DickBrowne

We’re looking forward to a good visit tomorrow. I live in Newport Pagnell, so only a 20 minute drive to the show. I’d echo other responses here about the traffic. The area is designed to manage far more traffic than it sees. My daughter took us to see a concert at the stadium a few years ago (it was Take That, not my choice so don’t judge me! Really good show though) and even with all of those fans leaving at the same time we were out of the car park in about 20 minutes. It’s a non-issue, please don’t let it detract from your enjoyment of the day.

Thanks for the suggestions. I visited my local model shop over the weekend and having chatted to the guy there, I think the kits I was building (PN104 - stone terraced houses) were from an older range - they all appeared to be overscale because of the way they were produced, but there's a number of new offerings from Metcalfe. The element we could clearly see on each kit (old and new) was the window frames, and when we offered the two kits up to each other, the new kits appear to be much smaller. Having done that, I bit the bullet and bought a new kit (PN155 - workers cottages), which I built on Sunday and this morning before starting work. It's a change to the layout, but it's a good one. The new buildings are more appropriate to the scale, and don't look as daft as the old ones. I'm going to go with them and finish the landscaping. As for the old ones, I agree John that N-gauge buildings wouldn't look right with 009, but It'll cost me nothing to check (I can run a couple of 009 loco's wooden the n-gauge track before landscaping and park them next to the buildings in question). If that doesn't work... Shelf diorama!

Evening all - I've just spent a couple of days building a number of Metcalfe N gauge kits for my n-gauge layout project. I've built a cricket pavillion, a platfom shelter, a workers cottage, and a ramshackle workshop. All of these seem to have gone fine. I also built some stonebuilt terraced houses, and a stonebuilt pub and shop. I feel Metcalfed-out now... Having popped the built kits on the layout, the final few, the terraced houses and the shop/pub seem massively over-scale, the rest seem OK, but maybe marginal, but the houses are definitely too large. I'm thinking of using the houses etc. on my upcoming 009 layout, but I'd like to replace them with something more scale-authentic, or at least not so obviously out-of-scale. Does anybody have a suggestion for kits which may be more correctly sized for n-gauge? stone-built cottages preferred. Thank you Richard

Start early, that's my advice. On Friday afternoon, just as work was completed, I cut the grass. Edged it and everything. Saturday was a social whirl, I even helped out with the housework, cooked dinner and was generally nice to be around. Sunday, awake at a decent time, coffee, toast and into the car with (and this is crucial) The Wife. An hour or so north to Quorn, to visit my very first Bachmann Collectors Club Practically Perfect Sale. The intention was to just look, absolutely no chance of spending cash, oh no. The Rev. Mrs. Browne is an absolute sport though, she loves a train, enjoys a railway show and is mad keen on helping me to find models I may be looking for. Today, for instance, she came wandering over to me with an N-gauge Sir John Betjemann Class 20. I recently bought a OO Sherlock Class 20, so why wouldn't I want a smaller one? It turns out that I did want it. That was the moment the walls came tumbling down and all of my good intentions went out of the window. In short order I had managed to procure the N-gauge class 20, an N-gauge class 03 and a bunch of rolling stock. Also, an OO J72 for the bargain price of £45 and a Warship with a "burning smell" for £70. Oh, and a OO push-pull gate set for around half retail. Here's the genius bit, and the one piece of useful advice I think I can offer any marrieid man. Some people may assume that spousal approval could be needed for what was, in effect, a reasonably substantial mornings purchasing. Not a bit of it, I've never had an issue with that. Nope, the genius of taking a spouse to a railway show is that we spent the whole day together, right until we got home at around 15:30, by which time Rev. Mrs. Browne had seen quite enough of me for one day, and I was able to retire to the layout with my new items safe in the knowledge that there was nothing to do except spend the rest of the day happily fitting decoders and running-in. The perfect recipe for a perfect Sunday.

Thank you for the replies everyone - it’s looking like the ambition may be realised. Certainly TMRG’s layout will be inspirational. Mrs. Browne and I met That Model Railway Guy on the Bachmann stand at Ally Pally this year, and we spoke about Gofod Tynn for a while, and I suspect that I can use that layout as inspiration. The layout will see definitely be 009 in design, but I reserve the right to run N scale on occasion as there are just so many that I like. I do take an onboard the comments around the length of locos etc, and that hadn’t really occurred to me before so thank you for that advice and, indeed, all of the advice offered.

Hi all For a while now, I've been thinking about a second layout. Who am I kidding? I thought about a second layout before I'd committed track to the first! Anyhoo, an event has occurred which has bought the need (note, need, not want!) for a second layout. The layout in question is going to be quite compact though - in our conservatory is a chest and that chest is where I would like to build the layout. It's not big. about 44cm x 88cm IIRC. Ideally, I'd like to run two loops of track if possible, and I want to run 009 and the occasional N gauge, and I know I'll have to accept compromises to one gauge or the other in terms of scenery, etc. I think I'm being a bit ambitious, it's a big ask for a small space, but is it doable? It won't be a "serious" layout, more just something to have running in the evening whilst Mrs. B and I enjoy each others company/beer/reading or watching much better modellers than I do their thing on YouTube. I saw the Gofodd Tynn layout That Model Railway Guy built in a suitcase, so I guess it is possible, but is it a massive compromise? If anybody has an example they can show of something which has been achieved in a similar space, I'd love to see your pics. Thanks all Richard

Absolutely agree - what may seem a bargain to me (and I’m not claiming this to be a bargain) may not to you, and vice versa One of my pleasures in this hobby is buying non-runners at often just a few pounds and resurrecting them; I know people who will do nothing but this, and I know people for whom a screwdriver is nothing more than an instrument of torture, and somewhere in between is me! I have a number of hobbies - I fish, I restore vintage watches and I enjoy the challenge of vintage cars and motorbikes. The thing I enjoy within all of these interests is the variety of people, subject matter and opinion found within a community seemingly united by a common interest. The enjoyment is in the nuance.

Of course, you are absolutely correct. I am an IT consultant by trade, now working in data security, but previously in business transformation. I was around at the north of Amazon and eBay amongst others, and one of the central points of the eBay business model at startup was “ bidder anxiety” which was predicted to add 15-20% to year three and four earnings. Think of the volumes of business eBay we’re undertaking in the late 90’s, and the lack of Buy it Now and you’ll see why it was such a key part of corporate strategy. In this case, I think I did pay more than I could have done, but it was significantly below what I would have paid, given the right model. it arrived yesterday and it’s really good. The seller said it looked like it had never been out of the box, which I always take with a large pinch of sodium, but this time I’d agree with him. It is absolutely in as new condition. The wheels have no signs of any clag on them and it runs like an absolute dream. Bachmann are about to release the same engine in N gauge, which I will be buying for my conservatory layout, and that is £100 less than I paid for this, and it’s not a limited edition (or at least I don’t think it is), so the price I paid, whilst on the high side, isn’t excessively so. Might have got it cheaper with a last second bid though :)

I hear you Mick, and I do agree to an extent, but I thought it was an easy (if time-consuming) fix. As Kevin has mentioned, it’s running as sweet as a nut and I’m over the moon with it. My whinge is around the original condition. I know this wasn’t the most expensive of items, we’ve all paid more than this and given the quality of the model, it could almost be described as a bargain. Bargain or not, the fact that a major manufacturer can ship a new model with the issues I found is not a particularly good thing. I’m more than happy to wave a screwdriver at a model, has that not been case, the inconvenience would have been considerable.

Now, I don’t like to complain… oh no, hold on, that’s wrong, I’m a techy. Whinging about stuff is like oxygen. Apparently I’m quite accomplished at it. I do feel I’m justified this time. Last week I bought a Hornby Ruston 48 in Longmorn livery. Got it home, ran it on DC, it was a little “stiff” to start, but I put that down to needing to be run in, but I had little time and so I popped it away. on Friday evening I converted it to DCC and gave it a test. Again, it was reluctant to start, but once going, it was fine. Again, I didn’t have enough time to run it in, so I didn’t worry too much about it, it was just needing the lube spreading around and so on, right? I haven’t had much time to run locos this weekend, I’ve been kit bashing and generally working on the layout, but at 5pm I decided to down tools and run some trains. Out came the Longmorn, and I decided to run my other 48 on the outer track, and so off they went. For about four minutes. The Longmorn stopped and refused to go anywhere. I could hear the motor straining and so took it off the track rather than risk burning out the motor. Looking at the back of the wheels, they were absolutely covered in runny grease, and there was a load of fibre wound around the axles, as if it had been run on a carpet, but I know that the engine had never been run, as it was brand new stock from a reputable retailer. To cut a long story short, I had to strip the thing completely, gearbox, base plate and everything. Not a job I expected on a brand new model, but the grease was more like a heavy oil, and was leaking out of the gearbox onto the wheels, and the gearbox was full of fibre too. Although the 48 was sold as brand new (and I laid full retail for it), I suspect it’s been run at some point and maybe lubricated by somebody with little mechanical sympathy. I’ve added a few pics to illustrate what I found inside - the fibres, the over-greased gearbox and the sludge. On the upside, it’s running like a champ now! Has anybody else seen this kind of thing? Was I just unfortunate? I’ve bought a number of locos in my time and never seen one this bad before.

Here’s a couple of quick and dirty pics. as I said, the layout is very much a work in progress (I’m actually kit bashing today, hence the detritus) but you can see what I’ve currently got to work with, and also a shot with some small locos in for scale.

Good call SkiPepsi - something big enough to lift on and off would be a good shout. I'm in the carriage today, so I'll get a snap of the hinges (please don't judge me, the hinges are a quick and dirty job to get the railway up and running and prove to me that it would work). I've got literally no landscaping on that part of the layout at the moment - it is just a flat board, a couple of feet square, with two loop lines and a siding. As I said, I'm out fiddling and faffing today, so I'll get a snap or two and pop them on this thread Thank you for the repsonses.

I'm not sure if this is a layout topic as such, but it seems as if it might be. I have a layout around the full perimeter of a room, and consequently have a lifting section on hinges to allow me to enter and leave easily. I'll be getting around to landscaping that part of the layout at some point soon, and I've began to ponder the quetion of how to disguise the hinges. I've thought about some sort of lineside building or maybe pop a bush over the top, but I think if I do that, the hinges may lift the feature providing the disguise and I'll need to continually re-attach it. How do you disguise yours, or do you just accept that hinges exist and leave them visible?

As many of us do, I've been watching railway videos on YouTube for a while. I've seen a number of people who have their layout name in the form of a station totem on their PC as wallpaper, and I've looked for some way of generating this for my own layout. Can't find a website or tool anywhere which may help. Does anybody know where I can find such a thing? I am going to have a sign (or two) made soon for the wall in my layout room, but I reckon it would be nice to also have it on my PC screen. All help gratefully received.

Oh Matt, if only we'd met last week. Allow me to explain that comment :-) It's been quite the week. Bucoops posted a link to a Bachmann Sherlock on eBay, and I popped it on my watch list with no real hope of being able to afford it. In order to console myself, I drove to Manchester (the long way around) via Sheffield on Wednesday, and whilst on my way I popped into Olivia's Trains, who I'd seen had two Queen Anne's in stock. When I got there, they only had one left, so I tbought I'd better snap it up, which I did - at full price (although they did then give me 10% off for cash, as I also bought a Class 03 at the same time). The eBay auction for the Class 20 ended at half-seven tonight, and having had a weekend of midelling, I thought I'd settle down with a cup of tea and watch where the auction went. It had been at £155 for a number of days, but I predicted a late flurry of enthusiasm from bidders. With three minutes to go, I popped £165 in as my opening bid. Outbid. I increased to £185. Outbid. I'd already set my mind that £200 would be the absolute maximum I would go to, so I bid £220; go on, judge me. We've all been there! and I was the high bidder. For about 15 seconds. Darn it, I'm not biddign any more, I promised myself as my bid for £250 went in. Once more I was the high bidder and there was a minute to go. I sipped my tea and watch the seconds tick away. 15 seconds to go, I was still high bidder. 9, 8, outbid! What the heck? £275 and that really would be my final bid, even if only because there was insufficient time for another bid. Then the message - You've won it! Said eBay, with a silent "by paying way too much". My wife re-entered the conservatory which she'd vacated whilst the final tense minutes were lining up, and was possibly even more delighted than I was. I ended up paying £266, which may have been too much, but I'm not unhappy with the result - it appears to be in excellent conditon, and it's a loco I've wanted for quite some time. I'm happy to have won it, and if it's as good as the photos make it look, I'll be over the moon. Thank you to Matt and to Bucoops for the pointers.