Phil Himsworth

I didn't even think about just bending them upwards a bit before reaching for the wire cutters. Bit late now

I got a DC example as a birthday present the other day; it is the first new loco I've had since the mid nineties and I was gobsmacked at how far things have moved on. It is so detailed I'm nervous to touch it and it runs far quieter than anything else I have. I can see that a couple of the tender pickups would benefit from adjustment but it runs fine anyway so I'm not worried about that right now. The only other issue I had was from the little pipes (I assume) by the wheels that point down towards the track; they were catching on the track when going over points, so I've trimmed a mm or so off their length and they're fine now. I'm not really sure how - whether they were bent, or whether my older points are too coarse somehow (I'm not sure how, nothing sticks up above rail height) - but they're fine now so I'm happy.

I have a Lima class 60 from the early 90s or so that has sat unused for years until last year. I'm not sure if it has two or three driven axles but it has pickups on all wheels but those with traction tyres on and a pancake motor that is noisy but very powerful and reliable. It is streets ahead of my Hornby locos from the time, which did have rubbish motors and minimum pickups, and after a bit of cleaning and fixing a disconnected wire runs absolutely fine even now. How come they did everything right with this model but evidently did everything wrong with the rest? When I came back to the hobby I did kinda miss the days when I could get a new loco every birthday and Christmas for £20 or £30 :-)

That would be good. I wonder if I can find something that isn't threaded (or not M8 anyway) and rely on lots of araldite or a bit of forcing if they're smaller... I have lots of coach bolts with which to test; a new problem is that they came in packs of 100, but I only need two. What can I do with 98 giant coach bolts?

1) about 6' long and between 18" and 10" wide; it is narrow at the station throat and widens out a bit to the other end. 2) I haven't actually weighed it so I'm not really sure. It's built for lightness; it's 6mm ply on a fairly lightweight frame that includes aluminium section platform edges that are structural. It's not heavy to lift, it's just awkward, especially when trying to position it accurately without accidentally bashing anything else on the layout. Following a trip to Screwfix earlier I've been playing with coach bolts. After stealing everyone's ideas, I've installed some M8 tee nuts underneath the board; they are mounted on some small extra bits of ply to make up the thickness and spread the load a bit. With some coach bolts screwed in, it all feels very secure and it's an awful lot easier to manhandle than before. I wish I'd thought of this earlier rather just when forced into it by encroaching scenery! The 150mm coach bolts are easy to hold on their own, but I will try to get some dowel or something to widen them for a better grip. The holes should be easy to cover up, although the thought occurred that I could turn them into permanent features by making them yard lights or something, or maybe make a screw-in water tower that goes in the same hole :-) Thanks for everyone's input, it is most appreciated.

Thanks for a couple of great ideas. I was thinking about those insert nuts but wasn't sure about how much weight they would be able to hold, although I imagine if glued in as well as screwed they're probably fine. Tee nuts have the advantage of being fixable from the underneath so they're less likely to pull out, but that would mean having to attach to the skin of the board and not the frame; I assume you can't see any flex at all, @ISW? My board is 6mm ply instead of 9mm... I might have to have a play with both and see if there's much difference. I hadn't thought about inserting a threaded rod through the length of a dowel, I was thinking about making a T-bar sort of thing which is quite a bit more faff. If I used a long coach bolt instead of threaded rod that could be even simpler... @ROSSPOP, straps are a good idea but I think I would prefer something more rigid so can pick up the board horizontally but rotate it to vertical to carry it around or work on it with it on its side. The next fun bit I guess is to work out where the centre of gravity of the board is - it's a bit of a funny shape - to work out where the handles should go, then where they actually can go, as there's almost certainly stuff in the way...

My layout includes a station board that sits on top of two other boards. To work on the underneath of the station board, or to dismantle the lot, the station board must be lifted off. I'm trying to think of some kind of removable handles that can be attached to the top of the board so it can be manhandled, then removed when not required. Something like two holes that a handle can be screwed or clipped into for use, then removed and the holes hidden when not required. I could make something like this, with some kind of nut embedded in the board, and handles made of a length of threaded rod with a wooden grip, but it seems a bit Heath Robinson. I'm surprised I can't find anything exactly for this purpose, either for model railways or just manhandling things in general. I have an angle grinder with a removable handle that would be ideal; a plastic grip with a short coarse threaded shaft that quickly screws on to the tool itself. Or something like a handle that just pushes into a socket and then can be released by pressing a button or lever or something... does anything like this exist, or had I better start making my own? (Or buy two more angle grinders just for the handles :-) )

My layout includes a station board that sits on top of two other boards. To work on the underneath of the station board, or to dismantle the lot, the station board must be lifted off. I'm trying to think of some kind of removable handles that can be attached to the top of the board so it can be manhandled, then removed when not required. Something like two holes that a handle can be screwed or clipped into for use, then removed and the holes hidden when not required. I could make something like this, with some kind of nut embedded in the board, and handles made of a length of threaded rod with a wooden grip, but it seems a bit Heath Robinson. I'm surprised I can't find anything exactly for this purpose, either for model railways or just lifting heavy things in general. I have an angle grinder with a removable handle that would be ideal; a plastic grip with a short coarse threaded shaft that quickly screws on to the tool itself. Or something like a handle that just pushes into a socket and then can be released by pressing a button or lever or something... does anything like this exist, or had I better start making my own? (Or buy two more angle grinders just for the handles :-) )

Quick answer: no, not really. Longer answer: it sounds like there have been a number of attempts to make something that tries to achieve this aim; there was a recent thread involving supercapacitors which had some pretty good results, and as a bonus included a couple of links to other threads which might be useful or at least interesting.

Will the training course actually need cameras, even though it's online? I did a week long teams based course on some engineering software a few months ago; apart from the trainer and a couple of people for the first few minutes nobody else had their cameras on at all, it was all looking at the instructor's screens and talking only. Fingers crossed, you might be lucky...

Western Power Distribution? Grantham and Retford aren't very west, but maybe...

That is a fantastic photo of the 47 in the post above and in the YouTube preview picture thing. I've only just got back into model railways in the last year or so and your channel has been a massive inspiration for it all.

It's interesting to see the same layout but with a completely different photography style, it gives a totally different feel and atmosphere to the layout.

The controller is reversed, but the power is now fed from the loop on which it is now running in the opposite direction, so the two reversals cancel each other out and the train keeps going the same way. Does this not require that the train is stopped, or that a brief interruption of supply is acceptable? Relays would not be fast or synchronised enough; I would have thought the only way you might be able to switch the polarity and feeds simultaneously with no observable interruption would be some kind of solid state device; I don't know how I would do it. This is why I reversed one of the loops so the reversing loop is not a reversing loop electrically; it is the terminus that then needs its polarity switched depending on the loop to which it is routed, and that can be done when the train is elsewhere so at no point does the supply to the train itself need to be switched.

I'm not quite sure how applicable this is to your layout but I'll post anyway in the hope that there might be something useful in it. Your layout is much more complex than mine but generally works on a similar principle; a train can leave the terminus, do a few loops of one side of a double track main line, cross over to the other track going the other way, then back to the station. My double track main lines are wired so +ve is clockwise on one, and anticlockwise on the other; this means no electrical trickery is required to use the crossover. This is the key bit. The feed to the terminus however has a DPDT switch used to flip the polarity so +ve is outbound when connected to the up loop of the main line but inbound when connected to the down loop. This way, applying +ve to a train in the terminus propels it forwards onto the up loop, across the crossover to the down loop, then before it returns to the terminus the terminus polarity switch is flipped so the train can then return to where it started, all without stopping the train or interrupting its power feed in any way. My layout uses a single line to the terminus, so the polarity of the terminus can be flipped without having to worry about whether there are trains on inbound or outbound lines, so yours is a little more complicated, but I think it still works for one train arriving or leaving at a time. If you separate the terminus into its own section just below the crossover at 'X' that you can flip the polarity it would work. You would have to do something a bit cleverer to allow two trains to leave and arrive at the same time - perhaps a flippable section for both terminus lines - but it's a starting point. On my layout a single slip and turnout is used to connect the terminus to the up or down loop; the setting of these is (well, will be, when I've finished it!) used to set the polarity of the terminus so it matches the track it is currently connected to. It is split into four sections (up loop, down loop, crossover, terminus), each of which can be controlled by one of two controllers, so a controller can stay with a train as it circulates round the layout even as other trains are moving in other sections. You don't have this problem as yours uses a grade separated crossing, but on mine the fun bit is that going from the terminus to the "up" loop involves a flat crossing to get over the "down" loop; it would make for rather a large crash if you time it badly :-)

Also lots of little flights means that if anyone falls they won't fall very far; especially important if there is a road or railway at the bottom!

Very clever, I like that a lot. I've just spent ages integrating a load of servos with a servo controller controlled over I2C by a raspberry pi hosting a home made route control web app that includes a function to record servo setpoints and store them in a database; you've done it with just two basic components and no need to worry about setpoints! What happens when the power is turned off when the capacitor is charged? Does the capacitor stay charged, discharge in such a way as to move the servo, or discharge slowly without moving the servo?

I think you've misunderstood what kind of jumper they meant for improving the performance of electrofrog points...

I wonder if you ask enough polite questions about how best to clear the room perhaps someone will offer to do it for you. You never know, it might work... :-)

A thought regarding painting rails by spraying them; would a similar trick to static grass work to maximise paint on the rails? If you connected one side of a voltage source to the airbrush or rattle can and the other to the rails, would that get more paint on the rails, especially the sides, and less on the surrounding area?

I assumed it wasn't self propelled but was pushed along by the loco that brought it in... Now seeing the operator dangling underneath I honestly don't know what to think any more, mind boggling!

"Farce insurance ltd" 😆 The shop full of old tellies is excellent.

If a runaway occurred in the sidings towards the main line, a vehicle on the outer track in the photo would end up with one wheel outside the rails so will come to a stop; something on the inner track however would end up with its wheels still inside converging rails which, if it the vehicle went far enough, could end up re-railing it. Would a vehicle just not roll that far when off the rails? Is there some other mechanism that would stop it? Would it not re-rail itself when the rails converge but just stop / fall over / crumple in on itself? Is it theoretically possible it could re-rail itself but considered unlikely enough that the risk that isn't worth addressing further?

Are they the remains of a removed double slip?

Hence why I said it was the simplest way of doing it. It requires just three wire to rail and one wire to wire joins; if that is all you need then any further complexity just risks faults for no reason.