AyJay

Thank you for your comments all. I have now decided that I am going to have a church in this corner and there is one that I see regularly, that is particularly attractive and I would like to model it. Because of the positioning in the available space, I will be displaying the rear and end of the building (the side way from the main street). It also won't be a complete model, with a line diagonally through the middle. One big problem.... I cannot find a close match for the leaded glazing that it uses. A search on this website has returned the name 'York Modelmaking', but they don't seem to have anything close. Any suggestions on how I can do this? The high level window in the mock-tudor end has coloured glass, all the rest appear to be plain. There also appears to be an ornate rose window, but a tree is blocking the Google camera. It is beginning to look like this thread should be in the 'scratchbuilding' section... window 1.docx window 3.docx

The terrace in the foreground of the first picture, is constructed from several kits from Freestone Model Accessories. All the rest are entirely scratch built by myself over the past year, copying the same style. Built with card from Hobbycraft, brick paper & chimney pots from Freestone and glazing poached from abandoned Metcalfe kits. The pub is, loosely, based on 'The Queen Vic' and named 'The Prince Albert'. The row of shops, to the left in the third picture, are based on real shop fronts found on the internet. One of them, the bike shop, reproduces a bike shop that I used to frequent as a youngster; I have yet to model Mr Morris and his tandem, see photo. As for the kits standing on the card over the track in the 3rd picture..... they were all built a long time ago and are merely there to give an impression of what it might look like. They will not be putting in an appearance on the finished product. As for inspiration, I have long admired the look of this church in Goring and would love to model it sometime. https://www.instantstreetview.com/@51.522703,-1.138157,132.13h,8.88p,1z,FbSkR-4LsDroqx5DNjl_-w

The context: I have built a town-scene on a corner of my layout and next to one end of my fiddle-yard. Some of you may have seen my previous discussions on this. This is where the scenery ends. It also has a mirror-twin at the other end, which I have not started on because I have not decided what to do. The buildings are all diagonal to the layout and this has meant that two buildings have their corners cut off where they meet the wall/outside edge; but these face away from me so don’t really notice. This does however, leave a small bare corner that is crying out for something. So I constructed a mock-up, to see what adding an extra pair of houses would look like and I made it with the corner facing me cut off, so that it neatly lines up with the join with the fiddle-yard. Then, wondering what the complete building would look like, I build the missing corner. See first two photos. The gap between the buildings is intentional and will be an alleyway, leading to a path beside the track. The options: Showing this to a trusted friend, he said, “Having it overhanging a void looks stupid.” It does! He went on to suggest some options. 1. The safe option. Extend the scenic ridge into the back of the fiddle-yard and make it a complete building. 2. The better option. Leave the demarcation where it is and build the piece as a ruin. 3. The best and most creative option. Build it as if it had been cut open along the line of the board join (as I had made the mock-up), but do so with the exposed side open, showing the populated rooms within. I think that option 2 would be too great a challenge for my skills at this time and suspect that I’d do a poor job of it. As for option3. I believe that there is a precedent for this on ‘Copenhagen Fields’ and it does appeal to me. I have a book filled with colour prints of Persian rugs that would make wonderful wallpaper and carpets, I can buy some furniture. Then I thought of a variant to these options. Suppose I reinforced the separation from the fiddle-yard, by covering the track on this corner with a removable panel and extending the estate over it with more houses, or perhaps a Church? This would turn the bridge into a tunnel mouth. The downside of this is that the points would now be covered. It may also look like ‘too much’ and upset the overall balance of the layout appearance. I would also need lockdowns for the rest of the year to get it done!!! So, critical reviewers, which is the best option? The safe complete house, or the exposed interior? And do I extend the estate, or leave it as it is? Whatever I do here, also sets the pattern for what I do with its mirror-twin, which will be green space / trees / fields / or a folly. Your comments please. Thank you, Alan

I have tried a couple of techniques with mine. In one instance, I had cut a piece of ply the right size to be a snug fit inside the walls of a card building. Then, placing the piece where I wanted the building, drilled two holes through it and the baseboard underneath. Then, glued a couple of wooden dowels into the holes in the baseboard, so that about 1cm stood proud. Lastly, I glued the piece into the bottom of my building and there I have it, accurate alignment, snug enough to hold into place, yet I can lift it if needed. With the houses in my card townscene, all the buildings have an 8mm foundation to the walls and I just build up the street level around them. No glue needed and I can lift out when needed.

Now I'm really confused!!! I see that there are several references to WD40 in this thread. I only know of the WD40 oil that I would use on rusty bolts and don't think that is what's meant, so this must be a branded switch cleaner that I was unaware of? Having spent a moment doing an internet search on "meths versus iso propyl", I am leaning towards iso propyl, because it does not have the additives that meths has. I did briefly wonder about using Ronson lighter fluid, but there is always the risk of a spark!!! One good thing that this thread has done, is to convince me never to use a track cleaning rubber again. I have put finescale wheels on my Triang Hornby track cleaning car and run that a couple of times. It gives good results, but the felt pad does cause a heavy drag for the locomotive though. If I find any really stubborn marks, I have found that rubbing them with a soft wood stick, such as a clean coffee stirrer, does the trick. When this lockdown is over, I must visit Hobbycraft for a sheet of felt that I can cut into strips. Moving on from cleaning the track..... What about cleaning the wheels of rolling stock? I have just spent ages going round the wheels of about 20 coal trucks with cotton buds, rather laborious task. There must be a quicker/easier way of doing this? Also... I keep reading that plastic wheels should be replaced with metal wheels; most of my carriages have been done. But I still have a load of trucks with their original plastic wheels and to replace them would cost about £160. Can someone please explain why metal wheels are so much better than plastic?

Hello. I have a couple of Triang Hornby locomotives which even though they are over 50 years old, are still very good runners. They are the Flying Scotsman 60103 and an 0-6-0 diesel shunter. I would like to know if the motors that they have are suitable for working with DCC? Yes, I understand that one of the issues to take care with, is that the motor must be isolated from its chassis.; I think that a couple of layers of PVC electrical tape should do the job here without lifting the motor so far that the worm disengages from the gear wheel. It's just that they were so well built, I have a strong emotional connection with them and I don't think that they should spend their lives sitting on the shelf. Plenty of space under the tops too :-) Thanks.

Well! Just goes to prove that if you ask 10 people the best way to do something, you will come away with all sorts of answers and more confused than ever. My method has been to use a track rubber, think it's some other supplier, not Peco. Then with a clean bit of rag round my finger, wipe each rail to pick up any deposit. Lastly, go round with the vacuum cleaner to collect any dropped threads. Doing wheels is more involved. I have this thing that's about 18in of track with felt pads. Absolutely useless! So I resort to a bottle of IPA and a drum of cotton buds. Not exactly a satisfying, fulfilling task... I gather Pendon runs this weighted wagon that has something like squares of hardboard pressed onto the track by springs? Can anyone verify that? This reminds me. I have the old green track cleaning car that Triang Hornby produced. It has a felt pad that you soak in Meths. I will need to change the wheels so that it will run on my finescale track. Although I heard that Meths leaves a nasty deposit? I'm surprised nobody has suggested trying vodka... Any takers? Always willing to stir the pot of confusion.

Being at a completely loose end with nowt else to do, I decided to spend a day clearing my files and turn old paperwork into a mountain of shred. Well now I'm looking at an equally large mountain of old BRM magazines going back years, stuffed under the bed and thinking that if I don't do something quick, necessity will demand 'one in - one out'. Yes I know what you're going to say "Go paperless!". However, I don't have a tablet and find the paper medium much more portable. Well I cannot just bring myself to throwing them away, then it occurred to me, half the magazine is made up of advertising and out-of-date reviews. So how about cutting out the articles, putting them in plastic sleeves and then filing according to subject area! Before I reach for the scalpel, I would be interested in knowing how others have faced this question of magazines in a finite space?

Thank you all! An excellent outcome. It was item S1026 and I have just ordered 3 of them from Ebay.

Hello all, I have an aged green Triang Hornby 0-6-0 diesel shunter locomotive that is a cherished possession. Unfortunately, the screw holding the top to the chassis has been lost and I would like to find a replacement. But my local model shop has nothing this old and somehow I don't think Screwfix will be any help. A brief look on the website of a certain big online shop, presents me with endless options for lots of screws-in-a bumper-pack, but then without knowing the size or thread pitch??? I tried looking on 'Peters Spares', but it's like looking for the proverbial needle... So the screw is a small flathead countersunk of around 2mm (ish), that secures at the back of the cab. Can anyone suggest what the size is and where to look to obtain one (or a few)? Thanks.

I fixed it! Really am not sure what I did to cause this to happen, but I went for a complete reset of the decoder after I found that the short address was set to 255 instead of 3. Anyway, it all works fine now. Thank you all.

Good morning all. Yes, I do have 'snubbers' (did wonder what they were called) on both ends of my layout, also supplied by Digitrains. The length of the run from the controller is 8 - 9 metres. My understanding of the purpose of the snubber, is that the power feed acts as a transmission line that needs to be balanced with a load at the end to prevent signal reflections. I omitted to add that while this was going on, I had several locomotives on the track at the same time and one of them was running (normally), so that rules out the controller and the track. Right now, I am favouring resetting the locomotive decoder on the programming track; I have never done that before so I just hope that NCE write clear instructions? I also note that there is a 4-wire connection from the locomotive to the tender, so it is unlikely that I opened the locomotive and caused damage there.

Can anyone offer a suggestion as to what was going wrong and what I can do to put it right? Today I had a running session of my locomotives, the first time that most of them have been run in several months. All ran well, except one... This locomotive was running round my layout at a very high speed, certainly faster that I would run it. Yet when I went to stop it, it continued to run for a very long time, deceleration was barely there. When it did eventually stop, I decided to start it again, on the lowest speed setting on my controller. It should have started crawling away slowly, but it immediately went at it's previous speed and the same happened again. Turning to the handbook for my controller, an NCE Powercab, I looked for anything that could offer an explanation for this strange behaviour and found a section to do with acceleration and deceleration. I followed the instructions but it made no difference. The locomotive is the Serlby Hall by Hornby. The DCC decoder is from Digitrains, same as is fitted in all my locomotives and it's something that I would have fitted myself from new a few years back. None of my locomotives have ever behaved like this before and none of them are mistreated. I don't understand DCC very much, I have only done the basics to get things going. Can anyone suggest what the problem might be? Could the decoder have 'blown'? Has a setting changed and I just need to reset something? Thank you.

Thankyou for that information Yardman. It will come in most useful. Unfortunately, the link that you have given me just returns a 'Not Found' result. I am looking at the IRSE website and see that there is a respectable price tag on their publications, so I'll wait for the Postman to deliver the publication that I ordered from the 2mm society on this subject. As an aside. Using just Dcc Concepts components, the bill for this upgrade would be in the region of £246. Using just Wizard Models parts, it looks like being nearer to £75. Not much of a contest really :-)

They look very good, Yardman! The Wizard Models website says that the rods are 12inches long and steel wire. The rodding stools look like white metal castings? Is that the case? Can you go into a little more detail as to how you laid your rodding please? I would particularly like to know: How did you secure the Stools in place? Did you just fix them down to the base, or mounted on sleepers? How were the rods secured to the stools? What did you do with the cranks? I guess that since they are non-operating, you just soldered the parts together? Colours used? How did you run rods under track? Was there any rodding provision for signals? Was it difficult / fiddly to do? Sorry if this is a big ask, but your rodding looks so good, I might have to rethink again and this is a serious contender. At present, I have the Ratio plastic rodding. I scraped away the ballast where each stool go, used a contact adhesive to glue a square of plasticard down, then used plastic solvent to fix the stool onto that. The big problem with this system is that because the rods are so short and given to curling, there's not a single straight line to be had anywhere. It's also very delicate and some of it has broken away. Not at all convincing. Here is a picture of mine, showing the point rodding, taken a couple of years ago. It really is not very good. At least I now have a backdrop. Thanks, Alan

I finally got round to viewing my backlog of BRM Video's and was very impressed by the article on the Point Rodding by DCC Concepts (March 2019), such that I now want to rip up my Ratio plastic rodding. However, I have just done a costing to replace everything and the cost is eyewatering high. So an alternative idea occurred to me in an attempt to save money. The rodding would have to cross several baseboard joins, and since it is not easily possible to transfer movement across a join, I would like to consider just using the DCC Concepts product at the Points end, where there will be movement. Then to use a cheaper alternative, e.g. Wizard Models non-operating rodding, for everywhere else where there is no movement. The points are operated by Cobalt motors, so the movement would be purely cosmetic. Is anyone in a position to comment on what these two systems look like when compared? Can anyone post pictures of the finished articles? If the visual difference is not noticeable under a casual look, then I'll consider it worth a try. If the difference sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb, then I'll abandon the idea and save my money for something else. Any comments much appreciated. Thank you.

Hi James, don't be discouraged. And don't be tempted to rush ahead, 'regret at leisure' and all that. You could try what I tried.... Lay out a length of track on a board and run trains up and down it whilst propping up one end with books etc. See what impact the gradient has on speed and pulling power. I found for a Hornby tender loco and three carriages, that I could go up to 1 in 30 before the impact was 'significant'. This is a subjective thing, only you can decide where that point is for you. However, this gradient may only be acceptable for short inclines. The longer the incline, the greater the effect, also the longer/heavier the load being pulled. Decide on what gradient you can accept for a sustained straight run and then decrease it by 10%. For a curve, that gradient must be at least halved, so for example, a straight 1:40 becomes < 1:80 on a curve. After doing all this, I decided to abandon thoughts of gradients completely and put all the track on the level. Have fun and don't stop considering other options. All the best, Alan

Prompted by the article in February’s issue of BRM on motorising a Peco Turntable, I would like to add my findings on this subject for the benefit of anyone considering this useful addition to their layout. I purchased and fitted the Peco Turntable, LK-55, several years ago, along with the motor kit by Expo. For the first couple of years, it worked fine. But then I found that the movement began to get worse and as of yesterday, refused to move at all. Slight digression first. If you have not seen the motor kit, it comprises of the motor itself, gearbox and selection of gears from which you can select a range of ratios. There is also a smooth round metal rod about 15cm long that engages with the underside of the turntable bridge, a large red gear wheel to fit on it, a worm to fit on the gearbox output and engage with the red gearwheel. Lastly, there is a coil of wire, Double Pole Double Throw switch, batteries and battery holder. Thinking that the gears had probably jammed, I placed the baseboard on its side to access the mechanism and taking it apart, discovered that it was not the gearbox at all. Underneath the centre of the bridge, around which it rotates, is a protrusion into which fits the metal rod. This protrusion itself slides inside a bush that fits into the turntable well and the one rotates inside the other. Well I had found that this originally snug fit had become seized and needed some ‘encouragement’ to come apart. Perhaps the pressure of the metal rod had caused its holder to expand, or perhaps the cold had made the bush contract? Anyway, the remedy was in the use of a needle file and fine glasspaper to ease the connection a little. I should have left it there. I feel that what I did next was a step backwards that I may regret. When fitting originally, I used the whole of the metal rod, with the turntable bridge at one end and the red gear near the other. To secure the bottom end of the rod in place, I had a piece of ply mounted horizontally and fixed to the internal bracing of the baseboard, the rod end rotating in a small hole. The motor assembly was fixed to the upper surface of this sheet and engaged with the gear. I decided to change this and follow what was done in the article by remounting the motor directly under the turntable well and re-site the red gear accordingly. What I found was that the pressure of the worm was now forcing the gear sideways a little, causing the bridge not to sit flatly, but to lift up away from this force. I may try to put it back the way it was, but the use of superglue on the rod may mean that I have ‘burned my bridges’ in that regard. Other observations include: It does not take much encouragement for the contact springs to lift the bridge. It may be helpful to glue some weight to the underside. The motor is noisy and could resonate; some damping may help. The rod end is round and smooth, fortunately it is a tight fit into the bridge and the gear. I would have preferred if it was an ‘interference fit’ e.g. squared, splined or threaded. The worm does not engage very well into the teeth of the gear and only catches the top of the teeth; the teeth are of a different profile, they also lie perpendicular across the gear. I may try to see if I can wedge one side of the motor so that the axis of the worm is not in the same plane as the gear, about 5 to 10 degrees should help improve the engaging of worm to gear. Lastly, I dispensed with the battery and repurposed an old phone charger. Can I recommend buying this turntable and motor? Yes! I would also have no reservations about buying another if I wanted one. I own my mistakes and everything we do is a constant learning exercise. I also now have to do something about the appearance of my turntable, I think I’ll apply brick paper round the inside wall of the well. But I’m not sure what to do with the well floor? Perhaps paint it black and sprinkle coaldust, something to represent moss and then dribble in some patches of Deluxe Instant Water to represent puddles? But what do I do with the exposed ledge at the top of the wall and the immediate ground surrounding it? Think I’ll have to take another look at the Didcot Turntable… Suggestions anyone?

Yes I have seen that video. But what happened to it???

Does anyone know what happened to Mike Sharman's Victorian railway? I saw one of his layouts about 20 years ago and because he was shorthanded that day, I got roped in to help operate it. What a wonderful opportunity. I would just love to see it again, hope it was not broken up.

It's a given that the shed really ought to be very well insulated... You could try not leaving the locomotives in the shed when not in use?

I also have this wagon, but having seen the mildly abrasive pads, prefer not to use it. Will scratches on the rail harbour dirt? However, have also dug out my old green Triang Hornby track cleaning car and am just waiting for exhibitions to resume, so as to source suitable finescale wheels. Is there some question about the use of Methylated Spirit? Something about leaving a deposit on the track?

I don't want to get fixated on the engine yard/fiddle yard. The points in the engine yard will have ground levers (non-working) attached to them when I reach that level of detailing. Don't want to fit them yet as I risk breaking them. The fiddleyard is 'off stage' and does not count. It is just the points associated with the main lines that are rodded. All of the points will be operated by Cobalt levers. The levers for the main line will be arranged in a group, centre front of operating area. The levers for the fiddle yard will be in a second group to one side, as will the levers for the engine yard. But, they will all be within reach ( 0.5m) of the two Cobalt Encoder boards that will be needed. Behind the levers will be the mimic panel with LED's. This enquiry was really about what signals are needed and how the levers should be arranged. I was not expecting scope creep to take me into why I have a second signal box. I have some success with making several signals in brass, from kits supplied by MSE (or is it Wizard now?). I will need to make some more and am just pleased that I don't have to make another bracket signal. The four bracket signals I made for my last layout were an utter ***** to build. I hope at some point to have the signals operating by servos, controlled by the MegaPoints Controllers system, once I establish if it can be interfaced to the points control? Phew!

P.S. I want to thank everyone who replied. You all gave good advice and I have learned a lot from it. Thank you.

Hello Michael, Mike. I just took a good look at my layout with a tape measure. It's not just point(s) 11 that's rodded, the first points at the end of the fiddleyard just stick out of the end of the bridge mouth, so they are rodded also. Then there will be signals 7 to 9. In all, that's about 14m of Wills rodding back to the South Box, or over £100 on something that is purely cosmetic. I just cannot justify that sort of expense. So my options are: 1. As suggested, use motors. But were they available in the 50's and what about the three signals? I am ignoring the ground signals. 2. Leave the North Box where it is and say that it is the start of the next block that goes beyond the end of the scenic area under the bridge. After all, the scale is compressed. 3. Remove the North Box and have the rodding run under the bridge in the opposite direction because it belongs to the next block northbound. This will mean that I use up the spare rodding that I have and don't need to buy any more rodding kits. Having already placed the North Box, I know what is my favourite option is. I suppose that the South Box could be moved further south to the inside of the curve beyond points 5/6, to make a stronger case for the North Box; but then I am back to adding significant rodding (cost) threading its way through the points. As we all know, our layouts are a compromise and sometimes reality has to be suspended. However, I can take away from this, the recommendations on additional signals.