DCB

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.

The center of the axles make electrical contact, some Lima 37s have wiper contacts on the back of the insulated traction tyre fitted driving wheels but I could never see the point of them.

I find Xpress publishing's "Train Formations & Carriage Workings of the Great Western Railway" by W.S.Beckett to be invaluable. It covers the 1931/2 winter timetable If you are modelling Cornwall the train services are a bit surprising, Cornwall was a long way from Paddington so an early morning departure became an afternoon arrival in Cornwall. Most trains were remarshalled at Plymouth North Road, The Plymouth portion often terminating at Millbay while the rest continued to Cornwall Only the Up Postal loco ran though to Paddington from Penzance (Longest through loco working in the Uk maybe the world!) with an Exeter based loco and crew and that stopped when the LNER started running non stop London to Edinburgh. Other trains changed locos at Bristol, Exeter, Newton Abbot or North Road Some trains came via Westbury, CRE etc, The CRE ran with a minimum formation of 8 coaches west of Pllymouth, 6 for Penzance, Bk 3rd, Corridor 3rd, Kitchen, Open Composite, Corridor Composite, Brake 3rd, with additional Brake Composites for St Erth and Truro. The Newquay Brake Comp was detached at North Road and followed the CRE (Plymouth arrival 14.37) as part of the 14.55pm Plymouth Newquay. Other expresses ran via Bristol with through carriages from Leeds York etc over the Midland added to a Paddington portion often remarshalled at North Road. These seemed to have winter formations of as few as 4 or 6 coaches. Not sure which trains had LMS/LNER stock on through workings, but unlike Exeter - Plymouth post war which had 2 SR trains each way per day there would not AFAIK be any Southern workings Locos changed, prior to the Halls (1927) and Granges (1936) which in turn virtually monopolised the Cornish main line pre war, the 43XX moguls ran virtually everything except the Cornish Riviera which had a Castle. Prior to that Dukes and Bulldogs were de rigeur. The workings were more interesting post war but few locos based East of Exeter worked into Cornwall. A couple of Cornish Branches used 14XX/ 48XX. Most were the preserve of the 45XX small Prairies. 57XX were banned from most branches until 1950 so you are looking the older smaller Panniers not avaailable RTR!. Tender 0-6-0s were rare in Cornwall, Exeter had a 2251 in later years but nothing further West.

In my experience tension lock couplers with only one hook tend to pull stock sideways causing derailments with long trains. Hooks going wrong side etc is usually a result of mixing different couplings. Standardising on one coupler is the optimum, Bachmann seem to be most readily available. Airfix the neatest. Triang / Hornby metal the most reliable. If you can get the coupling heights and the hook lengths standardised, and its not easy, then running / coupling etc should be greatly improved but its going to be a lot of work. Even under optimum conditions Tension locks are not great for shunting. Might be easier to fit Kadees.

Re the size issues. Hornby used to make their locos 1mm higher than scale in Tender- drive days, the buffers and everything above buffer height is raised 1mm to give clearance for couplings and for oversize flanges in the splashers and from memory the unrebult Patriot is one of these. The parallel boiler has a larger smokebox than the taper boiler Jubilee which shared its smaller smokebox with Black 5. 8F and the GWR Castle and County all of which had 5ft dia front tubeplates. The electrification flashes are unfortunate as I don't think many unrebuilt Patriots lasted long enough to receive them. Jubilee and Patriot were essentially the same size, early Jubilees were ordered as Patriots and had Patriot bogies. Patriots had steaming issues when crewed by crews unfamiliar with them which restricted their sphere of activity. I understand at one stage Holbeck requested / told Barrow Road not to send Patriots north of New Street as their crews could not cope with the Claughton derived shallow grates. The tender coupling is an Aclises' Eel (Cotswold vernacular) and will give trouble, hard wiring improves it but the Tender drive is a bit naff and I have often thought of sticking an X04 in the loco instead and towing a Bachmann fowler tender.

If the track without a buffer stop is the incoming track and you want (a) minimal wiring and (b) to be able to have more than 1 DC loco at a time on the layout I suggest simply bridging the feed across from the lower rail of the upper track to the lower rail of the lower track and inserting one isolator see pic. That way when point A is set towards the lower track the lower track left hand end is live and when point B is set it automatically makes the right hand lower end live or not. When point A is set to the upper road the lower track is not live so up to 3 locos can be operated and isolated on the layout.

Using a laptop power supply sounds like a good way to set the railway shed on fire, I have had several laptop power supplies fail, they always seem to run hot even just running a laptop. They simply are not intended to run at maximum output for long periods or o cope with short circuits, . You need something with decent overload protection around 1 amp and a 21 watt bulb is still going to allow 30 watts/ 1.75 amps on an 18 volts supply which won't do your fishplates, point blade tags, or locos pickups and internal wiring much good if you get a dead short. A 10 watt bulb might be a better bet but a proper thermal breaker is a better idea.