DCB

They certainly did test runs from Carlisle to Leeds with a Pickersgill 4-4-0 in early  LMS days and to Preston with a 60 class 4-6-0 no 14630 and the Horwich Dynanometer car in June 1926 .

CR No 903 "Cardean"was tested between Carlisle and Preston in July 1909  the Caley loadiing gauge was more restrictive thann the LNWR so there was no physical restriction.on Caley locos on the LNWR though in general  LNWR locos fouled the CR loading gauge and were not allowed north of Carlisle though there are photographs of LNWR  "Experiment" no 1405 at Glasgow Central.

Hi Try it without the HTTP prefix as www.photobox.co.uk/album/2397622959

 

An earlier post mentioned uing diodes to drop voltage, H have done this but 1N400 diodes atually drop around 0.45 volts rather han the 0.7 volts usually quoted

David,

I would be interested to see a photo of your strap arrangement to hold the new motor in place in the Lima motor housing.  I have used small sections of plasticard wedged between motor and housing to hold the motor in place, but have a few more to do, so am interested in other methods.

Simon

The strap is just 1mm thick or so plastic drilled to fit across the faceplate fixing holes of the Lima motor housing, When I popped a body off for a photo I found the first one is just a straight strap and when I tried another it was as I remembered and has a hole to locate the motor bearing bulge on the motor

 

Hopefully you can see them at http:// www.photobox.co.uk/album/2397622959 as I cannot post to this site.

Interesting motor trsnsplant, I guess you could not get the second worm back on?     With a bit of work the K's  5 pole  armature will fit trimming to length is critical however as the Dock shunter has ball bearings at the spindle ends and the commutator has to be exactly the right distance from the shaft end.  Singe start (Triang TT) worms are a good idea as are some scale wheels, although, if you file the flanges down and keepthe knurled wheels, and fit one singloe start worm and one two start worm you have an instant track grinding/ track cleaning, plastic frog destroying machine as the one axle tries to go twice as fast as the other!

I have remotored several Lima locos with the motors from CD drives mentioned by Adrian White,  A scalextric contrate pinion is an exact fit on the motor spindle and a simple strap with rear bearing bulge size hole in it across the faceplate mounting holes and shorter screws or spacers is all that is required.  I run mine on batteries, 2 or 4X AA cells so I cannot comment on resistors.   

The clever bit would be rrotating the layout so we can watch the engine as the scenery goes past...

The MSWJ is interesting as I went to Wiltshire county records office at Trowbridge and Glos records office  maybe 30 years ago to check the parliamentary records for the "Swindon and Cheltenham Extension Railway" the north end of the MSWJR.

 

Apart from the "Ashchurch" extension which I didn't check  there were variations of the "East Gloucestershire Railway," down the Coln Valley past Yanworth and Fossebridge, in Chedworth Parish but not in the Chedworth Valley, which led towards Fairford and the "East Gloucestershire Railway,"  as constructed.

 

There was once an exhibition layout allegedly based on Fossebridge but it was completely unrealistic, as the railway would have passed within feet of the Fossebridge Hotel and crossed the Foss way at the bottom of a 1 in 6 hill almost certainly by level crossing as the line swung round the severe S bend in this narrow valley.   Great location for a Model in a  narrow steep sided valley 

 

This was one attempt at a Cheltenham to Oxford line, both GW and LNWR had this aspiration at times, One was actually authorised and started but abandoned after about 50 yards which was to run via Shipton and the north side of the Leach valley towards the ridge used by the A40 road past Burford to Witney and Oxford which could be a good "Might have been." possibly LNW/ LMS rather than GW.

 

The MSWJ itself was proposed to be half a mile west of the Foss Cross station passing near Chedworth Church between the Church and the houses on Church row and piercing the crest of Harts Hill in a cutting and not a Tunnel.  This would have required a viaduct at Withington to keep the 1 in 75 ruling grade and probably for this reason and to provide a "hub" for the Coln Valley at "Foss Cross" the alignment was changed.

 

The MSWJ itself was extensively relaid with concrete sleepers just before closure for the Eastleigh to Bromford Bridge oil trains but left hand right hand communication problems led to the Cheltenham end connection to the Midland line being taken out at the same time,  I think the traffic went first to the DNS then Basingstoke Reading Oxford and then to a pipeline.

 

MSWJ in wartime or the Cheltenham and Banbury extension just pre war would be excellent lines to model, Salperton and Notgrove on the Banbury line would make a superb setting for small GW locos and short trains, remembering the GW 6 coach express and balancing LNER one which passed daily

The post about the Lima locos is interesting,

 

Many  years ago I converted several OO  Lima diesel  locos to battery power to test my garden railway, a class 47 with 8 AA cells giving around a scale 65 mph and several 37s with 6 X AA cells giving around a scale 50 mph, they simply have on off reverse switches. They proved quite useful, and surprisingly realistic, in fact there is a You Tube video of them, davidcbroad  About three years ago I found the "Model Torque" conversions and realised the motors were very similar to those in some car CD players, and those same pancake motors  take Scalextric drive pinions which mate with Lima spur gears and fit snugly in the lima motor housing. You just have to make up a plastic strap across the two screw holes, You can use quite a wide motor on BoBo chassis but need slim line ones to slip between the centre wheels on the CoCo or CC chassis.

 The advantage of these motors is that they take much less power than the Lima motors, lasting several sessions per charge rather than needing a battery change after a few round trips and or they run much faster, in fact they run faster on 4 AA batteries than  the Lima motor did on 6, My 158 and 26 only use two AA batteries. 

 

 What has stopped me going the R/C route is I need to be able to set the train in motion and nip round the path from Goat of Barton to the top station while the train burrows under the rockery in a seven foot long drain pipe, so I need the fail safe default to be to continue at the last speed set and not simply stop, and this has so far defeated me.

I am sure there used to be a footbridge spanning the tracks on the Swindon side of the crossing which went right over the tracks and over the retaining wall to reach the lower level about 10 feet below rail level, talking 1970s 1980s here when I used to go to BVM Moto at Stroud on my Moto Guzzi.

 

I also followed a lot of the Swindon bound 1985 GWR 150 steam trains along this stretch on the Guzzi