DCB

That ain't going to work. 1st problem the pick up wire, the brown connects to the same end of the white capacitor/ thingy as the red which goes to the little tag under the insulated side brush. The Capacitor is important on DC as you will get flash overs on the commutator without it. If you don't use the original use a ceramic capacitor in its place. 2nd problem side play. You have miles of side play between the wheels and the chassis and it will either limp along like a most likely crab along the rails if the worm drive actually remains in mesh. I always shim between the gear wheel and sides of the chassis with washers or sometimes brass spacers drilled to take the axles to give around 10 thou, 0.010" clearance. I must have done 40 or more locos like this over the years with a notable improvement in running Not many people do this, most shim behind the driving wheels using Romford shims but they are for 1/8" axles. so won't fit the Markits Triang axle. If you shim behind the driving wheels on the gear axle I find the wheels work loose. For this reason I use 1/8" axles with Romford top hat bushes for the non drive axles so I can use Romford shims. If you use the Markits large axles you may have to file up your own spacers to get the wheels equally spaced across the chassis but the time is well spent. It should be blindingly obvious that the loco centre line view from the front should be dead centre in the middle of the track but a visit to almost any exhibition says otherwise with a wide variety of nodding donkey type limping Lulus swaying drunkenly from side to side. 3rd problem, there is so much side play that the coupling rods on the insulated side will hit and short out the wheel rims. The rods are live to the chassis and only the wheel rims are insulated. Restricting the sideplay to 10 thou ish should cure it, otherwise use a small washer like the rim from a romford pin point bearing under the crank pin to space it away from the wheel. With these few changes it should give many years further service at least 50....

It is a myth that the quickest route from London to Cheltenham was via Andoversford, In fact it took 10 minutes longer by semifast via Oxford to Kingham and the stopper to Cheltenham than by the best Cheltenham Express. It was the Cheltenham to London Journey which was quicker through Andoversford, the MSWJR South express to Andover and change for Waterloo was the quickest before WW1 and GWR decelerations and when pressed to restore the schedules the GWR introduced the "Worlds Fastest Train" The Cheltenham Flyer which set the blistering pace of around 45mph for the 90 odd miles as the crow flies. Gloucester is not London. There is no mid 19th century Underground. Its no good commuting by rail to the outskirts and taking a bus to work. along its dysfunctional road system Passengers other than from the south wales line will just take the bus all the way, closing the present station will kill the commuter traffic, some of which comes by XC so even a 2 station solution is not a solution. They should have rationalised Eastgate instead of closing it.

Its a laudable concept, something like Bodmin Parkway would be good for a heritage / mainline boundary, As would Aviemore except its all semaphore in an otherwise 1980s traditional 1930s pre MAS colour light area. Highland main line loops are good to model but I don't think they exist anywhere else in the UK. Apart from London which seems stuck in the 1890s so much mainline multiple aspect signalling is now constant distance rather than station related that trying to model it in the usual space for layouts is pretty hopeless. Loop or siding starters seem to be about it at many locations.

I have this problem, its worse with steel track which I still use, than the softer N/S but my MO is chop through the rail with pliers etc. I use end cutters or nippers, and then file the end square, with a file, de burring with a needle file or two so the fishplates slide nicely quite often I get it wrong and end up filing great chunks off to get the rail joints parallel and equal. For short lengths such as between points where they have to be dead length, I file up the rail ends to be free of burrs, slide the sleepers off and fit the individual rails to the gap . I then reassemble the sleepers, remembering to cut enough webs so the sleepers will slide up enough to let the fishplates slide back so you can actually get rail in place. For anything under 2ft I use set track, cutting sleeper webs and easing out the radius if I don't have/ can't afford / can't be bothered to source the correct size. For the UK railjoints are almost always exactly paired to be opposite one another and the sleeper spacing closed up each side of the joint, elsewhere esp US joints were staggered to save cutting rails. Staggering joints avoids some kinking but they often go wide and or tight to gauge instead, and worse they don't make a nice "Clickety Clack" noise. P.S. That rail clamp looks the business, I think I'll cobble up something similar myself. Maybe a pair so I can saw down between them.

You could open out one railjoint on a particularly resonant piece of baseboard as I did, it works well with metal wheeled coaches, however it does indicate the speed of the train which can be embarrassing if you don't run trains at scale speeds. Your sound clip triggered by a rail gap would have the same issue.

My experience of LED Signals is you need separate resistors for the Red and Green LEDs if you want them to be similar brightness. Reds usually glow much brighter than Greens .

Gloucester station is actually quite convenient for people visiting Gloucester. It is hopeless for Gloucester people going elsewhere, but in any case the service to London is appallingly slow, about 50 mph average on a HST! 90 miles in almost 2 hours. Quicker to drive to Kemble or Swindon and catch the train there. Stopping at Cheltenham has a very small time penalty as it is on a severe curve between what should be 125 MPH stretches. The holy grail of a single Gloucester station is unachievable, you need the present one for visitors inward commuters etc as it is handy for City Centre and for Gloucester shire's only remaining fully functional 24 hour general hospital, while the need for the reversal of XC servces or their omission of a Gloucester stop is more apparent than real considering how few passengers wish to use the facility. No doubt the official Monster Laboral Democratic party will drag up the idea again before the next election, but its a non starter.

It was rather sad that Bullied went down the route of building new steam locos in the 1940s after the southern had spent so much time and effort on electrification. If only the effort had been put into diesels in the 600 bhp 60 mph range for branch and secondary work to replace the miriad 0-4-4Ts and 4-4-0s. Had that Leader / WC/ BB/ MN funding been spent wisely BR might have had a decent fleet of diesels by the mid 1960s and the WC/BB/MN gap could have easily been filled by building a batch of Black 5s at Ashford/ Brighton etc.

Trying to photograph the Highland Main Line this evening, The 20.26 northbound sprinter off Avimore on time, no sign of 20.52 off Avimore northbound sprinter but the northbound HST went through around 20.50 when it should already have been at Inverness. Found HST at Schloct Summit around 9.15 waiting for the Sleeper to cross it with class 66 in "Royal Highlander" livery piloting a class 67. So what is going on? Any ideas please.

The Hornby chassis has the old Triang Jinty 8ft X 8ft 3" wheelbase and the Bachmann 57XX is a scale 7ft 3" X 8ft 3" wheelbase so serious carving of the Hornby body would be needed to fit the 57XX chassis. Alternatively a Bachmann Jinty or 1F chassis might be a better fit. Or maybe a Bachmann 57XX is a better starting point for a 2721 than the Hornby. The "Busby" spark arrestors were used for shunting duties where there was a serious fire risk and were reputed to ruin the steaming. Didcot had a provender store and various ministry sidings and various Busby equipped locos for shunting them. You would not normally find such a loco on Branch line work.

I would keep it simple as you will soon get fed up with this layout, so 2 controllers, 2 feeds one DPDT switch 4 insulated joiners. See pic. Controller B usually operates sidings but switching the DPDT puts the sidings onto controller A for trains to leave. Check CJ Freezers 60 plans for small layouts for some inspiration.

I have seen lots of posts re switching frog polarity, the vast majority involving point motors. But how to switch polarity without a point motor. Maintenance of the outside pointwork is never ending as the tags get dirty and don't make contact so I have rebuilt one at the private siding with a SPDT reed switch which needs a magnet to triggers it but that's a bit of a dead end so has anyone any suggestions for a neat way to switch the polarity of a hand operated live frog point please? The baseboard is pretty solid, 3/4" thick ply.

I find in practical terms there is no voltage drop on plain track indoors but there is considerable rail joiner drop and it increases (dis) proportionately with load. A four loco lash up on 2 X 1 amps controllers will set dodgy rail joiners glowing so I dread to think what DCC with four on the front and four mid train helpers could do. I would use a maximum of six pairs of rail joiners distance from one feed irrespective of length. Outside or DCC you can't trust rail joiners at all. Speed Drop is much more noticeable with resistance controllers. My only indoor speed drop is an insulated section on a lifting flap fed by wires "Bus Bar" from the controller and not fed through rail joiners and rails.

Put the sidings at the front of the board, the station building in the middle and the running line and loop at the back with a retaining wall at th back of the layout and almost nothing except sky beyond

If you read the original post you will see both are twin coil latching relays, one for direct PCB mounting and one for a 10 pin mounting socket. My only concern is that with only 8 pins for DPDT the 8 pin may work through reversing the current across the coils but the ten should be OK with separate circuits for each coil and I wouldn't advise a direct PCB mount one in any case

At least one LMS Expresses did continue beyond Bristol, known post war as the "Devonian" albeit re engined with a GW loco at Bristol and it looks very much as if only one GW express the post war "Cornishman" ran Standish Jct to Filton over the Midland with GW power. Through freight seems to be the main "GW" traffic so no GW local passengers, no GW Pick up freights etc. Things blurred post war under BR with traffic via the Lickey with GW power in late steam years, especially when the GW Bristol sheds shut and locos went to Barrow Road, Prior to the Honeybourne line the GW sent freight via Ledbury and Stourbridge Jct to Birmingham and the NW from Gloucester. Incidentally the GW terminated very few London trains at Bristol preferring to detach the King or Castle and dining portion at Bristol and send the train on to Weston or Taunton or even further with a lesser loco. For modelers the service should be GW through freights and express passengers, with LMS Expresses, stoppers, locals and all types of freight from pick up through slow through freights to fast fitted freight.

Your reasoning sounds good. You want to use the relays for LEDs. Obviously you need "12volt" LEDs or a suitable resistors. I would use the 10 pin type fitted into the mounting sockets as I would probably melt the relay trying to solder to the 8 pin versions pins. These relays wont take CDU output across their contacts nor would I trust them to switch frog polarity especially on DCC but for your specific application lighting LEDs they sound ideal.

Most British Leyland and constituents cars were positive earth, I think the 1971 Marina was the first Negative earth as I cannot remember a Positive earth Alternator though my mind may be playing tricks. We had to do something to Dynamos depending on whether they were to go on negative or positive earth vehicles. I changed a lot of dynamo cars to alternator including swapping from negative to positive earth back in the late 70s and 80s, getting the charge warning light to work correctly was a challenge....... My old H/D transformer is working OK, I thought it was a marshall 3 but it has 12v controlled 12 v DC and AC connectors with spade connectors on the back. Currently in use powering a diode based voltage controlled controller, very strange to hear the cut out pinging and red light on with locos working on half throttle...

Basically there are two commonly found breeds of 00 gauge split chassis locos, Mainline and Bachmann. Both have the chassis made in two halves, a right half and a left half separated by insulated blocks and fitted with axles with an insulated section in the center. Mainline had silly little motors embedded within the chassis halves and spur gear drives. Edit,[ Later ones had silly little pod motors. ] They sound awful and the motors need frequent fiddling because they are basically too small for the job. However you can fiddle with them. The Achilles heel is the axles which are circular and allow the wheels to slip and lose their "Quartering" This is exacerbated by the wheels not making proper electrical contact with the chassis often due to the wrong oil. If you have a working chassis where the wheels have not slipped then fitting brass shim pickups between chassis and the back of the wheels can stave off the problem for a very long time. If the wheels have slipped round or the axles split Peters Spares do replacement axles but getting the quartering right is a challenge, ( and beyond me) Bachmann updated the chassis to use a variety of can motors many with huge worm drive flywheels and crucially redesigned the wheels and axles to have square peg on the wheel engaging with a square recess in the axle so when the wheels come loose the quartering is not lost. Peters Spares make replacement axles. The Wheel journals are larger than Mainline and the drive is on different axles on some chassis so the Bachmann wheels and axles cannot be swapped for Mainline. The motors seem to be the Bachmanns achillies heel, not user serviceable, I can't even get the Flywheel worms off without destroying the motors and replacements seem hard to find. As far as I know all current Bachmann have abandoned the split chassis. If buying a split chassis loco assume it will either work for a short period or not work at all. Don't pay much for it. If its got a Tender you can always chuck the motor away and push it with a Hornby Tender, if not you can stick it on a siding for decoration, build a wobbly etched chassis expensive motor gearbox chassis for it for mega bucks which will end up on a siding for decoration or like me adapt a 1961 Hornby Dublo or Triang Chassis to fit, good solid job but the Romford Markits wheels require a second mortgage, or better still buy the current Bachmann version. If you chuck away the DCC stuff and fill the space with lead ballast you end up with what Mainline intended back in 1978 or there abouts. Split chassis pick up is good for bogies and pony trucks as they run much freely than wiper contacts but the wheels and axles are hard to source but they do make a big difference to 0-4-4T and 0-4-2T loco haulage and to Tender Pickups, as used in the Grafar GP 5 of circa 1951!

I don't think you can make a shortened HST look right, the 2+7 WR formations are about as short as looks ok to me even the shortened full size Virgin Cross Country HST units looked odd, however a 25 wagon goods can easily masquerade as a 60 or 80 wagon train. I think a train of uniform livery and uniform profile coaches looks longer than one of different profiles, a Mk 1 or Gresley Buffet jars in a Mk 2 set There are some tricks you can play with track layouts to squeeze in capacity, quite often run round loops are shorter than they might be, the loop point was very often the first on the approach to the station in full size but seldom so in models. Not modelling BR saves a lot of space with many 57' coaches not 64'; 8 X 57' = 7 X 64' = 6 X 76' on my layout, 50' pre grouping stock or 40' pre 1900 saves even more space! Through station platforms don't need to be as long as the trains passing through, 8 coach trains passed 1 platform halts, 10 coach trains passed 180 ft 3 coach stations and on occasions called at them! In the old days a WR B set would be strengthened on occasion at times of heavy traffic by another B set or some old coach kept as spare, a Collett 57' or Churchward 70' maybe a Dean clerestory , however if the additional coach was a through coach you could be talking brand new Mk1 Brake Composite, New Centenary or whatever finishing its run from Paddington to Little Bumstead on Sea. Keeping the proportion of 1st and 2nd provision correct for your era also helps, 1st seems to have reached a peak in the Mid 70s with 2 firsts to 4 seconds plus catering in the first HSTs. Firsts barely existed pre 1950 on the GW, as they had a liking for compos especially brake comps and all 3rds, but it was rare for the GW to have uniform sets of as many as 5 coaches, most long distance trains were made of different portions detached and attached, it needed Nationalised stupidity to run almost empty HSTs to Penzance instead of leaving half the train at Plymouth as in GW days

You don't say what clearance your gauge gives, its probably best to stick to the Peco Steamline figure of around 50mm and widen the gauge to suit your most awkward stock, Mk3s on the outer and old triang M7s or L1s on the inner is my own criteria. If you don't mind some bodgery I think slimming down the track centres to around 42 mm on the straight and widening it on the curves looks a lot better.

The baseboard ideas looks great, it gives an ability to put scenery below as well as above the tracks, below track scenery is amazingly rare in UK Lots of stations have rivers and roads beneath them, Pickering has a river under the platform Goathland has a river under the goods yard pointwork, Stroud has platforms on a viaduct over a road.. Small bridges may be more effective than large as small bridges are surprisingly large and big ones absolutely monstrous in 00 "Is there any difference in the running quality between Code 75 and Code 100?" Not quite that simple, Peco Streamline is far better engineered than most code 100 and will allow lots of stock to run which does not work on other code 100, so if you go code 100 buy the real thing not cheap tat like I bought a few years ago. Nothing runs well when the flanges bash the sleepers every few mm, so you will need to check the flanges of everything you buy if you go code 75. There is bound to be unsold new stock around which wont run on code 75 but fortunately Hornby do replacement rolling stock wheels which even fit 1960s Triang, so its Lima and Lima derived stock to be wary of. As I said earlier my experience is traction tyres make the track dirty so I would suggest avoiding traction tyres and re wheeling any traction tyres locos with non groove wheels and doubling up on power bogies to get the haulage power back

The small radius suggestion sounds spot on for current points. In fact it thees points are next to useless without bonding as the lack contact tags on the point blades. Older small radius points are like the Y shown without switch rail breaks but with breaks nearer the frog. The Y is an older design and current ones may well be more like the small radius. It really needs a total rebuild to be bonded sensibly, but if your stock has correct back to back it should be fine as standard. These things can sit on dealers shelves for decades at times, but that suits me as I prefer the old ones.

Peco changed the design of the crossings over the years and you don't indicate which crossing you are using. First check the back to back distance on the loco, should be 14.5mm ish, I use 14.25 sliding fit. Too wide or too tight can cause shorts Nail varnish will short the dead frog so that will make matters worse. If its not the loco I would buy the latest version of the crossing, not a "New" one your local dealer has had in stock since 1998 and go from there. My long crossings are live frogged and the outer rails joined to eliminate the dead spot, power switched by 4 pole relays and the Wrenn 8F still stalls as both left wheels drop into holes at the same time

My local model shop staff are very friendly and helpful at Cheltenham Model Centre. Staff at Paignton Model centre are also extremely helpful and I hope the reception my father in law got at Kernow was a one off, though being that rude to an 80 year old is unacceptable. Code 100 may well be nearer to scale for late 80s main lines than code 75, It allows more flexibility with choice of wheels and is more robust, plenty of branches and secondary lines were still bullhead then. Gradients, well my ruling grade outside is 1 in 14 and Lima class 37s growl up on 6 Mk2s ok. However that is on battery power on nice dirty track with traction tyres. You may well find as I did some locos wont pull 20-30 wagons downhill let alone uphill on clean track, especially those with poor tread profiles, The best tread profiles I know of are Romford Markits originals and old Hornby Dublo on code 100, Bachmann aren't too bad, you can hear the wheels grinding at the rails when they slip if the profile is anything like right. I use Anyrail for intermediate stage planning, back of a fag packet for original concept, train length plus a foot for each point is a good way to work out if you have enough space for what you want, then draw the track formations in Anyrail, then lay it and you can always make improvements by tweaking bending and sawing bits off points, especially closing up clearances between pairs of tracks. Traction tyres make the track dirty, I think we have just an old Hornby King and a 1971 9F left in regular use and it is very noticeable when they have been in use. Well worth banning traction tyres from the get go. Two power bogies, scale non grooved wheels and loads of lead ballast is the way to go Gradients need to be measured from true horizontal, a very accurate spirit level is needed and reverse it every measurement to even out the effor. Plenty of "1 in 50" gradients are 1 in 30 because the baseline was 1 in 100 and not level, and lets face it 1 in 100 is level if you are a jobbing carpenter or a bit of a DiY bodger. Long trains run reliably means all wheel drive and two power bogies in older locos. On our indoor layout an old Farish Prairie tank pulls 40 wagons on the level and pushes 20 up a 1 in 30. so assigning it to banking duties neatly solves the problem of wont pull the skin off a rice pudding locos as the sidings only hold 22 anyway. It has banked a train of 8 coaches up the 1 in 36 headed by a non powered loco on occasions! The flip side of gradients for underneath storage is baseboard framing, In 00 you only need 75mm rail top to rail top to get one track under another if you get really serious about it yet plenty of modelers insist on 2X1 framing under the upper level making this 125 mm. My loft layout had storage behind the station and the upper / lower crossing was only 75mm with the strength replaced with girders above the track, Metal Hornby Dublo girders securely screwed in place. Station platforms can also provide strength at above baseboard surface level. Radii are a moot point, I have 2nd radius (18") and six foot on the outside layout, the six foot looks sharp from the bedroom window, the 18" looks ok viewed through the tunnel, its more about getting the track spacing right and big radii allow closer spacing down towards 40/42mm instead of the peco 50mm and set track 60 mm plus.