AndrueC

Well that didn't last. Took delivery of an Oxford Flyer on Friday. Out of the box she looks gorgeous. My first sound fitted locomotive which was interesting. You can't expect too much in the way of audio from a speaker inside an N gauge loco but it wasn't bad. Unfortunately she struggled to pull six coaches and half way round my layout she stalled out on a 2% incline. I uncoupled her from the coaches to try and give her a run-in and when I tried to get her moving she just buzzed at me. And that's all she wrote. She can look pretty, sound her horn and make engine noises (sounding curiously like a steam engine actually). Oh and she can make a worrying buzzing noise. But if you're looking for a locomotive that can actually move she's not the best candidate I took the body off to see if there was anything obviously wrong but couldn't see anything. However it was a new (for me) drive train. A single central motor with two drive shafts. At the end of each drive shaft was a worm gear. This is clipped into a bogie tower. The instructions say that the bogies aren't removable and curiously the only thing holding the bogies in appears to be that the drive shaft has limited vertical travel. I'm going to be sending her back to Hattons but as they don't have any more stock I've agreed to let them send her out for a repair. I know I'm a newcomer to this hobby but that must be close to a record for a failure. It probably drove less than four metres before failing.

I also have a Queen Elizabeth and can confirm that she doesn't like Peco Setrack turnouts. She'll grumble her way across a single one now and again but I have two back to back on one set of sidings and that she won't tolerate. Luckily for my layout it just means that she's banned from the innermost siding. Fairly academic right now unfortunately since her con rod fell off. Does anyone know why Peco chose to only make first radius turnouts in Settrack for N gauge? It seems like a curiously unhelpful choice. I wonder how many inexperienced modellers it has caught out over the years? I've got a class 56 (triple axel bogies) that whilst it will get onto that siding it graunches while doing so.

Insulfrogs - you've got to laugh. Sometimes you wonder why you bother, lol. Decided to spend some time running trains this evening. For a change I decided to run one (the Queen Elizabeth) on the inner figure of 8 and the other (an EMR class 53) on the outer oval at the same time as opposed to just running one train round both. The first oddity was that the Queen Elizabeth had apparently fixed her free wheeling con rod. "That's nice" I thought. Then after getting most of the way round my layout and just as I was backing the other train down to the main line the QE derailed. Turns out the free wheeling con rod is now a dangling con rod. Sigh. Never mind. It gave me an excuse for a bit of fun. Circle the other loco around the siding so that it can go out and pick up the QE's coaches. This was actually quite challenging because it meant running a loco in reverse and it took me a while to work out which bits of track to get her on in order to reach the front of the train. Anyway once that was sorted I decided to let the replacement loco continue round the figure of eight. It made it about two coaches worth of track and stopped. Whut? It didn't take me long to discover that a little used stretch of track between two turnouts was dead. Further investigation confirmed that neither of the two turnouts was routing power. I eventually persuaded one of them not to be so awkward but by then the gloss had gone off the evening. Besides I needed to solve that problem for the future. This is where sod's law strikes. One of the turnouts is inside a tunnel mouth. The switch is outside but the main body is concealed inside (part of my 'aren't I clever?' design, lol). The only track I can get a soldering iron to is the straight on Wilf's Junction and that means removing some ballast first. My dear ol' Dad would definitely be smiling at this situation.

Interesting. Thought I'd take another look tonight and both sides are working. Well at least that suggests it is just something that needs adjustment rather than anything being broken. I guess the old gal's ears were burning. Time to put another dozen minutes of running on her I suppose Update:Oh dear. She ran for a couple of minutes then there was a derailment. The problem con rod has become disconnected from the other end now. I'll have to take a look tomorrow and see if it can be reattached. You don't get this kind of problem with diesels...

'H' ?

I asked this elsewhere but unfortunately the answer didn't appear to be correct so I thought I'd be better off asking where it really belongs. I have a QE but one of the piston rods is no longer moving. The arrowed bracket can be pushed around by my finger and doesn't move while the locomotive is running. Someone in the other thread suggested that the hexagonal nut needs to be tightened. I don't have a small enough spanner but I've poked at it with a jeweller's screw driver and it doesn't seem to be loose. Inspecting the rod that is moving correctly leaves me puzzled because that has plenty of play on its shaft which makes tightening the nut seem an unlikely solution. I could send her to be serviced and probably will eventually but it's a new loco (can't have more than an hour's running on her) and I'm genuinely intrigued as to how these rods are supposed to move. Obviously it works on one side well enough but I'll be darned if I can see any difference between the two sides.

No mention of the Class 08s I've got on pre-order. Kernow are just expecting it 'during 2021'. I mean..it's only a Gronk but I shouldn't be shunting my stock around with ruddy great 56s and 53s

Just a slip of a thing. So I thought I'd exercise a loco that I hadn't used in a while. A good looking loco and one I'd set aside for a dedicated passenger hauler. I set her up with six coaches because that's the maximum I can fit on my sidings and let her loose. Oh dear. She spun her wheels on my inclines and struggled to pull out of one curve. But it was late at night so I tried to forget and went to bed, In the morning it was time to fix the problem. I knew there was nothing wrong my track and another similar diesel was fine so I just needed to sort it. First thing was to wipe the track. This intrigues me as a newcomer. Why is it that every time I wipe my track there are black marks on the tissue? I don't run my trains all that often and it's a bedroom so..where does the dirt come from? Anyway after that I plonked one of the loco's bogeys on some tissue and ran the loco. Then swapped bogies and repeated. There wasn't much of a mark but there was something. So I ran the loco..and all was good. Incidentally this is the most recent version of my layout. https://photos.app.goo.gl/zJvuk624EQAzzr6L7

Hi, I've got an incline on my layout and I'd like to add two concrete paths at either edge. My first (possibly lazy) thought was to print out paving slabs from a Scalescenes sheet, glue them onto strips of card and glue them to the incline. Having done this the effect isn't brilliant. For a start the incline edge isn't perfect so the strips don't line up perfectly. Then there's the edges. I can cover the outer edge with flock but I'm not sure what to do about the inner edge. So I'm wondering what the 'proper' technique would be. I'm thinking that perhaps I should be cutting the slabs out and gluing each on individually (maybe some grass between the slabs?). Hopefully that would address the alignment issue but it still leaves me wondering what to use for the inner edge. For what it's worth eventually I intend to have some 'scaffolding fencing' running alongside the path but have yet to find a way of making that either. Thanks.

Taking stock. Dapol in the dog house. Up to now I'd been running my HST box set, coal wagons and the Queen Elizabeth with her coaches. I'd run them sporadically and everything seemed fine. So one day I decided I'd get everything out in turn and have some fun. First up were my bullet wagons. These look great and ran well. In fact they seemed really well built with good springs on the couplers. I was well impressed and ordered some more to make the total length up to 900mm (the length of my sidings). Then it was time for the JNA wagons. I had high hopes for these because they are yellow. Very yellow: These were a revelation and not in a good way. They wouldn't run. They couldn't make it past a single curve or turnout. Abject failure. After spending half an hour trying to get them to run I had to admit defeat. They were apparently incompatible with my layout. So then I moved onto some MJA mineral wagons. They were a bit unusual because each pair of wagons is tied together, but they looked neat. These ran. Up to a point. More specifically they kept decoupling on my inclines and my mezzanine where there's a bit of a hump. A closer inspection showed that all wagons suffered from at least one drooping coupling. So that was another set of Dapol wagons that were no good. Last up were a set of EMR coaches. At this point I was feeling a bit down but I consoled myself with the HST and QE that both ran. Thankfully the EMR coaches also ran perfectly well. But still - I remember being a bit upset at the end of that day. Since then I've taken a gamble and bought both a yellow and a white/blue set of Cargowagon ferry wagons. Thankfully these all run perfectly well so I'm pretty sure there's nothing wrong with my track. But then the HST which had been running perfectly well got me worried. She wouldn't reverse down the incline onto the main loop. Right near the bottom she'd derail. I checked and rechecked but the point of derailing was almost flat track. Curiously it was only ever the power unit that had a problem. Upon further investigation it turns out that the power unit can't travel backwards very far at all. Basically as soon as she exits any kind of curve she derails. I think I know the reason for that. The copper chassis pickups are further apart on the front bogies and I think that's causing the bogey pickups to get jammed. The issue with the JNA wagons appears to be the poor coupling design. The couplers slide in a V shaped groove with a very weak spring centering the coupling. The couplers often end up stuck in their sideways position causing the wagon to derail when straightening up. The issue with the mineral wagons seems to just be poor design. Taking them apart revealed a very small hair spring and it seems like some of the couplers just wouldn't stay seated leading them to droop. Anyway for now I'm treating Dapol with suspicion. It's taught me to be wary of buying their wagons.

My question: Does this forum also cater for 'N gauge'? Just off-the-shelf N?

Soldering on.. So once I had the track laid it was time to do some soldering. This is something that had me worried. My previous attempts had been ugly. Trying to practice it didn't seem to help. So I approached this with trepidation. First of all I had to work out where I needed drop wires. My layout uses insulfrogs (so sue me). That meant I needed to supply power to at least one rail of every siding. Then there was the short section of main line on Wilf's Junction that was between two turn-outs. Then I needed to ensure that both the outer loop and inner figure of eight had power. All in all I needed a minimum of fifteen drop wires. Oh dear. Worse still some of the siding connections would require me to lean over the track and look back as I worked. But that's part of why I took up this hobby. Learn something new. Overcome challenges, so I knuckled down. I drilled a small hole. I sanded the edge of the rail. I tinned the rail. I tinned the wire. I held the wire to the rail while applying heat then blew on the joint and removed the iron. The result was a pretty good connection. I was surprised. So I poked the wire down its hole and went on to the next one. That went just as well. And the next. And suddenly, I realised that I like soldering. In the end I drilled a few more holes and popped a couple more droppers in around the layout just to be sure. Then it was just a matter of using suitcase connectors to attach the droppers to my bus. Rather than drill fifteen holes I'd decided to aggregate the siding droppers together and use a single wire for each set. This went moderately well once I'd fought to get the wires into connector blocks. But then I discovered that the suitcase connectors I had didn't work when connecting 'bus wire to bus wire'. So I had to order a few more connectors. The next step was to fit the circuit board for the DCC controller. This I thought would be easy. I have a Dremel (clone) but cutting a rectangle out of the baseboard side panel should be easy enough. This is the point when I realised that I don't like Dremels. The tool created a terrible noise and vibration and I immediately stopped. The bit was properly inserted but it just seemed like that was the way it was. So in the end I drilled multiple holes and used a hacksaw to complete the cut. A couple of screws later (ooh er missus) and everything was connected.

Such a shame.. My layout is the size of a double bed because it usurped the guest bed in my house. It hardly ever got used and the only guests I want are the ones who are happy to share my bed

Part two - with help from a budgerigar. The central inclines needed to be built. The underlying form was going to be Woodland Scenics inclines which I'd already used for the first section. But I needed embankments. My first attempt was a polystyrene sandwich then a very rough wood file. This worked quite well. It's actually a great way to make natural looking hills. It's also a great way to make a *censored* mess. My second attempt was more successful. I made cardboard formers of increasing size and glued these into place, spaced several centimetres apart. Then I glued a couple of horizontal slats across the formers. On top of these I laid mod rock. This was my first experience of mod rock and I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to use. Knowing that I'd want to ballast in the future I also laid down a base layer of paper to cover the gaps in the WS incline. I see that the 9v battery is making an appearance again.. Then I needed to cover it and make it all pretty. Now at this point I had an idea for my layout. One side would be posh, the other not so posh. The posh side of the central incline would be manicured grass the other side just gravel as if the builders couldn't be bothered to do anything with it. And that's where the budgerigar comes into it. Not a real one sadly as mine passed away many years ago but I remembered bird cage paper. It's basically really rough sand paper. I bought some sheets of that and glued them over the top and down one side. I had a central incline! All I had to do now was lay the track along it. At around 700mm from the edge of the baseboard. Oh dear. After fifteen minutes I was beginning to worry. I could only just reach the track joins and there was a definite limit to how long I could stand with my arms out trying to persuade the *censored* fishplates to do what they were supposed to *censored* do. Then I realised that there was really only two pairs of joints that were a problem. Those at the bottom and two thirds of the way up. The ones at the top were easy to reach. So decided on a desperatesneaky solution. I'd solder the awkward fishplates and join the curves. I was using Setrack curves so joining them is relatively easy - certainly easier than flextrack. And it worked. I checked the joints multiple times (and the joints on the mezzanine) and breathed a sigh of relief. The rest would be easy as that's just a matter of assembling four sidings and a curve, all within easy reach. Et voila! Track laying was complete: Now a funny thing happened to me the other day. I was perusing my track as you do and I noticed something worrying. The joint where one of the curves meets its turnout was a bit proud. Closer inspection showed that it wasn't in its fishplate. That was..unfortunate. Also very puzzling because I checked, double and triple checked all those mezzanine joints. But there it was. I thought of various scenarios but knew that lifting the track was not an option. Most of my rolling stock didn't seem to mind but it was still not a good thing. But then I hit on a solution. All that track had power feeds (that'll be the subject of another post) so all I needed to do was cut the fish plate. My first thought was a Dremel but I don't get on well with that tool. But thanks to another post on this forum I remembered that I'd bought a razor saw. And waddya know the blade fit perfectly between the rails. So it was only five minutes work to cut the fishplate and remove the waste. Then I just had to soak the track to loosen the PVA and put a weight on it. Incidentally that's what the box of golf balls is doing in that last picture, albeit for a different piece of track. I find Callaway Supersoft golf balls to be ideal for all my railway modelling needs

If you've got the inclination, I've got the line.. Part One. It was always my intention to have a two level layout with tunnels. I actually wanted to see trains going over the top of trains and although that's technically possible with my layout I haven't got quite the effect I wanted there. But anyway, onto construction. I wanted to have a couple of stone tunnel mouths and having found some online that determined that my second level needed to be 54mm above the first one (this is N gauge). Technically it could have been lower because UK trains don't need that much clearance but I was loath to try and chop the mouth down. I didn't want to exceed 2% originally so that required 2.7 metres of incline (50*54/1000). My only option was therefore to split the incline in two. I decided on 1.5 metres each way with a mezzanine half way up. The mezzanine would carry a short side of the outer main line and a turnouts giving access to the second half of the incline. There would also be a siding where a locomotive could wait for a shunter to take away it's current wagons and bring it some more. It was a neat solution but I glossed over the fact that it meant the second stage inclines would be in the middle of my baseboard - 750mm from the edge. I verified that I could reach that far so decided it would be fine. It nearly wasn't. For all four inclines my strategy was simple. Chop the ends off each incline support, make a bit more space and let the track find its own shape. I could have done a complicated calculation and worked things out exactly but that's not really my style. I rounded a few things up laid the corners at either end of the first stage inclines and reckoned that would do. The next stage I decided was to build the mezzanine. I wrote earlier that I both love it and hate it. Here's why I hate it. When I ordered the baseboard for the second level I cleverly worked out that by judicious cutting I could use it for both the mezzanine and the second level. It meant I had to cut the mezzanine in two pieces but that was fine. How clever I was. Picture the scene. I have assembled the slightly complex track for the mezzanine (not the inner curves, they are on the baseboard): I have it sat on the two halves of the mezzanine. And then it hits me. How do I get this onto the baseboard? My woodworking skills were not up to joining the two halves together and I could only reach far enough to hold one half at a time. So take two. Put the mezzanine in place and then the track. Oh deary me. What fool reckoned that working 750mm from the edge of the board would be fine? The worst of it was the double siding. It's bad enough trying to make those when they are in easy reach but at over 600mm from the board edge it was nigh-on impossible. But then I made a virtue out of a necessity. I realised that if I changed that into a simple siding it would be easier to assembly and I'd free up a turnout that I needed to complete my main sidings. Genius! And with that I was able to assemble the track on the mezzanine. I checked it very carefully afterwards because I knew that fixing it would be impossible once complete. I'm damned certain I checked it thoroughly.

Oh dear, you too? I was cleaning my track this afternoon. Paused to investigate some scenery then couldn't find where I'd put the cleaning rubber. My other bad habit is wiping my fingers on my clothes. Not a good habit if you're putting mod rock down.

Lol! Some apologies due to Dapol. I was looking at it this evening and doing some research and it appears I'd installed the decoder the wrong way round. There is no obvious indication on the decoder itself and it seems more logical for it hang clear of the chips on the chassis PCB since there's more space. But if I push the motor wires out of the way the decoder will sit the other way round and now the loco goes in the right direction. I have to ask though - if it's a new interface why didn't they key it so that it couldn't be inserted wrong way round. Or for that matter why can't Dapol indicate which is pin 1. Hey ho. Now that just leaves the issue of reversing and the slime trail. That latter at least is becoming less of a problem. I guess she's running out of grease to dribble on the track.

It does have a Next18 decoder but it's one I fitted myself. And it's definitely running backwards. I also have a decoder in the rear cab and when both have been reset if I tell it to go forward it runs in reverse with a red light at the rear. When I tell it to backward it goes forward with a white light at the rear. The wheels are certainly very close to the chassis and could well be rubbing on the chassis. Below is a picture of the unpowered car (left) v. the powered car (right). You can see their noses are not the same height. If I take the bogeys off the powered unit the rear bogey almost always drags the copper strips through the hole in the chassis, possibly they are too close together. But the same thing doesn't happen with the front bogey. From memory the gap between the rear copper strips is a tad under 8mm. The gap between the front strips is a tad over 9mm. If I remember correctly the bogie contact pins are 9mm apart so it wouldn't take much for them to rise between the copper strips and then the bogie will be reluctant to straighten up. I like the train itself (especially since I bought two more EMR coaches to extend it) but am torn about how whether to put up with this or send it to Dapol.

No. It's not detached. The bracket the rod attaches to can be rotated independently of the wheels. Two pictures attached showing how I was able to move the attaching bracket even though the loco wheels haven't moved.

I have a few issues with my EMR version (bought November 2020) and am considering sending it back to be 'adjusted'. * It runs forward when it should run in reverse. I can fix this by reprogramming the decoder but it's a bit of a pain because it resets every time it derails. And that's a common occurrence because: * It won't run reliably in reverse. In fact it pretty much can't go round any of my curves or turnouts in reverse. Unfortunately this matters because I park all my trains in sidings that require the trains to reverse out and navigate several curves and turnouts to get onto the main line. I think the problem is that the front copper pickups are too far apart leading to the bogey pickups dropping between them then resisting being straightened. * Seems to be excessively lubricated. It's getting better over time but when I first got it it was practically leaving a trail of slime in its wake. It would only run for ten minutes then would start to stutter. Running any other loco after it caused that loco to stutter.

I have a class 56 that has an odd acceleration curve and doesn't go very fast. It appears to only have three speeds 'crawl', 'walk' and 'walk a bit faster'. Its a useable locomotive so I could believe that Dapol have just given it a weird gear ratio except that the acceleration curve seems to suggest a fault. I mean it's not really a curve, more like three discrete speed steps. Any thoughts?

I used the Woodland Scenics foam inclines and I got around the space limitation by splitting them in two halves. The first run climbs up to a mezzanine section then the next run completes the climb to a proper second level baseboard with tunnels underneath it. I model in N gauge and I the way I created my incline was as follows: * Choose the horizontal length based on final height and preferred gradient (I kept mine at 2%). * Set aside more space on the board than the horizontal length requires. I went with about two coach's worth of additional space. * When constructing the incline omit the first and last few sections of incline. Let the track droop down (in my case that's a coach's worth of nominally free hanging track). So for me: * My mezzanine is at 32mm so the initial horizontal length was 1.5 metres. 32/1500 = ~2%. * 1.8 metres of the baseboard was made available for the incline. * Remove the first and last few blocks of the incline. * Fix enough track to complete the incline and join it to the track at either end. * Insert supports at the highest end (actually I now have a girder bridge there). The lower end I just ignored. I might have to insert some paper when I get round to ballasting that section but for now it's not going anywhere anyway. I've had almost no problems with any rolling stock. The only problems I had were the result of drooping couplers on one set of wagons which will be the subject of a thread elsewhere at some point. One thing I will add that is probably irrelevant since you're modelling in OO. All my locomotives eat up my 2% curve like it isn't there. They can pull long trains (up to nearly a metre long) from a standing start and can climb the incline faster than is safe because of 2nd radius curves at the top. I would assume that OO gauge locos can pull better than N so if you're not trying to be prototypical (and frankly unless you live in a mansion you can't be with inclines) don't be afraid of exceeding 2%. They do seem to make a difference compared to a flat layout.

I've just noticed that the coupling rod on one side of my Graham Farish 4-6-2 Queen Elizabeth is free wheeling. Is this is an easy fix or something best left to an expert? It doesn't seem to be in danger of coming loose. It appears to be attached to the axel via a bracket but the bracket is not moving as the axel rotates. Thanks.

Nostalgia - it ain't what it used to be Take a trip back in time with me. To the late 1970s. My brother and I had been enjoying the layout our Dad built and out of the blue he turned up with two new locomotives. Well..new to us. I think my brother got a Britannia and I got an upgrade. Prior to then I'd been running a Lowler Class 3F 'Jinty' and a black Princess Elizabeth. Both by Tri-ang. I liked them but it has to be said that the PE was..black. What I got as an upgrade was a green Princess Elizabeth. And this had additional details picked out. Obviously a premium version. Coupled with my blood and custard coaches it looked great. Fast forward to 2020 and I wanted to replicate that train. And that was a problem. First-off it became apparent that no-one had ever manufactured a Princess Elizabeth in N gauge. But some searching turned up the fact that Graham Farish had once manufactured a Queen Elizabeth in N gauge. Not quite the same thing and she had smoke deflectors but still - she would do. But I couldn't find anyone with stock. Except one day out of the blue when I was browsing a well known Cornish store online there she was. So almost shaking with excitement (maybe I am just a big kid) I bought her along with a collection of B&C Maunsell coaches. She turned up before I'd laid much of my track but of course I had to get her out of the box: But no way to run her: Then a couple of weeks later I finally had a loop laid down. And I decided to have a bit of fun and carry out an experiment. Would a 9v battery power a train? https://photos.app.goo.gl/J9tScGjFRqRRYWt89 Apologies for the camera work I've since learned/realised that I was lucky she ran at all. My track uses Peco setrack 2nd radius curves and setrack turnouts. It turns out that in N gauge Peco turnouts are minimum radius. The entrance to one of my sidings now has two turnouts back to back and the old gal doesn't like them if both are 'turned out'. Luckily she's okay with just one at a time so banning her from the inner-most siding solves that problem. But I've also noticed that she can't go round the curves at full speed and graunches a bit even at reasonable speed. She was always going to be a 'Sunday special' though so I can live with it.

So things suddenly became more real in December 2020. I'd disassembled and disposed of a bed (no more guests!). And then on the 24th of November the baseboard arrived. I'd briefly considered making my own baseboard. I created a floor for my shed and whilst it probably didn't meet EU standards it had done what was needed. But no. My woodworking skills are poor and a search of the web showed that you could order flat packed baseboards. Anything for an easy life and MRS offered the sizes I needed and promised easy assembly. It was shortly after placing the order with MRS that a couple of people pointed out that reaching to the centre of my board could be a problem. I tested it and concluded that the centre of my board was 'within reach'. Having lived with my layout for four months I stand by that but will concede that it's not ideal. Anyway MRS reckoned the board would be delivered by December so I was happy. In the end it turned up on the 24th of November. I was a little concerned because I was unable to log into my MRS account I never received an email about the order. But I got responses from the company owner so I guess their ordering system is/was a bit fubarred. But it didn't matter. Suddenly things were coming real and I had to start construction. Something I should mention at this point. I live in an early 1990s three bedroom house. I don't have a 'workshop'. The only thing I have going in my favour is that I don't have a partner to tell me that the living/dining room is not a suitable place to store stuff. If I have to work on something then it's the garden or..um. So the baseboard got built in the room where it was destined to live. I actually ordered three baseboards. Two 1.5mx0.62m and one 1.5mx091m. After assembling them I was reminded that my choice of design was unusual. MRS assume that you will have your legs on the thin end of the boards and that didn't work for me. But after thinking about it I realised that if I put the legs of the large board on the ends I could put the legs of the smaller boards in the middle and aside from lacking a little support on the corners it would work. Turns out I was right. You know looking at those pictures is kind of funny. I suppose a lot of these 'stories' are posted as they happened but this one is being posted several months into the future. There's a reason for that but I won't go into it right now. Anyway I look at that empty baseboard and realise just how far I've come. I think I feel another post coming on.