a lot cheaper than a 14XX and Auto trailer, Bit of a sod to paint post war GWR chocolate and cream though. My local model shop Cheltenham Model Centre has loads of bargains in weird liveries, nothing within a country mile of list price, and you can get a few bob off sometimes if you buy several items and haggle a bit! An SDJR livery 2P may be out of place on a 1950s layout but a rattle can of Matt black from Poundland will soon fix that. 00 Sales are dead this time of year, Check out Ebay, lots of 00 stuff for sale but very few have bids on. I wouldn't mind but I'm trying to sell some surplus 00 stuff for a friend just now. 00 is largely an after dark hobby, most buyers are 60+ buying for Grandkids, Novemnberish, or themselves whenever the new model/ ridiculously good bargain appears. I seriously wonder if anyone except ToysRus customers in November ever pays full retail price. Mark ups must be in the 100% range to allow this discounting. Incidentally I wonder what happens to Hornby returns?

Looks fantastic but what will it pull. Can I abandon my Ks Chassis Airfix body Dean project and buy an Oxford to pull reasonable length 24 wagon freights?

If it is DC surely it should run without the tender? We threw away the draggy tender pickups on a Hornby County and increased the pulling power by 2 coaches with no pick up problems so if its DC I would suggest trying it without a tender and if it runs ok Bin the tender wiring/ pickups etc If DCC compare the two tender chassis and play spot the difference as per the wiring.

I use Scalextric pinions from the common can motor 70s- 2000s cars Using the standard size I have never had to adjust the mesh. Just make sure it is central ish in the Lima motor housing. If I do have issues I will source larger or smaller Scalextric pinions which are available on line. If the gears do not mesh with the motor centralised it makes the motor mounting much more difficult, and I do treat motors and gears as consumables to be quickly and easily replaced though I have not worn anything except Lima idler gears out yet. There are 2/3 AA batteries ( same dia as AA but 66% the length) available in NiMh 4 of ehich which may well fit in a railcar between the bogies. if 4 X AAA wont.

I use FastStone image viewer which is freeware and very easy to use. First bring the image up in the viewer and check to see what percentage size it is displayed at, the info is at the top of the screen. If it is less than 100% do Ctrl +r and resize to the height of your screen to bring it to 100% based on one side, usually the vertical. Do a test print and then calculate how much smaller in % (or larger) you need the cobbles and resize your image. Ctrl + r and select % and click resize and print and your cobbles should be the right size. If downsizing from 7mm to 4mm your coverage will probably be rather small. not a problem for walls but looks very odd where sheets of cobblestones are concerned. I used Faststone to alter images of brickwork, resizing and changing colours to good effect but for lasting results you need a good colour lazer copier, like they have in officers weighing a quarter ton and costing £ 5000 a pop and available S/H on Ebay for £50 not the £50 from Argos all in one...

I would ho on a hunt through your scrap box for a worm wheel which meshes with the worm rather than trying to get a worm off. There are holes in the end plate, most of these motors have threads in these holes for mounting and bosses onto which mountings can be located I have tried similar motors with no real problems, apart from my bodged up flimsy motor mounts causing mesh issues with 50:1 and 60;1 gears. Obviously they won't last long as the brush gear is really flimsy, but if you screw them in place and use two ands keep two as spares.... Motor is probably a bit too big round for most 00 gauge steam 0-4-0s, should fit lots of 0-6-0Ts and diesels. Similar motors I used have very good torque compared to X04 etc and make am real mess of their valve gear if it gets tangled up

Try tapping them with a steel rod and see if they ring. Automotive bulbs are tough beasties and "12 volt" "21 watt" ones will take 24 volts without much distress for several minutes and need at least 30 volts to blow. I discovered this when I found 12 volt bulbs working quite happily though rather brightly in a horsebox hooked up to a 24 volt (ex MOD) Landrover and 6 volt bulbs in various 12 volt motorbikes.

I have never managed to get anything pressed on straight ever. Tapered axles, countersunk wheel bosses, nothing works for me, if they don't wobble sideways they don't run true diametrically. Luckily Romford / Markits wheels screw to the axles and that I can cope with.

All the successful fast passenger tank locos had shorter tanks than the Rivers, and carried their water lower. It seems those locos with tanks extending beyond the leading driver and not tapered down or reduced in depth and used on fast passenger traffic were unstable. Rivers and Flatirons being to most notable and equally bad at staying on the track. The Fowler, BR standard, Ivatt etc passenger 2-6-4s all had a reduced height at the front of the tanks. which must have reduced the effect of water surging. The GWR Prairies tanks tapered and they carried a lot of water in a back tank. The Marsh tanks of the LBSCR used a leading bogie and the Billington Baltics which followed had to be hastily rebuilt with well tanks and greatly reduced height side tanks, when they were found to ride badly, though the appearance was unchanged because of stability problems. None of which explains why GWR Panniers seemed to have a habit of staying on the track despite tanks extending to the front of the smokebox

Two factors would have influenced the re livery of locos was the planned scheduled maintenance of WR locos on a mileage basis, I think 78 000 miles was typical rather than run it until it won't run any further as practiced by other regions, which would have seen for instance 61XX on their London Suburban duties overhauled at 18 month intervals while other locos would take years to get their mileage in. The other pragmatic avoidance of lined black was it was all those various lining colours made a hell of a lot of work compared to plain black or green and at Swindon painters worked around the fitters to paint locos as they were reassembled. Crewe had a paint shop where locos languished uselessly for several days after being repaired and sometimes run in while painters lovingly slapped black paint everywhere, but Swindon didn't waste time and money on such things.

Not sure what normal baseboard height is, my spare room layout was at 62" and my garden line is ground level, well 12" below ground level in the tunnel. Watch your operating well size if you are short of width, we get larger and less supple, almost said stiffer, with age. I ended up with less than 1ft width for a station on one side of the loft but getting on for 18" width for the hidden sidings below it. A spiral at each end with return tracks under the scenic section on the same side might work.

It needs to be a good fit if its going to survive in intensive use. I don't use seeps or Peco motors in this mode as there is a lot of load on that shaft. As a bodge Find a slightly larger diameter rod and carefully bash it in place with a hammer. Needle from Grandma's sewing box? And or re drill the hole to suit the larger rod. Sounds like a bad batch if it started loose, however banging any motor back and forth on loads of amps will quickly wreck it, and a bent rod is less aggro than a broken point tie bar or displaced blade. Are you using an appropriate size CDU?

Best of luck, the 56XX is most likely to take a CD drawer motor. The CD motor is wider and larger diameter than the pod and from memory the pod motor is mainly in the LH chassis half and the drive gear is inside the Pod bearings so the CD will have to offset a long way to the left. I have never managed to get a pod motor armature gear off and attaching one to the CD motor will be challenging. I run my CD motored class 26 on 2X AA NiMh batteries which is under 3 volts for around 50 scale mph. If you use a transistor for speed control you will need more volts due to diode drop etc. My R/C experiments have used direct motor to battery connections for full power. Still ongoing. Low priority.

The discarded 2194/5 body/ cab is interesting, I was looking at plans of Kidwelly in the Russel book earlier and wondered about a Smokey Joe body conversion. Thinking about converting an old 1960s "Nellie" chassis to 0-6-0 by re drilling the chassis and fitting Romfords etc Your wheels look like non see through Hornby Thomas type. I made up a fitting for my lathe to fit the tyres from these wheels over and I cut the centre disc away to leave just a small lip. About a 50% success rate so far but it makes a big difference to the appearance

Common return wiring should cure this one. Or If you use insulfrog points and controllers with a dedicated "Off" position just delete the insulated joiners, remember to turn one controller "Off" or both to the same direction when driving a train across. And to reset both crossover points afterwards Some (many?) electronic controllers have no off position so switching one "off" simply wont work, Most single knob controllers have an off position between forward and reverse but OnTrack and Morley don't have an "Off" position. A lot of knob plus reverse switch controllers don't have an off position other than a false position between forward and reverse. If there are no "Off" positions just turn both controllers to the same direction, if you don't they will short even when one is disconnected from the mains. If you do connect two controllers to the same track your trains will go faster, especially double, triple and quadruple headed ones. I do it all the time. Dodgy Fishplates glowing red hot is one side effect, but lets face it with 1 amp power units you are going to need three or four before you get to the sort of power levels some DCC controllers provide.

Looks good, does the new house have a disused covered Olympic size swimming pool you can put the layout in as it does look rather large. Only negative comment I can come up with is the route from branch to goods yard looks very awkward as you have to go past and reverse in. I wonder if they would have connected to back platform road directly to the goods yard?

The GWR 97XX Condensing panniers had a Weir Pump for boiler feed (maybe 2) which I believe is a steam pump as injectors could not cope with hot feed water. They also had dump valves to allow the hot water in the tanks to be jettisoned and the tanks refilled with cold water and it is doubtful if they ever used the condensing feature anyway as it ruined the steaming. A big advantage of saddle tanks is you can get free feed water heating, a disadvantage of saddle tanks is injectors can't deliver the hot water. As most tank locos have cranks and valve gear between the frames to which you need access, and water in saddle tanks can get too hot the only logical places to carry water are behind the cab (NER BTP) or Pannier Tanks. Most GW tank locos appear to have back tanks as well as side and pannier tanks. Locos with extended tanks only seem to have been successful in the UK on freight and shunting locos. William Dean proved this by masses of successful side and sadle tanks before building a single hideous 4-2-4 T with full length tanks which was apparently quite incapable of staying on the track. Deely did something similar with the "Flatirons" which also fell off the track. Maunsel tried with the Rivers, gave up and fitted Tenders, after 4 bad derailments. I don't know why GW Panniers seemed to run fast without stability issues, 64XX and 94XX were timed at 60 plus MPH, whether their tanks were well baffled or whether they were relatively small around 500 gallons each, the balance pipe was reasonably small. The LNER Submarines were developments of saddle tanks so their tanks were not lengthened as such, and the 1940's Q1s simply used up spare Submarine tanks

With the CD motors I just put a plastic plate across the Lima motor mounting screws with a hole to take the dimple on the back of the motor to hold the motor in place. Some of them have packing where the old magnet went but most have not as they seem to stay in place without. I use scalextric pinions on the motor shaft and some have been running for 10 years or so.

The GW main line electrification beyond Didcot always was a stupid idea. We had Bi mode Hybrids out of Kings Cross 30 plus years ago with a class 43 and 91 combo and it was obvious Hybrid technology had already overtaken the advantages of pure electrification before it was authorised. The comment about nice clean roads vs dirty rail is not quite valid but nice clean individual transport units, cars vs dirty public transport is real. Cars don't have ECS movements. A private motor car does twice as many MPG as an identical Public Motor car or "Taxi" if the Taxi has to return empty. For the future Newton Abbott to Laira, Box Tunnel, and Dauntsey bank look like good places to electrify, raise the pantograph for a bit of a boost and let the diesel have a rest while feeding a bit of regenerative braking back to the grid. Otherwise we should send the masts west of Didcot to China or Barry for scrapping. Definitely flog the copper wires to China.

The wheels fall off partly because the axles don't make good contact with the chassis and start arcing which warms the wheels and loosens them on the axles. The wrong oil or grease accelerates this, it needs conductive oil. A partial cure is to fit wiper contacts to the chassis to bear on the wheel backs, one per side is often enough as the rods conduct current from wheel to wheel.

Yes! You can just about guarantee it with tension lock couplers. Kadees or Hornby - Dublo / Peco type are much better but I run Tension locks in fixed rakes of carriages (6 or 7) and the couplers climb over each other and derail even on straight track unless I'm very careful when propelling on shunt moves. Locos end coaches and wagons have H/D Peco type couplings and I habitually propel 24 wagons round reverse curves with few problems. Hornby Hawkesworths with the close couplers are better. You could always stick a power bogie in it and top and tail! Incidentally comparing model with prototype the matt finish lets the model down. I don't know if stock was ever painted matt finish but all the Main line passenger stock I've seen in the last 25 years or so shines in sunlight and carries reflections. Preserved stuff looks drab and lifeless..

I thought the earlier plans looked more convincing. They all need a ship to give a reason for shunting, even a canal narrowboat , Clyde Puffer or Severn Trow will carry at least 6 wagons worth of cargo. I think it lends itself to carved up live frogged set track points. I would cram in more sidings, the blokes need to get wagons clear as soon as they are filled and get empties in, so have empties in a parallel road to the quay, pull out the fulls towards the loop, push the empties to the quayside, take the fulls off stage, return with empties, run round, propel to siding by dock. I would go with something like the earlier plan, add a 00 road at the quay edge and use a rail mounted crane for unloading, as the Airfix / Dapol dockside crane both dwarfs a small models and is a bit on the small side for a Dockside crane. Maybe add a crossover so the shunter can shift it up and down. I like the docks loco depot concept with a decent size industrial building for loco maintenance with the rest of the dock fleet stored while one loco shunts. watering facilities and somewhere the loco can back up to a coal wagon to replenish the bunker would be good.