Caley Jim

Angus, you don't need to have a switch to change from DC to DCC. Just unplug the one controller and plug in the other one! Jim

Agreed on both counts, Chris, but I was speaking in general terms in response to Justin's post. Jim

If you grip the wheel on the far side firmly between finger and thumb of your left hand and then use a watchmakers screwdriver inserted between the spokes of the wheel you want to move, I find you can achieve very fine adjustments fairly easily. Always works for me! Jim

Sorry if I've caused any offence. It was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, hence the 'jester' emoticon. Jim

Should that not be n+x? (where x is any number up to, and including, infinity) Jim

As Keefer says, hand operated points were not linked to any signals. Movements over them were controlled by whoever was in charge of shunting operations, yard foreman, shunter, even perhaps the fireman, with hand signals being used to indicate when the required road was set. The ground signals would control movements which interfered with running lines and were controlled by the signal box, with the usual interlocking with the relevant turnouts. Jim

Following on from Mark's comments (which I entirely endorse). When manning the roadshow stand at exhibitions up here (mainly Model Rail Scotland and Perth) I usually spend my time productively by assembling one of my etched kits and I've found that I spend more time answering questions about, and giving advice on, soldering than talking about 2FS! It's one of those things which seems to have taken on the air of a 'black art', but can be easily mastered with a little patience and following good practice. Having someone demonstrate is a great help. As I have said recently elsewhere on this section, it's important to understand that what you are doing is creating a thin alloy layer comprising the metal you are soldering and the solder and then uniting these two thin layers. This requires clean metal, flux and heat and the heat has to be maintained long enough for the solder to flow. The parts need to then be kept in position for a few seconds until they cool enough for the solder to solidify. Making a quick stab with the iron, no matter how hot, will rarely produce a successful joint. Jim

That B&W photo does seem to show the downward and inward slope to the end of the front buffer beam. Jim

The proportions certainly look much better on the new drawing. Jim

We----ell. I've had a frustrating time with this over the festive season, to the point that i ta'en a scunner to it at one point! The wheels went into the chassis fine and with the coupling rods fitted temporarily, having reamed the holes a little, and the quartering adjusted I got the wheels turning freely. Fitting the footplate assembly was a different story, however. Lots of problems with the wheel flanges fouling the splashers, the rear wheels fouling the footplate cut-outs under the cab and the tops of the oil boxes on the couplig rods hitting the underside of the footplate where i had added reinforcement, Dental stones and burs in the minidrill created some spaces for them, but they still had to be reduced in height. Once i got that lot sorted out there were still shorts occurring and they were only eliminated by lining everything which was anywhere near the wheels with tissue fixed with cyano. Then there was the cab splashers. The clearance between their inside faces and the backs of the rear wheels was negligible, so they were taken out (after removing the cab floor) and an 'L' shaped piece of etch frame from a corner soldered to their outside edges before re-attaching them. this was enough to do the trick. The front section of the cab floor then needed to be reduced in width to fit back in between the splashers and, of course, the lower part of the backhead was also now too wide! There were also issues with the coupling rods fouling the brake pull rods at bottom dead centre, As I say I got fair scunnert with it for a few days, but perseverance and determination won through in the end and she is now running!! The Paint shop awaits after the Forth & Clyde area group meeting on Saturday. Jim

As Bossard has said, avoid lead free solder like the plague!! For kit construction I use 188 solder paint, with some old sticks of plumber's solder if I want to reinforce a joint or bend with a fillet, or fill a small gap. I generally use a 2mm chisel shaped bit running at 300°C. For cleaning it I use one of those pot-scourer type cleaners. A quick stab into it when the iron is hot and it's shiny bright again! Jim

All the turnouts on Kirkallanmuir are laid on interlaced sleepers as per Caledonian practice up to the late 1800's. I used pcb sleepers in the switch and crossing areas with Easitrac sleepers in between. If you go to the early pages in my Kirkallanmuir topic (link below) you'll see how I did it. All the plain track is Easitrac. Jim

The Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway opened with :- First class - upholstered seats and glass in the windows Second Class - wooden seats, no glass Third Class - No roofs Fourth Class - No...........(you've guessed it).....seats! Jim

Hi Rich. Looks to me like you have tried to file the two rails so that they both come together at the nose of the crossing. In fact both should be tapered to the angle of the crossing with one rail (the point rail, usually the straight or main line) forming the tip, while the other rail (the splice rail) sits against that with it's tip at the end of the point rail taper. I think you can see this in this (much enlarged) photo of one of my own crossings on Kirkallanmuir. Do you have The Association book 'Track'? This will tell you all you need to know about the prototype and how to build turnouts. Keep at it! You will only get better. If it's any comfort I made the same mistake until I knew better!! Jim

When I did the artwork for Kirkallanmuir signal box i tried designing the steps as a fold up, but I realised they would be too fragile to be practical. I made the sides with slots for each step and a wee jig to help keep everything square during assembly. Jim

Is it just the top of the sides which has bowed in, or does the bowing go all the way down, with the floor narrower in the centre? If the latter I suspect it's been like that since it came out the mould. Do you know it's origins? Jim

White edges to platforms we're introduced during the wartime blackouts. Jim

I have two photos of Thankerton Station (between Carstairs Junction and Abington) which clearly show how the building has been altered to accommodate the increase in platform height. The first can be dated to summer 1885 as Central Station Hotel opened on 1st June that year. I would put the second as perhaps 1920's-30's going by the clothing. If you compare the positions of the lintels you can see that the windows and doors have all been raised by around the depth of a quoin (9- 12"?). Friends of ours converted the building to a house when it closed and they distinctly recall that the window sills on the platform side were unusually high, so it would seem that the internal floors remained at the same height. Jim

I'm currently having horrendous problems with clearances between wheels and splashers on my Jubilee pug. Hence the lack of updates on that topic. I'm beginning to wish I had gone for 4'3" rather than scale 4'6" wheels. Jim

I recall reading part of a report by Donald Mathieson, after a trip to the USA in 1903, that the CR preferred to use interlaced 8'11" sleepers 'as they kept the gauge better' (IIRC). Here's a photo of how that same location looks now, with the bridge deck removed and ground texturing still to be carried out. and with the bridge deck in situ. Jim

Ah! But that's a plain turnout, not a three throw or a tandem pair. Jim

Just be thankful they didn't use interlaced sleepers! Jim

If your plan is to glue the PCB to the body then solder the couplings to the PCB, there shouldn't be a problem as there will be next to no heat conduction through the substrate of the PCB. As gr.king suggested, tin the PCB and the wire before fitting and the soldering will be much easier. Jim PS alternatively you could solder the couplings to the PCB and then glue them in place.

You'll be lucky!! As far as I can tell there's none to be had in the UK. Would a Zimo MX616F fit? 8x8x2.4mm and much easier to wire for stay alive as there are pads along one edge. http://www.modelrailshop.co.uk/p/27466/ZIMO-MX616F-Micro-Decoder-Smallest-with-full-functionality (Other suppliers are available) Jim

No, no, no! Definitely TT! Hope you all had a merry Christmas and Santa was good to you. Jim