Harlequin

Locomotion/Rails/Bachmann, in fact. "... New ready to run locomotive. This model has never previously been available in ready to run form in OO Scale." The Great Bear?

Why cast aspersions before anyone has had the chance to test one for real? We don't know what their pulling power is yet.

It would be very cruel of @AY Mod to blow air into the froth of a GWR thread if the announcement was for a lesser railway company... Wouldn't it...?

Well, Rails' optimistic prediction did not come to pass, despite their close working relationship with Dapol.

Thanks! Ahhhh, Closure...

Hi @AY Mod, Did you reveal what was in the mystery package from China at the weekend? If so I missed it and can't find any reference in RMWeb yet. Please put me out of my misery.

Thanks, that’s really interesting but the reviewer in this article has not understood that you can only compare colours numerically if you know what light source was used. She looks up the manufacturer’s stated RGB value of a paint colour then measures a painted sample. Apart from RGB not including illuminant info, there are too many uncontrolled variables in that process. Having carefully explained how DeltaE is used to describe colour differences she doesn’t state the DeltaE between the hoped for RGB values and the measured values - and of course she can’t because she’s not working in CIELAB space with known illuminants.

To assess which of my two devices is the more accurate I needed a well defined set of colours that I could measure so I bought a CIELAB colour fan: Here are a typical set of results for the colour in the middle of the screen CIELAB = 75 -20 50: You can see that the result from the Chinese device on the left is significantly further away (76.18, -13.08, 37.97) than the Canadian Nix device on the right (76, -21, 49). Similar results are seen when measuring random colours across the fan - the Chinese device is never as close as the Nix. So I will be trusting the Nix from hereon in. The Nix uses a D50 illuminant - this is important to know because it allows comparison of colours independently of light sources. Just as an initial indication, the first data point: The Hornby Prairie 6110 measures as CIELAB = 24 -6 8 (right tank), or CIELAB = 25 -5 7 (left tank). More data to follow...

The landlord has obviously installed that most modern of appliances, an indoors toilet, and upstairs to boot! (See the waste pipe.) Now, as we all know, the cistern has to be mounted as high on the wall as possible to produce a really powerful flush when you pull the chain. So the window was rather an inconvenience (sic) and had to be blocked up, erm, hopefully unlike the toilet... Aihthangyaw.

It's beautiful! Keep it, compare it with the Dapol version. Put it in a display case and admire it...

Brambly Warren... Has a nice ring to it...

Option 4: Draw up in 3D and 3D print?

Found it: http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/h/henllan/ Really nice goods shed: http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/h/henllan/henllan(alsop_c1905)old1.jpg

A while ago I found a little station in Wales that was in a cutting (single line through station with passing loop, can't remember it's name). The goods yard was very cramped with a thin shed whose loading bay was in one end rather than opposite the siding as usual. The weighbridge and office were on the public road above the station, outside the goods yard gate, conveniently next to the pub! There's a prototype for everything.

Nice idea but is there enough room to stand up in the operating well because of the braces up to the roof apex...?

It's as I feared. The roof trusses make a scenic model very difficult, unfortunately. (As do double-deck baseboards, actually - your view of the lower one is always going to be tightly framed by the upper board and the trusses.)

Can you share a photo of the space, please, so we can understand how the roof slopes and trusses will affect the layout?

The frog will always be switched. No one is suggesting leaving the frog and the V rails unpowered. Suzie’s method just allows someone to choose how the frog is switched after the turnout has been installed, with one of those options being to rely on the point blades in just the same way as the turnout works out of the packet. So there’s no need for an external switch in the simplest case and the turnout does not need to be removed to later change the switching method. But to avoid having to remove the turnout later the links must be cut before installation. It’s simple and very clever - no more difficult to do than the usual recommended best practice for modifying electrofrog turnouts. I wish I had done it on my little test layout. Dave gets it.

This advice is contrary to @Suzie's method and may be confusing in light of the recent conversation. Suzie says cut the links and bring droppers from the switch rails through the baseboard so that the links can effectively be remade under the baseboards. You can then choose to wire the electrical switching of the frog either the same way as the factory turnout, using the point blades, or using an external switch. And most importantly you can change it without having to rip the turnout up. And critically, you MUST cut the links under the turnout if you ever intend to switch the frog via an external switch. If the links are still intact when an external switch is installed then the frog will be switched by two different circuits and you may momentarily get a dead short if they don’t move at exactly the same time. Suzie’s method allows the links to be cut, the turnout to be permanently installed and frog switching method to be changed at a later date without any risk of momentary shorts.

I think the shape of the space is too complicated to make full use of. You'd do better to think about simpler baseboards with more usable proportions. Here are two suggestions (although it's not a good idea to start any layout design from baseboard shapes!) L shaped terminus to fiddle yard: Roundy-roundy with the smallest practical width operating well (610mm) but no fiddle yard:

If you are really attempting to have a realistic lever layout you probably shouldn't attempt to control the points in your yard or shed areas from your simulated signal box(es). You could maybe put those controls on a separate panel, possibly in a different form to clearly distinguish between the "proper" signalling and the model controls.

Rejoice people! Moguls next week! (Possibly.) They are not lost at sea and we will at last get to play with the various innovations in this promising model. Something to lighten the gloom!

Something like this:

1354, if you believe Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotives_of_the_Great_Western_Railway