Dr Gerbil-Fritters

Very good. There are a number of proper loading and unloading model railroads online, all of them make me wish I had the time/patience/space to do something similar. This one even correctly trims the load...

Zero - I use Woodland Scenics trackbed on a roll. Highly recommended. The stone ballast is just decorative infill really. I use N scale granite from Gaugemaster.

Woodland Scenics Steel Rail. I happened to have a couple of paint pens lurking in a drawer, but I will probably airbrush the rest of it.

A bit more ballasting this afternoon. It'll need a lot more fettling before I'll be happy, but I am pleased I went with real granite ballast. I've tried Woodland Scenics before and it's too rounded for my taste... looks like pebbles, not ballast. I also extended the power bus around to the other side of the layout ready for the staging yard. Soldering is such a joy.

I've done some small tasks on the moba during the Festering Season... Painted the platform surface experimented with rail painting and ballasting... and I constructed a 'bridge' for my rolling road/dcc programming track so that I can keep it permanently accessible, and free up some space for trays from our most recent takeaway curry so I can safely stow all those bits that might be useful and keep my workspace clear. I've got some buildings to assemble when the mood takes me. I still seem to be enjoying this little layout more than the others I've knocked together over the 7 years this thread has been running.

Round the World on 80 Days, the new BBC one with David Tennant featured some sort of 0-6-0 with outside Stephensons motion (or possibly Heusinger) and a four wheel tender. Purporting to be Italy, and the scene at 'Brindisi' featured a smashing roundhouse with what appeared to be 2-4-0 tender engine on the turntable. Something about the locos and particularly the roundhouse rang a distant bell, but I can't place them. Anyway, it was a jolly romp for a Sunday night. I've never seen any of the previous versions nor read the book.

cripes...

I can't help feeling we're being somewhat under-ambitious with this project.... low clearance indeed

Honestly, it makes me despair. I have no confidence we'll ever have a decent, electrified, integrated railway network in the UK.

I had a quick look - it's the branch to Nuneaton. Then Birmingham.

Yes, and the way this has been planned I would not be surprised if the OHLE swerves just short of Leicester and heads to Coventry...

But at least Market Harborough has a station... South Wigston is nothing these days. Just a bend in the track and a branch to Cov.

Excellent. I'll get out there and walk the final few miles to Leicester station... or perhaps the Down trains can freewheel the last bit if they've got up enough speed by this point. Up trains will need a push.

Whichever way you do it, gears, rods, etc steam-mechanical was an evolutionary dead end. Steam-electric would have been the way forward! The C&O #500 N&W #2300

Jumbos Three... Late Eastern Jumbo Late Western Jumbo Early Jumbo

I finished work early today, and decided to amuse myself by fitting a decoder to a Roco DR Br44. I say 'amuse', if you can call dismantling the tender, removing the motor, putting it back together, then having a sixth sense the 8 pin connector was the wrong way round, dismantling the tender, removing the motor, putting the 8 pin connector in the right way, then deciding to test it first before reassembling the tender, finding out that it would run out of control in only one direction, disassembling it again, noticing that the contacts should be on the outside of the motor contacts testing again, it working fine, then reassembling the tender, failing to notice the drive shaft had popped out, popping it back in only to have it pop out again, then working out that the drive shaft can only be fitted after the tender shell is back on, doing all that, getting it back in one piece and noticing that the lights don't work... Here is the ruddy thing, next to a far more useful Br50 I don't even need a DR Br44... far too hefty for my little branchline...

I had a crack at it. It was not pretty!

I'd like to see the La Salle Street throat constructed in Peco code 83... although they haven't released a crossing of the correct angle to form a #6 scissors crossing. There's an Atlas one that will work, but the rail section is different to the Peco so it's not a flawless fit.

I agree. Capitalism drives businesses towards monopolies, so the current east/west divide won't be allowed to stand for much longer. Question is; two railroads... both east-west and notionally in competition, or one east-west and one north-south? How are the mid-sizes doing? KCS has now gone, but is MRL still going? NYSW? Any others?

Yes, rather cleverly the Roco front coupling is entirely separate from the pony truck. Unscrew the truck, and insert the coupling arm over the same location and reattach the pony truck if I recall correctly. Which reminds me - I have three Br50s that need this exact job doing!

15 were built for the Madrid-Seville AVE (standard gauge) so would have been in AVE grey and blue. The other 60 were Iberian gauge, and whatever livery was standard at the time.

Or anti-aliasing paint...

What, this one? I believe it was designed to burn grass? Or the designer smoked grass... Something.

I'd agree that the full apron 50 is a handsome beast, only beaten by full apron with Wagner deflectors. I have a 52 which is butt ugly... the tub tender doesn't help. It doesn't come out of its box too often. I also have a 44 somewhere with a UK cab but full boiler fittings.... the variations of 44 and 50 are many.