boxbrownie

12 hours ago, JackB95 said:

 

Correct. It has been mentioned officially that they'll come with a matching magnetic delner coupling as per the coaches for your loco. Obviously it's your choice whether you fit it or go for an alternative if you're likely to use the loco on other carriages and wagons. 

I would think it is more difficult in 4mm (heavier stock) but I have several Kato N gauge EMU sets from the 90”s which have tiny scale size (as good as it gets) delner couplings which “click” fasten together, it’s a nice feature and when I first saw them was really pleased and surprised.

Its a great upgrade to the poor line up of 4mm coupling types.

15 hours ago, mullie said:

A diversion from wagons, a bit more progress on a new set of outside cranks for the Hornby class 10. Here it is on the test track, with another wagon going through the weathering shop. Next step is to refit the steps.

 

 

The shunter is now fitted with Brassmaster coupling rods, last time I tried them, around 2018, I couldn't get them to work succesfully so this time I used the Poppy's chassis building jig to check the rods on the chassis. Simply sitting the chassis, minus wheels on the axle rods revealed any tight spots so hopefully no problems this time.

 

What is the reason (or main reason) for swapping the rods?

That XJ13 really does look sublime, what a beauty.

2 hours ago, teletougos said:

In the photo on the Hornby blog post, the flanges do look better than in some earlier photos.

Which proves we will have to wait for the ironwork in our mitts.

4 hours ago, NCB said:

What do you use for fixing set track down ? I'm looking for a means of doing it such that it's very easy to lift the track. I'm thinking of very small black self tapping screws. What do you think?

I use Trix-C track ready ballasted for reasons I won’t go into hear but you fix those down with really high quality screws from Trix/Maerkin, beauty of them is if you need to adjust or raise it’s a 10 second job.

They are a cross head screw not a slot head as shown on the internet for some reason.

2 hours ago, Accurascale Fran said:

Hi everyone,

 

Mark 5 delivery information. We're oh so close now!

 

Read the latest update here: https://www.accurascale.com/blogs/news/mark-5-delivery-update-almost-here

 

Excited? We certainly are! Roll on our first coach project.

 

Cheers!

 

Fran 

Meh, they’re alright…… is that a transfer?
 

🤣

2 hours ago, Nick C said:

To paraphrase several people on here - read what I said, not what you think I said. Having the heating higher because of a medical condition is a different matter*, but there are many people out there who will, still, have their heating high just because they can't be bothered to dress appropriately. The study you linked referred to the effects of people in colder temperatures while wearing skimpy clothing - this is not a useful study, because if it's cold people should wear suitable clothing for the conditions.

 

*assuming, of course, you're lucky enough to be able to afford it - we have now reached the point where in some areas doctors are having to prescribe heating to vulnerable patients who can't afford it otherwise...

I did and it appeared to be aimed specifically at myself, and wasn’t appreciated.

That report did not say skimpy.

2 hours ago, 30801 said:

 

There a precedent here in the Audi A2 with its bolted on bonnet with a little flap to put screenwash etc in.

A precedent? Pushing it a bit there you could fit three A2s in the Merc Froot 😁

2 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

As an owner, or user, why would you need to open the bonnet (hood) on such an EV, if there's no additional storage in there (Frunk/Fruit).

There's no oil or water to check and no user serviceable items under there.

Mercedes have moved the washer fluid top-up to a more convenient and easily accessible external flap.

 

 

.

I was hoping there might be enough room to keep a charging lead at very least, always awkward keeping them in the trunk when it’s packed 

4 minutes ago, BRTrainz said:

I stand corrected then.

At any rate I've gone and ordered Dapol Easi-Shunts in all three lengths to test on the CCU fitted TT stock I have.

Well it probably varies to a degree by whose CCU your are using, keep us informed on the Easishunts.

Couplers that are perfect are the modellers dream.. 

3 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

. Although the bonnet (hood) on those, cannot be opened by the owner/ driver.

 

.

Is that true? Not that I doubt you…..and people moan about this new subscription for heated seats because you bought a car and cannot access everything built on it.

2 hours ago, teletougos said:

Thanks for the heads up about the  08 and HST pics on the Train Terminal blog post. 

 

Interesting with the HST, they show the machined chassis block. That kind of pic is interesting to scratchbuilders & foragers for mechanism parts. Hope they do the same with the Cl 66 (and I personally hope it's a similar design.)

 

OTOH, I haven't enabled 'Disqus' because even greyed out, I can see that folk don't half complain a lot!!  ( As you might be able to tell, have never been on a model railway company's  discussion 'community' before, but with Hornby it was necessary to have an account in order to get the discount.)

 

Do Hornby really want to invite this kind of discussion on their own platforms? Not pointing at any one individual, just the tone of it all, when my eyes run over the postings.  Sounds like it wd. quickly run your spirits down if you were the person charged with having to moderate it. 

Yes but no deserved criticism results in less than perfect products.

I criticised the flanges on the pony trucks of the TT Pacific’s because they look too big, but I did say it needs to be seems in the flesh, and the final production versions before we can decide one way or the other.

I personally like (very much) the launch of TT120, I just hope Hornby follow through.

2 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Post-op pain killers help, and the pain will pass over time.  The exercises are very important - you will have trouble if you don't do enough.  I think I must have been doing it wrong, as I still couldn't bend my knee far enough and had to have another procedure - manipulation under general anasthetic.  The objective is gradually to get to the point that you can again bend your leg as far as normal.  The longer you are stuck in bed recovering the weaker your leg muscles get, and the longer it takes to get back your strength.  The physio gave me exercises to kick against a series of rubber bands which tied my feet together loosely, gradually using bands of increasing strength and climbing a step. 

 

I can now walk much better than before I had my operation and no longer need a walking stick, but I can't kneel on my left leg any more - apparently most people can't kneel following knee repalcement.  Getting up off the floor is also more difficult than before the op.

Indeed the painkillers made from old depleted uranium shells help a lot* 😁

but what they send you home with are a bit less effective, I had my right knee done in 2020 in between lockdowns, it has been brilliant. You correct post op exercise and stretching in the first month is the most important bit, kneeling is a killer for sure because of the internal scarring so when I get knighted I have an excuse in front of the King 👍

*of which I’ve just had my third lot today…..yeah man….floating over the bed here.🤪

2 hours ago, Nick C said:

Probably not - but is it really appropriate in the current circumstances to be setting the heating to 21 just so you can wear a t-shirt and shorts in December, rather than 17 and sticking on a couple more layers?

Yes it bloomin’well is appropriate thank you for your suggestion, last thing I need to be doing at my age and with asthma is breathing in cold air all the time, you could turn you heating down a few more degrees to compensate for my heating being higher that way I can avoid catching

pneumonia again this winter!
 

As you say, moving on…..not that I am at the moment…… new left knee on Tuesday, stuck in hospital bed with a real achy leg now 😱

Watching the sunrise now…..no wind turbines 😂

9 hours ago, Reorte said:

That would be out of sight, out of mind. It's not really a case of "can't see it, doesn't matter."

 

Anyway, let's move on.

But it is if you feel so strongly about your countryside views👍

My surroundings mean a lot to me also, but driving past something I don’t like doesn’t wind me up like that, it’s gone in a minute.

If it were the seventies again I’d say take a chill pill man 🕺

51 minutes ago, Reorte said:

It's a completely honest view. That is simply how I feel, my surroundings mean that much to me that what's being done to them really, really hurts. It's about what gives me the most positive in life, what I find makes it worth living, and the impact on that. We get a lot about "saving the planet" these days but why does it matter? Merely the pragmatic? That's... well, necessary, sure, but empty. Why care about it beyond needing it to live on? The same applies to a lot of other things too, although that's among the biggest. I'm not going to apologise for the way I feel, and I see no benefit to pretending that it isn't the case. Should the world around me, beyond as a concept, being that important to someone really be labelled as an extreme view?

OK I get you feel strongly but it’s a very extreme reaction to something you might see only very occasionally, I assume you don’t live within sight of one right now 😃

1 hour ago, Hobby said:

 

1. Nope and I haven't bothered looking (though I regard battery mileage range as more important than miles/kWh - I know i shouldn't but it's the easiest way to get an idea how far the car will go and so decide whether it'll be suitable) and...

 

2. Those figures tend to be more reliable than range figures on the manufacturers websites...

What’s handy with the m/KWh figure is if you go for a test drive, zero the display and drive like you normally do for a nice long hour test drive, it really annoys the salesman (we did this with the i3 from Exeter we ended up touring around Torbay before going back to the dealer, he kept saying “if you turn right here, it’ll take us back” 🤣) and at the end of the drive you have a good representation of what you will get, then it’s easy to find the range YOU will get from the battery.

1 hour ago, black and decker boy said:

 

Something else that baffles:

what the hell is all this under the Merc bonnet? It’s an EV!!!!!

 

This is the same space in the Tesla 

I did say it was a useless implementation 😂

56 minutes ago, black and decker boy said:

Some initial thoughts on the Merc EQB:

efficiency and so range is really quite poor compared to my former Tesla Model 3. The Merc is currently averaging just 2.7miles per KW (so a max real world range of 181 miles).

 

It’s odd the both Audi and MB EVs have such poor implementation of their systems that make them so poor, especially as BMW has some of the best efficiency, even in the behemoths.

Our i3 gives us an easy 4.5 summer and 3.8 winter, the bigger vehicle slightly less of course, but still far better than their German competitors.

4 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

Acclimatise yourself to feeling colder, not just turning the thermostat down to 19 celcius, but even lower, to 17 or 16, and have the heating on for shorter periods of time too.  Wrap up warm, don't think you can swan around the house in just a tshirt and shorts, and remember to shut doors to keep the heat in rooms.

 

My thermostat/CH programmer is a wireless portable one. I keep it in the room currently being used so once that room is warm enough, the heating shuts off.  30 minutes before going to bed, I take it up to the bedroom so it'll heat that up until its at the set temperature.  It seems to keep gas consumption down!

 

 

But surely if it’s a normal system not a smart tado or some such where individual radiators are controlled remotely, your still sending central heating hot water to every other radiator in the house even thought thermostat is measuring the room it’s in.

We have just all the radiators in the rooms we don’t use regularly (or live in more accurately) turned down to minimum, it’s about half the rooms in the house give or take.

15 minutes ago, Nick C said:

It's much cheaper to put a jumper on...

I’m not sure they mean wearing a G-String

5 hours ago, Reorte said:

I completely and utterly loathe and despise the sight of any of them, finding them about as attractive as any other large scale industrial installation, and hence regarding wind farms in about the same light as oil refineries from the perspective of their negative impact on our surroundings - quite honestly they come as close to being able to grasp the concept of sacrilege as it's possible for a non-believer to get.

 

Now because of past poor decisions we've got ourselves in to a position where we need them regardless of that, so I can't say "knock them all down right now and don't build any more", because that's just plain not viable. They're relatively quick to build and install, and we simply need generation capability that is quick to build and install and doesn't work by burning fossil fuels, there's no getting away from that. But I can't look at a long term future that doesn't hope to get away from them eventually as anything other than extremely obnoxious.

Wow such an extreme view.

4 hours ago, BRTrainz said:

My comment on Kadees had less to do with the pivot, and more to do with the Kadee design simply not being rigid enough when coupled to really work right with CCMs.

 

They work perfectly when modified as I described on all my CCU fitted stock.

I had issues with Kadees on the AS Deltic CCU components when fitted but after modding they work great, I think the AS CCU component has some stiction in some units and it causes issues.