Bearwood West Yard

As it’s the weekend I’ve been working on my own resin projects rather than maintaining iron casting patterns. A bit more complexly shaped this one but it is mounted at 45 degrees. The runner and riser system took me a full afternoon and evening to do, though I did waste an hour on the lathe trying to face off part of some sprue plastic to use as a runner (in the end I gave up). All the runner/riser system for this casting is 4x3mm styrene strip, with the exception of the runner feeders into the pattern which are 1x2mm strip in two layers and given a radius. There is a choke point on the main runner and also on the runner feeders, to enable air in the difficult spots time to escape. Admittedly, the pattern I am using here is part of an existing C88 Salmon kit by Cambrian. For pouring the silicone, I have previously used one of the clear Oxford vehicle boxes, though this is rather large for that. I’ve cut up some 2mm greyboard and stuck the box together on the outside with sellotape. The sides are 50mm high. For added strength on the joint lines and to prevent the silicone being absorbed by the greyboard, I have treated the box interior with some neat PVA glue via a large modelling brush. I put this over the radiator last night to cure quicker given how cold the modelling/bedroom room is and it only took an hour and a half to fully cure. This morning I’m planning to raise the pattern to about 30mm below the the top. Hopefully having a silicone pour by mid afternoon. I will add the locating dowels prior to pouring.

Excellent work Phil, the results are brilliant. Perfect example of having the mould cavity at an angle as well! I’ve attached a picture of some new tooling that I unpacked on Monday, ready for commissioning. I couldn’t resist taking a picture to better show how it all fits together. On our Disa machines, we have a chamber that fills with sand and every mould that is pushed out, is patterned on each side. A clever mass production technique so you always have a ‘drag and cope’ on its side. The large plate the patterns are located on is always the datum face. If you were to take the patterns off and stick them back to back, you would have the rough shape of the product, plus the depth of any pattern recessing into the large mounting plate. The patterns get more interesting than this though. I was working on some earlier that have two discs per mould, with the runner being guided between the two.

Great work so far on the silicone moulds, I'm also getting into resin casting myself. The problem you have with the air bubbles affecting the Resin I'm certain is down to the mould design. I'd recommend adding a runner tube to any future moulds that you make, feeding resin to the pattern cavity from the bottom, allowing air to escape out of the riser vents. I've attached a picture of a ram pattern from work to help explain what I mean. I've censored any information that may be deemed sensitive by the company. Although this is an industrial pattern for producing sand moulds for Casting Iron, the basic principles are transferrable. The runner system is visible towards the bottom of the picture on the parting or datum plate, running from the 'cup' at the top, down to the bottom of the cavity. Although its not essential when producing models, I've highlighted the choke point of this casting in the green box. As the name suggests, the choke point is the smallest part of the runner system and restricts the flow of liquid into the cavity, increasing the time taken to fill it, for air to escape and reduce the chance of the core cracking and vapourising before the Iron has set. There is a formulae for working it out but I wouldn't worry about it unless you plan to add cores to your silicone mould. On this particular pattern there is only one riser, centre top on the pattern and next to the runner cup. I have seen as many as four risers on a single cavity before, though it all depends on how much air you plan to displace. Your best bet is to have a riser in every location you are likely to suffer air pockets. They don't have to be large risers, I use 1.6mm styrene rod as my riser pattern. Something I should also mention is that there is no particular orientation that a mould should have a runner or riser in. If I was to cast a hopper from a Hornby MGR 'HAA' wagon, I would cast it upside down and have the runner and riser like so. This is one of my CDA hoppers I've just stripped, in the picture the red represents the runner (with choke point) and the various green lines are riser tubes to prevent air pockets forming. It may be worth positioning all the risers at a slight angle and on the corner of the edges of the surfaces chosen, so a pour can be done with one end of the mould raised up, reducing further chances of air bubbles. Just remember that there is nothing wrong with having half a dozen or more risers. The more complex the design, the more risers you may require. Hope that helps, I'll be following the thread. Jordan

Well, its been six months since I last reported from the workbench and things have moved on a little bit. Majority of wagon work was completed before i went back to work in August, and i lost the mojo between going back to rotating shifts and the time of writing. Throughout Lockdown 1 and my time on furlough I managed to complete the Porpoise to a reasonable standard. I completed the model in July, making my own waterslide transfers with the help of Microsoft Paint and Clear/White transfer papers from Mr Decal Paper on Ebay. Such an easy process that the only transfers I bought was the orange cantrail stripe for the roof, sourced from Railtec Transfers. The only details that I've not yet added are the hydraulic rail positioners, though these will be very flimsy so will require 3D printing when designed. - Porpoise, JZA Clamping Bank and Salmon on Bearwood West Yard. On the JZA side of things, all the roller banks have been airbrushed into Railtrack cream. The Clamping Banks were successfully laser cut and 3D Printed, taking 4 hours per bank to assemble. These join the roller banks as painted components. More work is required such as sorting the guarding on one side above the clamping banks and fixing all of the roller banks down. It was found to be uneconomical to laser cut or 3D print the gratings so the original steel mesh design was brought back to the table and used on all 11 rail carrying vehicles. Although the sides remain in black for the time being, I am planning to draw up some grating on Paint and make grating decals for the edges to make them look semi-realistic. No effort has been made on the Manipulator or Gantry as of yet, with the aim of getting all the rail carrying modules completed and off the bench, ready to start that long slog! Between August and October I bought 7 ex-LSWR 58' coaches as well as a short framed M7 tank with intentions of conducting resprays - Urie Green for the M7, matching that of 245 at te National Railway Museum, and the coaches to go into Salmon and Brown. I also bought two packs of Hornbys re-run of CDA Clay hopper's. Three of those have spent time in Isopropyl Alcohol and await spraying into EWS Maroon when the warmer weather of Spring comes along. On the Ospreys, work resumed but immediately stopped. I sprayed 5 more ex-Bachmann BDA flats into Engineers Olive and then the relevant yellow schemes. 3 of these were cast off as Salmons with two remaining as Ospreys. Originally the middle stanchions and end trusses were quite time consuming to produce from the various shapes of styrene strip and now that my skills with AutoCAD have improved significantly since completing my L2 NVQ, I took the plunge. The middle stanchions took under an hour to draw, whilst the trusses caused a whole afternoon of headaches and grief, to say the least! I got there in the end and expect the first batch of printed samples to be produced in January 2021. YouTube did spark some commercial interest and if the demand would be there then I would potentially produce a batch for sale. Supplied as a five part kit for one wagon, or painted and assembled into three parts for a small extra premium. Since these CAD developments, I am looking into tooling my own Salmons from resin though only for personal use as Cambrian's C88's seem to pop up whenever I'm not looking for them.. Having changed my profession of learning from fitter to pattern maker/tooling maintainer, the knowledge is transferable and the opportunity is there for a very distant project. Lastly, I took on a new development in the run up to Christmas of building an LSWR brick bridge inspired by those in the Bournemouth area. by means of a 1.5mm Greyboard structure and 1mm thick laser cut bricks to my own CAD design. So far I estimate time spent to be about 24 hours, as each brick is applied independently of the other. The lack of uniformity with bricks at changing angles is what makes this for me. Not doubting the brickie's, but embossed card looks too neat, uniform and over or under scale in some cases. Each brick is 3x1x1mm and half bricks are 1.5x1x1mm, standard of the rough cut 9"x3"x3" imperial bricks of the day. Not all of the bricks were laser cut perfectly which adds to the 'within tolerance but not perfect' cutting of Victorian era bricks. I've attached images of the yard line up and the brickwork progress. I will upload CAD pictures of the Osprey components in another post when I send off the CAD files for commissioned printing. That's all from me at this time, Jordan

With June now arriving, its fair to say that time seems to be flying! Despite the current global situation, not a second of furlough time hasn't been put to good use. Being off until July 31st at the earliest should allow for a lot more to get done. Since I previously posted, the majority of the last four to five weeks has been spent on the workbench with only about 1/8th of the time being spent on the layout doing odd bits here and there. A new set of 1mm drill bits arrived so the last leg of third rail has been installed; bridging the gap between the two signals and the west backscene. During this I also filmed a tutorial video for YouTube for any Model Railway beginners who have not used the Third Rail system before. Having seen the lack of video's on its assembly, I thought it would be a good idea - given that the video has served its purpose if it helps even one person with equipment needed and how to go about installing it . The bridge pillar cutaways are revealing the styrene sheets however it wont be long before the new bridge is in place. Having sent a number of Cad drawings to a local CNC shop for 3D printing and laser cutting, an additional drawing of an A3 size sheet, divided up into little 3x1.5mm and 1.5x1.5mm squares and rectangles was also sent over. This should provide me with a good few thousand imperial sized bricks for building the new Bournemouth/LSWR type brick bridge as well as any other brick builds in the future. They should last a while! A failed static grass attempt was made on the cutting in the middle of May, and as such I decided to rip out the then caked in glue and grass cable trunking. I painted over the grass in the same burnt umber as seen elsewhere on the layout. Reflecting the vast abundance of Clay in this part of Dorset, I painted part of the sand in a light and dark grey, adding a some darker washes to it. This is more of a Purbeck Ball Clay look as opposed to the more local 'Canford Orange'. Perhaps once I've experimented and mastered the orange look I may rework it, but for now it doesn't look too bad. I dry brushed over the burnt umber paint with a variety of earthy tones seen locally, these picked up better than expected on the embedded static grass, giving the look of soil and rock formation. Any ledges on the cutting were given a little bit of 50/50 PVA to Water, applied sparingly with a pipette and pushed about to get a very light but vast amount of coverage. I went straight on with Woodland Scenics Green blend scatter. After the excess had been hoovered off, I again sparingly applied more glue with a pipette. This time it spread itself out. For the grass, I used a mixture of 4mm height Spring, Summer and Dead from the WWS Scenics range. Once hoovered away any excess, a small bit of card was used to assist the grass in reaching for the sky. I should add that all the areas were done independently and not at the same time. After that had all dried, new cable trunking was placed down and lids put on. This time, masking the trunking to protect it! Filling behind the trunking, easily done again with sparing amounts of glue and green scatter for the base. For the grass, this time I used 4mm Summer with 6 and 10mm Dead. I applied this using a bit more glue, then static grass, hoover it up and spray some WWS Layering spray until a thin white can be seen (using a cardboard loo roll inner to restrict overspray) and then shaking more of the same grass on and hoovering off excess. This builds up the overgrowing weeds and bushes; in some cases the mini keyboard hoover's vacuum can pull the grasstops around. Then with the cardboard and layering spray, make the same white effect and sprinkle a light dusting of the same green scatter. Small amounts over a long period of time build up the weed leaves quite nicely. I haven't used any soil or earth scatters for any of my scenic ground cover, whether that's a good thing or not I don't know. The only other things I've done is relay the middle siding (second relay!) after the glue was incorrectly mixed and the points seized. 85% of that area is now also ballasted. Thanks to Kernow, a new left curved point was easily sourced and for a very competitive price! Though, that's not difficult when you're the only shop to have had a new delivery of track from Peco! To be able to take the old one out the middle road under the backscene had to come out. It took a full day to dig it out and wash it to save as many sleepers as possible. The rail and sleepers were cleaned of old glue, but unfortunately around a dozen sleepers were lost and I had no wood sleepers to spare. As a notorious Mr Clarkson would say: " And then it suddenly appeared to me..." Concrete sleepers were substituted with buff ballast laid rather than the grey blend ballast. I quite like seeing the finished sleeper renewal, it makes it look as if something has actually been done - standing out from uniform trackwork. The Personnel walkway was added in as well after this was complete. I had bought a darker grey bag of ballast in error so I decided to use some of this and a little bit of buff to make the walkway - based on that at the Up end of the Island platform at Eastleigh, crossing the Platform 3 and yard lines. Finally, I've tackled the corner of dread. The name coming from how awkward it is to access, even with a removable backscene. Its either clamber over the layout to much discomfort to get at it, or move the bed (and the storage lines under it on a 2'x4' board) and have even more discomfort and little space. Either way, the removable backscene has been painted white, with the corner of dread having had its two layers of news-paper mache and awaits painting. I have no quarrels with Plaster Bandage but I do think that for what you get it is a bit much. A single newspaper at a fraction of the cost of a single roll has done three layers with a few pages to spare. Not rock solid but it is solid enough. No guesses necessary to find out what brand newspaper was used but given an article visible - all I'll say is that its soft, strong and thoroughly absorbent… Perfect for this kind of job Besides the layout work, life has revolved around the workbench. I've been focusing on getting the Porpoise complete. A few bits to paint and touch up, then hydraulic lines and discharge position arms to add - along with transfers and it'll be complete. Nothing on the JZA's last month par spraying the remaining wagons into base black. Once the chute has left the works, JZA module carriers will take priority. Then when those 12 wagons are on the layout, the manipulator or gantry module carrier can be started, YKA Osprey wagons in conversion from Bachmann BDA's are going on well. Final two YKA's are to receive stanchions soon and the three YSA Salmon flats (converted the same but no stanchions) are to be finished before the JZA's invade the bench. Below are some pictures of the third rail, scenery, corner of dread and the Porpoise.

Thanks Neil. Have got a few more bits done but I'll probably post again in a couple of days

Been a rather long while since I last posted so without further hesitation here is pretty much everything since the last post. Starting with the track, in particular the main lines. These have been mostly ballasted and Third Rail electrification is gradually creeping further towards the down/west end of the layout and the cable trunking has received lids. The yard has finished ballasting and has card mapped out to see how hard standing would appear for offices, similar to that of Severn Tunnel Junction that I saw in a YouTube video, albeit much smaller, I've also added in a little something for scenic interest in the way of an abandoned Clam in a siding, inspired by images of stranded brake vans. "...Unfortunately it wasn't in a fit state to run back to Eastleigh for a replacement axle, nor was it feasible to drag the cranes down with a new axle, so it was dumped in the shunter's siding as EW&S had withdrawn their acquired shunter to the busier Eastleigh Yard. Railtrack had plans to lift the derelict siding and points, though the wagon did them a favour of a half job. And the rest is history as they say..." The bridge at the cutting, albeit a rather shoddy temporary bash together has been removed. Although it was never intended as a permanent structure, it felt like an eye sore compared to the rest of the scenery now in that area. The replacement will be a much more realistic full brick built bridge of L&SWR design, prototyped on road over rail bridges between Brockenhurst and Branksome, minus the pillar between running lines, This is planned to be constructed brick by brick, on to card and reinforced by modelling clay. The station tarmacking has been redone, this time using a modelling clay base and a painted Polyfilla surface as opposed to the previous textured paper on Plasticard. It works much better for the awkward shape of the platforms. Edging stones are from the Scale model scenery range. All the terraforming has been done, using styrene packing sheets and paper mache. Painted with burnt umber, looks okay. Scenery has all been done using WWS scenics static grass and Polyfibre, along with some white silica sand from Amazon to ease into the heathland effect. The airbrush is still yet to come out and give the fibres the rich maroon-brown tinge. I think that's about it. The rest of my time has been devoted to the workbench on my current large scale projects. I have another thread on here for my workbench where those goings on can be found. I have found to be less active on here than I thought I would be, though the YouTube does tend to get updated monthly if enough worth reporting on occurs.

Thank you for that info. I think for now I'll keep to the conversions, mainly because I'll constantly be looking at the size differentiation between the wagons

Its been a while... or four months I should say and the progress has been slow like a snail but with the lockdown measures in place, things have started to move forward a bit. Porpoise most notably has received her roof and various wire guarding's. I have re-worked the operators 'tri-window' using clear styrene sheet to a standard I'm happy with and have begun to fill any unsavoury gaps on the model. Currently the operator's-left mesh guard is being reworked. Previously the intermodal flat base had only received a single coat of paint and will be subjected to another coat. Any detailing such as rusty rollers will be subject to Mr Maskol. The roof will also be sprayed at the same time with varnishing not long after that. I have also started on designing and scaling down transfers. At some point I plan on adding the operator's hydraulic rail guiders for discharging rail in the four foot or six foot/cess position, though this will most likely be the final detail to be added. JZA roller and clamping bank flats have all been bought, blasted and sprayed up into primer and their basic black. The original JZA in the first post has been reworked due to the flimsy nature of the mesh and is ready with seven others to take the middle gratings. The side mesh grating was prone to damage and made the wagon manhandle-able by the bogies only. I'm working on CAD's to phase this mesh out and replace it with laser cut grating made from a thicker, more rigid material. All the roller banks were laser cut by a local company, having only the tiny pieces of rod to glue in by hand over several weeks - now airbrushed and awaiting roller painting. Clamping banks have been designed and are waiting to be sent away with the grating. Two final YKA Ospreys as well have just been sprayed Engineers Olive, with further work holding on until the JZA's are completed. Pictured is a panoramic view of the layout's scenic section with all the JZA flats on the 'Up' line. The Manipulator and Porpoise are in the 'down' platform just to give an idea the vast scale of the project. This is also the first time that all the wagons have been together as well as pictured on the layout, When running the full prototypical 13 wagon trainlength, it will very much be a case of close to tail chasing, and for stabling the wagons in the yard the 'under-bed' crossover will be more than useful as entry/exit and using the up main as a headshunt for yard operations.. At present, I am experimenting with various materials and a resin cast extrusion die to make the rails for the train, as standard manufactured steel/alloy rail is nowhere near flexible enough. Most test materials are on order, though testing with bathroom silicone as the first did not end well. I suspect Newplast Animation Clay could possibly work, however I remain hopeful on pigmented mould making silicone, with a theory of leaving to stand for 1/3 to 1/2 its 'pot life' and then extruding it while it is liquid enough to be workable but has cured enough to retain the extruded dimension. I live in hope. As follows are the pictures. Due to the 10MB limit only three were attachable. - Updated view on the Porpoise - Panoramic of all wagons as previously mentioned - The rather illusive and little known about 'Under-bed' crossover to give yard operations that bit more flexibility with marshalling and longer trains.

Hi all, Making the big step into airbrushing from the noble hand brush but only really now getting serious with it. I own an Iwata neo, with my pressure regulator set on approximately 1-1.5 bar (16-22psi) and thought about what working pressure does everyone spray on or are there different working pressures used for acrylics and enamel? Thanks in advance

I bought the grey/blue set with hopes of re-vinyling it to Network Rail. Haven't bought any MOA's for my rake of JNA's though, so used to seeing the MLA's in yellow and maroon my OCD would overload lol. Another MRA run would be nice but until price of manufacture vs affordability comes down, its too much of a financial risk for the company given the size of batch to be produced to be economical vs the known demand. Though I would assume they still have the tooling so never say never

I read somewhere, think it was on Dapol's Digest forum that it wouldn't be economical to produce given rising costs. I remember it was quoted that models would fetch around the £225 mark a set. Though, for a set of five highly detailed wagons that works out to be around £45 a wagon. Expensive but seeming to become the norm. They do pop up from time to time on ebay and I saw the listing you're referring to.. so rare now that they go for silly money. Originally wanted the NR ex-railtrack grey/blue ones but getting into the hobby late, its get what you can get. Got a yellow set second hand off a facebook group and by chance stumbled across a Railtrack set in the most unlikely of places in town, an instant buy. I cycled to college that week instead of getting the bus after looking at my bank account

Its incredible when you open the door to what if scenarios. I used to be a member at Poole&DMRS but packed it in. Would be interesting to see a pair of 66's on the Westbury RHTT passing through Wimborne like with the DRS Class 37's with the Wherry lines semaphore signalling. My layout is based on the what if factor and its opened so many doors.

Seems fitting to make my New Years Resolution this year to be more proactive here on RMweb so I've started a thread on my workbench. So, on the eve of January the first 2020, I present the opening of this thread with... you guessed it, what's on the bench! So, as can be seen below I have five wagons on my bench tonight, these being a BDA bolster, MHA, ZCV, JZA and Porpoise. The bolster is undergoing the butchers knife for conversion into an under-sized Salmon flat before being given panel supports and transformed into an Osprey. With Cambrian's Salmons becoming rarer by the day and not having the time nor patience and money to hunt down and purchase the last one from half a dozen stockists, it was much easier to buy the next closest model. The ASF bogies for the salmons, another kit by Cambrian, I was lucky to get hold of six pairs from three different retailers. It was then that I opted for the butchery approach. The finished models look the part and its hardly noticed that they are 20mm or so short. The Coalfish and Clam are new in as of a New Years Eve delivery, weathered and rusted throughout the first afternoon of the year (though only one side of the ZCV has been done so far). Another 6 MHA's to weather before deciding whether I fancy a couple more. Now for the special cases and YouTube celebrities, the JZA and Porpoise. Porpoise has been on the bench for four months at the time of writing and is 90% of the way there. All I will say is that the hard work to get the chassis profile correct has paid off even if it has created some minor issues. I will write up another post in the near future going into more depth about the build, but I think I've lost count of how many problems I've created for the sake of accuracy. For starters just to make the chutes I had to take out the coupling bar swivel limits. All fun and games lol. Then the JZA, that's the simpler of the two with custom manufactured steel mesh and plasticard being the main additions to the ready to run model. For both units I used ready to run models as bases but I will produce CAD renderings if I produce the more complex components in future. Jordan

Hi Nick, The layout scenic area is in an 'L' shape with a width of 2ft. One side is 8ft in length with the other being 9ft including the other half's width. Locomotive operation is DCC controlled with all points being switched by hand and non-motorised. Signals will be done the old DC way with a switch panel when I reach that stage. Track diagram is as below. Cheers, Jordan

Personally I see nothing wrong in modelling a real location despite the prototype not having a railway. My layout is set as if it is a five minute walk away from the house simply for the ease of research. In the end, nobody can tell you how to design or run your layout My area is quite a niche little place, being no less than 5 miles from the railway - be it live or extinct, with the main Waterloo to Weymouth main line and the extinct Castleman Corkscrew which fed the Somerset and Dorset as well as the West Moors to Laverstock/Salisbury line. I model the present day as if the Beeching report never occurred and that the Castleman received electrification at the same time as the third rail was extended past Poole. I find this opens a significant number of doors with operational capability, rather than having the modelled railway yard as a pre-Eastleigh hub or storage yard for engineers workings and the odd Class 158 doing Bournemouth West - Brockenhurst trains as the old M7 tanks used to do. It enables tapping into of the GWR from the Salisbury and Bath directions, potential tapping into Southern by extending the Southampton routes, as well as the Hamworthy aggregate trains which ceased in 2017, long gone Newport to Hamworthy Quay steel traffic and Furzebrook BP to Eastleigh Oil tanks which were 1990's workings... Just a few of the doors that can be opened. At the end of the day, its your layout and what you say, goes

When weeve al sobbrd up::))))

Attention seekers? Not being funny but the amount of time it takes to film and edit videos easily takes a few hours. I feel some insecurity and jealousy with this comment. Many other youtubers who upload videos of their layouts do it to show off their creation. Relating to Roy’s comment, if you have a permanent set up layout you can’t exactly take it to shows. Besides the point of showing off your layout, how else can you learn tips and tricks with the likes of Scenery? I wouldn’t have the quality Scenery i do now without YouTube tutorials. And if it’s not about showing off your layout, it’s about having the videos to look back on and see how far you’ve come. It’s actually mind blowing to think how much you’ve achieved when you look back at where you were this time last year! If you’re on about Youtubers who deliberately comment on others videos to “subscribe because i subscribed” then ignore my little rant. However I deem it uncalled for to brand the YouTube modelling community “Attention Seekers” for simply having the confidence to video log what they’ve done and to want to share their knowledge with others. At the end of the day, you subscribe to someone if you like the channel content or want to see more of a particular layout, not because someone asks you too. Sorry but someone had to say it.. For the record, my channel isn’t really known that well and I like most do it as a hobby and don’t care about the “race to a million” or “I want to be like that popular one” that people think it is. Rant over, now back to the topic of the Hattons 66’s

Yes, I’ve noticed that once or twice on 593 when initial running in took place but not so much on 88. It seems to have settled down now though - I have been running it a lot since it arrived yesterday so that might have done it or my eyes mustn’t be able to keep up with a scale 45mph intermodal. 66088 hasn’t suffered with anything par one of the rotating axle bearing covers falling off during running in. Yet to glue it back on but so far been lucky. No derailments either which I’m pleased about. Cheers, Jordan

Just for the benefit of those who also use the Digitrax system and want to have tail lights at both ends for shunting operations, a bit of extra digging and I found to latch F2 just hold down F2 for a few seconds and hen hold down the Exit key for another few seconds. This will latch it. Pressing F2 again will unlatch it

Ah okay, that makes total sense now! Thanks for the link!

I'm using a Digitrax system, my controller is the DCS-51 and yes its the standard Hattons decoder, 6 function.

Calibration of hands is easily done by pressing the belly button and lifting a kilogram weight in each hand Just need to get hold of another Bachmann EWS 66 when the market floods with them, grime it up and whack it on an RHTT set. These newer models are too nice to be caked in sleeper grime lol.

Afternoon all, Very impressed with my 66 088 and 66 593 DCC fitted models. I had a review up on the YT channel by mid afternoon yesterday, mainly for those who want to see what the models are like before buying - especially as the main shipment arrive in the new year so plenty of time to decide. Only thing I have an issue with is that the tail lights on Function 2 don't latch like those on F1. No problems with the Marker lights or the day/night headlamp latching though, so just wondering if its an error on the chip and if anyone knows how I can adjust CV values so it latches. It is like this on both of the models just to add. Other than that, I cant fault it - especially being able to out perform Bachmann models by being able to pull my full 13 wagon consist of HIA wagons AND two pairs of MRA wagon sets together! Hoping the lighting functions will still work when I add my LokSound V5 with Jamie Goodman sound to it. Cheers, Jordan

Thanks all. Just started testing out my static grass applicator and really pleased with the results. Definitely going to give the rubberised horsehair a go and also I can obtain scotchbrite very easily from work. I was led to believe the horsehair can be used as well for brambles. Will do some further research on the Gordon Gravett books. Many thanks