pctrainman

It is as I read then that 4 wheelers were out of use by my time period so i'll be parting with my 4 wheel stock of milk tankers and replacing them with what is available and as far as I can tell that'll mean some purchases from Dapol as nothing else seems to be available , thank you everyone for your help i'm no rivet counter or slave to prototypicality but I do want the layout to at least appear right to those with some knowledge .

Thank you all , but I have an admission to make , I put Fuel when I should have put Milk , I feel a bit stupid and I perhaps should have mentioned that i'm modelling in N

Hi , i'm modelling a layout set in 1964 and have recently seen a topic that said that no 4 wheel fuel tankers were to be found on the BR network much after WW11 , is this correct and therefore would use of 4 wheeled tankers on my layout be a no no ?.

Thanks Izzy , as I already have 6 pin decoders in all of my locos all of which apart from the CT are Lenz Silver or Gold i'd be very loathe and probably not up to the job of fitting wired decoders , i'll persevere with Cv's for now and see how I get on but if in the end I decide to go with a wired decoder for the Jinty alone I would then most probably have to get an expert to do it for me and for preference I would get them to fit stay alives at the same time .

Hi , I have been trying with very little success to program the aforementioned chip for slow speed shunting in a N Farish Jinty , I have a sprog and decoder pro but can't seem to get the smooth slow speed running that this particular loco needs , I have no problems with the Lenz Gold and Silver minis in all of my other stock but this CT decoder is getting the better of me , does anyone use this particular combo and have any hints advice or CV settings they would be willing to share ?.

Once again I find myself in debt to you all for very helpful advice which has allowed me to come up with a finalised plan , i'm going to team the GUV which is in Maroon with a Maroon rake of 3 suburban MK1's and place the GUV at the tail end as in that position it will stop immediately outside the parcels office on my mainline station , the 2MT will haul the Stove R the 10 foot WB box van and the ex Southern PMV plus the Midland CCT which will make it a tad longer than I would have preferred but it looks good so i'm going that way , my grateful thanks to you all.

Is the lineup with the 2MT ok ? and should the stove R be at the tail end ? or can it be anywhere in the rake >

Hi , I have now acquired some further rolling stock and would much appreciate some further advice .The stock I have obtained is an NGS stove R ,an ex Southern PMV in BR Crimson , a CCT BR Midland Maroon Wagon and a Peco 10 foot WB box van , I would like advice on making up a short parcels train using these with the 2MT but ommitting the previously mentioned GUV .This brings up one further question in that would a GUV have ever run either within or at the rear end of a rake of Suburban MK 1's ?

I would like to thank all who have contributed to this thread as your input has been both extremely helpful and an education as well , I can now move on to acquiring a couple of wagons to go with the GUV and know that what I select will not raise any brows .I have attached a couple of pics so you can see what it was the first raised my interest in creating this particular train .

Hi ML , yes that is very much the look I am trying to achieve albeit with the 2MT and just 3 pieces of rolling stock .

Maroon it shall be then FC , this brings up a further question though in that with my layout 98% finished is there an easy way ie Rattle Can to change the paint scheme to Maroon or is an airbrush the only option ? I don't have an airbrush and would rather avoid the expense of purchasing one just to paint one or possibly 2 wagons .

Would any of them have survived in their LMS livery FC ? or would BR have repainted them prior to 64 ? and if so in would they be Grey or Bauxite ?.

Would the LMS BG have still been in use in 64 Steven ? and in what colour scheme ? as the layout is set within the old LMS area the BG is a strong possiblity teamed with the GUV and a Southern BY as suggested by dunsignalling . I am not trying to achieve full prototypicality but rather something that to the knowledgable looks about right .

Thank you all , I want this lineup to be no more than the Loco and 3 pieces of rolling stock and to incorpoate the GUV as a certainty , I also want it to be as short as possible so i'd rather not go the route of using a BG because of it's length , what options does that leave me with ? the layout is set in 1964 and is N gauge.

Hi , can you somebody tell me if a train consisting of an Ivatt 2MT plus 2 parcels vans and a GUV require a guards van ? when out on the mainline ?.

Hi RFS ,I was waiting for the anticipated release of Ver 9 before upgrading to Gold but now it's out i'm hoping to be in the postion to purchase it early in the New Year as my layout is to all intents and purposes finished other than the construction of 5 MSE Semaphores which I should make a start on quite soon as I already have all the parts plus Servos and the Megapoints DCC board and Servo board .Thanks for the info on train length though as I won't now worry about fitting resistors to any more stock .

The resistors seem fine as they are , I have now fitted them to 2 Bachman guards vans and 1 Dapol and 1 Bachman coach and then set up TC to continually run with frequent stops with the last coach or van in the previous block and it is reliably detecting it every time .

Hi , I have now fitted 1K Ohm smd resistors ( one per wagon ) and they are being seen ok by Traincontroller so consider this problem solved .

Hi all , I should maybe add that i'm using DCC4PC railcom reader boards as both occupancy detectors and reporting of Railcom data to TC Silver , I only intend to have resistive wheelsets on the last wagon van or carriage on a train so that TC is aware when a train has'nt fully left a block , i've ordered some 1K ohm smd's and i'll try them and report back when I know the result .

Hi , thank you for that Il Grifone , resistor values are a bit of a mystery to me so i'll take your advice and try some 1K ohm ones , I did'nt solder the SMD's but rather used the method of supergluing them to the axle and using a high silver content conductive paint where you would otherwise use solder , it works well or rather it will when I get the resistor value right lol.

Hi , I model in N and use TC Silver and have recently found the need to make some resistive wheelsets for detecting the last wagon or carriage on a train , I was recommended by a member on a site I no longer use to purchase 2.2 K ohm SMD resistors which I did and I have fitted them to 2 guards vans at the moment but TC is not seeing them with one van in a block but does see them with 2 vans in a block , can anyone with experience of this recommend what resistor value I should use as 2.2 K is not doing the job ?.

As an update having now configured TC to my needs I can confirm that the DCC4PC Railcom reader boards are passing on Railcom data to TC and it is making use of that data , additionally the reader boards work perfectly as occupancy detectors .

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions , I have tried to follow them but I never was much good with MS Word and i'm not getting anything remotely small enough , I have realised since making the original post that I actually only have need of 2 signs ( front and rear ) for the sandwich board man as the other problematic sign I had resolved in another way so I am going to take up Don up on his very kind offer and send him a PM .

Hi , I have a couple of instances on my N layout where I need to embellish an item with writing that is specific to N scale , an example is a sandwhich board figure who carries a 5mm X 5mm sandwhich board and I would like to be able to print off a tiny little notice to glue to the board that states " THE END IS NIGH " , my hands are too shaky to even contemplate trying to do it freehand so i'm wondering if anyone knows a way to produce what I need using a printer and PC ?.

I agree Richard , software upgrades should not mean having to pay almost as much as you would have to pay if you simply purchased the latest version and had I realised this when first purchasing TC I would'nt have gone the TC way .