rogerzilla

N gauge and #4 trnouts. I saw one webpage that said Kato turnouts aren't DCC friendly, but failed to expand on that. I'm not planning to use decoders for the motors.

An easy one for the experts - I often set up a temporary table top layout with Unitrack. If I add a passing loop with two of the Kato turnouts (I prefer "points", but it's their terminology), what do I need to do so the loop is always powered? Any gotchas with the switched live frog arrangement?

The latest Don Coffey cab ride video on YouTube is from a Class 70. The engine sounds really good compared to a 66, although I suppose the external walkways mean the driver is more isolated from the worky bits. They are pig-ugly but quite impressive.

The GWS does a lot of good stuff but is hampered by its location, which means running locos is always a bit of a minor interest. People would probably like them to become an owner/hire company for proper lengths of preserved line, but I don't think they're interested in using their stock for that and the fees would be unlikely to cover 10-year overhauls. Main line running is not Didcot policy now. I think the 6023 debacle saw to that; they spent a fortune making it main line compliant but it took so long to sort out the springing and steaming issues* that the boiler ticket ran out. *it was a reversion to single chimney, and the draughting was terrible until they had a new exhaust designed and made

The Brudge Stress Committee (I think it was called) rightly determined that 4-cylinder engines had very little hammer blow - the reciprocating masses are mostly self-cancelling depending on the drive arrangements.

The Night Owl wasn't even a particularly successful design. As 2-8-0 freight engines go, the 28xx was more widely used and very long-lived (GWR men preferred them to the 8Fs they were given in wartime).

There's the rub. GWR used comparatively low superheat, something Stanier took with him to the LMS but was quickly corrected when his first design was seriously indifferent. Churchward wasn't a fan of much superheat and Collett continued the same design principles of high boiler pressures but low superheat. It wasn't until Hawksworth that GWR superheating temperatures caught up with the other railways. The thing is, GWR engines worked well and used less coal, regardless of the failure to truly embrace superheating. Welsh coal and really good valve events hid a multitude of sins.

Just had a look - Cox doesn't say whether the Jubilee was limited by grate or front end, but most of the locos he lists were front-end limited and therefore could have been improved with better draughting. There was one GWR loco, a Modified Hall, that was grate-limited. The chances are that was built when Sam Ell had the Swindon test plant at his disposal, so could tweak the draughting but was hampered by indifferent post-war coal. The other grate-limited loco was Duke of Gloucester, which may have been a puzzle at the time but (in preservation, long after Cox wrote about it) it was found that the grate hadn't been made according to the drawings and the free area for airflow was much too low.

Steam locos tend to have a grate limit or a front end limit, irrespective of what is done with the steam circuit. The grate limit is when you can't burn any more fuel regardless of airflow (the firebed is lifting and half the fuel is being whisked, unburnt, down the tubes) and the front end limit is when you can't pull enough air through the fire for the 20% excess that gives good combustion. A bigger grate allows more fuel to be burned before it starts to lift the fire. A good exhaust that reduces back pressure AND pulls more air, like a well-set up Kylchap, will give more power and efficiency. An exhaust that just pulls more air, like the notorious "jimmy" across the blastpipe, will give more power but wastes more coal. I'll have to see if E S Cox says anything about where the Jubilee limit was. He talks about how the BR Standards were. The Castle double chimney was mainly to compensate for poor coal, I think.

I didn't mind Lady of Legend but these rebuilds will always be a bit "fake" in my eyes. The total new builds, like Tornado, are at least bringing something new to the movement. 9351 is probably the weirdest example: a kitbash of a prototype that never existed!

Since we're onto red Castles, it could be a reverse-engineered prototype for Hornby's amusingly incorrect ("they're kids, they'll never notice") first attempt at Hogwarts Castle.

Porterbrook are sponsoring the rebuild and it will run in purple for its first boiler ticket? 🤫

I think they just outsource to whichever Chinese factory makes the best bid and forget about it.

Cox and Holcroft had a gentle argument about the SR influence on the Royal Scot for years, but what both agree on was; 1. GWR refused Castles or Castle drawings 2. SR happily sent Lord Nelson drawings, and parts of the firebox design were used. Holcroft said it was more than that, Cox said that was all. So the LN had bits of its firebox reused in the Royal Scot and the Q1- impressive for a loco with a notoriously long and narrow box. Bulleid was probably just saving money by reusing pressing dies.

Sam Ell at the Swindon test plant fixed the V2 steaming problem at some point after the self-cleaning screens were fitted, so it depends when you make the comparison!

https://calnemrs.org.uk/ I might pop to this one, as it's local. Used to be very good pre-Covid (I last went in about 2017) and the list of layouts looks good.

I think the Cheltenham Flyer was a short train, so TE wouldn't have been too important. There is only a difference of one in power classification, as BR incremented everything above 5 to get rid of the X half-classification. A rebuilt Royal Scot would have been a fairer Castle substitute but I think a Jubilee would have managed it. In practice, a V2 was found to do almost anything an A3 could, with the same difference in power classification.

I do like that U class, although SR livery would be nicer.

Yes, the 31 couldn't have the 12CSVT because the Brush electrical machines, being designed for the original Mirrlees engine, couldn't cope with more power. Imagine the chagrin at Brush when they found out EE engines were going in their locos!

Swindon & Cricklade Railway, once out in the countryside, is being encroached upon by the north Swindon estates ("Stabby" Meads) and has had a lot of problems, including a Thumper destroyed by arson.

Some of the Railroad steam stuff would be quite acceptable if they didn't deliberately cheapen it by omitting cabside windows. The locos in the main range can be fragile to the point that finding an intact s/h one is almost impossible.

I remember one of George S. Patton's colourful quips which went roughly, "The average Maltese has never seen a railway, forest or river, and he is happy with that."

The EE V12 wouldn't fit in place of the Crossley engine (they thought about that), so it had to be a V8.

Any idea what the output of the MkIII was? Presumably the electrical machines could only cope with 1100hp, so it wouldn't have been much of an upgrade from the class 20 engine. Maybe just a bit of intercooling.

It was an LMS service, though!