Neil P

Thanks for the quick reply - I've done that. How do I link my account on World of Railways to my account here? I never took advantage of the forum extras with my last subscription, and never got the gold badge next to my posts.

As an existing subscriber, can I take advantage of the Show Special this weekend and "renew" my Gold membership 2 months early for £30 instead of £50 if I wait until it's due in May?

I have recently changed from JMRI to iTrain, in part due to the frustration of using the Layout editor, and partly due to bugs that looked like they would never get fixed. I didn't want to pay £180 for software, but having used the trial version of iTrain for two weeks, I think of the time and effort I could have saved by doing it earlier. You can get a 2 month free trial of iTrain and I'd strongly suggest at least giving it a go.

In response to my own question about interfacing withrottle controllers to iTrain, in case anyone is wondering in future, I've managed to connect my Digikeijs DR5000 command station to both JMRI and iTrain, one using USB and one using ethernet and the (JMRI) throttles seem to play nicely with iTrain.

They didn't offer me any upgrade options. I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't chased them up (took me two attempts as well). I suspect they would have just kept hold of my money. I ended up ordering a Elegoo Mars 2 instead, which was on offer on Amazon at £180 last week. I lost confidence in Anycubic after this experience, and seeing all the complaints about missing orders and taking months to get warranty replacements on their Facebook page. It's a shame, because people seem to like the Photon range, but I have much more confidence in getting support from Amazon if something goes wrong.

Ah, hadn't realised it was you. I bought the Kindle Edition of your book last year. Very useful!

It was a week or so after I received a reply, which was a few weeks after I sent the letter, but - yes - I accept it might well have already been planned!

Does this mean that you could use a withrottle controller with iTrain, by connecting your command station (such as the Digikeijs DR5000) to both JMRI and iTrain?

Thanks. All useful info. Six months on and I still haven't got round to installing the signals yet! As an aside, I used to use the Shrewsbury to Wolverhampton line regularly as a boy to get from school in Codsall to Wolverhampton. I remember writing to British Rail about the daft platform numbering at Wolverhampton at the time (where the two bay platforms were called Platform 1C and Platform 1D and it was hard to tell whether the station announcer had said 1B or 1D). I suggested they renumbered them 4 and 5. A senior manager at British Rail wrote back to me to say thanks, but said they didn't plan to change the numbers, but a week or so later they did. I will never know if it was due to my letter or whether that was already planned!

Hi, I've written a program to connect cheap Midi controllers like this to JMRI to use as throttles. I'm posting it here because I thought some people might be interested, and also because I could do with some advice about the best way to interface them to iTrain. The controllers can be bought for less than £50 and connect to your PC running JMRI via USB. Each slider is a throttle (8 per device), and you can connect several to one PC. My kids find them loads easier than using phone-based apps. The buttons are used for various functions, and can be configured on a per-loco basis. You can't use this for consists yet, or setting points or routes. The Python code and instructions are all on GitHub here: https://github.com/njpollard/midi-throttle I've only tested it on a Raspberry Pi running Raspbian so far, but there's no reason why it shouldn't work on Windows and MacOS. I don't have a huge amount of time to offer support, but I'll do my best to offer help where I can. I'd also welcome people who like to improve or extend the code. It works well for me, but there's definitely room for improvement, as I'm not a Python expert. On to my question. I'm thinking of moving from JMRI to iTrain, and these throttles use the wiThrottle protocol. As far as I can see, that's not supported on iTrain. However, I'm using a Digikeijs DR5000 command station, so I was wondering whether it's as simple as using JMRI as a wiThrottle server alongside iTrain and connecting them both to the DR5000 via the LAN? Failing that perhaps I could use a LNWI device? Any suggestions would be welcome.

I chased them up and they said they were out of stock and no indication of when it will be back, so I’ve reluctantly had a refund. I see the Photon is also on offer at the moment, but looking at the horror stories about how long it takes to get repairs or spares, I’m wondering whether I should consider Elegoo or Phrozen instead. I have a Ender 3 already for the bigger stuff. I only really bought this because it was cheap, but I’d made plans to print some detailed items, so I’m sort of committed to the idea now.

Thanks, JCL. I've only watched the first video so far, but wanted to say It's excellent. I use Tinkercad and Fusion, but have been struggling to make decent brickwork beyond flat retaining walls, so had been looking for a good intro to making model buildings in Blender. The level of detail covered in the video is just perfect and you straight to the point. It's one of the few that I haven't ended up getting frustrated and selecting 1.5x speed to skip all the waffle. I'll be watching the rest very soon.

Thanks. I think mine is coming from the UK, as the offer was only available to customers from the UK. I'll sit tight for now and see what happens.

Has yours been dispatched yet? I ordered mine last weekend and have nothing but an order acknowledgment.

I've just cracked and bought a Photon Zero as well. For £72 / $99, it's too good to pass up on. Due to my dithering, the wash and cure station has sold out, but looks like they can be had on eBay for about £90, so I'll grab one of those too. I already have an Ender 3, which I've been very pleased with, and have used it to print some retaining walls etc., but it doesn't quite have the level of detail needed for lineside cabinets etc. Can anyone suggest any extras I need? Latex gloves and isopropyl presumably?

I have bought a Hornby TTS Hogwarts Castle for my sons for Christmas. Very pleased with it, but does anyone know how to stop it sounding the whistle every time the track is powered up? It's very annoying when I'm working on the layout when they are asleep. It happens even if sound isn't enabled using F1. Can't see any mention of it in the manual. Thanks.

Yes - they're basically a plotter with a blade instead of a pen. They can cut very intricate detail if you have decent quality card (the smoother the better). I paid about £130 for mine (it was the Silhouette Portrait mode that's now discontinued). For details like window frames, a filament-based 3D printer might struggle to get the level of detail you need. Resin-based printers would work, but they are a lot more hassle than a cutter like the Cameo. I guess it's worth thinking ahead to what else you might use them for.

Something like a Cameo cutter would work well if you're happy to make them out of card?

That’s very helpful, thanks. I couldn’t quite work out how it attached.

Excellent. Thanks everyone.

This fell off my class 66 last night. Any idea what it is? I've tried looking at pictures and can't work out where it goes. (Damn, these models are fragile!) Thanks, Neil

Thanks. Looks like they have a few other mk1 coaches at similar prices, too.

Thanks. Luckily I’m using JMRI for control so I’m pretty sure I can put some rules in there once I have block detection working. I’m treading a fine line between fun and realism, as I’m building a “train set” for me and my sons to enjoy, but I can’t quite bring myself to make something that wouldn’t be vaguely plausible in the prototype.

Thanks @The Johnster Presumably this scheme of alternating red-green yellow-green two aspect signals is still used on some mainlines today (or at least was in the late 1980s)?

Thanks, @Wheatley That's useful to know