RFS

It's described as "New: A brand-new, unused, unopened and undamaged item.". How do you rename and renumber a model loco without taking it out of its box? Perhaps we should report the item to Ebay ....

Swiss Railways SBB also use double-deck stock extensively. Last year we travelled on one of their trains from Geneva Airport to Interlaken. Very nice to sit upstairs though a bit of a faff to drag your luggage up there too - wasn't going to leave it out of sight! Here's one of the photos I took then of one these trains entering Interlaken Ost:

They were designed as an attempt to alleviate overcrowding on the busy SE division commuter trains. But they were not a success due to excessive time at stations for passengers to get on and off. As a result the decision was taken to extend trains from 8 to 10 cars, the benefit to us today being that this led directly to the production of the Bachmann 2-EPBs.

The units ran from 1949 to 1971 and good old Wikipedia has the details - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR_Class_4DD. They were not compatible with any other SR unit so normally ran as a permanently coupled 8-car train between London and Dartford, the only route they had clearance for.

Very sad to see it in this condition. Growing up in SE London I travelled on this unique train many times in the 50s and early 60s. It was always nice to sit "upstairs" even though a bit claustrophobic!

The Heljan/Walthers one is being rereleased at the end of Summer with built in DCC decoder , according to walthers own website.

 

 

they do two sizes, 90' and 130' , for UK outline I would think 90' is plenty big enough, the 130' fits an HO scale 4884 Big Boy on it.

 

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-2849 for the upcoming 90' one.

Bear in mind that 90' is in HO scale - 3.5mm/ft. That works out at a shade under 79' in OO scale - 4 mm/ft. It looks good and works very well for me and is almost silent.

Excellent model, but yes I'm afraid the number plate is a bit on the hefty side as you say. As a lad I often saw these on cross-London freights. The SEMG have some excellent photos here - SEMG W Class

Hi,

 

You have to have those insulated joints after the frogs or the polarity would keep changing with the point throw and cause a short further down the line where ever the loco is situated. You would put wire droppers ( like jump leads ) to continue the feed from before the point under the base board until after the insulated joints ( hope that makes sense !!!). The wiring shown is for both DC and DCC ( I'm fairly certain )

 

Martyn.

Not strictly correct here! If the roads leading off the points are dead-end sidings, with no track feeds of their own, then you do not need the insulated rail joiners as this will make the tracks self-isolating. This may well be desirable in DC. As my previous post said, you may want to power these sidings on a DCC layout so that loco lights and sounds always operate regardless of the settings of the points. In this situation you need the IRJs.

Handy diagrams which may prove useful to this numbskull in the electrickery department. If one of those points were to be used at the entrance to three shed / yard roads worked by "one engine in steam" then presumably no switching is necessary since all three roads would be dead-ends and only a single locomotive would be shunting there. Correct? I have one of the asymmetric points firmly in mind for my next project which will be much smaller than the current one!

Even if the points are leading to dead-end sidings you still need the switching. Otherwise the frogs will be dead and locos will stall on the points. What you can dispense with though is the insulated rail joiners, provided none of the sidings have their own track feeds. However, if you are using DCC then it's best (but not mandatory) to include the IRJs and add feeds to the sidings, so that loco lights and sound still operate even if the points are switched for a different road.

Hattons have now put the pack price up from £164 to £184.

Rails of Sheffield have the set priced at £154.50.

AFAIK the trailer coach in the class 205 is the same as in a 2-HAP, so now a 2-HAP can be made using that + a 2-EPB motor coach. The Bachmann 2-EPB is to be the BR standard design and not the SR version. And if Bachmann produce the centre coach for the class 205, then 2 of those + 2 x 2-EPB motor coaches (one unpowered presumably) would make a 4-EPB.

We SR fans are going to be in clover!

Incidentally, will it still be a limited edition? Bachmann make no mention of that.

And I can see on the Kernow site that the prices of some versions - including the all-green one that I pre-ordered - have been reduced from £149.99 to £109.99.

This gives you a bit more info - look for 32-350. I don't have my 4MT any more but there were 5 screws as documented here.

http://www.Bachmann.co.uk/service/body_removal.php

There are 5 small screws as indicated in the assembly diagram: a magnetized screwdriver will make removal (and replacement!) very easy. As for a decoder the TCS DP2X-UK fits with no problem at all as there's no wiring harness so it just replaces the blanking plug with no clearance issues.