No Decorum

Contact Specsavers – that’s a Saint. 😄

The three of you are in for a treat. It’s a lovely model. I have to remind myself that, if the lamps are to be lit, then, being oil, they have to be lit before the driver gets on board, not after as with diesels. 🤣 Something I don’t often see mentioned in relation to MUs is that they can be run without unsightly couplers. There is no front coupler on these but the NEM pocket on the rear is rather obtrusive, even with no coupler fitted. That can’t be helped because the buffers are rather long. Nevertheless, I’ve removed the NEM socket on mine and I think it improves the appearance. Putting it back would be even trickier than removing it, so not something to do if you intend to haul a trailer.

Hopefully sumfink powered by coal. 🚂

Nice video, thanks for posting. I couldn’t get past the colour mismatch of the dome on the NER green version so I contented myself with an LNER one. It’s a delightful model.

According to today’s Rails Roundup, the new batch is expected “sometime after Chinese New Year Q2 2024”.

Good heavens! A baseboard! 🤣

Yesterday’s tongue-in-cheek seems to become today’s feature. The thought about shoes occurred to me as I watched with fascination a video of trains changing between pantographs and shoes at Farringdon.

McC’s comment was a fly to a fish! 🤣 That list is diesel and one electric. We’ve been told that (what is it, five?) steamers have been promised but not yet announced. That is excellent. Naturally I don’t relish delays, however unavoidable they may be, but I’m a fan of early announcements. Twelve months gives me time to plan finances. Announcing something with (sometimes) only days until it appears isn’t helpful at all. I await the very enjoyable quarterly announcements of a certain manufacturer with a mixture of enthusiasm and dread.

Absolutely. To me, a gimmick is a feature which doesn’t work properly or is clumsy to use. For example, the slats on a Hornby 50 or the rotating axleboxes on a Hatton’s 66*. If something represents the reality of a prototype and works as it should, such as remotely controlled pantographs, then it’s a feature, not a gimmick. When Bachmann introduced the servo-motored pantographs on the 90, I wondered in a post what would follow. Rotating cooling fans powered by a servo and linked to the fan sound? The rotating axleboxes which are such a feature on 59s and 66s? Lo and behold, someone was working on them! I recall being a small boy and seeing a train on the London Underground emerge from the tunnel into the station and producing a huge blue flash. I asked my father what would happen if somebody was caught in the flash. He was reassuring but the imposing scene remains with me still. *There are many other examples.

“Multiple new tooling projects” according to the e-mail from Bachmann. I wonder should I buy a pack of Tena pants. I would need a pair for a K4, the cancelled Parallel Scot and J39 or any of the missing AC electrics. I dare say there are plenty more from my “B list” and Bachmann might very well produce something which I didn’t know I wanted.

The point is frequently made that we cannot be sure of the exact shade of colour on a loco from a century ago. However, certain practical considerations can help. Take Oxford Rail’s GER grey N7 as an example. The number is painted large in order for it to be easily read but it does not contrast well. That would indicate that the shade of grey is too light. The same might be said about Heljan’s GNR grey O2 judging by samples seen so far. On the khaki Mogul, black numerals rather than white would contrast better with the shade used, indicating that the khaki should be a lot darker. Consider as well that khaki was intended to be an unobtrusive colour. Hi-vis yellow would be obliging to German pilots!

I think Accurascale is right. Hornby’s attempt to provide lights on the Turbomotive has been a bit of a disaster. First of all, you shouldn’t have a light or a lamp on the back of the tender if pulling a train. The correct place for a lamp (lit at night or unlit during the day) is on the last vehicle of the train. If the loco is reversing any distance, for example from a shed to a terminus, there should only be one lamp on the front. When a locomotive is hauling a train, the arrangement of the lamps indicates the type of train. The express passenger arrangement is fairly safe for a dedicated express passenger type but will need to be changed for a mixed traffic type, from, for example, express passenger to express goods or goods train without continuous brakes. There were ten different classes, each requiring a different arrangement of lamps. That is without considering the Southern, which had two extra lamp irons and arranged lamps by the destination of a train rather than its type. In short, it’s a minefield and the best way of tackling it is by providing unlit lamps which can be moved as appropriate. That is, at the current state of 00 model technology. Who knows what may develop in the near or distant future?

I recall that Simon Kohler promised replacements when the first tooling appeared. It never happened.

DPD finally released 93 with sound into my hands today. It’s a beautiful model and sounds grand. The instructions say that on DC it will need 5V to start working.

Going by my signature, I have to agree. It’s time that yawning gap started to close and which manufacturer better than Bachmann? After all, it was Bachmann which introduced the servo-powered panto.

Lovely layout. I found the couplings reluctant to couple. I replaced them with Bachmann short straight couplings for now and they solved the problem. Normally, I use Kadees for a fixed formation – the shortest which work. It might be time for me to look at alternatives.

That makes NASA staff look like amateurs!

I wanted a King Arthur but even I couldn’t stomach that. On the other hand, I remain fond of my ancient Hornby 2MT. That’s nothing to do with the model itself. Many years ago, I visited the SVR and was told that I was free to climb on any locomotive I wished so long as it wasn’t in steam. The 2MT was one, Leander another. Bliss! Those were the days.

There’s a video of the turbine version too. That’s both of my orders upgraded to sound.

It’s only repeated once.

Edition 17 – the mouse which nearly caused an international incident! 🤣

I checked the back of the catalogue, expecting to see “Printed in China” (or something resembling that) but no, it was printed in the UK. Hornby’s catalogue over the years has contained many clangers but I suspect this one has hit rock bottom and started to excavate. It does the company no credit.

Good grief! I only found a paragraph repeated once. Do tell.

I’ve noticed that if I order on line, my order gets added to my list of orders but if I order by phone, it doesn’t. The stuff still turns up. Kernow seems to have thousands of orders to get through. That’s good news to offset the closing of Hatton’s and the ending of Warley.

The Model Rail Offers site looks just like the Kernow site and, like you, I believe that Kernow handles the orders. The phone number is different though and the phone was answered “Model Rail office”. Of course, a member of Kernow’s staff might answer the different phone number on behalf of Model Rail. On the one hand, the chap who answered the phone volunteered the information that the model was in Denmark and should be available soon but on the other hand showed no interest when I mentioned that I had had difficulty subscribing to the magazine. Unravel all that if you can; I can’t.