DCB

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.

Its Airfix and a 61XX Prairie or possibly an N2 motor. Its not the 14XX as the14XX had plunger style brushes mounted though the pole pieces the lower one being extended to take the pick up spring. I believe the14XX had a metal front bearing support not plastic. The Plastic front bearing mounting is the Prairie motor's ackillies Eel, as it flexes and sometimes melts and the brass insert works loose. The armature shaft is slightly smaller diameter than an X04 the armature and magnet are fatter and apart from the intended chassis and a tender mount for shar]ft drive to the loco theses motors don't really have many applications. It's often a nasty harsh runner and to smooth out an Airfix 61XX I chucked the airfix motor away and replaced it with a 3 pole X04, Triang gears Triang axles in Airfix wheels and lots of other tweaks. It was better but not great.

This is what we used in the Ultrasonic cleaner. Nasty stuff. We also used some air drying residue free cleaner for final rinse of watch parts.

My outside layout is the same except my sleepers disintegrate and I am always sliding new ones on, I clean mine with Peco track rubbers. I did have some steel track outside (Carriage sidings) which went a very realistic rust colour and then crumbled to dust.

There wouldn't have been much shunting back in atmospheric days and what there was would have been by human and horse power, right up to the 1960s a lot of shunting was by a couple of porters putting a shoulder to a wagon. Even the heaviest coaches were only a few tons and were habitually moved between tracks using wagon turntables and man power even at large stations. Atmospheric had a lot going for it. The Piston carriage was far lighter than any steam or electric unit as it didn't need adhesion to haul the train as the force was applied by the piston direct to the carriage, it just n3eded to be heavy enough to stop it. The pipe had gaps, so do electrified lines. but it was fast and that made it efficient, reducing track occupancy to a level where Brunel believed a single track could pass the traffic which required double track north of Exeter and with greatly enhanced safety as Atmospheric trains could not run towards each other on the same track. Nothing else (except cable haulage maybe) has this feature, and back before before block working this was a massive deal. Dawlish station and maybe others was raised up so the gradient slowed approaching trains and speeded up departing ones. Its just a shame the seals didn't work. It's interesting to see the way the original single track was widened, there are some real examples of advanced bodgery between Newton and Totnes nice stone bridge on up and tatty iron one beside it on the down line.

My GP 5 tender has a split axle pick up through the mazak side frames, It was missing the motor and the front footplate had snappeed off and I was planning to use the tender chassis for a Triang 3F. The older GP 5s seem to just have one plunger each side of the tender, not sure if they had the 6 wheel split axe pickup as well. The early Rovex(?) Triang Princesses only had 1 pick up plunger per side. but apart from the old Triang track Live frogs seemed to be the norm, back then. often the blade assembly swivelled on a central point and touched the metal frog and the relevant running rail providing continuous support and a continuous conductor. I have quite a few crude ancient 2 rail points, GEM possibly maybe Grafar of this type. When working as designed the running was very good compared to dead frog Triang series 1/3/4/ system 6 or Peco Set track, but they look pretty ugly . I suspect the old Grafar models didn't really do slow running with the crude spur gearing

I have just found this thread. What is the "Clutch" I have never had a complete running Grafar 2 pole powered loco? A dyna drive type clutch would be brilliant! Personally i would use the Airfix 14XX motor. Not the Prairie, not the MW005 the 14XX which has a ball and socket joint and driveshaft as standard, Torquey and otherwise pretty useless as its too fat to fit between 00 driving wheels. The other alternative and I suspect the favourite in years gone by is the X04 type turntable motor (Notbthe XT 60 worm drive, which I believe came with a short armature shaft and a small spur gear, the same gear as the Scalextric X04 clone motor used except the Scalextric might have been wound differently and the Power sledge commutator is at 90 degrees to the Loco X04 as the brushes are top and bottom not left and right. Oddly enough the 5 pole K's and MW 00X whatever and most likely Kitmaster armatures run equally happily with either brush configuration, the K's being top and bottom brushes and I have both X04 and Hornby Dublo 1/2" motors with K's armatures. I have Triang powered Farish 94XX and 81XX with 5 pole armatures, Triang Chassis (Jinty / Hall) with H/D and or Romford wheels as my main shunting and banking locos for the past 40 years. and another 94 sitting on my workbench having new footsteps fabricated as I write. I had a GP 5 less motor probably still have it, It looked most odd next to a H/D 8F, and had a King body, until I dropped the body and it just about exploded into a shower of Mazak. The odd thing is Grafar solved the loco tender yawning gap by extending the tender forward into the cabs and no one else has done it as effectively since

That's the book. Not sure if they still have it, Swindon Central Library is not the easiest place for me to get to, anything over 100 yards from the car is a challenge for me these days. Was Teignmouth's Temporary station on the same site as the present one?

The NLS (National Library of Scotland) Website has "Georeferenced" maps of the whole of the UK and has pre 1888 and pre 1914 25" to a mile maps for the Teignmouth and Dawlish area. The dates are a bit elastic, butthe earlier one is Broad gauge single track and the later Standard gauge double track. There is no tunnel West of the sea wall at Teignmouth on either. The double track broad gauge ran out along the sea wall and ended at the first tunnel towards Dawlish There was a signal box there just by that first tunnel. I can't find any older maps,

There used to be a book on the Exeter - Newton Abbott line in Swindon Library, which described the tunnels. All the tunnels between Dawlish and Teignmouth are asymmetrical due to being originally broad gauge single track and following the gauge conversion were widened by erecting an internal structure over the standard gauge track and then hacking away at the Sandstone to widen the tunnel, while the trains continued to run. No need for a circular cross section as Red Sandstone a nice material for tunnelling nice and stable bit not too hard. I can't remember what it said about Teignmouth but there is a very very long down platform for arriving tourists still in place, For some reason I spend more time watching trains at Dawlish and Teignmouth (and Aviemore) than I do anywhere within 100 miles of home.

I remember the class 47 "Charles Rennie Mackintosh" the Scotrail livery 47/4 in around 1988 and the blue was damaged showing the red underneath. It literally had a single blue top coat, I always suspected someone had bought a can of non drip gloss from Mc B&Q and slapped it over the red. Overpainting red with light blue in N or 00 is going to be a nightmare, the strip will look really thick by the time you get enough pigment to stop the red showing through. Paint thickness doesn't scale... The bodyside Black is dark grey. I can't remember any Scotrail livery 37/4s back in the 80s/90s the ones I remember and photographed were mainline or large logo

Not sure about this layout. A full track plan would be useful. I would query whether trains can actually run on it as the gradient looks very steep , 1 in 20? the curves very sharp 1st radius? and the tunnel walls look very close to the track . A fair number of 21st century RTR locos can't cope with 1st radius . 1970s Triang will get round sub 1st radius and up a 1 in 10 as required by many of their suggested layouts in the old catalogues My "Bed" layout had to be abandoned as trains could not actually get up the gradients... Even one of the Pecorama layouts seemed to be limited to 3 coaches because of the steep gradients and feeble locos

The E1 were "Local goods and Shunting Engines " according to Brian Haresnape in "Stroudley Locomotives" the coal capacity of 1 Ton 10cwts meant the "Local" was quite literally true. For some reason the the 0-4-2T D1 38 tons and the 0-6-0T E1 was 44 tons in working order with 15T 18 cwt on the rear axle. Yellow in GW speak The SR had 25 surplus E1s for sale in 1925, 10 became E1R 4 to the Isle of Wight and I think 5 were sold to industry, I guess the rest were scrapped, but only needs a tiny change in history for one to have been sold to your own Light Railway company. The E1 with its poor riding and limited range would have been an obvious choice for early withdrawal, GW tanks of the period would run at 50MPH and carried 3 tons of coal by 1925. The SR much preferred 0-6-2T which begs the question why not transfer 0-6-2Ts and replace them on shunting with E1s?

I wouldn't bother, They hide the trains, make access difficult, I would just build the gardens. Was the terrace on the same level as the tracks? Few were. The angle not following the tracks is good, terraces did exist parallel to tracks but very many more were at an angle and almost none were the same level. An inch or so above or below datum would bring it to life, especially if either terrace or tracks were on a gradient, Houses were ether there before the railway or fitted in afterwards and tended to be built straight . Streets there before railways make the more interesting models...

The North Devon & Cornwall Junction Railway, The N D & C was originally narrow gauge and needed extensive repair circa 1925, It was converted to Standard Gauge as part of the upgrade. The SR had no suitable locos and the most modern six coupled tank locos were the PDSWJ 0-6-2Ts apparently the cost for some more new ones was a bit eye opening and with electrification releasing surplus steam locos and new N class moguls available from Woolwich at knock down prices , probably less than an 0-6-2T it was decided that E1 class 0-6-0Ts could be made available for rebuilding as 0-6-2 Tanks using N class pony truck components from Woolwich to make them suitable for Light Railway use. Obviously what they needed was a GWR 2021 class pannier, 3 ton plus coal capacity, dynamically balanced wheels 50mph plus capable, but they used a shunter which was OK up to 25 or so but only held about 1 ton of coal. The later E2 "Thomas" only held 1 ton so assume the E1 was similar. So E1s arrived for Clay and goods workings between Halwill jct and Torrington where the N D & C joined the LSWR Main line end on. All was perfect until the N's came and Ilfacombe became the destination of the main portion of the Waterloo trains as N's could get 6 coaches up the Banks and Torrington the destination of a Through portion, previously the main portion was to Torrington with Exmouth Jct power and the Ilfracombe section taken by a Barnstaple loco. E1Rs thus found themselves working expresses and they were extremely uncomfortable at speed. The 460 class were retained and took over through passenger workings to Barnstaple while a further batch of E1Rs were cobbled up with balanced, that would be dynamically balanced wheels suitable for express speeds of over 30 mph. Somewhere along the history Torrington lost its turntable which would have turned 460 class and presumably T9, K10 etc and Ilfracombe gained a 70 (?) footer which later turned WC and Bob classes I don't know if the earlier E1Rs ever had their balance weights changed but some found work as bankers from Exeter St Davids (GWR) to central about 1 in 35 or about twice as steep as Beattock or Shap While I'm waffling for many years the sole PSWJ 0-6-0T and the Meldon Quarry G6 were the only SR 0-6-0Ts west of Exeter and Exeter kept one tank latterly a Z for freight shunting in the Exeter area. Until Barnstaple got its gronk there were no shunting engines on the withered arm, N and M7 doing most shunting in BR days after the cull of the small 4-4-0s circa 1948/51. Absolutely the antithesis of the GWR who were 0-6-0PT mad. The ND&C was a 25 mph limited light railway bit according to various railway mans' reminiscences the Ivatt and BR 2-6-2T s went very much faster than 25 mph on the passengers between Torrington and Hawlill jct

Unpowered tender, non powered tender maybe, an engine powered tender sounds like one with a motor. That is an Airfix Chassis. No motor, long weight, two pick up strips, push in crank pins. The connecting wires to the tender have broken off, they have spades which plug in to slots in the tender. The chassis is rubbish as the contacts drag and make the wheels stop while the loco is running. I cured mine, took the pick ups of, shorted the tyres to axle one side and fitted brass axle bushes connected to a wire providing one side pick up. Using a Hornby County 4-4-0 tender which also has one side pick up it runs beautifully, shame the tender does not. The Body is, probably Airfix, might be Dapol but the chimney looks like a replacement as it looks central on the smoke box whereas the rear hole should be central. my Airfix body has a similar chimney in the same wrong place fitted by myself 45 years ago. I think the cab steps are missing; Airfix were non powered with stepped side tenders, Dapol loco drive with spur gear drive pancake motors Flat side tenders, Early Hornby like Dapol, then re engineered with a Worm drive can motor. Decent model came out around 2012 with metal valve gear. To complete the saga Hornby Dublo Castle came out around 1957, very good model, Die cast body, X04 like motor. In circa 1961 they ruined it with a cab full of Ring Field motor, it became GR Wrenn, circa 1967 discontinued 1990s(?) Last ones the chassis moulds were worm out, poor quality. Best ones 1957 Hornby (But need bogie wheels upgrading) and 2012 on Hornby. Tenders, Only the Airfix tenders couple to the Airfix chassis, Mine had an Airfix Royal Scot tender chassis and modified straight side tender body. The Airfix tender drive is awful, I later fitted a Hornby tender but the coupling is completely different and needs substantial bodgery, to make it work.

I think something similar happened on the Gloucester Bristol Line at Haresfield (?)as described in Red for Danger,

I think the K&ESR 0-8-0T was bought to operate heavy goods on an extension which was never built, the SR swapped a saddle Tank and spare boiler for it I understand. Tender engines had a bit of a drawback in that they really needed turning at journeys end and turntables not common on light railways. Conversely they were ideal as they could be kept in steam for hours without running out of water while the crew jacked and heaved them back on after a derailment, where a tank would have had its fire thrown out to avoid dropping a plug. There were not many suitable locos available new in the 1895-1905 Light Railway Mania era, and fewer second hand, Railways were scrapping small large wheeled tender locos out classed by heavier stock, too feeble for goods or shunting while redeploying, often rebuilding small goods locos for shunting, which was a popular and entirely wasteful revenue wise UK fetish. Without wasting effort on having bespoke designs drawn up the standard shunting locos from Beyer peacock, Manning Wardle et al were the obvious choices, The light and otherwise suitable colonial export designs tended to be out of gauge, too high and wide, but there were surplus suburban locos available for sale down south, Brighton Terriers and Adams 4-4-2Ts were snapped up, the MSWJR tried to get rid of a couple of its 0-6-0Ts and I believe a couple of 2-4-0Ts but no on was daft enough. . Some LSWR Ilfracombe Goods were also used by light railways but this was later I believe. Railway companies were not allowed to build new for other organisations but could sell second hand surplus stock. So it was not what was wanted but what was available at an affordable price, they wanted a BMW 320i and got a Ford focus 1.0 Egotech. to use a motoring analogy, then again traffic levels hovered around 20% of estimates so no new stock was generally required to cover additional services and once Col Stephens was in charge he was able to swap locos around when the supply of bodgable motive power on one railway ran out while another had a surplus power. For a modeller we are stuck with basically Terriers maybe Hornby Pecketts, and not much else even if going freelance really it only adds the Adams Radial. I have a horrible feeling if the Isle of Skye line which I hope to model had been built it would have inherited HR 2-4-0 or 4-4-0 tender loco from across the way at Kyle which were being withdrawn around 1895/9 and scratch building them is beyond me.

My shortened Dapol (One Bay chopped out so 65 feet ish) has pin on each rail on the left as you look at it which rubs one of two horizontal curved sprung wipers which each cover 160 degrees travel one connected to black feed and one to white feed. It also has notches for indexing It goes dead at mid point but automatically reverses polarity as it is swung. It is still awaiting a motor but hey it was only temporary measure 39 years ago.

Nothing wrong with two loops and trains running in opposite directions, two running the same direction is more fun, formula 0-4-0 racing with Hornby starter set locos, great fun. Picking carriages up and taking them places is a bit ambitious, with UK RTR couplings it means uncoupling at uncoupling ramps on straight track and not being able to couple up again on the ramp. Go back 40 years and with simple modifications you could have multiple electro magnets and uncouple at multiple locations and couple back up at the same places, now you need Kadees which are plug and play on most 2020 era stuff but hacksaw and superglue on 1950- 2010 era Basically shunting short sidings just is not practical with modern RTR, unless you are happy to do it by hand. I would mirror image the plan complete the inner circle a a shunting line and probably not bother with half the sidings. That way tree trains can circulate an a fast over take a slow one, always good to watch. DC cab or DCC, DC cab control needs logic and complicated switching, but makes fault finding simple, DCC is very simple two wires, except some people end up with several hundred droppers soldered to the two wires and everything stops when there is a fault not just one loop

Looking for a bit of confirmation here. Double track main line, Station with short 300 foot platforms and Up goods dead end lay bye requiring train to draw past signal box and into Up platform before setting back. Station has Home and lay bye starter side by side 50 yards North of the Signal Box . Some 400 yards South, Up the line (in advance) is the Up Starter. There is an outer home signal 400 yards North of the Up Home Signal. So Goods has passed the Box. Signalman has seen tail lamp, given train out of section etc to box in the rear and conveyed to driver he should set back into Lay bye. Can Signalman accept express passenger. He has 1/4 mile clear beyond Outer home.? Goods has reversed into lay Bye. Up "Fast" goods has entered station and stopped for water with tail of train 100 yards North of Signal box and within 1/4 mile of the outer home, can signalman accept another train, if so would that be under section clear but station blocked "Warning" arrangements, which I think involves the following train to be checked and crew advised that the station is blocked? Is that right. Are my signals labelled correctly? Just trying to get my head round this. TYPO Should be 440 yards not 400.

It's not clear if the narrowing is flexi track or set track. Both tend to suffer narrowing if the curve radius is reduced, most people don't bend set track but I do. but both get narrower, not much but its exactly what you don't want as gauge widening is fairly common as a way to get trains, full size ones around sharp curves. The narrowing is worse if the ties between sleepers are left as standard, with 3 sleepers tied then a gap, staggered so the gaps alternate between inner and outer rails . I ensure only pairs of sleepers are left connected when fairly sharp curves are involved and I cut all the ties when they get really sharp, and I have gone down to 12" radius in OO streamline on my latest layout. That makes keeping sleepers absolutely at right angles to the rails essential. Any kink will also lead to tight spots . I suppose one could sever the sleepers ease them apart 1mm or so and glue it all back in place but relaying seems the easy option.