roythebus1

The AL1 used the same single axle drive ring-field motor bogie as the EMU which had clip-fit plastic sideframes IIRC.

I do't recall the HD AL1 having class 20 sideframes. I'm certain it had plastic sideframes, the 20 had cast sideframes. If it's any help, I've just found some HD EMU bogie sideframes and the collector shoe mouldings for the trailer bogies. It's amazing what we chopped up years ago.

I just wish I hadn't binned all the MTK 1938 tube stock etches that Colin gave to me! But 100 sheets of badly-etched brass was taking up a lot of space.

Yes, I heard on BBC Radio Kent that the wires had "fallen down onto" an Amsterdam-bound Eurostar service. The train was delayed over 5 hours before being towed back to St.Pancras. I don't know if it was the train that brought the wires down, bad weather ditto, or "Bladerunner" from the anti-ULEZ group in London had taken umbrage to cameras in the area. It seems to have had repurcussions for the rest of the day.. The other thing these "expansionists" are forgetting is drivers' route knowledge, and how long one can be expected to be wide awake driving at TGV speeds. I'd suggest about 4 and a half hours would be the maximum. Presumably the current fleet of train have the facility to change drivers on the move so that wouldn't prove too difficult. I gather lodging in Amsterdam is preferred by the train crew to lodging in Brussels.

I'd suggest that with 15" gauge most railways of that size were't all that accurate with tracklaying , maybe with a tolerance of 1" either way. As for using 9mm chassis, is it possible just to pull the wheels out to the gauge you want as long as you put spacer washers behind them, just like EM modellers do with 00 stock.

What a lot of talk to achieve very little! Going back to the ealry 1980s with The Model Railway Club's "New Annington" layout, we had entry/exit push buttons for the hidden loops. We extended the loops to add another 6 roads. The loops man set the road for an incoming train, a light activated switch detected when the train was in section and locked the road. When the leading vehicle hit a ramp in the track, power off, route reset itself. The light activated infra-red switch (no light-sensitive LEDS in those days that we could afford) was set at an angle across the track, so beam was broken as train passed. when it "saw" the reflector, it reset the points. all very well until one set in particular kept derailing, as the road kept resetting under the wagons. Most rolling stock had short tension locks, exept the Lima ARC Roadstone hoppers with Lima couplings! The detector was seeing the reflector between the wagons, thinking "daylight, train is clear, change points! Rather than make everyone change their couplings which would have been ideal as the big gap between the Lima wagons looked awful, Mike Randall installed a Fulgurex or similar point motor in the circuit to act as a delay to the reset, train out of the way, circuit. If the Lima hoppers came by, the Fulgurex would whirr away to itself until the train was clear. Anything closer coupled and it wouldn't see daylight, so waited until the train had passed, Fulgurex whirred, and points reset. A very simple way to insert a delay in an electrical circuit. Why not just put a motor on your points, it's a lot easier.

I'm currently trying to finish my MTK Cravens parcel car using a Black Beetle motor bogie with MTK sideframes. I'm still trying to work out the best way of fixing the floor in the body, sliding one end in after the body has been painted and interior done, then gluing the end on. I've only been 40 years building this!! Nice find otherwise, it seems to be nicely finished.

As a revived topic, if anyone would like a Kitmaster Beyer-Garrett partly assembled I've recently been asked to dispose of one from a late friend's estate. It'll save me putting it on ee buy gum. Kit is complete.

If they have the Trix slipper type pickups they cam be swapped side-for side. they used the centre rail for return on their "run 3 trains on one track" idea. 1 from overhead, 2 from left rail, 3 from right rail! Otherwise take the magnet out of the motor, turn it upside down and refit it. :)

ISTR Adrian's idea was to drill through the bush and the self-tapping screw self-taps into the coach floor, not the whitemetal bush. That would take quite a lot of force and the bush would rotate in the mounting block.

You're doing a good job there. It's difficult to get beading right; most folks, and especially pattern makers for whitemetal kits, make it oversize because by the time it gets built and painted with paint that's too thick, it soon loses its depth. You may be better off applying the beading before you use varnish, that way the solvent will seep into the wood a lot easier. Track builders use stuff like that for sticking abs chairs to wooden sleepers with no problems. To mount the ABSwain bogies, the oval pivot plate screws into the wooden floor, the top-hat cast bushes go through the big hole in the bogie and screw into the swivel mounting plate using an 8BA screw. I seem to remember you need to fix an 8BA nut under the oval mounting plate. I have spares of all those parts if you need any.

Part of the Hornby Dublo marketing was the film of their Deltic pulling a boy along on a cart. Battery drill motors are remarkably powerful. In my workshop at home I have a set of Prolift vehicle lifts, rated at 7 tonnes per column. (I restore old buses) Recently one of the columns failed with a bus up in the air. I tried winding it down by turning the fan motor by hand, it was tedious and very slow. I then had the idea to whack a 1/2" drive socket onto the motor shaft and used the DeWalt 12 v drill...believe it or not it worked. the small drill not only lowered the bus, it was also capable of raising it again!! It makes me wonder why they still use 3-phase 2 hp motors on these lifts when a 4 power drills would do the job. Put one in a model diesel and see what it will do. :)

Surely anything made by MTK would be the winner?

The Hornby Dublo AL1 was not to my knowledge on the class 20 chassis. It was a slightly shortened version of the EMU chassis. It had the single-axle drive motor bogie with RingField motor. Mine ran quite nicely, I got it brand new back in 1965/66, then converted it to resemble a class 73 as per a Chris Leigh conversion in the Model Railway Constructor. I now realise all these things I bough years ago would have netted me a small fortune these days!

I knew Adrian Swain of ABS Models personally, he used to produce bus kits for me many years ago. He was one of the design team for Concorde and everything had to be right. He was a stickler for detail. His LNER bogies are superb for what they are. Once the flash is cleaned off, use a low melt solder to put them together along with Carr's Red Label flux. If it's any help, I've recently acquired a CCW pullman car kit unbuilt in its box, if you're interested in adding that to your train.

The terms "inner rail" and "outer rail" still persist today, describing whether the train is going clockwise, outer rail, or anti-clockwise, inner rail.

Amazing stuff there. I'm tempted but my knowledge of computers and my patience with them runs very thin at times! I've got to build a new double double junction on my layout as it doesn't work properly and needs to be moved round the bend a bit more.

Luckily I found the air tanks in my Metropolitan Railway F class loco were the right size for the job. :) My models were converted back in the early 1980s. :). Oh, and I've just found some spare bogie sideframes. Clearing out thre railway room after an invasion of mice!

It needs air tanks on the roof in tops days. :)

It would also be that the signal for the movement from the platform to the branch will display a yellow aspect with route indicator to remind the driver of the speed restriction and it will in effect act as a fixed distant for the next signal along the branch.

Remember too that "permissive working" or permissive block only applies to non-passenger lines except on the approach to platforms where a train can be signalled into an occupied platform using a subsidiary signal. The driver of a train entering such a section must be prepared to stop short of any train already in that section.

They had similar problems at Salisbury when locos were trying to haul the derailed trains out of the tunnel after the collision there a couple of years ago. the trains were wedged in the tunnel!

Remember pensioners go free on the bus as well.

Well made is the key. The Kitmaster plastic glue was awful stuff, it always came out in great globs which meant the builder always used too much of it. I find the modern acetone-based stuff works very well. I've not noticed KM plastic going brittle.

How did you guess? :)