DCB

There is a long Intermodal with Stobart and Les Co (Tesco?) containers on the Highland to Inverness daily. Seemed to be a 68 duty last week though at one stage seemed to be a duty for the 67 which brought up the sleeper. Its faster than road despite the parallel A9 being the only single carriageway road in the UK with a 50 MPH HGV speed limit. Road is however safer as the returning southbound Intemodal was diverted into some chaps garden before ending up in a copse at Carr Bridge on one occasion with spectacular results

MNs were very heavy at well over 20 tons axleload which kept them to main lines so the short trains hauled were in the context of being on the main line. The WC / BB was slightly sighter but slipped under the 20 ton axle load which let them roam far and wide on and off the SR to Bath Oxford Plymouth Padstow and even Newton Abbot, while the only non SR line visited regularly by MNs was Weymouth to which shed all the survivors were allocated at one time in the 1960s. I often wonder if a King and MN ever met in pre preservation days other than in the 1948 loco exchanges. MNs were the SRs premier express passenger power so tended to be used on the most important expresses and some heavy overnight fast freight workings, even in their last days they were working express turns so there were not generally any to spare for menial tasks, there were 110 WC / BB class for that! 35009 mentioned above may well have been in steam after an overnight run from Salisbury and commandeered at short notice to replace a failed M7. I can't see it being a rostered duty. The milk trains were short but heavy with full milk tanks being roughly as heavy as a carriage. So really you can probably justify a MN on a short train but not justify one on a secondary route or branch line.

I have the same problem, the whole rake rolls out of the station down the garden when the engine cuts off before running round, its only about 1 in 100 but taking a saw to the base board legs is planned for Sunday afternoon, in the mean time a small super neo magnet under the bogie pivot of one coach and similar super neo magnet between the tracks may just be enough to stop the stock!

It looks massively over complicated for the GWR. Their final branch stations had 4 points only. Have you built it yet? If not run your finger along where shunting moves will take place. The E - C headshunt arrangement is too short for anything meaningful and the G pointwork very over complicated if it faces a mineral branch not the west of england main line. Most of the signals would be off stage, most of the trap points, maybe even a sand drag stage left off stage, the signal box would need to be the other end of the station for token purposes so quite how the sidings would be worked is debatable, ground frame released from box? I was operating (trying to make it work electrically actually) a branch terminus at the weekend and the kick back sidings are just a pain. A shunt takes for ever and is soooooo boring. Much better to forget kick backs and stick with simple and concentrate on getting the incoming wagons in the outgoing out and the part emptied/ loaded/ waiting for loads/ cripples spotted where required

Is it just on the axle or is it still in the frames or gearbox. If its in thin brass frames you need to make up something to support the frame, an old Hornby Dublo chassis block filed smooth is ideal for 1/8 axles or a metal block drilled to take the axle so it revolves freely but with little slop is ideal. place it on a firm surface so the gear wheel is against the chassis or gearbox side which is directly supported by the spacer/ old chassis and give the end of the axle a good clout. I would use a copper hammer. Or put it in a vice and press the axle through. Generally if its that tight you will wreck the axle, but they are cheaper than gearboxes or gear sets. Fixing the gear with a screw is a better way than a force/ solder/ loctite fix, either Hornby Dublo style with two grub screws so you can get the gearwheel exactly concentric, or as I have done drill the axle to take a screw right through Edit. The Johnster has sound advice. Shouting, swearing, even screaming at inanimate objects is a useful technique, it makes you feel better without doing any damage. Doesn't work with animate objects though!

Had a brand new Bachmann 53XX form the Cambrian Coast double presentation set running in last evening with no derailing issues on Peco Streamline code 100 with some 2ft radius points. The brand new unused Manor's rear driving wheels fell off after an hour......

If the Chassis is Bachmann not Mainline, You could take the wheels off the axles and and insert spacing washers between chassis and wheels instead of the shims. Bachmann wheels have squared axles so you can easily get the quartering right again. Don't try it with Mainline as they don't have squares and I can never get them to run again after having the wheels off. You could shave down the shims so only a small area around the axle bears on the wheel hub. It would be a lot of filing but might be worth it on a Mainline chassis where you daren't take the wheels off the axle.

You don't have that many possible parallel movements so the complexity will depend on whether it is live frog or dead frog. I wired a pretty similar station, 1 less road each direction but lots of headshunts and 4 parallel movements possible and it does need lots of switches, mainly because it is live frog. Your diagram is fine for dead frog. If you go live frog you will need isolators on each through road or setting points "in opposition" will short it out. Where to put the isolators is difficult as metal wheels bridge them. DONT USE COMMON RETURN, on this type of layout with live frogs it causes horrendous complications. Actually, you can't use common return with live frogs as you will need to isolate one side on the Up side of the layout and the other side on the lower. My current MO is to use two pole rotary switches so any section can be fed by any controller, Indoors I also count fishplates and point blades, 6 sets of either from a feed is my limit. That is a lot longer at 20 feet maximum and shorter at 18" minimum than other people recommend.... I hope you have some nice long 1/8" drills for all those long holes through the 3/4" chipboard baseboard... (Unless you run the wires on the surface and ballast over them)

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.