Nova Scotian

Has anyone seen a list of those PECO switches/turnouts/points that have been converted to Unifrog and those that haven't?

I find the PECO website extremely unfriendly.

I could go with electrofrog, as that's my plan, but I like the flexibility of and design of the newer unifrog.

Model in OO - but assuming if someone knows where a master list is that'd help everyone.

Currently planning to use code 100 as some older stock I'm attached too, but if that's too hard then I'll go with code 75 which seems to have been updated.

5 hours ago, spamcan61 said:

Oh my golly gosh the Hornby Bulleid Brake bonanza never ends, it seems, 18 quid at KMRC:-

 

https://www.facebook.com/100063579492596/posts/946082934187681/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

That's because they didn't produce anywhere near enough of the composite corridors! Without those all your three car sets are two car sets! 

40% off a new Bachmann 37, not seen one this cheap yet. https://www.themodelcentre.com/35-304

I would assume it's from the LNER train ferries - then ran Harwich to Antwerp right?

And yes, does not look like a carriage - but to me like a wagon, though oddly high and without clear planking (so might be container like you say?)

My father surprised me with one of these as a present. Got to look it over properly when I received it, but first running was tonight.

Few thoughts:

1. Rapido have replicated a black hole - there's no way something this size can be that dense with such mass. Where did they stuff all the lead/tungsten?

2. Pick-up is excellent - crawled through insulfrog points

3. Gearing and motor excellent

Like many people, now wondering what I should run it with. I like to swap rolling stock around often, so chain couplings for Hornby stock will be annoying (in this case, I like the tension lock couplers!). I wouldn't be surprised if there's more in time from the various manufacturers.

Well done Rapido - excellent model.

Ordered one of these in the Hornby sale around Christmas, tonight I got to start giving it a run.

First impressions were pretty good. Yes there are plastic handrails, but they're okay. No lights, but at this price that's fine.

Out of the box it ran pretty well. It has a slight tight/binding spot on every revolution, only noticeable when creeping so slowly you can see the cogging. I need to get some rollers to give it a proper running in, and give it a dab of oil. It's good decent pulling/pushing power, it's quiet, gearing is decent.

If I hadn't then run the planet industrials shunter immediately after I'd have been even happier. Still, for what I paid for it it does what I want, namely:

1. It looks the part - it looks like the PBA Sentinel. It has presence

2. It shunts, starts, stops well - push and pull

3. It handles points well, surprisingly well given wheelbase. (waiting for some unifrog I'm just running insulfrog on a test layout)

If Hornby could spring the front axle too and find room for a flywheel I think it'd a winner. I'm surprised some of these are still sitting around on sale, they're currently half the price of some other shunters and they're definitely more than half as good.

Had a chance to give mine a proper run today for the first time.

I can state, hand on heart, that this has the best mechanism of any loco I've ever owned. The weight for an 0-6-0 is amazing, and with the gearing as it is even at very low speeds you can see the flywheel smoothing gaps in electricity delivery (I made it creep over insulfrog). For something of this wheelbase and format it's absolutely incredible. (Roco diesels always had amazing mechanisms, but that's easy when you've got bogies, central motors etc - doing it in steam outline 0-6-0 is just incredible).

Paint finish is excellent. Looks the business, sounds the business - and does the business.

Two problems - and they're glaring

1. I'm terrified of messing up the paintwork when I do decide to decal + weather.

2. Why would I spent more than 130 GBP on any loco ever again, when I could buy another one of these?

That I got this for 100 GBP is an absolute steal.

On the thread for suggestions for Rapido I asked for a MSC Hudswell Clarke long tank (MSC no.70, specifically!) - I'm now hoping they leave that one to PI.

21 hours ago, tractionman said:

this inf came from Rails this morning

 

https://railsofsheffield.com/collections/Dapol-oo-gauge-april-may-new-releases

 

April or May arrival expected.

That's great - gives me 2-5 months to recapitalize my modelling budget between this arriving and the Andrew Barclays I've ordered. Although won't be in time for me to pick it up on my next UK trip - will have to be when my partner comes over in May/June. 

Excited about this one.

53 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Rather the reverse. Look how much product they have listed where they compete, and the proportion of the total vote obtained: and then consider how much more product they have before the customers. Just because it's not 'the very latest' doesn't mean everything to a large proportion of the customer base. (My own example, have just purchased a Hornby product that was introduced ten years ago, and 'squeezed out' at that time by higher priority items that required the budget I adhere to. And it's a corker! Which is how it was assessed at introduction.)

 

Just too many factors in purchaser opinion for this to be meaningful. Now, if we could get independently audited results of speed to - lets say - 95% sell out at full price from date of  introduction to market; that would be more telling. No more honest vote than what we are prepared to dig out of our wallet...

I wasn't saying their range are duds - but I would suggest they've had a couple of years where they themselves state they're playing "catch up". Eg. less announcements, producing things they previously committed to. However, when someone like accurascale is taking everyone on (diesels, kettles etc), and successfully - those will stay in the accurascale range for many years too. Same with rapido. Hornby should want something to perform well next year - if they want to remain committed to OO gauge. TT is theirs for now and maybe that's where their attention is going to fall.

I don't own a true Accurascale product (I have two andrew barclays on order which doesn't really count), but I'm certainly going to want to given these results. Just have to convince myself on why I want a Manor that won't fit on my shunting layout!

23 minutes ago, BMacdermott said:

An excellent set of results!

 

A dead hobby? I don't think so!🙂

 

Brian

Maybe not, but probably some worried looking faces at Hornby this morning.

Added another one to my pre-order. Had ordered a Dapol Hawthon Leslie PLA, and the lined dark blue will pair perfectly...

Both were much better prices than RRP for some shunters from mainstream brands - I understand of course if you wait they'll go on sale if there's any left, but where I'm now looking into a couple of liveries I can't really take that chance.

Just preordered a Port of London Authority one from Rails.

I seem to have fallen down an industrial shunter hole. Wallet is hurt, but not as hurt as if I were on a Merchant Navy spending spree!

Looking forward to this.

Also couldn't resist the Cadburys vent van to go with it. (pre-order)

Hampshire models sale

https://www.hampshiremodels.co.uk/collections/sale

One bonus seems to be they have stock from a couple of years ago, discounted against the RRP from then (rather than now). Few quid cheaper on a few items than elsewhere. Eg. https://www.hampshiremodels.co.uk/products/Dapol-4s-041-001-oo-gauge-large-prairie-2-6-2-5109-green-great-western?_pos=1&_sid=5f968e6af&_ss=r

Poor Lemburg doesn't get much love. At 128 GBP it's a steal for modern tooling, diecast footplate etc.

https://www.themodelcentre.com/r30087-Hornby-oo-gauge-1-76-scale-lner-a3-class-no-45-lemberg-diecast-footplate-and-flickeirng-firebox-era-3-new-tooling

We seem to be back to some pretty deep discounting - good for buyers, but not for the companies - stock sitting around, more and more getting into the 40%-50% off range.

3 hours ago, RapidoCorbs said:

Any tampo removal will risk damage to the paint but the best method I have yet found it using a wooden cocktail stick.

Thank you. 

Sorely tempted to buy Holly Bank. Two issues:

1. I'd want to remove NCB, to one day re-decal with my make-believe PBA. How easy is this without damaging paintwork?

2. To make my life easy, I order in the UK, deliver to UK family, pick up there. It can be months between ordering and getting it back to Canada. So - what are the odds that it'll run well out of the box (more or less) and not degrade? 90%, 95%? 

9 hours ago, DY444 said:

 

Given the geographical disposition of the lines, what proportion of users are either new or visitors?  Not many I would wager.  The lines have operated for over a decade without causing any discernable confusion to the vast majority of users. 

 

If TfL was awash with cash then maybe, just maybe, you could make an argument for doing this but that is not the case.  The underground is deteriorating at an alarming rate, bus services are being scaled back and TfL is scrabbling around for every penny it can find just to keep going.  Spending millions on this is simply inappropriate when almost everything TfL is responsible for is falling apart and council tax payers are being required to stump up even more.  Frankly, as a resident of a borough where the only TfL service is buses, I am really starting to resent how much of my money goes to TfL to be spent in other boroughs, especially on wholly unnecessary flights of political fancy like this one.

Yawn.

Many people have chimed in on why the naming and labelling of lines is a good thing. You just want to ignore that as you have an imaginary axe to grind.

You think the 6m was spent on picking names? The 6m is the cost of updating maps and signage - all of which is important to wayfinding. 

1 hour ago, 009 micro modeller said:

Do journey planners, map apps etc. not indicate this as well though?

Journey planners certainly do. 

I don't struggle, I grew up in the UK and used the underground regularly. My partner didn't and has been thrown off by some of the idiosyncrasies in the network. Naming/identifying the overground lines would likely have been my priority based on her experience. 

Next might be dealing with some of the GWR oddities like Greenford to West Ealing. Probably some on southern/swr I'm forgetting too. 

17 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

Announcements and signage refer to trains ‘via Liverpool Street’, ‘via Aldgate’ etc.

Yes. But when you're not at the station those announcements aren't very useful. 

Enough people have now raised it - time to rename the circle line. It's no longer a circle. You can't glance at a station on Google maps listing a circle connection and know immediately whether you can go both directions, one direction, if you're out on the dogleg etc. 

Or make it a circle again. 

1 hour ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

Another chance missed by Sad-eek. It was named in a local competition with a small prize. It was at the time when we were doing the resignalling so 1988.

Could have saved Tfl a bit of cash. Would have given plenty of suggestions to pick from, possibly even some appropriate and not too politically incorrect. Get the secretary to pick the winners and dish out half a dozen free one month Oyster cards. Job done.

Why deliberately mis-spell his name like that? 

28 minutes ago, KingEdwardII said:

Hmm, we don't seem to have done that for most of our mainline railways, yet plenty of folk travel on them with few problems.

 

Yours, Mike.

Wherry Line, Bittern Line, Heart of Wessex, North Downs etc etc

There are lots.

And TOCs could learn a thing or two about how TFL displays and codes its maps/routes. Take an imaginary journey - Watford Junction to Shepherd's Bush. On the old map, thick orange line, looks like you just stay on. New map, with colour coding and line names - clear that I need to change at Willesdon Junction.

4 minutes ago, DY444 said:

 

Perhaps if you were a London council tax payer you might think differently.  We are about to face an increase of 8% in the mayoral levy whilst the incumbent of said office continues to spend money like it's going out of fashion.

My partner is about to be. And she'll be far more able to get around London quickly and effectively, especially early on in living there, if the lines are clearly labelled and named.

TFL annual revenue is 9bn GBP. They just spent a paltry 6m GBP on a redesign of the wayfinding map that their customers use to find their way through their services.

This isn't about a branding/rebranding - this is about the use of those lines and clarity on what services are available. They then needed to create the names - which is the process you saw.

8% increase in property tax where I am (similar to council tax) because of inflation. And we're horribly under-served with public transport. I'd rather pay tax and have access to reliable, decent service that is easy to use. But of course some of it isn't reliable at the moment - because of more than a decade of austerity meaning they couldn't replace the Central Line rolling stock, delayed the refurbishment, and now they can't get enough trains in the network to serve the demand. Central government has spent 12+ years now downloading more costs to local authorities, most of whom are at breaking point. 

There were about 3.3bn passenger journeys on TFL last year. Don't begrudge losing local service to another area having service - there should be reliable, accessible public transport in all communities in the UK and finger pointing at any city or region hides the real issue of a chronic lack of investment in infrastructure, decades of neglect, and the current focus on private car owners which is unfathomable.

I disagree with those complaining. It's a clear and easy way to identify the different routes available on overground.

The names are good. Of course they aim to be more inclusive. As I said before, weaver and windrush are inspired - the history they link to, what they represent, the way they sound. 

The link to Wembley is okay, my issue with lionesses is not any "political correctness", only the way it sounds.

Suffragette similar. But. now my kids will want to go on the line, which is a good thing. 

The cost of doing this is minor, compared the the value of an easy to use network for visitors, tourists, occasional users etc. Not everyone is an expert and the way it's divided up and displayed is in the best traditions of London underground mapping. 

Some of them roll of the tongue more easily - weaver, windrush and liberty. I particularly like weaver and windrush.

Unfortunately the lionesses is a mouthful - I get what they're trying to do, but with this one I think they should have looked at for some other inspiration along the line.

Suffragette fine, but again kind of a mouthful.

Mildmay a crucial part of our history and expertise - but no-one knows how to pronounce it.

These look great - have a lined green, unnumbered on order. But now I'm drooling over the unnumbered lined blue too... and Q4 delivery does give me some time to save up...