Merlin242

The sound fitting is pretty well confined to diesels which is a shame.

Windermere station now has all of the track laid, point motors installed, wiring done. Test trains are running especially with 42613 and it’s sister which were regular visitors along with 42355 and 42359. I have a few fairburn tanks to renumber to local locos as well.

Haulage capacities at the bottom. (click on pic for full size)

48DSleaflet.jpeg.jpeg

I used mine  to shunt two Black5's at Steamtown Carnforth. Stopping them with just a lever handbrake was exciting to say the least as we headed towards the main line connection to the barrow line!!

Delighted to see this as i preserved  a real one from Croppers Paper Mill and Tramway at Burneside in Westmorland. Happily its still around earning a living.  With Windermere station now with all the track in and working  and well underway the temptation to add Burneside station next will be very great. 

https://www.facebook.com/Windermere.Hincaster.Junction.a.00.Model.Railway/

I've not updated this for a while. I could do with changing the title to "Windermere and Hincaster Junction" as track laying is about to start on Windermere station which will be the centrepiece of the layout But i have no clue how to do that. I have tended to update the railway Facebook page as its much easier to add video and I get a better response. https://www.facebook.com/Steamtown.Carnforth/ 

Windermere should be a reasonable replica of the original in the latter days of steam with all the track layout included but a little shortened. 

There are some interesting challenges ahead as the original had no run round for the last 50 years or so of steam operation.

The rest of the layout has moved on and a general view is shown below

I am just starting to lay the track on a 00 model of Windermere station which will be the centrepiece of my layout Hincaster Junction. I can get all the tracks in although the platforms and some good sidings will be shortened at little. I would appreciate any information on the branch and especially operation of the station. I have of course the Oakwood press book and a collection of photos from the net and other places

If anyone can describe how the run round procedure worked in practice especially goods trains I would be very interested.

https://www.facebook.com/Hincaster.Junction.a.00.gauge.Model.Railway/

Does any kind soul out there, have video footage of the Hornby S15 with the new TTS chip fitted ?

Additionally, how difficult is retro fitting on the high sided Maunsell tender ?

I'm torn between buying one of these and waiting for the factory fitted option due next year.

There is a video on here of a TTS S15 chip fitted in a Bachmann crab if that's any use. https://www.facebook.com/Hincaster.Junction.a.00.gauge.Model.Railway/

Not sure how to load it up on here

I have been working on a pair of Crabs. One is fitted with sound 42928 and the other 42893 just dcc. Both were Ebay purchases at what seemed good prices and both run well. I have renumbered them to make up the pair which were allocated to Lancaster Green Ayre in the early sixties. There always seemed to be a pair and 42928 was there all its life. I remember cabbing her on Green Ayre one Wednesday afternoon when I should have been doing some Sports at school. I would love to know what there regular job was. I cant remember now. I plan to weather one to be more like their normal condition.

Its sad as it is a great missed opportunity by Hornby. I wont be buying any more TTS decoders but will save up for decoders which actually represent what a steam loco sounds like. 

One of Lancaster Green Ayres 2 Crabs 42893 sits on Carnforth Shed. The other one 42928 is around on the layout somewhere and has been fitted with sound

TTS chuffing is assembled from up to 18 separate but fixed chuff rate sound bytes, which swap one to the next as the throttle increases. BEMF is used to control when to chuff and when to coast hence on a decreasing throttle as speed rematches throttle setting and the load comes back on the chuff will recommence. The TTS chuffs are not triggered by say a wheel trigger/rev counter, therefore come in fixed rate ‘lumps’ across a speed band.

 

The CVs for altering the motor PI algorithm are more to do with how the motor reacts to throttle and nothing to do with how the sound reacts.

 

Chuff to wheel synch is set by the sound file assembler for any particular loco. The only way to alter this is by matching a TTS decoder chuff packet with a wheel diameter versus speed. I have a Tornado decoder in a GWR 2721 pannier tank and the chuff is well synchronised at my track speed range. My TTS A4 is well out of synch at my track speeds. In the absence of a wheel trigger as used on some decoders it boils down to the skill of the sound file guy matching a particular chuff rate versus wheel revs at slower speed where the eye can spot any mismatch.

 

Rob

Thanks for the explanation. What I don't understand is why then at slow speed when its most obvious Hornby have made such a poor fist of matching chuffs to the particular loco the decoder is supposed to be for( S15 excepted)? Its by far the biggest deterrent to buying the product

The S15 sound chip has arrived.

 

A fairly straight forwards fit but if you use the sound box supplied, you cannot fit the tender weight squarely back on. Leave the supplied sound box off, the speaker rattles around a bit. Bit of blue tack to hold it together.

 

Sound wise, the chuffs are more in synchro with wheels than previous TTS chips. Hornby is clearly listening to feedback

 

To remove the tender body, the bogies need to be removed.

.image.jpg

 

image.jpg

 

image.jpg

 

image.jpg

 

image.jpg

I fitted a TTS S15 decoder into a Bachmann crab and agree the wheels are synchronised far better than any of my other TTS decoders. Sadly the new Duchess TTS decoder seems to have reverted to square one

Apologies if these questions have already been answered, but this is a lengthy thread and I can't see any obvious references to them!

 

Firstly, can anyone summarise the prototype status of the various liveries - that is, which are real, which are fictitious, and which are "as preserved"? And, for the real ones, what are the approximate dates in which the locos in question would have carried them?

 

To expand on that a bit, the Hatton's website says that, for example, "Coronation" is era 7 and era 8, which is too late for in-service steam so I'm presuming that's purely a preservation livery, while "W.T.T." is shown as era 4 and era 10, the first of which is appropriate for an in-service livery but the latter is clearly also preservation.

 

Has anyone out together a simple chart of the liveries and their dates? I know I could extract that from the Hatton's website, but I don't want to reinvent the wheel if someone else has already done it.

 

Secondly, can anyone tell me what "W.T.T." actually stands for?

Barclay 2134 was delivered new to British Gypsum who had 3 sites and 5 Barclay locomotives split between them along the Settle and Carlisle. In 1970 Steamtown bought 4 of the locos for £1100. They were purchased by volunteers at Carnforh. I ended up with 2343 and Dick Warmsley bought 2134. When it arrived in 1970 It was painted a very faded green version of the WTT livery and had a very bad axlebox so that it leaned back alarmingly. Dick and Steamtown had a repaint sponsored by Fina into the blue livery around 1972. Dick Warmsley then sold the engine to a friend who repainted it in the lighter green coronation livery. The Coronation nameplates are originals from a scrapped 16 inch Hunslet I think ran in Yorkshire which seemed appropriate. It ran in this livery for a long time. Then it was repainted again back to WTT and was seen like that in 2008. 

My model of the South end of Carnforth shed is coming on. The ash plant is now largely finished and along with the coal plant and water tower make up the key installations.

In my youth at Steamtown I climbed all the main structures. None of them were for the faint hearted. However the ladder from the landing to the top of the ash plant was truly awful. this is shown correctly on the right of the model in the second photo It goes out into space with nothing but sky in front of you and the handrails are down by the steps so there is nothing to the side of you. I did it a couple of times but said never again It explains why there are so few photos from the top of the ash plant. In my time there we had the coal plant and the water tank & cranes in use but never the ash plant. There is almost as much of it below ground as above. 

The Bachmann models are very well done and with some weathering should capture the atmosphere very well. I would have liked to model the whole shed but it would have been 30 feet long.

The coal sidings have been reduced from 3 to 2. One for loaded and one for empties. In later days stored engines were put at the end of these sidings an in 1968 some of I was rented for preserved locos gathering there. the Ivatt 2,  B1 and Fairburn tanks

Has this new model had the close connection problems (as with SWS) to the tender dealt with?

 

Thanks!

No. Mine had the bar fitted the opposite way round to Sir William . ( double hole now at loco end) but you cant fit it close coupled that way either

Latest addition is a Hornby TTs fitted City of Birmingham. Its a nice complement to Sir William and runs as well. All 4 duchesses are easily capable of 12 coaches. I have fitted the detailing pack including the etched plates a crew and coal. Started some gentle weathering. I am pretty pleased with it

My City of Birmingham has arrived. Runs ok and looks pretty good. The colour is a tad warmer than Queen Maude .

Running it is interesting as the TTS sound cycles somewhat. By that I mean that at a pretty constant speed the chuff rate noticeably increases or reduces. This is not something I have come across before with other TTS or other sound locos.  I gather chuff rate  is driven by emf and that may improve once its run in. It was tending to do it at the same points on the circuit generally when the train was on the flat. The sound is way out of sync as usual at slow speed ( 3 beats per rev) but not too bad at moderate and higher speeds. 

My City of Birmingham has arrived. Runs ok and looks pretty good. The colour is a tad warmer than Queen Maude .

Just the same as it is backwards

 

If you go on the railway's ebay page and sent a question, it'll prompt the volunteer who manages it will relist it.

I need to update the website - one of many things on the to do list unfortunately

Thanks. I have sent a question on ebay   Mike

LMS 8F has just been completed. 

It has been totally redone since the first version with much better recordings and much more enhanced set up.

 

Next in line is a 45xx prairie tank

How do I go about buying this? its not listed yet on the website or facebook page. 

Thanks  Mike

The basics of the larger engine shed are now in place. A lot of detailing now to do but its runs reliably. I also need more 16 Ton coal wagons so there is a decent rake of full and empty ones for the coal plant. 

I am looking forward to seeing Coronation arrive having spent a lot of time with it and its owner is a good friend.

I would really love a 12 inch version like Hurricane which I used to own and was driving in the photo in front of Coronation. 

A very good choice with the stunning Caley livery option. I will end up with one even though its not really appropriate for my layout

An unusual visitor to Hincaster.

The story is its on hire to cover repairs to the paper works Peckett as the expected Barclay has been delayed.

In fact its been in a cabinet waiting for me to get around to fitting a chip. It runs well but stops strangely. Nothing happens for a bit  after the command is sent and then it stops dead. Playing with the cv's has not made any improvement so far.

Mike

https://www.facebook.com/Hincaster.Junction.a.00.gauge.Model.Railway/

Changing the bogie wheels on Hornby Class 5's and 8F's makes a really worthwhile improvement in appearance. I found the hard way that its essential to put at least one washer behind each wheel to avoid shorts to the bogie frame. I have a few to do but its a nice job for a spare 15 minutes.

https://www.facebook.com/Hincaster.Junction.a.00.gauge.Model.Railway/