Jim Easterbrook

How confusing. 25 other letters to choose from...

I think the 6R8 components are 6.8 ohm resistors. http://www.marsport.org.uk/smd/res.htm I don't know enough to suggest why they're there.

They look good. Did the white roof parts come off easily or did you poke the figures in through the "windows"?

I'm going to enjoy watching this develop. Good choice of name, BTW. When I finally get round to building a layout of some sort, part of it will be called Osterbach.

I stupidly didn't read my "invoice" email properly and assumed it meant "we've charged you £x" whereas it actually meant "please pay £x". So mine will be a bit late.

Me too. Same order, same invoice. I hope they don't get mixed up.

Another minor point regarding the electrical stuff - instead of saying "Mains cable or 6amp wire is suitable for the main BUS wires" it would be better to specify the minimum cross-sectional area (e.g. 1.5 mm²). Anything else is a bit vague.

I adapted a Faller Landwasser viaduct kit (193 mm radius) to make a reduced size Brusio viaduct with a 4% gradient. Faller Landwasser Viaduct kit by Jim Easterbrook, on Flickr This can fit a track plan with 183 mm minimum radius, which is a lot better looking than 150 mm. A station with a 1220 mm passing loop is going to be a big module! As a complete beginner I want to start smaller than that. Your suggested 610 mm "local line" is more achievable for me, but it might upset the purists if I use my Rueun station building. I'm not a purist though. "Questionable woodworking" - that's me, that is.

Ah, my potential Brusio spiral module lives!

I've done the same, only fitting knuckles to locos, freight wagons, and end coaches. My couplings aren't much lower than MicroTrains' standard, just enough to reduce fouling on the MDS Haik brake pipes. (I like to run everything through 150mm radius curves, just because I can.)

For the electrical connections, would it be sensible to help get the polarity right by, for example, saying the left rail shall be connected to a plug on a wire and the right rail connected to a fixed socket. This allows modules to be connected without any additional wires, and the dangling plug can be put in the socket for transport/storage. Also, should the coupler height be specified? On my rolling stock I've fitted MicroTrains couplers at a slightly lower height than they specify, using a Dapol gauge.

What's the current state of play with this? Has it reached the point where a beginner (e.g. me) could start making a module with a reasonable chance of success? Any completed (for some value of complete) modules out their whose owners would like to share some pictures? As an aside, here's a laser cut Rueun station kit I completed recently. te-miniatur Rueun station kit by Jim Easterbrook, on Flickr

Thanks Nigel. As you can see, I'm still a beginner.

I've managed to do this on a LokPilot V5 using an NCE PowerCab. I went to the trouble of making a spreadsheet to record the current settings (so I could get back to where I started if it all went pear shaped). This also told me which is the first vacant row / line. The instructions don't say you shouldn't have vacant rows, but it seemed a good idea to avoid them. You don't need a physical output. In my case I reassigned F4, so row 6's input block has 16 in CV B, all others set to zero, and its output block has 64 in CV N, all others set to zero. Note that CV 32 has a different setting for input and output blocks. You're right, CVs 246/7/8 are set as normal. I think it's only above 256 that the page setting procedure kicks in. No need to reset CVs 31 and 32 afterwards.

I just used real wood. (Later removed and restuck properly centred.) N gauge RhB buffer stop by Jim Easterbrook, on Flickr

I used 0.3 mm brass wire on mine. I should have added railings to the body as well though. It looks rather bare without. RhB Tm 2/2 shunter N gauge model by Jim Easterbrook, on Flickr

I like the 4/4 III a bit more than the II. Particularly when it isn't covered in adverts! You can't please all of the people all of the time.

I don't know why my Ge 4/4 II isn't performing as well as I'd like. I've had it apart several times to clean the commutator and brushes. This has made short term improvements to slow running, but it's back to normal the next day. I've seen adverts saying it has a five pole motor. I can say with 100% certainty that mine has a three pole motor. I don't know how significant this is. (I'm a complete beginner at model railways.)

I tried starting on my brief 10% (straight) test and it was fine. The Ge 4/4 III is significantly heavier (83 g) than the Ge 4/4 II (57 g) and mine is certainly a better runner.

Soon after I got my Kato Ge 4/4 III I did some basic tests and found it could pull 6 GEX coaches up a 10% slope! (Yes, I really do mean 1 in 10.) Kato say the max gradient is 5%, and I'm planning on 4.5% when I eventually get round to building a Brusio spiral inspired layout. Here's a test video.