DCB

Paicific 231G The points in post 31 are a small radius and a medium The Small radius is 25 sleepers long, Medium is 30 sleepers long and the large 35 sleepers long. The large radius in my hand is 52 mm from the point of the frog to the heel and the medium 44mm. We are comparing apples with aubergines here.

Er as I said many posts ago "The Medium and Small radius points look fine and work fine but there are issues with the long radius points. They use the same track spacing but a shallower frog angle in plastic and metal compared to the small and medium, even if the spec sheet says otherwise." All my long radius points are between 48 and 52 mm from the frog to the heel of the point, The small and medium 40mm to 44mm. In hard copy nickel silver and plastic if you line up the diverging rails of a large radius with a small or medium radius to lay a crossover then the "straight" tracks are not parallel. If the straights are parallel then there is a kink where the points join. The divergence angles are different, the frog angles have to be different, you can clearly see this in my photos but the software programs don't show this, in fact if you do it with the software it fits beautifully. My 2ft radius point is clearly different to my 3ft as can be seen from the photo, Peco may well have commonised the frog assembly between 2ft and 3ft radius for recent production but it seems unlikely that they could use the same frog for the large radius as well Could someone post a photograph of a new code 75 large radius point so we can pore over it in 2 1/2 times magnification?

You could follow prototype practice Lyme Regis style and if the 02 can't cope with the curves and gradients bring in an Adams Radial? It is a bit late in the day to worry about traction, getting as much weight forward as possible and making the back as light as possible is something for the start of the design process, the alternative is to power the bogie wheels.. which I have been looking into for my M7 and 14XX As regards the derailing on the code 83 it does sound odd if it copes with code 75, Did the derailing occur at the same place every time? There could be a problem with the side of the railhead, dirt or poor manufacture or gauge narrowing due to not cutting all the sleeper webs on one side on flexi track. However post 762 links to a video of an 02 running which looks to have quartering troubles as the tyre of the leading wheel is clearly moving backwards and forwards in relation to the chassis. Over length or short coupling rods can also cause this problem. but I guess correcting a quartering issue could be challenging.

Some batches of Code 100 streamline points lacked the wipers, Peco told us the were un necessary when we complained, the points were entirely useless but we got some damaged ones for £1 each and after some repairs used them instead. The tags subsequently returned I have measured several Peco long radius points against a steel ruler within the last ten minutes, none of them new, but left and right, electrofrog and insulfrog and the divergence angle is the frog angle on all of them. All the frog rails are dead straight measured against a ruler and the last 40mm or so or the "Curved rail" is also straight. I cut the webs between sleepers and curve the ends of these points to increase or decrease the angle and save a millimetre or two when tracklaying. The medium and short radius also have straight frog rails but the short has a slightly shorter rail and a slightly wider divergence angle. (See my previous pictures) Nonel of the points have "Frogs" as a separate piece, though from a separate thread about electro frog conversions, you can replace the plastic frog nose moulded into the base of old insulfrog points with a piece of NS rail filed to shape to convert them to electrofrog

The drawing is curved but the actual hard copy plastic and metal point has two straight rails, If you put a ruler along them they are straight. combining at the frog, the insulfrog has a tiny sliver of plastic between and a vestigial plastic frog, the electro frog vary but also have two separate rails, none are like the drawing above. The real world large radius point does not curve beyond the gauge intersection so a frog angle of 9.57 degrees is about right. You can cut some sleeper webs and tweak the end into a curve but that is not how they come from the factory

I can't overlay the peco point on the plan without a lot of work but the Templot (at least I think it is the templot) shown in this thread has the frog of the long radius point too near the heel of the point (the overall length appears right) and the angles are wrong The frog assembly is actually the 3 ft Medium radius. It would appear the drawing has been tweaked to give the 12 degree angle whereas it is a bit less. The Medium and Small radius points look fine and work fine but there are issues with the long radius points. They use the same track spacing but a shallower frog angle in plastic and metal compared to the small and medium, even if the spec sheet says otherwise. See the templot attached the hatching effect where the lines are not horizontal does not help. Chimer's comment about clearances between trains on passing loops etc is interesting, but you do need more or less a points length beyond the point before there is clearance for trains. That is a minimum of around 7" with small radius (4" with small Y) each end of a passing loop, that is 14" four wagons or more than a coach length so well worth considering when designing a layout. I squeeze the track spacing down towards 42mm by judicious cutting at the heel end of Streamline points to squeeze in more marshalling or carriage sidings and I squeeze the clearances even tighter where parallel moves are not possible and stock does not stand. In always draw my plan using 1" to 1' scale on an A3 or A4 sketch pad a pen and and a protractor and lots of correction fluid, using 4mm (48mm) track spacing and using a chart of 1/12th point lengths 16mm 19mm and 21mm for peco points and assume a 12 degree angle on the point frogs but I don't get too hung up on precision at the planning stage but I do a lot of checking and tweaking at the laying stage.

[ The only slight problem is the points dont actually agree with the specifications. The 2ft and 3 ft are quite near 12 degrees but the 4ft "Large" radius sometimes claimed to be 5ft is way off. Even Templot gets the frog angle wrong on the large radius by assuming the angle is 12 degrees and the rails at the heel end are the same as the 3 ft, the templot rails at the heel are not even parallel. See pics including the 18" bit of the 2' radius point and the small medium and large together and my points pile mainly acquired from my excellent local model shop Cheltenham Model Centre as in need of repair!

The "Frog" angle is different, I don't have a protractor which works, but on the long radius points the diverging rail from the end of the frog to the end of the rail is 48 mm while the medium is 42mm. Both diverge from the "straight" rail by 8 mm 1 in 5.25 and 1 in 6. I have no idea what these angles are but they are different... Pairs of similar points give the 52mm track spacing and dissimilar points give the track spacing but at the expense of a slight kink.

No in 00 streamline the longer the point the shallower the frog angle, but if you overlay a short a medium and a long radius point on each other at the frog end all the rail ends are exactly in line thus keeping the standard streamline track spacing even if you use a short and a long radius streamline point to form a crossover (why anyone would want to is another matter) I dug out a pile of code 100 points and checked this rather than relying on the web etc. Not very obviously in all cases the final inch or so of curved track at the frog end is actually straight, so the actual radius is considerably less than the nominal radius which is why a 2ft radius short radius curve is actually 18" radius through the curved part and the set track standard nominal 18" or 2nd radius point is more like 15" through the curved part.

I suppose we should start a preservation society for displaced Hornby conversions as the new issue replace them, that is if they actually pull anything. My S15 will soldier on a little longer but the writing is on the wall. Hornby King Arthur body with cut down smoke deflectors and shortened front footplate on Hornby Dublo R1 chassis with 22mm Romfords and Hornby Dublo Duchess cylinders with part H/D, part Triang, part home made valve gear. Cut down Bachmann LN high side tender body with Airfix Schools class tender underframes glued to Lima H0 gauge bogies. Shown before BR totems and weathering. It never did get a front number plate and was always too light at the back, needed the tender weight to bear down on the rear drivers. It's survival depends on a) funds for replacement, and B) If the new Hornby can lift 15 Hornby Dublo wagons up our 1 in 36 gradient and 19 up our 1 in 60...

The concept of driving both coupled axles through an idler shaft and spur gears is interesting, I was plotting something similar to drive the rear axle on a 14XX but didn't think of driving the idler gear, its obvious when you think if it. Presumably the gears are plastic? Does the idler have separate worm wheel and idler teeth, or does worm and both axles run on the same gear, it is not clear from the exploded diagram I did wonder why the coupling rod "screws" were black, are they just plastic pins? Presumably they don't have to transmit any power. Are the coupling rods metal?

Do I take it that this is a split axle chassis with spur gear drive to both coupled axles? EM gauge might be an issue and that motor looks tiny. Is that an HR 0-4-4 T in Bon Accord's post, Dornoch branch?

The great thing about battery power is that you just switch on and the train goes. The reality is for DC and even more so DCC if you use track power you have to clean the track. I merely have to clear the twigs and debris off before running battery locos. Mine don't have the R/C refinements (yet) but there is something about the way a battery loco glides smoothly over awkward pointwork where the track power version stutters and the relentless way the plough on even when completely off the track. Or when the track is covered with snow, or flooded, or covered with a landslide...

I turn a H/D duchess (with close coupled tender) on a cut Dapol table around 10" long (65 or 68 feet scale) It is surprising how much space those 2" diameter save and how much more spacious the MPD seems with a 65 (or 60/50 etc) ft table. My MPD design just would not work with a 75 Downside to small ones, you cannot fit as many radial roads in. I have seen a photo in a 1930s magazine of a King at Kingswear and it is amazing how close the rear tender wheel is to the end of the (65') table

I was in Devon earlier in the summer. There are some great model shops in Devon, Paignton Model Shop, the South Devon Railway shop, even the Bodmin and Wenford shop has a good range. However a certain shop in Barnstaple was been shut despite the opening times showing it should be open! and the Okehampton station shop has seemingly stopped trading. I don't want to be entirely negative so I will say in their favour that Kernow models has free street parking outside.

I have been using battery powered 00 locos in the garden for 20 plus years and there is a huge difference between the pairs or quadruple NiMH 2650 mAh 1.45 volt cells I use in my remotored Lima diesels and the 160 mAh 9 volt cell used in the Bachmann 4MT I actually needed 6 X NiCad 1.45 volt cells to run a standard Lima class 37 at a scale 45 mph, however I don't know how long they run on a charge, I must check some time.

Vive la bureaucracy!

Let's just hope it has something resembling accurate Slide bars and connecting rods unlike Hornby's previous 0-4-0 offerings

Maybe the answer is not to try to make this work with 12-20 volt RtR mechs but for someone to produce Ready to Run chassis using this system. as a demo. A dual power bogie class 37 chassis to take the Lima body maybe. 1961 to 2015 timescale... Or a Gronk. A GWR big Prairie chassis would be ideal as they were extensively used as bankers so your R/C banker could bank a DC or DCC train as a demo. The difficulty with high voltage is that cells are typically 1.5 volts so you need 8 for 12 volts while my 37s run line speed on 2 cells around 3 volts using CD Tray motors, with easy room for 4 AA cells. Trying for 12 volts you are talking button cells and a whole lot less energy stored for the available space. I am fairly sure a CD tray motor is smaller than H/D Wrenn pole pieces so with an extension piece on the armature and Romford Gears it could fit those Amp guzzling H/D motors so even a H/D Duchess or A4 could be converted, though the cast body might cause R/C reception issues.

The Southern lent half a dozen Adams T1 /F6 0-4-4 Ts to the LMS for S/D work in WW2. They were shedded at Highbridge and Templecombe so presumably worked on the "Branch" rather than the "Main Line" The T1/ F6 (It seems the surviving F6s were referred to as T1 when the T1s were withdrawn) were 5' 7" driving wheel 36 foot long against 4' 10" 30 foot long 02 sort of a cross between an 02 and an M7. The SR also lent a number of mainly Drummond 4-4-0s for S & D work at this time. 64XX and 02 must have frequently met at Plymouth as 64XX were allocated to Plymouth Laira for Plymouth Area Auto trains and 02 to Plymouth SR (Friary?) I don't think 64XX got to Bodmin. They definitely got into Cornwall to Saltash and the Tavistock / Launceston line. Probably Liskeard. I have seen one picture of an 02 approaching Bodmin General from Boscarne Junction on passenger stock.

I was at Kernow last Tuesday afternoon, The black coupling rod screw also appears on the Beattie Well Tank, Can it be changed for something more realistic? Is it a standard hex set screw with a standard thread? Is it chemically blackened? can it be filed to look more like steel? The shiny cab aperture surround appears to be something added to "Calbourne" in preservation days, From photos it looks like stainless steel. I still have not found any pictures of any other 02 with a shiny, or rusty, cab surround. Generally Handrails were painted ex works and polished up with continued use in service.

Just wondering why is the edge of the cab aperture white? I have never seen a photograph of a white surround on an 02, and why the black coupling rod screws? It does look a bit toy like. Especially when compared with the Bachmann 64XX at £ 30 less

They are obviously very stressed at Cambourne. I visited last week. Not impressed.

I think the success will depend on adaptability. For most indoor layouts the system should default to stop when radio connection is lost However in my garden it needs to default to continue at the last setting until contact s resumed. I have several radio dead spots on my layout including a tunnel a couple of meters long under 18" of soil so I am watching developments. I might even dig the track out from under the ivy and have a go at restoring it if this new system looks like it will work The key is probably in using 3 volts or 4.5 volts for the motors and using 5 volt computer motors rather than 12 volt motors intended for model railways. 3 decent AA or AAA rechargable batteries will run a 00 diesel and 7 coaches for a couple of my sessions without recharging though at a scale 40 to 60 mph rather than HST speeds.

BR Crimson Jubilee? I have never heard of a Jubilee in BR Crimson, a few Pacifics went red in the late 50s early 60s but I think the Jubilees, Scots etc were all green. One or two stayed LMS red after WW2. Can't you get paint couriered if snail mail won't touch it?