roythebus1

The last Alec Swain was a prolific railway photographer and was also shedmaster at Willesden in the 1960s. He managed to "arrange" certain rare locos to be red carded to delay their departure so he could get decent photos of them.

Really?? :)

They've been talking about the Rickamansworth-Watford link since 1973 when I was a guard at Ricky. a couple of km of new track and a bridge, still not built 50 years later. and they expect a new line to the airport in 4 years??

I fail to see what mot of this discussion has to do with railway safety!

On my local heritage railway there was an "incident" in the workshop the other week and the workshop had to be shut down for a short period. I don't know what it was, but it's the 2nd incident in the workshop in the last few years. H&S involved, but that affected loco availability.

I cleaned up my Anbrico railbus and ran it at the Folkestone MRC the other week. It generated a lot of interest as very few people there had any idea what it was. Most thought it was a motorised Airfix railbus. and yes, I've got one of those with the eAMES chassis with X04 motor and another chassis going spare. There's a part-built Kitmaster Beyer-Garrett in stock as well. And the MTK Cravens parcel car has recently acquired a Black Beetle motor bogie and footsteps. :)

You're welcome. Martin always looks at his own forum but doesn't apparently go on here every day.

"putting up prominent signs and making announcements over the public address system." I wonder how many heritage trains have a PA system? On many I suspect it's the guard bellowing at the top of his or her voice! :)

Without having to read through 10 pages of discussion about road traffic matters, what was the outcome of the Jacobite ban? Has it been lifted following fitment of bars to windows? Or was there more to the matter? It's fun watching people at my local steam railway trying to press the button to get the carriage doors to open. They simply aren't used to big brass door handles and stand there pressing the door stop!

Maybe post this on the 83A Templot site for more expert advice.

I've probably got some ABS GUV/CCT ends. I know I've got quite a few suburban coach ends and M1 1 ends with corridor connections. Adrian Swain used to produce bus kits for me. I've recently found an ABS suburban coach kit unbuilt, still in its box.

The TP and AM10 were totally different body shells and ends. TP were Mk1 based, AM10 mk2 based with no separate chassis/underframe.

The Victorian brick-built tunnels on the Metropolitan railway have lasted a lot longer. 160 years is it?

The "used" 31 I got was missing a couple of cab handrails. the previous owner has made a bit of a mess with super glue trying to stick them back on which explained why I had a problem getting the body off the chassis. I used to wrk on the 31s as a secondman at KX, loved doing the all-stations suburban trains from Welwyn to Moorgate and th Cambridge buffet expresses.

There's one at East Ham on the District Line. And another at Barking sidings!

Now sorted, a reasonably easy conversion. there's a bit fouling on the front valances under the cab, it would appear the Hornby version has shortened these a bit to clear the bogie swing. The problem with them all is that the middle axle on the real thing was 3' diameter, not the 3/6 of the powered axles! But with all 12 wheels driven, it ought to go better than the Lima chassis with no traction tyres. Anybody want a set of Peters Spares wheels??

Thanks, that's most helpful. i'll have to try to find the pest-ridden 31 now! Shame as it had the early body without headcode boxes. At least the mechanism won't go to waste. As you say it's a pity the Lima mech isn't very well engineered on this one. Presumably the bogies pivot on the white plasticard bits seen in your photos? It seems a more sensible way than the very awkward Lima method. Is there a way to fit NEM coupler boxes or Kadees on your conversion?

I renectly read on here that the Lima class 31 is a fairly decent model so I ought a used version from an ebay source. The model runs well, but not on my hand-built track! despite pushing out the b-2b-b to 14.5,, I found there's so much slop in the axle slots on the trailing bogie that ny decent running may be near impossible. I got a set of replacement wheels from Peter's spares, they arrived today so I fitted those. No improvement as there's still the problem of 2.5mm ales flopping around in 3.5mm slots with the middle axle tending to run sideways and derailing on single and double slips. Short of digging out my ancient Unimat and making some axle bushes, does anyone have an easier answer to the problem? I've also thought of making a couple of frams out of scrap n/s etch as an axle runner between the centre axle and one of the outer axles. Sadly my super-details Hornby (China) 31 suffered badly from mazak pest so is unusable.

I have a huge stock of disc-braked 12mm wheels to RP25 spec that I had made to special order for my VGA wagon kits. They are excellent replacements for the Jouef cheesecutter wheels. Hunt coupling, not tried them yet but have some on order. Along with Kean close-coupling units, I think I will have the right answer.

All this suggests nothing wrong with the scale loco, it just won't run properly on train set corners and gradients, just like the real thing. they were limited to a certain minimum radius and speed restrictions on those curves.

Take note of my comment about import duties on orders over £110! The additional postage is cheaper than the duty and UK VAT you will have to pay.

I worked in Patricks toy shop in Fulham when I left school in 1967 (I think). the Lima N gauge range was introduced around then. There was a nice looking class 86, an awful BR standard tank that appeared in an MRC review at the top of the page comparing it to a very nice Arnold DB 2-10-0. There really was no comparison. We had Lima BR coaches which were to a totally different scale to the Minitrix BR coaches. Which was a great shame as we were trying to promote the "new " N gauge through the display railway in the front window which was operated by a penny in the slot!e Lima range from day 1. ISTR Wrenn selling the Lima range from day 1 whenever that was, the Triang involvement was later on.

I had another go this morning, I may have the wrong combination of nozzle and needle! It seems I have a medium needle, 2 notches in the end and an unidentifiable nozzle, the needle seems to stick through too far, maybe 3mm out of the end. But at last I'm getting results at last using abut 15psi/1 bar. Part of the problem was a build-up of paint inside the nozzle. a good spray with some old Badger reamer cleared it, but that stuff seem to be no longer available from Barwell. Cellulose thinners may be the answer, I've got a 5 litre can in the workshop. Any idea how to identify the nozzle size?

I suppose the higher the pressure the more chance of paint drying in the nozzle before it's done anything useful? I'll give the tip another blast with Badger reamer cleaner and see what happens.

Most bicycles in the world use British Cycle threads, as do AEC buses and lorries on their air pipes. And fuel cap threads are British Cycle! It's also odd the amount of British pipe threads I find abroad, in Belgium especially the Brico warehouses always offer metric pie fittings and BSP and British gas threads.