Dr Gerbil-Fritters

Pick ups are like cow bells, you always need more.

Yes I thought this might be a possibility. I have considered inserting a small sliver of suitably sized plasticard into the gap for Turnout 2 .... Turnout 2 will incorporate several minor improvements based on the experience of Turnout 1. For one thing, I've read the instructions now... 😃 What is the flux in Wayne's construction pictures? It looks to be in a very handy small bottle with a neat nozzle. That would help with my untidy soldering I think. I joined the EMGS. Highly recommended. I hope they appreciate it, I never usually join anything!

What is the best flex track to match this turnout range?

I've always hankered after decent looking track - and finally thanks to Wayne, I have some. Well, a single EM B7 turnout anyway. Despite failing to read the instructions, assembling things in the wrong order and making a complete hash of the soldering (in my case soldering is 10% heat and 90% swearing...) things seem to have turned out all right in the end... I really need to clean off that excess solder... I even got myself a wheel puller and a back to back gauge so I could adjust some wheelsets... Probably shouldn't have stared with this though I really enjoyed the project - a top rank product, goes together beautifully (if I can manage it, literally anyone can) and makes a proper British looking turnout. S'almost the right gauge n'all 🤣

Could it be done? There are several restricted height road bridges on that stretch - Knighton Fields Road and Lancaster Road - that couldn't be lowered, then there's about 500m from Regent Road bridge to the A6 London Road bridge for any descent into Leicester Station. Long term maybe the entire station site could be lowered... I don't think anyone here would shed any tears if Leicester was bulldozed (apart from the porte cochère which is listed I believe) the rest of it is of no merit whatsoever. The glorious Midland station buildings went in the 70s I think. I wish it would happen soon, as I am not a fan of the dirty noisy clapped out junk that EMR have to use at the moment and some clean quiet EMUs would be preferable. But it s not London, so I doubt anything will happen in my lifetime.

This might be of interest to class 70 fans... number 12, rarely seen since it was returned to the US. 70 012 on the GE test track

How do you manage 3 links? Is there a special tool? I can't manage them in 7mm...

I happened to be in Schaerbeek this afternoon and I got the most odd sensation of deja vu...

Only after we've been to the Lovely Girls contest first, we've got to judge sandwich making, laughing and walking around...

One from back in the day when I modelled Southern Pacific...

Yes, the whole thing although I couldn't fit 'Clapham' or 'West Croydon' into my version. Here's some under construction views, including the return loop and the branch terminus.

Righto then... Here's a general view of the main terminus at the upper level, and the branch terminus. I had three approach roads on the right - up main, down main and a goods arrival/departure road. The operating well for the main station was pretty tight. Next, a sequence showing the curved throat - I had to do a 'Grantham' and bend some of the straight turnouts to get a nice flowing curve. And a closer look at the curvy bits... and then a look back towards the terminus from the goods line junction. Looking back at it - and its been almost three years since I dismantled it - it was a pretty fun layout, and a real challenge to fit into a 16 x 8 shed (15.5 and 7.5 on the inside) Why did I dismantle it? I couldn't get on with the two duckunders, too old for that malarkey now, and I didn't like being stuck inside the operating pit. I also couldn't fit any staging loops in the return loop area, which defeated the operating potential. The station was also a foot too short really, so trains were always 'hanging out of the ass end' of the platforms. If I had enough room to deal with those issues - in particular, moving the return loop behind the station so that there was no tiny operating pit, and making the whole layout suitable for walkaround control - I would certainly do it again. Sorry for the thread deviation.

I actually built this a couple of years ago. It was pretty good, and a lot of fun to operate, but it had a couple of insoluble problems to do with fitting it into my shed ( two duckunders for a start) and I dismantled it. I can post some pics if any one is interested.

Where are you seeing these? I've searched and can only find 72 Dapol O gauge steam locomotives of which 70 are Sold out on Pre-order....

Yes, High Tide and Low Tide 😀

You might as well politely ask the tide not to come in twice a day, you'd get the same response... Sorry to see Hattons go, they were 'always there' from my earliest days reading the Railway Toddler in the mid 1970s right up until this week. I spent a fair bit with them until a few years ago when my spending on model trains virtually ceased.

If you enjoy it in picture form, you will enjoy it even more in real life... It lives in the museum at Strasshof an der Nordbahn which is about 45 minutes by train from Vienna Hbf. It comes out to play now an then, which would be a sight to see. I had an excellent day there last August, pretty much had the entire museum to myself.

Ah, thank you. I missed the significance of that when I read it and didn't relate it to the rather racy livery in the picture.

The booster is a marvellous machine. On this website there is an intriguing picture of CC1 in what appears to be a rather racy two-tone livery. Any ideas what colours were involved? And what about those 'eyebrows'!

I'd like that, I could play GTA V online properly... Wouldn't fancy my chances at hosting RMWeb on it though

I see almost all the images are gone, and after a lengthy period of not using RMWeb I'm not sure I can be bothered to continue with it.

Abingdon had at least one, possibly two scissors and a double slip: Whomever drew this plan has made rather a fudge of it... the double slip is just above the engine shed, and the scissors is in front of the engine shed, although it may have been an outside single slip in reality - I've never seen a photo of this area. Signalling diagram suggests a single slip of some kind. Marvellous trackplan for a terminus - very modelable. Pity tis GWR where all the engines look the same. <hat, coat, etc>

The only couplers I've ever found to work properly as advertised are kadees. When I briefly resumed modelling in OO after years in HO American, I soon got fed up with the half arsed coupler solutions I tried. I've given up on UK outline again, and now model DB/DR era IV in HO, standardising on kadee #17 and #18 in NEM pockets for shuntable stock and Roco close couplers for fixed rakes. No help to you, sorry for the thread drift! What a shame UK and European railways stuck with chain couplings!

Aren't fiddle yards a ruddy nuisance? I've had to devote half of my layout space to somewhere just to park trains...