Mike Beard

If you watch the average RhB layout in any scale it seems to be a stage with the players entering and leaving by the wings without stopping in most instances. Shunting is a rareity. On mature reflection I'd tend to fit Kato semi-permanent couplings inside freight stock rakes as well as passenger ones.

I wonder if Pirata will deduct the Italian VAT or its equivalent and add British VAT with all the ramifications that brings or will we be faced with paying UK VAT as well as Italian? I also hope that the Arnold coupler socket is much better than MDS on their vans. I ended up stripping them back completely and fitting Microtrains ones. I don't normally complain!

Re the Luggage Van. I'll believe what it is when I see an actual model, preferably in my hand. A lifetimes experience of opening labelled boxes and finding something completely different inside points me this way. .

NGRM is a "Safe Site" and I think lives on Facebook but I stand open to correction on that point. I have been on it for at least 10 years maybe 15 and the Chivers family is to be trusted.

It is a bogie car. If I recall these run on GEX bogies. There was some discussion briefly about would it be a pantograph fitted luggage van but Kato seem to have come down on the older type. I notice that the EW1 cars are going to get another re-run. I wonder if they might be in a livery variation? There does seem to be a slight smack of conservatism within Kato over the colour schemes certainly for locos. I've always wanted a locoo called "BUGA"!

Gerd has them on his web site as well:-

Keith still seems to have some of Nochs specials. Um. As to Gerd's 3D printing on NGRM I've said what I think there but if we only got RhB bogies that can accept Microtrains couplers Fox Valley 33" x 0.540" axle wheels that would be good. I suppose you could have a Microtrains adapter one end of the bogie and a decent Arnold/Kato adapter the other end and just remove the one you don't want.

I've said elsewhere than unlike previous issues of Noch inspired models these are not Noch exclusives so it will be possible to buy them from TrainTrax or others, not Gaugemaster going by their current pricing, at reasonable UK prices. I think with Brexit etc the days of buying cheaply from Japan are over.

I think Osborns down in Bideford may well have Kato 28-186 Glacier Express Close Coupling Set which will improve the look of the train immensly.

If you use "Albulabahn im Maßstab 1:150" in Facebook you'll come up with a similar thread. Mike Beard.

I've just discovered this thread and I'd like to say I think it is a "Bit Special". I'm going back to read it minutely and I look forward to developments in 2021.

Experience of designing a sucessful modular system for the local N Gauge Group leads me to believe that the tracks need more of a bias towards the front. On the 900 x 400 boards I designed the centre line of the double tracks was set at 150mm from the front edge and on that basis I'd suggest siting the single track somewhere between 75 and 100mm from the front. I'd also standardise the ballast height at 3mm. On a further thought why not produce blanks with the flat at the front and the steep section to the rear. You could indicate the other options with a "flame line". That way you get the maximum utility and flexibility from a single cutting. Just a thought. That's my two pennerth. Mike Beard.