009 micro modeller

Yes it is - I think Liverpool Street to Cambridge is known as the West Anglian line, presumably because it’s slightly further west than the East Anglian one. Generally I’m not either, which is why I liked Hereward (an English rebel after the Norman Conquest). Not that I’d approve of what some of his ancestors did to the Britons though.

On an East Anglian theme but a bit later in history, they also named one after Hereward the Wake. A national hero or a troublemaker and arsonist? You decide. I wrote my dissertation on him. In a similar vein I’m thinking of setting my next layout in Shropshire and naming a freelance loco after Eadric Silvaticus/Eadric the Wild (who I don’t think has a loco already named after him).

I think they were (mostly) in the Anglo-Saxon East Anglian kingdom and therefore should by some definitions be included, but not all of Lincolnshire was (Mercia I think) and Essex was a separate kingdom at one stage, so also not East Anglia. But ‘West Anglia’ really is a daft term - who would they describe as ‘the West Angles’?

I thought the Leader Project was relatively short-lived and not as successful as hoped, so in some ways it’s very appropriate surely? Though perhaps veering a bit too far into politics there.

Though apparently not particularly accurate or representative observation in this case, evidently.

Have we really, or is that just what certain sections of the media want you to think? In the case of Cromwell, he isn’t somebody that I generally associate with having become more controversial or reviled more recently. It tends to be slightly more recent historical figures where this applies, or those whose legacy is perceived to have some sort of continuing and direct effect today (e.g. Colston - I don’t think it’s particularly unreasonable to suggest that a narrative that celebrates him as a philanthropist and ignores his role in slavery would make the descendants of those enslaved people feel less welcome).

Is there a reason why it’s upside down?

Unfortunately probably not for Stoneleigh as it clashes with Narrow Gauge South (but currently I’m scheduled to work that weekend anyway so probably won’t do either, sadly). Llangollen could work in theory but is a long way for me to go. As they are garden railway shows, would it still be possible to look at the RC equipment for smaller scales? The reason to use RC on this would be if the electrical pickups can’t be made to work reliably for the method I’m currently using.

Much as I agree with the other posts about it being a bit random and out of period with the other locos released so far, I quite like this as a concept because I live near the ECML but also, more to the point and perhaps slightly oddly, I quite like pretty much all generations of ECML express loco, from Stirling Singles right up to class 91s. And for the Deltics and various steam eras you could probably model some parts of the ECML in such a way that only minimal details would need to be swapped to represent different eras, at least from about 1900 onwards. You might even be able to stretch a bit beyond the Deltics to HSTs etc. But once you get to the 91s you really need catenary, the installation of which would mean it no longer suits the earlier periods (unless it’s removable, but even then there are other modern details that go with it that would be harder to alter).

Is this really relevant in this case though? Cromwell was already very far back in history when the locomotive was named after him, and I’m not sure that the perception of him today is that different from in the 1950s, or a lot more controversial (compared to often more recent historical figures whose legacy/reputation has become more questionable or controversial). The only particularly political aspect that I’ve ever associated with 70013 is that it was built new for a relatively recently nationalised railway, and that therefore there might have been an idea about government control on behalf of the people, or something like that, behind the choice of name (I know the logic of that doesn’t necessarily quite work, but still). I think there’s a 15” gauge diesel also called Cromwell, but I can’t remember where it runs now (and it’s just the surname, so could equally be named for Thomas Cromwell). As a class 47, is it named ‘Beeching’s Legacy’ because of an association with modern containerised rail freight? That strikes me as something more positive about his work that you might want to commemorate. Actually, that reminds me that following the Gresley duck controversy a few years ago they could have equally picked 60108 to inspire the accompanying statue. Or 60099… (And yes I know they’re racehorse names.) If you think about it, there is a similar statue at Paddington with links to an appropriate locomotive name. The statue of Paddington Bear is obviously there because that’s where he’s first found in the book, but he is also a Great Bear, possibly one of the greatest literary bears of all time, and thus the statue could also be said to commemorate the only GWR Pacific loco.

I’ve now fitted the rails to the Kato chassis, connecting them to the brass contact strips along the sides with short pieces of copper wire. The ends are retained by the original Peco plastic sleepers but with the ends snipped off. I haven’t electrically tested it yet but I’m a bit concerned that my soldered connection has made the brass strip at that end less springy and has pulled it away from the bogie, so that the Kato chassis will only be picking up off one bogie at best. If this design of transporter is reasonably successful I can refine it later (copper clad strip instead of plastic sleepers at the ends, for instance) but more immediately I’m wondering if there is a better way to make the electrical connection between the rail and the Kato contacts, possibly involving something springy pushing down on the Kato contacts and not requiring them to be directly soldered to at all. Alternatively I could connect the bogies directly to the rails but then it might prevent the bogies from swivelling much, though given the large minimum radius that may not be a problem? I’d be interested to see other opinions on this.

I fear though that these options may be a bit too expensive for the target audience @TangoOscarMike has in mind, if I’ve understood correctly. Black Beetles seemed to be relatively expensive anyway. The key point with the Kato chassis is that they exist and are sold separately to support a similar kind of modelling in Japanese N, where they are used to motorise separately-sold unpowered stock and/or kits. I don’t think this sort of thing exists in mass-market 00/H0 in quite the same way. On the other hand, the cheaper Kato chassis does not allow steam locos to be built (unless they have tram skirts), whereas a Hornby 0-4-0 would.

That’s what I was getting at, you could provide a special service with heritage stock, overlaid on the current fairly sparse service, but because the existing service is so infrequent it might be used by prospective passengers as just another train, in which case is there much point in making it that different from the normal service (rather than just providing these tourist facilities on some of the normal trains) and is it fair to charge a slightly more expensive tourist train fare, as might be the case? I’m not sure if this issue is relevant with the Jacobite as it would depend on the frequency of the normal service trains on that route, though in that case as a steam train it is more substantially different from the other services that run on the line.

Isn’t there some sort of motor bogie that already provides this? Exactly, that’s what I meant.

Agreed, it’s just that the bogies I’m using already have both axles driven, if I keep using them (they should be fairly suitable). It should also help in this context when transitioning from the transporter to the loading dock (where there might be a slightly uneven spot).

I doubt they’d be idle for quite as long as that.

That’s also helpful to know, thank you. Is that still the case if the transmitter is off or set to a different channel? I assume you’d generally have an on/off switch somewhere on the vehicle itself to turn it off completely when it’s put away at the end of the operating session. The issue I have is that, if they cannot be charged on the layout (which is probably a bit too complicated/unreliable, especially if it involves using the rails to charge), the standard gauge wagons will need to be removed for charging, which means that I need to put the wagon on a transporter and get it off scene before it dies completely. Ideally I’d just have one spare, always charged and ready to go, and swap it with whichever one is running out. But although the overall operation of the layout means they won’t move much and will last quite a long time, it’s also unpredictable enough (using a system of shunting cards) that I can’t eliminate the possibility that more than one will run out at a time. If I suddenly have to have twice as many motorised wagons to cover for the possibility that they all run out of charge at the same time it’s probably going to get a bit too expensive. It might be possible though (at exhibitions) for me to regularly charge each wagon for a short time, well before they actually run out, and work that into the operating sequence, which means I’d only need one, possibly two spares. At home I’d only want to run for about an hour at a time so wouldn’t need to do anything so complicated. I was hoping to use the motors already fitted to the Locosnstuff bogies (modern, coreless and very good). I think they’re 12V but I won’t be needing full speed at any point so I don’t think I’ll need a step-up or anything like that.

I have done this for almost every other part of this project, just not for radio control as yet (given that at this stage it would represent a complete departure from the way I’ve been trying to engineer it so far). Of course, and it should usually be fairly obvious when that’s happening. But in this case they’d be running at very low speeds, relatively infrequently and only for about 6 inches at a time, so I’m not sure it would be very noticeable. Potentially they could somehow be charged while on the unloading siding, but even then that’s only going to allow two wagons to charge at a time. Obviously over time I’d probably get used to how long they last on one charge, but the point is that based on what I’ve read about battery powered radio control I’d hope they would last for a relatively long time, given that each individual wagon will not need to move that often. Thank you, that’s really helpful and exactly the sort of information I needed (in terms of quantifying the time). Does it matter if the wagons are still switched on when not running? The motor bogies have drive to both axles via gearing, quite smooth running and a fairly standard setup. I’m also wondering if I would get away with slightly less adhesive weight if they don’t need to pick up from the track - obviously this would help the 009 locos as well by keeping the overall weight down. In the examples that I’ve seen from other railway modellers, I don’t think they’ve used the motor itself, just the control circuitry and the transmitter. Often as an intermediate step before improving with better quality stuff, however given that I need at least 5 wagons but they don’t have to do that much I’m wondering whether it might work as a cheaper solution long-term as well.

Again though, does it need to be a 101 (or other ‘heritage’ unit) to be used in this way, to differentiate itself, or would it work with something more modern? You could even retain some of the current stock when it’s replaced. Obviously a steam service would be very different from the service already provided on the branch (but perhaps not sufficiently different from the adjacent Ffestiniog offer), but I’m not sure that a diesel tourist service necessarily needs to use heritage stock just because it has catering, commentary etc. (which could potentially be added to normal service trains).

Isn’t it the Ffestiniog they’d visit (assuming they’d visit either). Unless it’s a one way circular trip, train to Blaenau, Ffestiniog Railway, Welsh Highland, bus to Bangor and normal service train back to Llandudno, with another group doing it in reverse. But running a Conwy Valley heritage service specifically to fit in with that seems potentially more trouble than it’s worth. Indeed, and while in some ways I quite like the idea I didn’t actually suggest it, I’m just wondering how it would work if somebody tried to run such a service. I suppose the difference from the Trawsfynydd project as proposed a few years ago is possibly that a Conwy Valley heritage service might encourage additional people to do a loop via the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland lines, whereas the Trawsfynydd scheme seemed to inevitably rely on competing with the Ffestiniog while offering a ‘product’ of vastly lower quality (and the Ffestiniog is a unique narrow gauge steam line - if you just want to ride on a standard gauge DMU through some nice scenery you can do that on the existing Conwy Valley service). Would a heritage diesel shuttle necessarily offer anything that couldn’t be worked into the existing service? I’m not sure that the target market would be that bothered by the difference in rolling stock (‘heritage’ vs ‘modern’ DMU).

What were the distances and safety requirements/standards like, and had it been operating for a long time? Perhaps more to the point, who was operating it and with what stock? (And I appreciate you might not have all the answers, I’m just thinking of things that would probably become important in a UK context if somebody wanted to do something like this.) It sounds more like a conventional heritage railway operating on a lightly-used branch line, whereas in the UK I think you’d either have to have something like the Jacobite (where a railtour company operates it, rather than a local heritage railway group), or like the NYMR (which operates over a much shorter section of Network Rail line at a low speed, and still has to adhere to quite high standards). And on the Conwy Valley I don’t think you’d be able to have the lower speed (as on the NYMR) and still fit in with the service trains.

Agree about the costs - nevertheless I think you’d still have to have some sort of shed and servicing facility for the stock if it was operated by a locally-based group, as @Ben B suggested. Is the spare face disused or is there track in it? And presumably it’s on the correct side of the station for the Conwy Valley line. When I looked at Realtime Trains initially it looked as though there might be sufficient gaps at certain times but now I’m not so sure. It does all seem to depend on whether the timing is right for crossing at North Llanrwst, though presumably the loop there is sufficiently long as railtours have run through it. I do think though that in some ways this seems more sensible than the Trawsfynydd reopening idea, as arguably it could feed into and complement the Ffestiniog and other local tourist attractions rather than ineffectually competing with them (which was one of the criticisms levelled at the Trawsfynydd scheme, rightly imho).

Agreed, perhaps something similar to the West Highland line steam services in Scotland (ignoring the current WCRC shenanigans, which I don’t think in any way invalidate the value of the service as a concept - if anything the current crisis there has demonstrated its importance to local tourism). It would also seem a good way to promote access to the National Park by public transport as well, and might even attract funding on that basis if sensibly put together as a proposal (similar to the Welsh Highland in some ways, but potentially better as it directly connects to the National Rail network, with passengers able to change to the Ffestiniog Railway at Blaenau Ffestiniog). For a heritage service, I don’t know how easy it would be to run into Llandudno Junction, across the main line and on to Deganwy and Llandudno town station, as most of the regular services do, but there seems to be a lot of disused railway land/old sidings at the junction so I wonder if you could create a separate station and shed/depot in some of that space on a siding off the branch instead, and have a sort of NYMR Whitby-style solution (where, as far as I understand it, the NYMR train shares track with the National Rail service on the way to Whitby, but once at Whitby itself it has its own platform on a separate siding). This might actually be better and safer anyway, as (much as the NYMR Network Rail connection is very remote from any fast or busy lines) it would mean the heritage train wouldn’t need to interact with the North Wales Coast Line itself. Though on the other hand, being able to run into Llandudno would be quite good. I recall at one stage that the group trying to restore the Trawsfynydd line as a heritage railway had the operation of a through heritage service onto the Conwy Valley line as a very long term aim, but in this context I wonder if they’d have been better off doing it the other way round, focussing solely on the latter with Trawsfynydd left until later (or not at all). At the Blaenau end there is already a run round loop and platform to accommodate railtours and power station traffic, though I suppose hypothetically you might want to relay a little bit of the line beyond to allow the heritage train to be moved off the network and out of the way when needed. I’m not sure if the huge gaps in the normal timetable are because of lack of available stock or lack of demand but looking at Realtime Trains for Blaenau a tourist/heritage service as far as the junction would seem to comfortably fit into some of them (I assume you’d only want two or three round trips per day anyway). Edit: actually I’m not absolutely sure this works all the time - but if necessary could the trains cross at North Llanrwst anyway?

I’m currently trying to develop a transporter wagon system in 009 for a shunting puzzle-type layout (thread here). Essentially there will be independently motorised 00 gauge wagons, running on and off the 009 transporters to represent hand-shunting. Currently, I’m supplying power to the rails on top of the transporter via the transporter’s own wheels, with the narrow gauge shunting loco running off overhead wire with return through both rails, thus avoiding the issue of the motorised wagons inappropriately drawing power and running off when they are not at the unloading dock. However, it is proving very difficult to get the transporter to pick up reliably from the narrow gauge rails when the standard gauge wagon is being loaded - it is very sensitive to any slight unevenness or imperfection in the track, or the transporter chassis itself. I have a couple of ideas that I would like to try first to improve things, but if that fails then obviously one solution is to operate the motorised wagons with battery-powered radio control. I did consider radio control originally, but that was as an alternative option to power the narrow gauge loco that didn’t involve conventional 2-rail, not for the motorised wagons themselves. But a lot of people I’ve told about this project and the problems I’m currently having, or who have attempted something similar themselves, have recommended that I should look at the idea of radio control for the motorised wagons, as it would circumvent the transporter pick-up issues. Obviously the narrow gauge line could then either use RC as well or just use conventional 2-rail DC, though there seem to be a couple of secondary benefits of overhead wire (to do with track-holding/adhesion and simplified wiring) so I might keep that bit even though it wouldn’t be strictly necessary any more. In some ways this seems like the more sensible way round to do it anyway, when compared to the opposite option of RC for the narrow gauge and 2-rail for the motorised wagons. The latter can be relatively lightweight and will be motorised with Locosnstuff bogies with small coreless motors. They also won’t need to move much, only on and off the transporters relatively infrequently, so hopefully will last a long time between charges. In contrast, the narrow gauge loco will be used much more intensively and will probably draw a lot of power when shunting, given the weight of the transporter plus motorised wagon (of which it will haul/propel up to two at a time). The thing that stopped me from going down the radio control route for the standard gauge wagons initially is that I need five of them to operate the layout (plus any spares to allow charging, maintenance etc., especially at exhibitions), whereas I only need one narrow gauge loco at a time, so it seems as though it would cost more to fit RC to the standard gauge wagons. So my first question is how much this is actually likely to cost? The speed needs to be reasonably controllable and slow but other than that it doesn’t necessarily have to be massively sophisticated, as all I’ll need the motorised wagons to do is to basically run up and down a short section of straight track. I’ve even seen some railway modellers use control equipment stripped from cheapo radio control toy cars, and am wondering if this might be suitable for my purposes? Also, I’ll need the wagons to be able to run without interfering with each other. Is it possible to have one transmitter/controller and switch between 5 channels to control each of them, one at a time? I’m also wondering if there are likely to be issues with external interference, especially at exhibitions. Finally charging - from a rough calculation it looks as though, even with quite intensive operation, each of the five wagons would only need to run about 40ft per day during a 7-hour exhibition day, and obviously much less during a normal session at home. So assuming they start the day fully charged, would I actually need to have spares to allow them to charge, even at an exhibition? Unless the battery will drain quickly simply because the wagon is switched on, even if not actually running. I’m also not entirely sure how I would know when they’re about to run out of battery, given that they’re not constantly running.

Are they prototype-based or freelance though, as envisaged by @TangoOscarMike? I remember we discussed something similar in a previous thread. In narrow gauge modelling, there are a couple of options that provide some elements of what you describe, though not all. Firstly there’s the Smallbrook example, as I mentioned in the other thread. Many of them run on Hornby 0-4-0 chassis, they are fairly simple to build and there are a number of different designs. I understand that there is some level of modularity/interchangeability between some of the components as well (e.g. I think some of the Gn15 ones partially use castings that are also used in multiple locos in the 016.5 range). However, for a beginner (especially a child) I’m not sure that resin (as opposed to injection-moulded plastic etc.) is necessarily the best or safest material to use, while as I recall some (though not all) of the kits require the cylinders to be hacked off the Hornby chassis to accept the kit cylinders (which are designed to easily accept the ends of the rods). Other than those two considerations it’s pretty much there, though seemingly relatively expensive nowadays. The other thing that springs to mind is the extensive use of the Kato 11-109/110 (and their predecessors, the 11-103/104) and other variants in 009. The current generation of these are slightly more expensive than the old ones (I think due to the coreless motors that they now have) but still quite cheap. There are now a number of 3D-printed bodies available for these chassis, but people also scratch-build or kitbash their own. To go back to your hypothetical consumer for this sort of thing, this is the sort of kit-bashing or building in 009 I did when I was about 12, I just needed a bit of help to make a footplate cut-out to allow the finished loco to clip onto the Kato chassis securely. But I see that you can now buy a 3D-printed footplate (not a complete body) that does this, onto which you can then presumably build whatever you wish. There are also simple etched brass kits that fit the same chassis, so if you wanted to you could later teach yourself to solder by building one. The drawback is that the locos must be either diesel, electric or steam fitted with tram skirts in order to use the Kato chassis. Also in some cases the 3D prints seem to almost be too straightforward, not really a kit in the sense of a Dapol/Airfix/Kitmaster loco minus the chassis but sometimes just 2 pieces (body and footplate) with most of the work left to do being painting and finishing. It’s perhaps catering to a slightly different market - rather than a child or adult beginner looking to build something for themselves and improve their skills (as in your example), some of these seem to be aimed more at people who have moved from RTR 00 or N and need a loco that is almost but not quite RTR, given the relative lack of reasonably-priced RTR in 009. I’m not sure how easy to use 3D-printed stuff is compared to moulded plastic, though it seems sometimes to be harder to paint (this is not to detract from your 3D-print designs, which I think are superb, it’s just in relation to your general comment about what materials might be suitable for something like this). This is a really important point and again there’s an example from narrow gauge modelling to back it up. Lots of whitemetal body kits available in 009 were designed ages ago for chassis that are now long out of production. Often these are rare and sometimes they can become expensive, as everyone else is looking for one for their loco body kit as well. Even if they’re relatively easy to find, the surviving chassis will mainly be pretty knackered by now, or in some cases were just awful in the first place. So in that context I’d probably want to avoid designing a new kit to fit a chassis that I know is already out of production. I’m not so sure about the idea of making a specific chassis and supplying it with the kit as presumably this would add to the overall cost. Though it would allow you to specify the wheelbase etc. for a more accurate model. Yes, because it’s the operational aspect of model railways that makes this a more involved process than it is for some other model-making hobbies. If you can help with some of that then it opens up another side of the hobby for people.