roythebus1

Sarah Siddons is NOT capable of working push-pull with the 4TC. It is not fitted with multi[le unit control equipment. Maybe the reason a 4TC was chosen for LT use is mainly because it is air-braked. whether Sarah Siddons would fit the island line through Ryde tunnels is a moot point. The shape of it is well within the loading gauge of the D/Vivarail stock and is a lot shorter.

Resistance wire, like wot they use in electric fires.

One of the railways I belong to has a number of items of rolling stock with no record of who owns them! Other items have been dumped on site over the years and have been stored in open locations exposed to the weather for many years, including a couple of main line diesel locos. None have really fared well and a few items may well be dismantled for spares for other items of rolling stock. shame really. But there's not enough workshop, storage or engineering capacity on the line to restore them all in the foreseeable future.

I see similar comments on various FB bus groups. Oh look, there's another RT in a forest in France/Califonia/Bolivia...let's go and restore it. Pity that Routemaster is converted to a snack bar..it's criminal... FFs, there's over a thousand RMs still in existence and over 200 RT buses. There's probably very little left that will be useable on these 2 coaches and yes restoration is possible, but at what cost and what time frame? Almost certainly not in my lifetime. Mind you, I've seen and been involved in a small way in some of the 4 wheel coach restorations on the IWSR in the early years as well as the Ryde Pier Tram replica, which will contain about 2% original parts! I'd say it's a very tenuous link to the Titanic, but a good marketing ploy, much as my friend's RT bus has done over a million miles and appeared in "Summer Holiday". With some of these projects it's a case of remove door handles, fit new body. Like GKE68, a prewar Bristol bus. I got the job of restoring it professionally. I ended up making virtually a complete new body. The only original parts are the front and rear roof domes, front and rear bulkheads, the cab side and seat frames. All the rest is new build. The best part of it was the chassis. And £260k later it still isn't finished.

If these were used singly with other coaching stock how were the short buffers modified for such use? There's pictures around of them being used singly with BR suburban stock and used with the brake ends coupled together. I've got a pair of the Airfix version and tried without much success to fit the Keen systems close-coupling to them. They need a lot of chopping to make it fit so they've been in a box for many years.

The MTK Craven Parcel car has a Lima motor bogie with MTK sideframes. It still runs well as it used to run on the MRC's New Annington layout in the 1980s. It was a bit super detailed with wire handrails, MTK door transfers and roof vents. It's a acquired a dent in the roof which I may be Abe to beat out if I strip it down and rebuild it or just use a lump of filler! Livery as you can see is very dirty BR blue, the colour of most rolling stock in those days. The cab windows are missing from the other end or maybe I never fitted them. The BigBig Hymek (made in Russia) was an offer in the local pound shop in Streatham in the early 1980s, a train set for under a fiver or maybe a bit more, maybe £15! A loco, 2 coaches and the oval of track. I bought several sets at that price and promptly shifted the locos and coaches at a profit but kept one back with a view to putting a proper motor in it. I used a double-ended can motor from Home of O Gauge in Raynes Park and built a gearbox for each motor bogie. Made of 2 frame spacers drilled out to take a 1/8" shaft, these are fitted to the outer axles. A pair of Delrin gears and chains drive the inner axles from the outer axles, and cardon shafts transfer drive from the motor to the gearbox. It seems to work well and is very quiet in operation. It only ever ran on the MRC test track many years ago and recently upside down on my work bench! There's still some work to be done on the pickups as the phospher-bronze ones I made last week aren't very effective. As you can see I done a basic paint job many years ago; it really need stripping off and doing again, along with a load of detailing if anyone's interested. It's missing a buffer but that may well turn up one day.

B

It is capable of push-pull with 33/1 and 73/1 and any compatible BR/SR EMU stock. It can be pushed by SS but needs a driver at the front to use the brake and a driver on the loco to make it go with radio communication between the two. BR C1 stock won't fit the IWR.

Of course from what I've been told in European and other countries, the blame culture is firmly on the shoulders of the person who causes the incident. So the vehicle driver crossing the railway when he shouldn't is to name for it regardless of actual blame. As on EU roads, you hit a cyclist or pedestrian with your car it is your fault regardless. Everyone there has to take the blame for their own actions or inactions and a duty of care to others.

Sarah Siddons runs on third rail because it doesn't have fancy computer systems on board apart from the TWPS and AWS stuff. It's only since the widespread introduction of computers on trains that these sort of reliability problems have arisen. Computers are for teenagers with nothing better to do. I don't see why SS shouldn't fit through Ryde Tunnel, but with very little rolling stock to pull apart from a few pw wagons, it wouldn't be much use. Unless of course the IWSR would alone SWR some vintage stock. but then there's no run-rounds anywhere.

Airfix railbus front there.

I've got some X04 motors that are runners and a few MW005 5-pole versions of the same motor if that's any help. didn't the B12 have synchrosmoke fitted at one time? ISTR an advert on the back of the Railway Modeller with an inverted triangular shape with the words puff puff puff adverting said feature. Synchrosmoke was a piston inside the Mazak smoke unit driven by a second gear wheel on the top of the worm wheel. The B12 chassis was an excellent runner, I used a couple under Gem LNWR 4-6-0s that used to run on the original MRC OO layout in the 1960s.

I remember seeing these units and riding on them when they were brand new. I had an aunt and uncle who moved to Chelmsford in 1959 and sometimes I'd get to meet my uncle from work at Earls Court and he'd take me to Liverpool Street on the tube to catch the new "brown electrics" as they were known then. There was still a bit of steam around too!

I've recently unearthed a couple of copies of the Colin Binnie book "The Brighton Terriers" by Ravensbourne Press. I'll have a look in there for any further information when one emerges again.

Not normally seen on the south eastern division. But that's not to say they weren't.

The 140 is still with me.

Well spotted!

EAMES used to do a motorising kit that came complete with wheels with axles that fitted into D shaped holes in plastic bushes to quarter the wheels. It needed a Triang XT60 motor to make it work. I used to have one but haven't seen it for years, maybe it got sold? As others have said, it's possible to bush the plastic chassis and make something runnable, but why bother when an etched chassis would run far better.

Well, I've had a bash at the Triang O gauge Hymek over the lat couple of days, re-arranged the bogie mountings a bit and the pickups and got the loco run-in. Trouble is, no O gauge track to run it on! Next onto the MTK Cravens parcel car...

The one person who could probably answer that easily is no longer with us. When Adrian Swain used to produce white metal bus kits for me he used several different metals for different parts. some was quite pliable for awkward thin parts, while the metal used for larger parts line bus sides was a harder metal with a higher melting point. If that's any help..

My son, the assistant fleet engineer for Southern Railway diesel trains claimed a speed record for one of his 2 car sets. they were testing a new brake material on the WCML and that involved emergency braking from 100 mph. They managed a top speed of just over 102mph. Not a world record, but he reckons a record for one of those units. One point I'd make about the Russian and Spanish claims is that it proves the broad gauge doesn't necessarily give a better ride at high speed. Ever been on a BR class 81 at 100mph? How they stayed on the road is still a mystery to me.

Some interesting thoughts there. I've got a couple of Mainline Warship chassis lying around but the bogie pivots have broken. I also have a Lima class 20 going spare. It doesn't run particularly well for some reason hence it's on the disposal list. I wasn't thinking of using a Triang bogie as the wheelbase is wrong and it's a pain trying to file the detail off, if not impossible. I've got a few Lima and Hornby motor bogies lying around, but again none run too well. I've just tried 3 Hornby motor bogies to get my HST power car running.

BR corridor coaches were not fitted with screw couplings, only buckeyes. The loco coupling is always used to couple to rolling stock except in a few special cases.

The answer to curved bullhead points is here:

You might want to look down the age to the Hand-built track and Templot group, there's a new product for pointwork which will give you prototypical looking track that is kit-built. You might also want to look at the Templot track planning software, it's free but takes quite a bit of getting used to. If you can't got to handbuilt or kit built paintwork, I suggest you use Peco bullhead. It looks a lot better than code 100 and better than code 75. Everyone and his dog uses that and though it's very reliable and easy to use you'll probably end up with a big layout that looks like a lot of others track-wise.