roythebus1

It should be possible to fit the Triang X500 ""Rocket" motor inside a Pug, after all it fitted inside the "Rocket" boiler.

That's what my pal said when i sent him the link to the video. The lads used standard railway dets for the "explosives" and removed a section of rail. I found the whole thing rather underwhelming to be honest. I expect the crash speed was about 20-25mph. with no driver on board to adjust the cut-off.

That's what I'd have though, buy my pal is now just over 80. :)

There was mention on here recently of WD 2-10-0 "Kitchener" being blown up at Longmoor, but I can't seem to find the original post. I have a friend now living in Thailand who was a 2nd lieutenant at Longmoor in the 1960s, the military equivalent of an operating superintendent in the proper railway. From his recollection he says: "Not so; there was Exercise Wizard Prang when SR King Arthur 'Merlin' which had a cracked frame was derailed near Woolmer, tipped on its side and recovered, to be cut up. A good wheeze, but before my time. It was all filmed for BBC TV. Whilst I was under training I signaled out a freight from Longmoor Downs to Liss Jcn containing the cut up remains of Kitchener, a 2-10-0 and Sir Guy Williams, a 2-8-0. The buyer was furious and accused us of stealing the copper firebox and had to be told that all the WD wartime locomotives had cast iron ones. He had based his bid on the incorrect assumption that they were copper!" He says in a later message that Sir Guy was also cut up on site.

Yes, Adrian was one of the design engineers for Concorde, so it had to be properly made. The best we had at the time was cast whitemetal. Adrian was maybe one of the best in that field.

It sounds a bit better than the "hotel" we had to use in Newcastle in the 1970s days of Lodging1 "Handa's Palace" or West Parade hotel. One of the beds had a pile of books under one corner as the leg was missing!

It depends what area you are modelling and whether the whole area was ballasted at the same time.

I'm sure I've got a copy of that book somewhere, I've just been clearing out m railway room...

The fleetname was in gold lined black o the steam locos. the real thing used the same transfer as the buses..I may have some F class transfer sheets from the days I produced kits. But they won't have all the numbers, just those appertaining to the class, along with lining. I also have about 20 F class body kits available.

Turnouts are left hand or right hand. I've recently replaced a hand-built double slip with a Finetrax kit 00sf, the spacing depends on your track centres. Wayne allows a lot of extra rail so you can cut them to length and add or remove sleepers as required. I've had no trouble with the double slip at all, even continental stock runs through it as well as locos with Gibson and Ultrascale wheels. Remember if you're doing a curved crossover you need 2 point kits of the same hand. simply bend the kits on the Templot template. the effect ooks far better than the Peco idea of using a left hand and right hand point. Because the model is based on the prototype, the radius is unlikely to go below a set parameter on the Templot template. On Template set your main radius, make double track with your set centres, insert turnout in curve, roll to desired position, then make crossover. Easy once you know how.

Class 92? :)

The ABS bogies were designed to take the Peco/Hornby Dublo coupling. Kadees weren't widely used here in the early 1970s when these bogies were produced. It's lucky that Kadee and Peco/HD use the same height from rail level! Adrian also produced a tension lock bracket to fit on this coupling mounting.

Trying to convert HEIC photos to jpeg is not easy!

Yes, those are remarkably like the ones I've got, i think there's ends with the sides and maybe wooden floors.

a bit late to reply to this, but yes I am fully aware, I was a BR driver in a former life. :)

Surely you didn't have MTK underground sets??

Not of much help, but the HD diesel shunter uses 6BA cheesehead screws for the plastic sideframes, coupling screws and the 4 screws on the ring-field motor.

I may have a couple of these kits in my late friend's collection, they appear to be papier mache with pressed beading. They seem to be 4 or 6 wheel coaches. He modelled the GN as well...

You may need to attend a seance if you're expecting a reply. :)

It's getting a bit tedious seeing the famous Minories layout plan still being discussed some 50 or more years after CJF designed it. I built my copy of it in the late 1960s using Ray Rippon pcb track in00 gauge. It worked. How Moorgate worked in real life in post-1968 days when the station and entire line from Aldersgate had been re-aligned and eventually covered over, first up train was a light engine from the Eastern, an a light engine from the Midland. Eastern used the spur on the south side, Midland used the north side spur. First train would arrive from "the north", usually a 31 with 6 suburban coaches, loco would uncouple. Meanwhile loco from spur would back on, couple up, brake test and away. Freed loco would run straight to the spur, next train would arrive, repeat pattern until the end of rush hour, when the last loco would return light engine to wherever "up north", be it Kings Cross, Finsbury Park or carriage duties at Ferme Park. Locos didn't need to reverse into the spur, the later version was designed with the least amount of movements in mind. The same happened on the Midland side. The CJF design kept the original pattern to add operating interest, his description of it when i was chatting to him about it many years later. To "shunt and release" a train to allow the incoming oco to get released would take a lot of time, typically I'd say at least 10 minutes, time to couple engine on, back out onto main line, await the signal, shunt into the next platform slowly obeying shunter's or guard's hand signals. It generally wasn't the Done Thing, it took too long and made more work. As fir the suggestion that tender locos would haul a train out tender first, they might have done on ECS to Old Oak, but almost certainly no further than that. OOC had a load of pannier tanks for ECS movements. At Big stations the station pilot was often a big loco that could deputise for a failed main line loco.

When I get round tuit I'll post some pics of my Hornma conversion! The Hornby body and chassis was only fit for scrap. shame, because it was the type without the headcode box. Or is ti a Limby conversion??

Yep, I had the same problem on mine. Bought about 2008, hardly ever used, got it out of the box and noticed the cab font cracked. The mazak had disintegrated over the intervening years. I ended up binning the model but grafted the bogies and motor onto a 2nd hand Lima loco. all I've got to do is make some new housings for the close-couple NEM boxes to go on to. I transferred the Hornby buffers to the Lima body. I was intending to fit scale wheel onto the Lima bogies but there's so much slop in the Lima axles it was't possible.

I had a posting on FB a couple of weeks ago that the new trams in Liege had started test running. Sadly I didn't keep the ling so can't copy it here. I was driving through Liege about 18 months ago and got diverted away from the riverside roads due to tramway construction, they seem to have made good progress. Also news received today, the former president of the Tramway Touristic d'Aisne (TTA) Claude Fivier passed away last week. He was known as Mr.TramTaxi, as he also ran one of the biggest taxi firms in Brussels.

Having a thorough clear-out in the railway room due partly to an infestation of mice and partly trying to find bits I know i've got that are missing from kits, I re-discovered my Hornby Dublo diesel shunter. I remember buying it back in the 1960s when i worked at Patricks toys in Fulham. the shop is still going by the way.. I put the loco on the track to see if it went, it did, just about. not surprising. I'd done a weathering job on it ll those years ago and the back of the cab had cracked many years ago, but it had flush glazing. The screw that held the body on was missing but the body was securely attached. It seems I'd modified the pick-ups and fitted what looked like Romford wheels. the motor worked but with a grinding noise and very slowly. then the wheels locked, one of the cranks had become unsoldered. But how was the body held on? I eventually found a well-hidden countersink screw in the front over the radiator. I undid tht and the body came off. The bigger surprise was that it was the loco I'd fitted with an MW005 motor back in the day! I'd cut a lump off the chassis block, taken out the ring Field magnet and removed the commutator. A bit more hacking and the MW fitted, driving the remnants of the armature through what I think is an 80:1 bevel gear set maybe from a racing car. No wonder it ran slowly. The grinding noise was where the bevel gear was fouling the the top of the HD motor housing. I need to space that out with some 8BA washers or plasticard. It'll be nice to get this running properly again and get the detailing finished! I thought I'd lost this model years ago. Pictures to follow tomorrow.

Remember too the smallest radius on a turnout doesn't apply along the whole length of the turnout.