Amand

63mm from rail head to top of chimney crown. Collected mine from my local model shop. They got the number that Hornby had promised them but one person dropped out so I was first reserve. Lucky me! R3809 btw, £3810 is expected in around 2 weeks.

Bachmann 36-556RA has 90 degree pins, think the only models it worked with were the Farish Jinty and possibly a pannier tank. If I'm successful in getting a Rocket set then a Zimo would be my first choice of decoder, they do some tiny ones on a harness or with 6 pins on the decoder board.

The challenge will be DCC sound! The smallest Zimo decoder is 5mm longer than the Hornby decoders (the R7150 looks to be the same as the R8249 with just 6 wires and matching plug). Might be possible to hard wire and hide the decoder under the chassis of the tender and put some variant of "sugar cube" type speakers in the water barrel. That's assuming a suitable sound can be sourced. Hoping Paul Chetter gets a Rocket set to play with

I'm almost 100% certain that the crankpins are the same size head as Hornby, so a Hornby R913 will work.

A nurse finds a rectal thermometer in her front pocket and thinks: Some a$$hole has my pen!

Hi, the tools that you'd use are a small cross-head screwdriver, a soldering iron and a nut spanner to remove the crankpins from the wheels - Hornby item R913. From memory the wires from the pickups go though a hole in the chassis block, so need to be un soldered then re-connected after threading through the new block. Hornby typically use all black wires, so make sure you get them the right way round or you'll short out the loco and tender connector. A multimeter comes in handy. The pickups are easily bent out of shape, so take care they don' get tangled with the spokes of the wheels. I find it easier to remove the valve gear from the wheels as the metal is fairly soft and distorts easily. Take a photo of it before you start. It's just a matter of taking things slowly. I make a note of which screw went where, and sometimes I video the work as I go along when taking a chassis apart. Don't let this put you off having a go, I've built my experience fitting decoders to a colleagues loco collection, but there's a few shops in the back of the monthly mags that offer repairs, including Peter's Spares.

Unfortunately there have been a few Patriots and Scots from Hornby that have suffered "Mazak rot" so unlikely to be any unaffected chassis for sale. But the metal castings are available as part X7219. Dismantling and rebuilding is fun, just make a note of what goes where.

Just from Googling pictures of motor types, a "coreless" motor is going to have a cylindrical shape. The magnets make up the centre of the motor and the windings ar aide of a self-supporting mesh that spins around the magnet. With only the winding forming a moveable mass the motor can react faster to a change in power and load. It looks like a normal motor turned inside out. Traditional motors have the magnets on the outside, attached to the outer casing. Although there are exceptions - Ringfield, where the magnets totally surround the windings - the magnets don't touch. These motors are more square shaped, to have two crescents where the magnets live. If the motor in the J72 is completely cylindrical, then I'l bet this weeks pockets money* that its a "coreless" motor. My J72 is still in the box as the railway room is in disarray until the deccies are put away, so I can't open mine up to look.. *the last time I was given pocket money was 1977. It wouldn't cover the cost of a stamp today.

Fast forward to December 2020. 25th December is a Friday, so a Bank Holiday. The bank holiday for Boxing Day is Monday 28th. So what about Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th? Normal trading days. Are we going to name and shame Model Railway shops that don't open on 26th? Or those that do open on a Sunday but who choose to have a 4 day break?

The bodies are the same as the 1992 initial release. OK for its time, but eclipsed by the Replica / Bachmann B1 and even the 57xx and 56xx as marketed by Mainline.

Just a shame Bachmann didn't release any in LNER livery. However, the bodies are fully interchangeable between the "split chassis" and the newer Next18 versions. Mine are now both in LNER black, one lined one plain. Changing the Next18 bodies would involve repaint and removing the loco number box from the smokebox door, and that's beyond my skill level.

What did the cosmetic surgeon wish his patients this festive season? A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Ear!

Other than the J79 all the SLR locos are available RTR. I made the Connoisseur J79 in 7mm, the 4mm kit is currently unavailable. Another one for Hornby to consider?

Pluck up the courage to tell the wife that the baseboards in the garage that I've nearly finished building are not to be used to store paint tins, summer / winter duvets (depending upon the season) or Xmas decorations.

And for those not fortunate enough to have an NER based livery or have a connection to the North East paint it in other bright colours and name it Polly, Connie, Nelly etc. Only tooling change would be the dome.

I didn't mention Hornby discontinuing the current Smokey Joe / 101 / CR Pug. There's still a place for them in Hornby's range, and for all we know they could have generated enough profit to keep Hornby going. All I was asking for is bringing out one loco design that resembles a loco tens of thousands of us may have enjoyed in the 60s and 70s. Good quality small locos sell, think back to Peckett-mania, and Hatton's own small locos.

A Connie / Nelly / Polly brought up to date with a decent chassis and new body would make my day, first trainset in for Christmas 1970 was no 27 in green with a couple of wagons. The only serious models I'd like to see would be LNER Sentinel Railcar like the NU-Cast one but much lighter without the cast metal body, and a J39 would be nice as Bachmann's is on the back burner and mine are on their last legs (or wheels.)

I was beyond furious yesterday, couldn't find a single Post Office that was open - I needed to return all my unwanted presents back for a refund!

Sunday shopping in England was around 1994, but growing up in the 1970s that's where my memory takes me. Sunday was the day cars were washed, grass cut, fences and woodwork painted. If my dad got the car out of the garage I'd wash it for my pocket money, then after lunch I could put the trestles up in the garage and get the trainset board out. The lads living in the road would bring a loco round and we'd race them - I had 3 ovals of track. The winners were either my 0-4-0 Polly, or the Lima Deltic, depended upon which oval they were on and which controller was used! Today was dog walking first thing, then catching up with family we didn't see yesterday. Couldn't cope with the Boxing Day sales or the returns queues at Customer Service.

Oh to be back in the early 1970s - no Sunday trading, no shops open on bank holidays, most towns had half day closing, and the 3 day week around Christmas 1973. How did we manage?

Having worked 9-5 Monday to Friday for 30 years it came as a shock to have to take a job in retail following redundancy. £10 an hour in retail? More likely to be closer to the minimum wage of £8.21 an hour. The shop I was in only closed Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. The manager made us to go in on Easter Sunday to replenish the shelves and face up everything as the regional manager was due to inspect the shop the following day. No union reps to get involved, so we had to go in. You can guess the mood we were all in. Thankfully I escaped to a job where we are closed Sundays and Bank Holidays. Yes I'd like to buy some fishplates tomorrow to finish the extension to the layout, but I respect that my nearest model shop staff are getting a well deserved two days off. I'm sure Meatloaf the OP would complain if he had to work tomorrow? At least he gets the day off.

Yes, that's the right idea. Red and black go to the track, orange and grey to the motor. As the chassis and therefore the body could be live to one rail make double sure that nothing can short out. When doing similar conversions my usual method is to use an ESU 51950 harness - assuming that the decoder has a plug still attached. If not I fit a spare one. Then I use an old non sound decoder which I don't mind sacrificing should stray volts where they shouldn't. If all goes well after testing then the sound decoder goes in.

The example that had the coupling rods upside down - this applied to one side of the loco only. Flipping the wheels over fixes the problem on one side but introduces it to the other! That assumes that the drive gear is located in the centre of the axle. Santa aka The Mrs has wrapped up mine and there’s no way I can open it to check and then re-wrap without her noticing.

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I don't have a J72 yet (apparently one will appear under the tree in 10 days time) but I'd go for the Bachmann 36-567. It's made by Zimo, and I have one in my DCC ready V3. It's lower priced than Zimo, same excellent running quality. For sound installs the Zimo MX659N18 would be my choice. Slightly smaller than the ESU alternative.