PeterStiles

Well, the BBC has started the Flying Scotsman celebrations today. I can see a lot of people saying "you know, I'd like a train set" based solely upon this one prime (breakfast time) news item and popping onto the ol' internet to see what the offerings are.... Let's see what google finds... Google ("shopping" tab) finds: ta-da! First item is the Hornby FS OO train set. (YMMV). Second and third items are just the OO gauge Hornby train in different forms... Nope. scroll down all I want no sign of the TT:120 version... Although... if he blows that whistle one more time I've going to take an axe to the telly... I'm trying to work up here!

Hah; nah. At the beginning of each year, just after the Hornby Catalogue is for sale they are replete with many an item "temporarily unavailable" using pictures from the catalogue and blatantly not released yet..

Farish do an 08 sound fitted. If they can fit DCC sound in that there's hope for everyone!

Me mate had one. In yellow. We called it the "Duck Mobile"...poor thing didn't survive very long in our 20 year old hands...

Yeah. Lack of working-lifts kept me & the missus on the ground floor. We didn't look at the programme therefore were happily ignorant that there were any layouts upstairs, and so didn't feel too bad at missing out at the time...

MY missus was in a wheelchair; we got there for 10 on Saturday and we found it quite easy to get around at that time. People seemed happy to make way for us and we didn't fail to get to the Rail to Watch The Trains Go Round at all the layouts. Although we could have done with a few ramps so that SWMBO could see more than the sides of the majority of layouts. As she was effectively "passenger eye height" on most layouts her main comment was the lack of passengers in the coaches. I'm not sure she counted one.

Look at it like this... Imagine the race is actually run over two days. The first 20 laps on Saturday and the rest on Sunday. That all it really is. Except you get some points if you finish well on Saturday. Or, if you want, imagine that the race was red flagged and restarted on the next day. In any case its certainly not worth losing sleep over one way or another.

Would you think me strange if I was considering Option 3 but using "G" scale?

I've dumped the idea of delayed uncoupling and slapped three magnets in one for each siding. If this were a general purpose layout rather than an inglenook shunting puzzle I'd definitely have to look at alternatives. I like the idea of an "uncoupling wand" tho'.

I decided to change my approach to uncoupling. I had tried to use just one magnet under the track and to attempt to rely upon the "delayed uncoupling" possiblities with the Dapol Eastshunts, but that turned out to ... not work for me. So I ripped that magnet our and installed three, one at the end of each siding. I had to lengthen the "main" siding as I needed more room to be able to actually couple the loco to the five wagons therein. I'm quite pleased, operationally with the change. I was able to perform a Shunting without touching the wagons at any point. I had to poke the locomotive a few times on the deadfrogs. Next decision is how to resolve that. Options: (1) use a loco with a longer wheelbase / more pickups :) (2) completely redo the pointwork with live frog points; which will mean redoing all the trackwork because these are the smallest settrack points :( or (3) live with the odd finger-poke reqiured on the loco...

But if all it said was "Watch the new James bond film* then it would be applicable to anytime in the past 60 odd years....

They've taken the arm of on the right hand side. So: suitable for playbook a guitar right-handed. Quite sensible to me.

I was disappointed not to get the new Hornby magnetic couplings in with the mk4s, but I was pleasantly surprised with the "coupling bar" that is included - fitting them the coaches snuggled very close together, the gangway connectors virtually touching, and the kinematic mechanism working perfectly round the bends. Without the coupling bar, having a DVT is a bit of a waste because a 91 can't 'push' using the tension-locks without Trouble, but then that could just be the 91...

I'd still feel... dirty. Like the time at work we installed "autocaller" software for the sales team. I cried myself to sleep over that.

I think they literally can't work out what they'd do if the goods turned up on different dates and how they'd "part fulfil" an order :( In the past I've rung them up after receiving multiple boxes like this and asked the question on everyone's lips: "Did I get charged multiple postage costs for this?" (Because the whole order was obviously over their Free Postage limit even if the individual items weren't).. The answer has varied but when it's been "oh, yes you have," they've followed it with a "we'll refund the postage costs to you."

And you will find Sam quite willing to say he doesn't really know about the prototypes and so reviews models on the factors he does know about. Which, yes, counts him out from the part of the job that's about getting the decals/colouring right.

Reading the Ye-Olde Railway Modeller Archive (on line if you subscribe you can read them all) you can see in the 1950s H&M adverts where they proudly proclaim their use of asbestos in their controllers, it was a "wonderstuff" in those days... Although the Duette we all know and love is a 1965ish(+) product, and the adverts for that don't exactly shout out about the use of asbestos, given that it wasn't banned at all until 1985 I'd still steer well clear of opening one up to find out.

There's no mistaking that a lot of my issues come from measuring once and cutting twice. I'm learning which is all I can hope for.

Yep. Sounds good. Although the vibrancy of the point motors did suggest to me that pinning would be likely necessary I didn't countenance the benefits of good old Evo Stik... I've UHUd track down before now, but I felt wrong doing it... I'll feel better next time.

aw, thanks for the support. I will try something... it's on the list.. Now where *is* that list?

I really like Metcalf buildings. They sometimes feel a little over scale for N, but if you’re consistent they don’t look wrong; just don’t mix them with some of the Liddle-End models that look decidedly under-scale 😊(Rye station and Hornby factory spring to mind). But.. I can’t bring myself to colour the edges in. I know I’m not alone in this as I’ve seen many a photo showing a layout with white-edges to the otherwise normally looking buildings, but I feel I should Grow Some and get some paint out; but I’m scared. Previously I attempted to follow my Brother’s advice of just using a black-felt-tip pen which is fine until you slip and then the brickwork has a nice black streak across it; and in that case you;’ve just swapped a white line for a black-line, rather turning the building into a cartoon interpretation.

I’ve avoided ballasting points since the debacle when I was 13 - I saved weeks of pocket money for that point (a left-hand Peco settrack; I can picture it now) only to ruin it nearly as soon as I’d laid it. I couldn’t tell anyone so my one siding ended up a bit of a space invader. Because of this fear I started ballasting from the edges of this layout. With an intention of building up my skills and confidence by ballasting some straight pieces of track before tackling the points. When I got to the points I realised that there are gaps at the fishplates and I had to squeeze and pull the straights to lessen the gaps. Luckily ballasting the points worked, sufficiently, and after a day I tried the point levers again and they didn’t jump around at all. Then I checked the track and realised I’d miss-fitted one small straight at the end of one of the sidings and the fishplate hadn’t engaged. It’s at the end and only wagons will be going that far, so, I’ll have to live with it.

The baseboard I bought was only 5mm ply. This means that I needed to glue and pin some 2”x1” to the underside where my track was going so that it could pin properly and not just pop-out. Unfortunately, I’d already laid the track, fitted the Twist Lock point motors and trimmed their pins to length (more on that later) before I realised this. So I had to leave “gaps” where the point motors were, which means the actual points themselves couldn’t be pinned down or else the pins ended up digging in the point motor mechanism (cough, never guess how I found that out). So the 2”x1” doesn’t quite cover the whole track layout. Pulling the lever on the points makes the second point jump from side to side. Which is likely me fixing the Twistlock a millimetre or three our of whack ☹ and the design of the Twicklock (brilliant as it is) won’t survive that small adjustment ☹

Its only a small layout, I don’t need to get complicated, so what’s going to wrong with just using Peco settrack? Two things it turns out (1) the small-radius points (2) deadfrogs. The small-radius points help the Easyshunts not work. The deadfrogs cause my little shunting engine to stutter and need the occasional Finger-of-God to make them move; and as this is “N” gauge the FoG needs to be accurately applied or you poke the engine over onto its side.

I decided to use Dapol Easyshunt couplings; the clue was in the name. Obviously, this meant I spent the next few weeks butchering/converting eight Peco/Dapol/GF wagons to nem couplings and fitting the Easyshunts. I looked at the Inglenook diagram and decided I’d only want one point at which to uncouple, at the top of the “first” point; that way I could pull wagons back to there, uncouple and delayed-uncouple the wagons I didn’t want back into their siding. Nope. I could get the Easyshunts to occasionally Delayed Uncouple, and only on the straight, so that I am unable to push wagons into the two sidings off the “main” line. I’ve tried adjusting the couplings (the little wire) and trying all the different wagons but its far too hit-and-miss. Note: this is much more likely *my* failing than Dapol’s.