justin1985

See @Trains4U 's comment on the previous page. There is a world of difference between producing exclusive models (however you do that) and supplying the trade wholesale. It's Hatton's move into supplying their own models to the wider trade that's the issue - that really does put them into competition with Bachmann.

Hi Richard, Thanks for the reminder to update on this. To be honest I haven't actually made much progress, but it certainly isn't forgotten. I've been focusing much more on my 2mm scale projects recently. The two things I had been doing most recently were building the MBZ kit of Kollnau station, and restoring an old Märklin BR.78 4-6-4 tank loco in epoch 1 livery, which was a non runner. Tin of Humbrol for scale in this photo! The loco needed a new motor (I failed to try and get the worm off the old one to fit to a Nigel Lawton motor, so I relented and got a new 5 pole Märklin motor). It also needed a snapped piece of valve gear replacing - I used some nickel silver etch offcut and soldered it to the existing rods. Also it needed a plastic cylinder that was missing from one side - which I designed in Fusion 360 and printed on the Photon 3D printer. Finally I blackened the wheels. Pretty pleased with the result! So slow progress, but I'm dipping into it every so often! Justin

I can say from experience - it's a slippery slope! I started off buying a few Z models like this, and a few years later I've ended up with a pretty large collection of Höllentalbahn focused stock ... It sounds like the coaches you have are the ones that seemed to form the core of the range through the 1980s-90s - I think the same colours stayed in the catalogue for ages under the same codes, so there's a lot out there. As has been explained by others, the different colours generally indicate different service types, but in practice would be somewhat mixed up, and most schemes survived for long after they were officially replaced. If you're interested to upgrade them a bit, you can get some very nice 3D printed interiors for most Märklin Z coaches here (only the very most recent ones come with interiors as standard): https://www.modelplant.eu/Spur-Z/Inneneinrichtungen/ They also look a lot nicer if you clean the wheels (use IPA alcohol) and chemically blacken them (Carr's or Birchwood Casey gun blackening fluid). J

Really enjoying this layout so far. I love the concept you've come up with - to me it captures a kind of "best of both" sense of East Anglian branch lines in the 80s/90s - the rambling layout and grain facilities of the cross country routes from Cambridge to Ipswich / Norwich; and the glamorous touch of NSE branding and electrics on outer suburbans. One of my longer term plans is a "might have been" layout in N drawing together elements from the Cambridge-Bury-Ipswich line, but with electrification - very similar, I think! The attention to detail in your trackwork and the feel of space between the sidings etc looks really great. I'm looking forward to seeing it develop! I'd love to see more of the stock you're going to use on this layout too.

I've tended to find the exact opposite! Yes acrylics do dry quickly (but remember you can a drop of artist's acrylic retarder to slow that down a tad) and therefore the needle can indeed clog if you're not disciplined at cleaning between colours or when taking a break. BUT I, personally, find enamels much harder to airbrush with. I think my most frequent problem with them is lumps clogging the airbrush. With some colours and brands more than others, it seems impossible to fully get rid of lumps, even with an electric stirrer and much vigorous shaking. And it doesn't take much of a lump to block the airbrush. I find that much more difficult to sort out than a dried nozzle from acrylics. Additionally, I find enamels much less consistent in their consistency - some colours are so thick it seems difficult to actually get them thinned inside the cup - you can easily end up with nicely coloured thinned paint on top but thick sludge at the bottom, ready to block the airbrush. I've switched almost totally to using Vallejo acrylics now. The dropper bottles are ideal for dosing into the airbrush, and they can be thinned with water. Lifecolor seem generally much thinner paints, needing very little thinning, and seem to have pretty variable coverage - they do make a good airbrushed base for weathering though. Tamiya definitely have the best coverage, but as others have said, they need special thinners, and the colours in the range are quite biased toward military colours. Some particular ones are good though - "deck tan" makes a great base for weathered wooden wagon decks and interiors, and "flat brown" is a good dark chocolate colour that I often use, instead of black, as a base for weathered underframes. Where enamels really come into their own though is for washes and that style of brush weathering. The crucial difference is that you can reactivate them with thinners for a while to adjust, which you just can't do with acrylics. BUT I'd say that advantage is even more true with artists oils - which also make great weathering washes. J

This is a real shame. I can't help but think that this project has suffered from a pretty confused and unclear order/ expression of interest process. First off, I think, it was a case of "send us an email", then eventually there was a form (but that just looked like an email sending form). I can't help but think a lot of people would have missed what they were meant to do, or not picked up a strong sense of whether it was a solid proposal. I expressed an interest in some, but I can't really remember how many, but I have a feeling it was only 5 or 6 at most. As others have said, if increasing my order would help it happen, I'd happily double that number. Perhaps sit on it for a bit, and then re-launch next year, with a more coordinated marketing campaign and more intuitive order process, as per RevolutioN? J

Finally finished off more of the "big four" wagons from Association kits that have been sat on my workbench for ages. The interiors are just Tamiya "deck tan" with varied amounts of thinned down dirty mixes of acrylics. I think the GW open on the right looks best - this one has the strongest coat of deck tan and thinnest wash. Guess I need to think about loads for them now!

I’ve pretty much decided to get rid of my enamel paints. I just don’t get on with them -especially Phoenix Precision ones - preparation, cleaning, airbrushing, and especially airbrush cleanup, seems much more effort, and results seem less consistent than acrylics. Even if I wanted to give them away to someone who still uses them, I don’t seem to be able to find any courier with high street drop off who will take them. As well as Royal Mail and Parcelforce banning solvent based paints, the same seems to be true with myHermes and CollectPlus. Is there any way for individuals to send enamels? I guess businesses with courier accounts and collections etc can use a wider range of services. I guess the only other option would be to hang on to them until next spring and put them into the MRC second hand sale at the show.

Many thanks for all of the suggestions on the 57xx chassis. Looking under magnification, the hole was so tight I couldn’t see any particular side it was binding on. I opened that particular hole out with a tiny broach and eventually could see the pin touching one side at the point it was binding and adjust the quartering in the opposing direction. Eventually I managed to tweak that wheel’s quartering just enough to get it running pretty smoothly. Its still not quite as free running with the rods on that wheel than without. But I was definitely at the point where further tweaking in the same direction made it worse, and I had to go back in the other direction. I think I’ll put it away for now until I can get a second opinion of whether it’s running smoothly enough to progress further. Time to focus on the distillery plank layout, I think.

Many thanks for all of the replies. I've been very busy over the weekend and only just had a chance to have another fiddle with it. Yup - checked they're straight, and flat. Holes also line up neatly between both sides. It is possible to force it to rotate when it binds, but I it takes more force than I'd think would be a case of just needing a little freeing up like this. Tried this and the rule is in contact with all three pins on the side with no rods, if the rods are on one side only. Trying it a few times, it sometimes looks like the central crankpin might be a tiny tiny fraction lower than the two ends on some revolutions, but not others. But we're talking less than a rizla thickness - 0.1mm or less? Not sure if this is exactly what you meant Chris, but I've just tried rolling with one side on, and the other rods side reversed so only the known "good pair" is connected on that side (then switching sides). Surely if it only had one rod it would always bind after a revolution or two? Setting it up with "one full, one reversed", it seems like one combination of right hand side rods on entirely and left hand rods reversed (only on rear/longer pair) rolls smoothly really easily. The other way around (left hand side rods connected and right hand side reversed, only on rear pair on that side) is really difficult to get to roll without binding. Am I right in thinking that has isolated the problem to being the front left hand wheel (i.e. binding only occurs when that wheel has a rod on it). Does that make sense? So the problem is isolated to the crank throw, or the fit of the rod (?), on that particular wheel? In terms of trying alternative rods, does anyone know if the ones on the old Farish replacement etch fit Chris's etched chassis for the 57xx? I know I have this etch somewhere (used the 4F rods from it) but can't seem to find it right now to check. Thanks again Justin

Well, I don't think the suspect wheel turned out to be a problem, but this chassis really isn't rolling, and I can't work out why! I carefully marked the suspect wheel, and now it's in the chassis (on rear axle) it quartered with no problems on the jig. Running with rods reversed and fitted on the central (geared) axle and the rear axle, it rolls absolutely flawlessly. However, with the rods reversed the other way and running on the central and front axles (i.e. the shorter wheelbase on the 57xx) - or indeed with them fitted to all wheels - I simply can't get it to do more than a 1/3rd revolution. All of the wheelsets are visually in quarter, and all slide effortlessly back into the quartering jig. With the rods fitted to one side, the ones on the other side drop on virtually effortlessly - which I understand to be another test of quartering? So I'm struggling to think that quartering is the issue. None of the muffs are pinching. I'm not sure that any of the crankpins are still 100% perpendicular to the wheels, but any that were a bit out have been tweaked back into something very close to perpendicular. The crankpins were, I think, an old bag rather than new shop stock - they measure out at about 0.51 or 0.52mm. The connecting rods were opened out with a 0.6mm drill. I couldn't see any evidence of the frames not being parallel. The wheelsets aren't quite pressed into gauge yet - temporarily at "Irish Broad Gauge" as Tim was calling it, to give a better chance of adjustment or being able to get the wheels back out without more damage, if needs be. Basically I left the aluminium hair clip between the inside face of the wheels and the frames when pressing them in using the jig. The central geared axle is perhaps a tad tighter (done first, before I realised the clips would make a nice temporary spacer). Can I at least take the fact that the central and rear axles run well with the rods reversed and on to rule out the problem being with those, and therefore the problem must relate to the front axle? I'm reluctant to start opening out or drifting the connecting rods holes any further, without being sure that that's the issue. Is there anything else I should check? J

So the other thread refers to the age of the proprietors being their reason to want to minimise the duration of future commitments. "Cygnet" was formed when they sold off the rest of Wild Swan to Simon of Titfield Thunderbolt. I wonder if we know whether that was because they wanted to continue the magazine as a retirement project, or if Simon / Titfield wasn't interested in taking it on? I would have thought that MRJ, more than most other "small suppliers" in the kits and bits world, would be a good candidate to be sold on for a continued existence, when the proprietors can't continue? Which brings to mind what a shame it was that "Finescale Railway Modelling" fell victim to such unfortunate circumstances. I would have thought that the more modern approach (full digital production, subscriptions via PayPal etc.) would be a bit of a model for the future of MRJ under a new owner, or a replacement should it cease.

Thanks Nick - that's given me the confidence to give it a try! There was a thought of "if it's out in those two dimensions, which other ways might it be out" - but I guess it's very likely to still be in tolerance. I've set the chassis up with Simpson springs on the rear axle only - so I'll make sure this wheel goes on that one. J

Does this wheel need replacing? I think this is the second of a batch of 9mm loco driver wheels I've had that's been a bit dodgy. I was just getting ready to solder in the crankpin to this wheel, and noticed that the hole is not aligned with the spoke, and also when the crankpin is pushed flush against the wheel, it isn't perpendicular to the axle. I understand the most critical dimension is the distance from the centre to the crankpin hole, rather than its radial alignment. i.e. it might be visually out of quarter but still mechanically quartered etc. But with the hole also seeming to be at a bit of an angle, I'm not feeling confident. Should I just replace this one rather than mess about trying to get it quartered? J

Looks excellent Tim! And thanks again for running the workshop - super helpful! How do you go about chemical blackening the wheels? When I tried this once, the blackening fluid (Birchwood Casey) made the steel rims rust like crazy. The same happened when I tried but used water to wash the blackening fluid off straight away. It didn't seem possible to sufficiently dry off either the fluid or the water from the inside of the spokes to before rust started appearing on the rims. After cleaning those wheel rims off with a fibreglass brush, they've always seemed prone to rust more ever since.

Are there are Phoenix paints that DON'T seem much too dark for their stated purpose? I know scale colour is an issue, and presumably even more for us in 2mm than in other scales. But the Phoenix colours don't seem to make any allowance for being model paints at all. I just looked up Humbrol "lime" - looks like there's a choice of gloss or florescent. Could be fun!

Yup this was my understanding too. I believe Colin "is" Sonic models, who are producing the 56xx and VEA van for RevolutioN. I think there was a suggestion this was a prelude to striking out with a standalone range to be sold via model shops? I'm sure I've heard some of the whingers who complain about any model with coreless motors (presumably fearing it won't work with their 1960s controller) also tend to have a "thing" against split frame chassis designs? Is there still a bit of a bias against split frames from those more used to other methods in larger scales? J

And there we have the crux of any of the weaknesses with any ticketing system. Every system has ways it could be defeated, but the immense degree of effort is unlikely to be worth it, considering the likelihood of being caught / loophole closed before too long. When any type of e-ticket is scanned, I'm sure it's cross referenced. If you're going to the effort of faking a ticket, you'd probably have better odds of getting away with it by faking paper tickets! Just as you could create a fake app, you COULD go to elaborate lengths to entirely fake paper tickets, steal some blank tickets, whatever. Or given how quickly the type seems to disappear from most tickets when kept in my wallet - just wait until some real tickets have lost their text and find a way to overprint them convincingly. Is it likely to be worth the effort? No! (There's a question - do ticket collectors (as in enthusiasts who collect tickets) still exist in the era of thermally printed tickets? I don't think I've ever had a paper season ticket or Railcard last more than 4 or 5 months before becoming entirely blank!)

Small businesses can open an account with Royal Mail and access the Tracked 24 and 48 services which are much better value than the equivalent Signed For or Special Delivery services that the public can get via Post Offices. I believe the catch is that you either have to have a regular booked collection, or drop off at a Royal Mail (not Post Office) site - i.e. a sorting office. So £10 does still seem a little steep.

Have you actually seen one of these tickets in use? The GreaterAnglia e-tickets in their own app (which I'm pretty sure is simply a re-branded Trainline app, minus the service charges) can show either a QR code barcode, which staff can scan, or if they don't have a scanner, it can show a text "ticket" which includes an animated coloured bar with three coloured boxes and the current date and time moving back and forth across it - the colour of the boxes changes each day. This is designed to stop exactly the kind of thing that the woman reportedly did - its patently obvious if you show staff a screenshot rather than the app itself, because it won't be animating. FirstBus's mTicket system works exactly the same way. If the ticket inspector has a scanner (most do on GA) then presumably it is verifying the ticket - it would make sense if its checking whether it was also scanned more than a certain amount of time ago etc. The other point is that you can download a ticket to your device at any time once you've bought it, and you don't need a working connection after that. But you have to activate the ticket before you travel, to reveal the code or "live" ticket. Once activated, it seems to stay active for the rest of the day, but the ticket inspector can see both the time it was bought, and the time it was activated. Open Return return portions, for example, have to be activated on the day you're actually travelling, so you can't use them more than once. The ticket inspectors can see the time purchased and time activated, so if you buy it quick and immediately activate it, when you see them get on the train, they can see this. I imagine if you're in a penalty fare area, they'd be within their rights to pull you up on this! Others have explained that the PDF (and/or print at home) version is watermarked with your personal details. I haven't used this option in the UK though (but have done in Germany, Sweden, Belgium, etc, and it always works the same way with watermarked ticket verifiable against ID). For me the big advantage is that I can buy an Advance ticket a short time before travelling, and not have to worry about stopping to collect paper copies from a ticket machine. My most frequent journey is Thameslink across London using Contactless, then a Greater Anglia mainline service for which I can usually get a dead cheap Advance ticket, so e-tickets give me a seamless way to do this without having to factor in time to collect tickets. J

Basically, CAD will always be necessary because CAM instructions (often "gcode" format) have to be valid, and configured for the resolution of the machine in question. (Regardless of whether that's a spark eroder, laser cutter, 3D printer, or whatever). As in, there can't be points that aren't supported by surfaces, sections that are too thin, too small for the resolution of the device, or whatever. A point cloud or similar is too random - things like reflection, shadow, and dust can create spurious points. Software can even these points out into surfaces suitable for CAD, but it will always be a compromise between spurious data creating lumps etc, or the smoothing being so smooth that detail is lost. A quality result needs human input. Perhaps AI type tech will be able to help in future. Perhaps a bit more common use of this tech is the use of airborne laser scans in mapping. The process to get from a messy point cloud which includes leaves on trees etc, to the nice smooth contours on a map or 3D view, is pretty damn complex, and if automated, it gets all kinds of spurious artefacts.

As several people have alluded to, DJM's approach was a long way from true crowd funding. He took the money up front, but that's about the only similarity. In the world of electronics or other areas where crowdfunding is common, he would have been laughed out of the room, I'm sure. In general though, crowdfunding, across all sectors, had it's time as the big shiny new thing, and applied to far too many projects where it wasn't suitable. Compare with the dot-com boom of the noughties. It's probably a good thing to kill the boundless enthusiasm and bring a reality check. That doesn't mean it doesn't have a place, and I'm sure it will settle down into that niche. I would have no hesitation at funding more RevolutioN projects, as they've always been well thought through, detailed, and transparent. I'm sure some will be quick to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Some projects will still "pass the reality check" and there's no reason to dismiss them. J

This looks like a fascinating long term plan. I love the aspiration to have a whole system - as you say, its really rare outside of US modelling. Building up in stages from standalone layouts is eminently sensible, but I wonder if you might have to think again about scale? The first layout that comes to mind as an example of a realistic "system" but modelled to a more "realistic" manner than a typical US basement empire, is Dieter Bertelsmann's famous "Hochscharzwald" in HO scale. Here's a really informative YouTube video with a nice run through of the track plan - two main stations, two additional key scenic scenes, two fiddle yards, and a branch line - sounds pretty similar to what you had in mind? It also fills an entire traditional wooden Black Forest barn ... A great British example of something similar might be John Greenwood's 2mm Finescale "North Cornwall Lines". Very much made up of several distinct layouts, many of which are exhibited independently, but at home (and at a "one night only" exhibition) fit together as a complete system. Even in 2mm though, it's BIG! As a rough approximation, the kinds of curves used in 2mm Finescale (as opposed to N) probably equal those you could get away with in OO. Justin

Just noticed the following notice in the GreaterAnglia app: As we have now begun a transitionary period during which we will start to introduce new trains into service, the following weekday trains will be operated with a suburban train (not an intercity train) and will therefore have limited First Class seating and no on-board catering : 09.03 and 14.00 Norwich to London 11.30 and 16.30 London to Norwich These alterations will apply until further notice and are designed to ensure better service reliability and consistency over a period when we will have frequent operational and fleet changes, as we transfer from one fleet to another. We’re sorry if these alterations cause you any inconvenience, but they have been put in place so customers can plan their journeys with certainty. Presumably this means 321s? Does it also mean these will be the first diagram to switch to 745s? Or is it a case of a MK3 set being taken out of use to make room at Crown Point or something? I'm struggling to see the link!

Finished the turnout this evening. Testing with my "see through six wheeler" before fitting the check rails revealed a bit of a tight spot on the diverging route opposite the vee nose - I guess the hardest point to gauge. But a few tweaks with a soldering iron helped open this out enough to get smooth running - exactly why I was keen to use etched construction. Next step will be to cut out a roadbed from thin ply, and work out how exactly I'm going to fit operating mechanisms. Current plan is to use the Association 3D printed TOUs with wire droppers, and Conrad switch machines to power them.