DCB

Fizzog and words like Cropodist (Bloke who crops yer toenails) and Loyer (lawyer/liar) are sadly disappearing from country areas as house prices start to look like mobile phone numbers and only those with a public school received pronunciation eck-sent can afford to live in Country areas

A few nails and a decent file will soon create some decent buffer heads, especially if you have a lathe. You would be hard put to make anything worse than the Lima buffers The usual mistake with MK1s is that the buffers are modelled in the extended position whereas they are retracted when Corridor Mk1s are coupled to other BR standard corridor coaches and use the buckeye coupler for buffing and as draw gear. The buffers are only extended when coupling to stock without buckeye couplers I close coupled several Lima Mk 1s with Peco couplings and some with mainline ones by moving the couplings inward so the corridor connections almost touched when propelling around 2ft radius curves. The improvement in appearance was dramatic but sadly the pics on RM Web disappeared a while ago and I can't find them on my many discarded computers and SD cards

That's a lot of track and points for a layout where only one train can run at a time. The 3 sidings lower centre are just about useless . Its great for watching trains run round sharp curves, and you can keep several train stationary while you run The one. I Would put sidings inside the return loops goods yard in one terminus station in tother.... or terminus with loco depot like my doodle, just needs one reversible feed for terminus between station and turntable,Ideally loops would drop down a bit but i would extend an overall roof over the loop with station building beyond and try to hide the loop s. At least mine lets you shunt while a train runs round the loop line and you can have three more in the loops to ring changes |Obviously loop with turntable acts as return loop to get trains reversed to go back into the station and leave in either direction Just set station polarity to suit direction around the main loop Electrics just need a couple of DPDT centre off switches and two controllers for DC. Sky and your credit card's the limit for DCC

There isn't a definitive material, soil, coffee grounds ash are all soft materials and very difficult to fix down. I wonder if contact adhesive (Copydex?) is the answer to fixing them. I found some carpet backing i sprayed green for grass looked convincing as ballast when I accidentally sprayed it grey, and my coaling stage ballasted with anthracite grains looked pretty good but Antracite only comes in black (and granite chips in grey) The ballast will vary with the period modelled, for 2000 era static grass is good, you can barely see the track in some sidings let alone the ballast. back pre WW1 the ballast used in yards was generally to top of sleeper level or above for the convenience of Horses among other things and much was sourced locally, Limestone or ash and clinker from loco sheds. 1923-68 sleeper tops visible and ballast almost level seemed typical. For really grot sidings cutting lengthways grooves in the baseboard wide enough for the rails and flanges to run and ballasting with chips, spraying with gunge coloured paint and having no sleepers at all is pretty convincing, maybe not even have rails if no locos enter the siding, as in a short bit in my coal yard or for 23-68 ballast the whole area and then lay track with card sleepers, because a lot of photos show rails and sleepers on a flat level layer of ballast, Apart from code stupid rails and hairpin bends and the rest a lot of early post WW2 model laid straight on a baseboard does look uncannily like the real thing where lovingly ballasted track just looks contrived, especially when there is no definition between the wooden sleepers and the stone orash ballast

Did that cure the problem?

Could not agree more. Look at pictures. Steam age track ballast 1920 -1968 was basically manicured with crisp ballast edges and clear walking routes , cinder paths, much of it with signal wires alongside. Usually with plenty of gap between ballast edge and the edge of an embankment. Post steam it became a scruffy mess as tracks were raised on heaps of ballast which spilled down embankment sides and post 2000 plenty disappeared into a mass of weeds. A lot of model ballast looks out of period, 2000 ballast on 1950 layouts.. Painting the rails first makes sense, but pre coloured sleepers don't usually need much if any paint, maybe just touching up where the rail paint has smeared and then use the right colour ballast. If you use the wrong glue it will sound like a steam roller is crushing the track and you will wish you had not bothered. Do a trial stretch first

It seems to me while we are discussing small details there is a small problem in that at a glance the Mainline 56XX doesn't look much like a 56XX In particular the cab aperture is much smaller than it should be on a 56XX , More like a 1938 31XX cab than a 56XX as there is a large beam below the cab roof on the Mainline / Bachmann 56XX which is rain strips are massively oversize, you can barely see them on many photographs of full size 56XX . One item missing from or greatly undersize on the Bachmann model is the tank brace (?) over the boiler at the leading edge of the tanks which many had vertical hand rails attached . On the flip side I have two of these so a five minute makeover with a few files and a bit of sandpaper is on the agenda, filing out the cab aperture and filing down the cab angle irons where there should be rain strips will be the first steps.

The Helicopter car has a large knob almost the full width of the platform IIRC which has a c lock spring and has to be would up before the Helicopter is fitted. It is released by a trackside striker, like the satellite launcher, Unlike the Satellite launcher the Helicopter wagon has a bracket to take the Helicopter's tail. The bracket holds the fuselage in line while the rotor spins up and lifts the helicopter off, this stops the fuselage rotating for about a nano second while the copter takes off and thereafter the fuselage picks up speed in the opposite direction to the blades until it hits the ceiling and crashes in an undignified heap. My Helicopter has a damaged tail but the wagon was around fairly recently, definitely since Christmas.

The original Bachmann panniers have a split chassis and a right PITA to convert to DCC. As a minimum they need pickups added to at least one axle to prevent pick up issues even on DC. I would sell it on if its split chassis and get one with proper pickups.

Am I right in assuming the supression issue went away with the change to Digital TV? I remember our Bachmann B1 interfered with the bloke over the road's TV.nothing else did, and my Hornby Dublo which absolutely blotted out my parents 405 lines black and white TV 60 years ago no longer raises a flicker on our Digital TV. The B1 gained some ceramic capacitors but I think we just parked it in the end.

It depends on whether you want your stock on the layout or in storage With 40 foot cars you can get 10 into about 6 feet length and at least 6 parallel roads of 6ft lengths so you can either lay lots of track to switch your stock on or have a few tracks and a lot of scenery. I'd prioritise track, and switch cars, not trip and spot them spurs for loading or unloading, just switch them . Busy yard full of cars, Urban setting, cars awaiting sorting for onward transit. 2nd hand Insulfrog and DCC sounds ominous, Unifrog are designed for this type of application. and most US outline locos have plenty of pick ups to bridge the dead frogs if run out of the box I would try to arrange parallel running and simultaneous moves with the DCC for more visual interest. The "Hockey Stick" Traverser concept would fit well with this site.

Unifrog are non isolating points, Unlike Isolating points or Peco Electrofrog points they have no switch contacts to fail. If the plan was DCC or one engine in steam DC it would work without any insulated joiners, just like Insulfrog. For more than two locos on a DC layout I would sell the Unifrogs to someone using DCC and get some Insulfrogs and run trains instead of head scratching over wiring. If you put a short straight between Jeremy's siding and crossover to take a power clip and use controllers with an off position you don't need any isolators with Insulfrogs, just 2 controllers and 2 power clips. And they have much smaller dead frogs Unifrog needs an isolator for any siding where a loco is to be stabled, Insulators between crossover points plus a frog polarity switch on each point and a change over switch for the section between crossover and siding. That is wrong, for minimum wiring the feed should be between the crossover and Siding, that allows the inside train to remain stationary when the outside train accesses the siding Unifrog makes a lot of sense for DCC or for using DC outside in the rain on a one engine in steam layout ( as I do) or using more than 1 amp DC ( asI have) but it's an enormous amount of hassle otherwise

Can't really comment about track in an uninsulated loft as my layout in my uninsulated loft is A) largely steel track and B) essentially abandoned as it is very hard to access , But the N/S points go dark along their sides, but still work electrically (electrofrog) with no modifications and Peco sleepers breaking is very rare. Some of it is cheap GT track and has lots of broken sleepers. Solder. Outside it lasts about a couple of years, then goes grey and falls off leaving the rails with white deposits which clean off leaving more or less undamaged rails. The outside track on the electrically dead section N/S rails go brown. They were .laid mainly 30 plus years old and, ballasted with mortar mix laid on concrete or stone . The spare lengths kept in box indoors are pristine The outside dead rails suffers failed fishplates which split and a few failed chairs mainly on curves but the ballast stops it flexing so the sleepers only shatter when disturbed some due to Cats, over time it goes tight to gauge even on straights. The powered outside track is newer and fishplates fail electrically, but not as quickly as the soldered joints fail electrically and its on a wood base which distorts with temperature an moisture content is pinned and or lightly ballasted and suffers lots of failed sleepers, It does face south though (UK) and the dead rail is largely East West. As related elsewhere the more power I put the outside track power section the quicker it fails, if I get a short and it needs frog polarity switches IN ADDITION to blade contact. Same ones inside the shed no problems. The lifting section suffers white /yellow powdery corrosion on the rails. It lives vertical 99% of the time. and the double main line across it is the only place in the shed trains slow noticeably until the track is cleaned. In the shed many soldered joints are 40 years old and have never given any problems Diode matixes 4 pole relays,Rotary switches using exactly the same solder and soldering iron which gives issues outside. Needs Ercule Parrot to sort it out

I put it down to UV light and keep the section in the shed as dark as possible with blinds etc and don't have issues inside despite using exactly the same track inside and outside

Is that no interest in trains or no contact with trains. It was many years ago when I could last afford to ride on trains, 1980s. Promised myself trip from Exeter to Okehampton or vice versa for a treat but has not happened yet. Taken hundreds of photos but the stress of being at exactly the right spot at precisely the right time to catch one of the filthy swaying rattleboxes does not appeal. That said the London Underground is like a working Museum of Victorian deprivation with genuine 1890s brickwork, probably even paint work in places and centuries of brake dust grime billows through the detritus encrusted labyrinth encrusting the proletariat in toxic filth as they scurry around far from the warm glow of daylight like something out of a JK Tolkin novel and squeeze willingly into spaces the average Battery Chicken would not tolerate in the search for Net Zero while the even as they endeavour to put off the awful moment when Old Father Thames reclaims the labyrinth as his tides climb ever higher so the environmental activist elite fly over the deserted car free streets as they travel between their various summer winter and autumn mansions in their Helicopters.

Lots of questions, Is it glued down or pinned, did you drill the floorboard for droppers and install the wiring before laying the floor, what sort of ballast will you use, does it run to a timetable? I can't decide whether it's a model railway, a Train Set, Performance art or what ever. Is it a wind up? or electric.

But that is a small railway, not a model, For me A Model Railway. either looks like or operates like a Railway or both. I think the L&Y signalling school had a fully signalled one pre 1923 with Stations signal boxes but no scenery what so ever. That was a model Railway . Rev W Awdrey had a 6X4 ish continuous run "Ffarquar" it operated end to end and was very definitely a model railway, it operated as regards the viewer as a Railway and looked like a model of a railway. Garsdale Road by David Jenkinson was a continuous run but very definitely a model railway. Technically re full size A Train Set is a loco and coaches /wagons or self propelled set of coaches. I suppose a "Train Set" is a random arrangement of tracks to allow trains to run, like the Hornby teat track on the TV program, Generally with ready to use items randomly arrayed with little or no regard to railway practices or operation. This can be on the floor or a purpose built table. I had several which were great fun especially the ones we took on holiday. That's not a model Railway, I suppose it is a Layout. There are examples where someone has spent many thousands of pounds on new equipment and assembled it with multiple tracks and multiple levels on a purpose built table with no attempt at realism and they believe its a model railway layout, and its up to them, I (don't) take modelling very seriously, my Layout "Ugleigh" operates like a full size railway with regular strikes, late running, missed connections, wagons delivered to the wrong destinations, My businesses are plausible, Lyon Toade Solicitors, Hammas Mining Consultants, The Salvation Army Tank Corps, A&R Goss for instance. R.Sole coal merchants did manage to upset someone once. It is important to me that my stock is relevant to the era and location of the layout. Perhaps 30928 "Borstal", never got to the WR mainline and there never was a 7930 "That's Hall" but you won't find a Scottish allocated Black 5 double heading an S&DJR 7F for instance. Somewhere between Train Set and Model Railway is the highly detailed infrastructure stuffed with inappropriate and often unfinished and unpainted stock beloved by exhibitors, stations which operated one engine in steam absolutely stuffed with stock, with a service level which rivals the central line (London not Isle of Wight) . That is neither train set nor model railway to me,

It has no Pillbox so that dates it to before the pill box was built and black out patches on the cars so after 1st September 1939 when the Blackout was announced so it's most likely September 1939 if it's genuine. Probably Saturday 2nd September before the train services were curtailed following declaration of war on the 3rd September. Could have been later as petrol rationing took a while to implement.... It's like the famous photo of the Dean Goods and a Warship Diesel at Cogload Junction.

The white panels, whitewash often the edges of car mudguards, The rear of cycle and motor cycle mudguards was a safety measure in the blackout. The 4th car from the bike Left bottom also has a white patch so post war. BUT what is the first coach, its very long. The clerestory front doesn't look to match the rear. may be an optical illusion but it looks too long for a 70 footer and bent in the middle so I think its probably a composite photo cobbled up for advertising , probably to get rid of the pillbox.

The neophrene tube works well if the motor spins fast and under moderate load. They don't work for me as my locos have to work for a living and are maintained to WW2 LNER standards, If it still moves it don't stop it for repairs. If it ain't broke don't fix it. As it's just a coupler not to take up angles as in the GP 35 Plan B I would be looking at a square metal tube slipped over a pair of metal pinions which have been filed square to suit I tried filing an Xo4 worm square many years ago but got sidetracked as always. Plan C There were some super cheap H0 battery powered train sets 20 years ago, 0-8-0 tank , BoBo diesel, US 4-4-0, and 0-8-0 Diesel plastic track, no reverse,and they had a spring loaded sprag clutch arrangement so if overloaded the motor kept spinning and the clutch clicked happily and no damage was done. I have often wondered about a similar system where a heavy flywheel is on the end of a non reversible worm gear transmission like the Dyna Drive, just hitting the buffers could wreck the gearing on those.. Plan C was why Plan B never was finished, Plan D was why Plan C was never finished. Plan D was stick it on eBay as a non runner, Sorted.

The Hornby Ringfield should run better than that. The components are pretty good quality, especially the commutator and primary gear and I have not had any issues. I have done several CD conversions on Lima power bogies but only when commutators or primary gears maybe brush holders had failed. The likely fault I would suggest is dirty trailing bogie wheels of poor contact on the trailing bogie pick up wires. My 47 has a 28XX tender drive chassis in its power bogie and Flying Scotsman |Powered Tender wheels (Lathe turned to remove the grooves) in its trailing bogie to get something like scale size wheels. It has plenty of faults but leaping abruptly from stopped to 20 scale MPH is not one of them.

The 2251 is an oddity in that the dimensions are not too far out but it does not capture the rangy look of the 2251 Basically the body sits about 1mm or so too low on the chassis and the buffers are too high on the too shallow buffer beam, they should be at the bottom of the buffer beam. The drive wheels should be 20.6mm dia I think Bachmann are 18.5mm The 3000 gallon Collett Tender on the Mainline 2251 similarly sits too low the axle dimples are too high and the buffer beam too shallow and the Mainline / Bachmann Churchward 3500 gallon sits too high in relation to the loco. The problem is its a lot of work and my Bachmann and Mainline 2251 just never get used, but a mainline 2251 body on a Hornby Dublo chassis with a Triang Dean tender does look the part, despite the splashers having to be repositioned to suit the wrong wheelbase the raised body and lowered buffers gives a much better face to the loco. Working valve gear or a moving representation of inside valve gear would be fun but to be honest its not something which jumps out at me when I have watched the preserved 3205 in preservation.

I was intrigued by the title. I can not remember ever seeing an oil drain plug on an 00 loco. But hang on a minute, why not have a tin sump under the worm wheel so the oil remains on the gear train and not on the track I know some plastic chassis have little dints but why not a proper oil bath. You may have started me on a foray into Bulliedesque lubrication for my fleet of ancient 60s era locos.

I think as we approach the 60th anniversary of the closure of St James memories will have faded as to how it was operated. The design may have envisaged one way of operating but its difficult to know what actually went on. Wagons may have been capstan hauled through, and quite possibly horse shunted away from the dead end., or it could have been treated like a dead end shed . There were plenty of dead end goods sheds where the tracks only passed through one wall, and the whole raft of wagons had to be hauled in and out as a complete formation. That's where the operating comes in as one wagon may not have been emptied when the rest had and it had to be shunted out and put back in again. The bit missing is the school next to the Turntable. Right in the way. It would have been built circa 1865 . St James was a very odd station for the full size with a junction with a through line at the station throat, it was pretty common on 1960s model railway layouts, C J Freezer did a fair few.

Are you looking for the original ballast weight supplied by Lima from new ? I think it's shaped to fit the plastic chassis which also fits the 94XX its an 0-2-2-2-0 with unpowered centre wheels as standard, i binned mine in favor of a Triang Jinty Chassis. If that is what you are after I can have a hunt and see if my ballast weight ended up in my scrap box the next time I get a chance to have a root round in the loft. I saw the plastic chassis and wheels earlier today, If you just want ballast weight led flashing is my go to. Cut it into strips, fold them and hammer them flat. I have also melted car wheel balance weights with a blow lamp and drip the molten lead into a wooden mould to make rectangular blocks.