Caley Jim

That interior looks pretty good to my eyes! 👍 Jim

Can't talk about other companies, but CR fish wagons, some of which were basically 8T dropsides on passenger rated underframes, were painted in NPCS livery of dark purple brown with yellow lettering. Jim

No swaged gold plate? She looks at least upper middle class! Jim

These will keep you out of mischief for a wee while (or perhaps not!). That is after you've washed the windows of course!😉 Jim

As long as you don't start coughing and sneezing! (Coughs and sneezals spread diseasals) 😁 Jim

Part 2 of Model Rail 2024. A second shot of Donaghadee. Note the clever trick with the gas holders - only modelled in half relief with a mirror behind them! Another clever idea. Two layouts of the same location (Swiss) modelled 100 years apart. Nueburg 1913 Nueburg 2013 (Apologies for the poor focus in the latter) For industrial enthusiasts (@t-b-g) High House Colliery For the NG fraternity Ddualt And last, but by no means least, the late Ian Rice's Trerice, now under the safe custody of Mick Simpson. As it says at the end of the best cartoons 'That's all Folks!' Jim

Some photos from Model Rail 2024 at the weekend. Not all pre-group, so I hope I don't get excommunicated! 🤞 Part 1 Firstly for @Compound2632, Kettlewell Rolvenden K&ESR For those of an Irish bent , Donaghadee. Max attachments reached so part 2 to follow. Jim

Take the photos from further back and then crop them. Gives you a greater depth of field. Jim

With the buffers, tender fittings and boiler furniture fitted she's almost ready for the paintshop. I say 'almost' as I won't be fitting the cabside lamp brackets until the very last thing as they will be left projecting straight out and so will be very vulnerable. They'll be bent up to the vertical after painting. Painting won't start until after this weekend as I'll have it on the 2MM SA Roadshow stand at Model Rail this Friday and Saturday, so you can see it 'in the flesh NSR livery' there. The boiler handrail has just been threaded into place at the moment and will be removed prior to painting. After painting, the whistle, Westinghouse pump and pipes, smokebox dart wheel and the front cylinder lubricators will be the last things to go on. After packing as much lead as I can into every nook and cranny in the vicinity of the coupled wheels, including making the backhead (still to be detailed) and cab floor out of lead, she will 'just' haul the Glasgow and Edinburgh Direct set of three 65' coaches. The long line of wagons in the down loop are all the vehicles which were in the goods yard as I need to bring that board into the house to trace a bad connection somewhere at the far end of the loop. (Note to self, must fix that damaged finial on the down main starter.) Jim

A fellow 2MM SA member in our Area Group is building a model of Glenfinnan in 2FS and is in the process of assembling a lengthy train of Foxhunter LNER fish van kits. Yes, the CR had similar fish trucks which were Dia. 15 dropside wagons whose underframes had been ungraded to passenger train standards. Jim

It would certainly be UQ by 1964. BTW, I get a '403 Forbidden!' response from that first link! Jim

Can you fit some sort of bearings to shorten the required axle length? Jim

Surely that should be '...raising it to danger.', as it would be lower quadrant? 🤔 Jim

Thanks for that link @Rudititanic. I wasn't aware of that development. Jim

Is this the Carstairs House tramway, built by the Monteith's to link Carstairs House to Carstairs Junction Station? Jim

Surely the important criteria for what wagon was required was the nature of the load? The load weight marking on a wagon was governed by the running gear. As @Mol_PMB has said above, you would only need a shallow wagon for a high density load, such as sand or loose root vegetables, while a low density load, such as hay, would need a wagon with higher sides, so the request might be more nuanced than 'we need an 8T wagon'. Jim

Speak to @Nigelcliffe. He's working on how to convert them to 2FS. Jim

Just out of curiosity, why green for the distant? In my experience they were always yellow as they are in that video. Was that an LBSCR practice? Jim

The CR certainly had red on the brake ends of carriages where the guard's compartment was at the end, including PBVs. I don't think there is yet a consensus on whether those with the guard's compartment in the middle of the coach, e.g. brake composites, had red ends. Jim

If the loco runs well on DC and like a donkey with the chip then the issue lies with the chip. Try a different chip or try tuning the chip. Can't help with LaisDCC decoders, but these articles might help with CT and Zimos. https://www.2mm.org.uk/articles/CT-decoders.htm https://www.2mm.org.uk/articles/Zimo-decoders.htm It's well worth investing in a SPROG and using JMRI to do the programming on a test track. Jim

I have a drawing for a CR loading bank buffer stop which has a beam with self contained buffers and hinged ramps which fold down to allow wheeled vehicles to be rolled onto a wagon with end doors. Jim

I never use gloss, far too 'hard' looking on a model. Always a satin finish. Jim

Although working in 2FS rather than 4mm, I can attest to the quality of Zimo decoders having 4 locos fitted with them. I also have several fitted with CTelectronik ones, which are also good, but unobtainable at the moment. These two are the only makes (at present) which have small enough decoders for my uses. I am lead to understand that the shortage of both these makes is due to the manufacturer being fully occupied with providing components for the German Military, and we all know the reason for that! Jim

I see no point in getting obsessed over trying to emulate the haulage capacity of the prototype. Unless you have a big layout like Fencehouses or CF on which you can run prototype trains, what's the point? For me all I want is for a loco to have sufficient adhesion to haul the train I envisage for it. Weight is always going to be the limiting factor, never motor size. I recently replaced a Branchlines Minimotor (iron cored) in a little Drummond 0-4-4T with a Tramfabreik 0615 (coreless). It will still comfortably handle a train of 5 4-wheelers, which all I ask of it. (And the wheels still turn if you put an obstruction in front of it!) Jim

What do you mean by 'if progress is impeded'? Impeded by what? A finger - yes the wheels will spin, but what is it's haulage capacity in terms of wagons? Why would you want to stall the motor? That's just going to draw current. I have a white metal bodied 0-6-0T which will haul 35+ wagons, three times what my layout is designed to handle and yes, put a finger in front of it and the wheels slip. Remember too, that if you have a whacking big heavy motor in the tender which is driving the loco, then that motor becomes 'train weight', so the loco needs more weight to have sufficient adhesion. Weight in the loco for adhesion is what is important, not the size of the motor. No point in having a motor which can provide more power than the loco is able to deliver at the wheel-rail interface. Jim