Mark Dickerson

But is a stay alive that works for several seconds useful for shunting? Isn't the pointless space in a shunting loco a pre-installed speaker? There's your space.

Looking at the NGS DCC guide for their Hunslet (and the ROCO DB333 for that matter) suggests not - in which case it would be a doodad too far for me. Pity.

For me, it'll always be mechanism first, I prefer the idea of a flywheel and the DCC and sound stuff can - er - go whistle, but when this came up regarding the Dapol Hawthorn Leslie mention was made of a DCC chip with stay alive on the NGS Hunslet which works on DC. Does anyone have experience of this?

[Finds his 2nd impression copy of 9B] A little later - to departmental stock and withdrawn (as 68088?) in Oct 1952. A useful window...although with a full rear cab for part of the time. Looks like 129 is the one to go for if you want a WW1 Munitions Depot.

Thanks. I merrily scrolled past the NER livery as I'd got it fixed in my brain the preserved NER-liveried one was a Y8... In which case, are any of these numbers locos that visited outside the NE in the modelled livery?

I can't wait to see the mechanism... You've got to have the North Sunderland Railway one, but I'm surprised the preserved one isn't here(?) Commission? (Although I can live with/change one number out.) Excellent news!

Borrowed time on that definition, given the source? 😉 Or will that Directive stay on? And - does the HST power car not "count" (luggage space)? And a departmental EMU does? I'll stick with "self powered". Heljan are doing a sneak move and going into clockwork. 🙃

Yes, I could see the ES1. GNR C1 (LNER C2) for steam. I doubt I could afford it but the LNWR Oerlikon set would be amazing.

I can assure you the Hotel California vibe was more than evident on numerous occasions going through on the X5 coach on a Friday... 😛

Yes, but. then again, smaller Railroad steam also follows the "sort of, like" philosophy, and at least one Frateschi diesel manages central-drive-with-flywheels, present on Athearn Blue Box several decades ago...

I could see the new Black 5 and some (undone?) variant SR Pacific getting roped-in to a very loose Grouping theme, much as I'd like to see two further "active in 1923" types (although I'd prefer something less glamorous than express classes).

What might be nice, I suppose, would be some bodies for the Railroad mechanisms (a little more "likely" than Bachmann Junior) that either don't date back to the 70s, aren't Th*mas with minimal changes, or are a bit closer to scale. Not being one-off would be good, too. Black paint can deal with the liveries...

Well, I suppose I could take off the flywheels from my Bachmann 08s and Hornby J15s and test this experimentally, too, but...

The volume of The Engineer is also on Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/sim_engineer_july-6-december-28-1894_78/page/448. That GNR Society book looks good - I must get it.

YMMV - "space for DCC and Stay Alive" is heading into motorbike/ashtray territory for this DC user. Someone at Dapol thought there was a point putting one (apparently) in the B4. I'd be bolshier and ask for a larger motor, bevel gears and to blazes with the techno-doodadery, too, but I think it might not bear fruit. 😏

OTOH I'd like to see mention of a flywheel in the spec - not that the Hornby Peckett needs one, and I remain interested - and it looks like both sound and flywheel are possible in the Dapol B4. We shall see. Good news, although I still hold a candle for a HudswelI Clarke 0-6-0ST. I wonder if there's anything "out there" from the last attempt.

That's interesting - I ought to have a look. I think I'm heading towards doing something with the old kit and saving up for a different livery of the Heljan model. Two prototypes in my world.

Thanks - I think the Q Kits version might be better used as flail ballast for hand-to-hand combat though. I suppose it might be able to use a Heljan Class 15/16 as we're talking about the same amount for 2 powered Black Beetles.

Somewhere, somewhere, I have a part-assembled Q-Kits kit, complete with its "interesting" motor bogie. I was going to try a US HO chassis long ago. I'm not sure the savings using two motor bogies rather than saving up and getting the Heljan version are worth it for my one. (There again, I'm a sucker for a good secondhand bodge.)

Still running my (NCB) one in. It looks encouraging - with a Morley Vector Crawler with just track lying on New Plank, I could get it through a Medium Radius point shortly followed by a 3-way (both insulfrog) at about 4V reasonably slowly - looks like it may be workable to just under 3V. The worst stall was caused by a dodgy fishplate running off a double slip (the slip itself is fine). I would guess it won't equal a run-in Bachmann or Hornby high-spec 08, and I've yet to try it under load, but so far, so good. (So yes, it probably does shunt. Hopefully someone with fixed track, proper power feeds, etc. will confirm. )

Unless I'm mistaken, drive-to-crankshaft is how the (apparently variable) HO Bachmann Shay works, but the G-scale has motor bogies(?), and the old Roundhouse/MDC drove the bogies from a central motor to the centre of the axles, with external "drive shafts" to the gears on the wheels moving the pistons. Sometimes. Maybe a memory KR Models are trying to exorcise?

That's encouraging., thanks. I'm assuming it's the same motor as the 0-4-0/4wD (never looked); it may be the luck of the draw but the coupled version runs better than the original. I'd've loved a flywheel but the relatively-generous cab presumably made this less of an option.

Yes, yes, all very interesting, but can it shunt?

Ooh, it would have to be one from childhood, when a clunker would be a real disappointment, especially as a birthday present. Probably in order: Bronze - Airfix Lomac. Yes, I know about alternative wheels now, but guaranteed to ruin a running session derailing, uncoupling randomly , etc. while at the same time looking different and interesting. Silver - Hornby auto-uncoupling Class 08 shunter. Uncoupler only worked at Warp 9, ran (like most other things on my rubbish controllers) badly at slow speed. (My biggest regret not buying, I suspect, was the H&M Walkabout controller, which I hankered after for ages and yet never bought.) [BLANK]ing inside frame chassis, too. Gold - Not-BR-Blue [BLANK]ing Lima [BLANK] 4-wheel diesel [BLANK] [BLANK] shunter. My first ever Lima model, barely ran, one coupling, put me off them as a loco manufacturer for several years. Overscale, non-UK prototype. Not that it was accurate for the US either. I've bought other Plymouth-type things since - decades afterwards for projects, mostly - but this one was special. And the model would keep popping up, with varying degrees of success, on exhibition layouts for years afterwards as "an Industrial", just to remind me. The little [BLANK].

More tempting than the Special Ed Black 08 (Why? Why??) given the likely price point, but the announced green one might also work with some new transfers. (Not that they were used much?)