gr.king

Is the actual objection on account of the fact that any areas wired with consideration for DCC operation only will (or may) have "everything live, all the time", and therefore no places in which a (DCC fitted, or other) loco operable on DC will be able to stand "dead" when a DC power supply is being used?

I've only recently started trying Derails, but have had excellent service at the most reasonable prices I can currently find. First time around I placed an on-line order for the maximum number of a particular item that the website showed to be in stock. Almost immediately, I received a phone call to check whether that was the total number I really wanted, and pointing out that more were actually in stock. I did actually want one more, and was able to increase my order, making best use of the free "economy delivery 2-7 days" option. The goods in fact arrived only 2 days later. I had almost equally quick delivery of a couple of other items I subsequently ordered, again using the free economy delivery option. What could I possibly not like about that?

I'm no stranger to finding that loose screws eventually fall out. Yet another option is to arrange for one end of the chassis to simply slot into some sort of slightly larger recess or loop under / within the body, much like the traditional Triang/Hornby arrangement. That end of the chassis is then held central and prevented from flopping down, without being gripped tightly to the body.

I would be concerned on that score too. Not a fan of chipboard for anything structural. I also don't trust softwood rails for baseboard framing - it is not inherently stable, if it wants to warp, it will, and you don't normally get the opportunity to choose thoroughly seasoned, knot-free, straight grained wood from the optimum part of the tree. I prefer to make the horizontal rails supporting my baseboards from a reasonable thickness of hard plywood, sawn into straight-edged strips, and used "on edge". I've recently used 9mm ply in strips about 3" wide for frames up to 4 feet long. I use softwood only for corner blocks in the frames, and for legs.

Are they Mick? I'm not seeing a comparable strip of 20 single pin plugs there, capable of being cut down into singles, twos, fours etc. My impression was that for two-pin connectors the total price of the number of connectors needed to equal the Peters Spares item would be greater. Am I missing an important point?

An alternative to leaving the second screw slightly loose would be to arrange things so that the second screw goes into a blind hole, and so that the screw is just slightly too long to be able to nip the body and chassis together when fully tightened. The screw could then be tightened, minimising the chance that it will progressively unwind and then fall out due to vibration when the loco is running, or being transported to/from shows.

Very much so. Was Stacia on stage too?

When I read that, I firstly assumed that the 't' in tears was a typing error, but then I thought that it might be nearer the truth. Maybe there are some zeros missing from '50' though?

I was very pleased that there were a good number of traditional, steam-era, continuous-run layouts of a reasonable or large size, modelled sensibly and authentically in a reasonably "restrained" manner, having required substantial amounts of kit or scratch building to bring them into being. It raised the exhibition to a standard well above the increasingly common one of a load of small shunting planks and /or RTR clone models, clone buildings, ready made coarse track, modern image stock in gaudy kids' paintbox "livery" schemes, overly-bright twinkly lights, "pushy" amounts of tinny and raucous DCC sound, ready-made roadways crammed with traffic, and an overload of unconvincing cameos.

Escorted away, never to be seen again. I have a mind's eye vision of the necessary "escorts" clad entirely in black: overalls, boots, and SAS style Balaclavas...

You'd need to carefully avoid the opposite extreme Tony, as I experienced at Spalding. Shortly after I'd waited patiently for an opportunity to sit down and start a conversation with you, somebody considerably less patient and polite appeared behind me and immediately started a loud, prolonged, forceful / enthusiastic exchange with you in total disregard of the conversation that I'd been attempting to conduct. As I wasn't 100% well at the time I couldn't be bothered to point out the extreme rudeness of the new arrival. I gave up and departed instead...

A very enjoyable Sunday at the show. Many thanks and full marks to Fred Ellis for the cake, which has earned my wife's personal "thumbs up"! I was rather surprised to find no sign of any Peco / Ratio / Wills products for sale on the Railway Modeller stand. I'm sure that at least some of them have been on offer in previous years. Plenty of Ratio stuff displayed on the Squires stand though, in multiples, with almost the sole exception of the item I wanted. Remarkable, but all to the benefit of my local model shop which will no doubt oblige.

In view of the date today, I wasn't quite sure that a title quite as specific as a "mutton van", from Wales, would be a description of a genuine vehicle, or whether it might be akin to the "canary van" kit spoof from Wizard/51L circa 2019. No locker for wellies though...

That's an image of the ironstone hoppers for my album. Few if any successful shots in my possession show anything like a broadside view, as it's usually difficult to find enough space to stand back far enough to get the whole train from a reasonable angle, well lit, against a decent background. I know that one isn't a true broadside, but it's better than most which tend to be very "frontal", showing the loco quite well and the wagons receding into the distance.

Because it can, for whatever reason... Just as when I upload a series of numbered images to certain websites and then wish to place them in-line in the relevant parts of some text, always finding that whilst the others are all in proper numerical order, the one that should be first is relegated to the end of the list! And it isn't a simple case of the first image being carelessly numbered "1" when it ought to be "01", it happens regardless of where the number series starts.