prtrainman

My comment certainly wasn't meant as a criticism of reviewers. I appreciate that you can only review what is in front of you at the time & that you don't personally have time for extended testing. Not sure what you do with review models afterwards (return them?) but maybe there is scope for passing them on to a club for extended testing. I have followed this forum for a number of years & can see that some people get a kick out of finding faults where others think something is the dog's whatsits. It's up to us individuals to make up our own minds & try & take a balanced view of all comments made, good or bad!

I don't have a 15XX & won't be getting one as it doesn't fit the area I am trying to model. I do have other Rapido locos on order though. Interesting reading the comments on this one & does make me wonder whether those people who review new locos in the model media should provide follow-up reviews once they have experience of running the models for a month or so.

From a CR point of view that's probably a bit disappointing for you, but it's obvious you have come on in leaps & bounds since your 1st post. At least you'll be able to use the rolling stock & a lot of the buildings etc on CR2. Looking forward to it & hope the move goes well.

It may also be a suggestion to keep this calculation away from the wife!

I currently use Z21 with approx 30 locos. One of the things I like about it is that you can have a 'library' of loco photos & just select the one you want to operate by touching the relevant loco photo on screen. Just wondering if you can do similar with Kinesis?

If you could attach a photo showing the underneath of a wagon altered as you describe that would be extremely useful. Thanks.

Since nobody wants to produce a U, a different U1 (the Southern one) would be good.

Excellent news. The unmade Jidenco kit that has been in the cupboard for over 40 years will stay there! I would never have gained the expertise to make it anyway. The real O1s had a very good reputation & were often referred to as a '7/8ths C'.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the BR Mark 1s were based on the final Bulleid coaches.

Kevin, your photos are so good that I'm going to be ultracritical & say that this one is spoilt a bit by the daylight in front of tha Castle's bogie.

Received an email update from Rails today advising that because the sound-fitting is being done by Dapol rather than by themselves delivery of my pre-ordered late BR one is still a few weeks away. No problem as far as I'm concerned & glad that they got in touch.

My BR crimson one was waiting for me when I got home yesterday after a week away. Superb model except that the brake levers seem to stick out too far & consequently catch on one of my platform ramps. Don't know if I am alone in this but will just have to try & bend them a bit & hope they don't break!

The angle of the photo makes the Manor cylinders look HUGE. The wagons in the background would make an interesting weathering project!

Well done to Accurascale for taking this on despite all the variations. Hopefully they are looking at the U class, the current big 'missing link' for Southern modellers, where the complexity of variations has often been quoted as a reason why this has never been tackled.

73080 to 73089 went new to Stewarts Lane (Eastern Section) in 1955 but had all been transferred to Nine Elms (Western Section) by 1959. 73110 to 73119 went new to Nine Elms in 1955. They all received their names at various times between 1959 & 1962. None of them were named whilst working on the Eastern Section. I managed to see all 20 between 1963 & 1966.

I particularly like the way you have sloped the rooves on the cottage & lean-to. Allows a bigger footprint for the whole structure without blocking out too much of the view behind. Very inspirational, like the rest of your modelling. Maybe one day I will progress beyond Petite Properties on my layout! Philip

Looks good Kevin. Seem to be a few sheds involved! Philip

Excellent as usual. Would the building on the left maybe benefit from a drainpipe to disguise where it meets the backscene? Philip

Hi Kevin, Very realistic, as always. Is the backscene behind the car commercially available or did you paint it? Only asking as I need to do something similar to make a road 'disappear' into the background. Thanks. Philip

I used the 3% riser to get my branch line above the level of my main line. Bought it to replace a previous attempt in wood that was a bit of a roller-coaster. Very pleased with how smooth the incline has now turned out. It includes a couple of 36 inch radius curves & some bridges. I built the whole thing first then cut away the bits where the bridges are located. I used W S foam tack glue to stick the risers to the plywood base, then stuck a cork trackbed on top of that (I think I used Evostick for that) then stuck & ballasted the track on top of that. Overall very pleased with the result. Hope that helps you decide.

Excellent photo but the local does seem a bit close to the train it is following!

I think Harlequin has definitely SHED some LIGHT on the reason.

I purchased a BR sound-fitted version almost a year ago & have always been most disappointed by the way it would constantly stall in odd places on my layout, particularly at slower speeds. My track is Peco code 75 & I noticed that there was always a lot of 'sideways slop' in the wheels & when the loco stalled a 'wiggle' on the tender would get it going again. Finally got round to trying to fix it today. I pulled the tender away from the loco, turned it upside down, removed the tender brake gear & then managed to remove all 3 wheel sets. Measuring against a DCC concepts back-to-back gauge I pulled all the tender wheels out to 14.75mm replaced everything (including the handbrake column, one buffer & the front retainer for the coal, all of which fell off in the process). Then hey presto! Just like a new loco & it hasn't stalled once since then. I suspect it would benefit further if I did something similar to the loco driving wheels, but I don't feel brave enough to tackle those yet. Maybe I'll try my Rails Dapol A1X first, which has always exhibited similar stalling tendencies. (Before anyone says I should have sent it back, I did, twice). Funnily enough my only other Dapol loco, a B4 tank, has always run perfectly from day 1. Obviously some serious inconsistencies in Dapol's back-to-back measurements! Anyway, forgive my ramblings but hopefully useful to somebody.

Received my BR versions of each one earlier this week. Excellent. Only criticism is that using the tension lock couplings as fitted leaves a longer gap between wagons than on most other rtr stock. Will have to look to replace them with something that gives more of a close-coupled effect.

I'll second Graham's comment & add that I am happy too. BR late crest version duly ordered. All that's needed now is a U and L or L1 & 2022 will be even better!