roythebus1

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.

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.