coachmann

It may be that some locos were damaged while in transit from China to the UK. Box-shifters would probably not inspect individual boxes and would simply despatch them onto customers. Lower quantities arriving at retailers might be examined, sorted and despatched, then it depends on the carrier. What we do know is small parts come loose or fall off. The loco is very heavy. The front drop plate is of a poor design.The pony truck is a simple affair with a slot for the axle. Add all this together and you need a form of moulded expanded polystyrene packaging that holds the loco firmly in place so that it has no forward or rearward movement. None of this sort of damage in new to me. Heavy 0 gauge locos suffered if they were not securely packed front, rear and around the cab roof area. In the days when we could not trust the GPO, we were thankful when couriers like Interlink set up business locally in the 1970's. Things went full circle eventually and today I entrust everything to the GPO 'Special Delivery' service. But even this service will not protect a poorly protected loco.

I think spending power and habits have got more to do with it than route mileage. South and Midlands folk are better off financially plus their outlook differs. If Hornby's Q6 was a financial success, another loco might follow when the climate is right.

Thanks for that John. I will have a look at Halfords Rover Brooklands Green. At the end of the list, there is mention of green for DMU's. Personally I would choose Deep Bronze green for early DMU's. This shade is quite widely used by pro painters for GWR/BR steam locos. The lighter green DMU's were more akin to the malachite EMU's seen at London Road on Glossop services and Oxford Road on South Manchester services. It was very utility against the classier lined out dark green EMU and DMU's

Due to my age and caring for Mary, I am bringing my 46 year old painting & lining business to a close. With no wish to buy tins of cellulose paint at this stage of the game, I recall someone posted a list of Halford spraycans that were close matches to Phoenix-Precision railway paints. Does an member know if there is a close match to BR(S.Region) Loco Hauled Stock Green in the Halford range? Thanks in advance, Larry Goddard. (Spray Painting & finishing Est. 1972)

Westdale was split up many years ago and, as far as I am aware, Derek Lawrence of Lawrence Scale Models got the press tools for 4mm coaches. He formed them as sides only like BSL aluminium pressings because it suited our production methods. I do not know where the 7mm stuff went.

Stanier continued to have them built until around 1941! We used to get a Stockport engine on shed every day and it was occasionally a 'Derby Four', as the loco men called them. No one at our LNWR shed had a good word for anything Midland especially the injectors. I had a lift on a RH drive one from Newton Heath shed and it climbed up to Oldham in fine style with a long parcels for Clegg Street.

Even with everything removed so that the driving wheels are unencumbered with gearing, the chassis is not as free running as I would have expected. With regard to driving one axle, I am now confident that the sloppy coupling rods would do the job that coupling rods are expected to do.

32 - 37 tons approx. for corridor coaches depending on open or side corridor configuration.

The proprietary r-t-r companies will only produce North Eastern locos when or if it can be proven there is a sufficiently large market to produce a healthy profit. How this would come about is anyone's guess. Simply saying you would buy for instance a J27 0-6-0 tender loco is not enough when history tells us that the fall-off once it arrives can be high when people say they would have bought it had it been a J25, had the rivets not been over scale, had the Moon not been in conjunction with Uranus and so-on. You've got your Bachmann NER 0-8-0, so why not communicate with the company and ask them if they have considered adding another NER loco. A B16 4-6-0 would give you a passenger loco that had the added advantage of getting around a bit and therefore appealing to people not modelling the North Eastern area. I am not putting forward my favourite loco as it is immaterial to me. Just trying to be helpful.

I still have some kits in their original boxes. Probably of more interest is the newsprint that friend Tony Colbeck wrapped the castings in. A bus broken down on a bridge is something i hadn't thought of.

We do a park 'n ride to the local hospital and my wife told me the ex.London bus we travel on is nowhere near as quiet and comfy as the Enviro400 buses on the Rhyl-Llandudno service. Me bus-pass arrived recently so I must give one a go. The Crosville Lodekkas used to put me to sleep.

Back in May I rode on a modern bus for the first time in years. It shook about a lot and was noisy so it had me wondering if I was imagining that buses were quieter and more comfortable in the 1950's. I think this video may have the answer...

If cogs are removed and the drive is to taken to just one axle of a DJM 14XX, I rather suspect the very floppily fitted coupling rods would fail to do the job of acting as coupling rods due to the large amount of slack. Still, one never knows until it is tried. I was fortunate in having one decent runner, but the biggie for me now is, do i want to spend quite a lot of money on having DCC sound professionally fitted knowing that the speaker will be very small. I am fond of 14XX's, but I may have to go for a Bachmann 64XX instead.........A loco I know I can completely gut and fit in a cab-filling Flame 10 speaker.

We cannot expect assemblers of plastic RTR locos to carefully set up sprung horn blocks etc. There is nothing wrong with RTR chassis so long as they run smoothly without cogging at low speed and the driving wheels run true. This is an area manufacturers should concentrate on. Super-detailed model locos are a waste of space if they waddle along or run like a dogs hind leg.

I am extraordinary lucky to have such kind and generous friends, as two of Hornby's new SR Maunsell D2651 Restaurant Cars of 1927 arrived today out of the blue. Both carry BR livery numbers S 7861 S. These coaches have been well covered in another thread. They will be used on Paddington-Birkenhead workings once Ruabon has been built. I cannot fault these coaches, as they carry all the detail we have come to expect from the two big proprietary RTR manufacturers. Originally, they carries four roof rain strips, but some coaches lost their upper rainstrips in BR days. The model has two rain strips. When I mentioned the model carrying Southern Railway olive green livery should have been lined out, the RTR fraternity vehemently supported Hornby' plain Olive Green finish. I wouldn't expect anything else! However, if Hornby have really produced a faithful copy of No. 7869 as photographed in March 1940, it should have four roof rainstrips! I'll say no more! Seeing as I have been sent two diners, I would like a little variation in livery. Unless the coaches that remained as restaurant cars carried re-varnished SR malachite up until the mid 1950's, there may be a case for blood & custard livery. Pictured straight out of box.....

North Wales is littered with ex-churches, probably because of all the denominations. Nice building in the wrong place! Llwyngwril is on the Cambrian....Great in a hot summer when humming with holiday makers.....Desolate and lonely in Winter.

Wot is there...............?

Mine arrived Monday and I didn't even order it....

Jinty, you are an artist when it comes to weathering. It just looks to realistic. You do 0 gauge models justice.

Back again. Below is the free-running chassis with all the intermediate gearing removed. It relies on the con rods and it works..... I have painted yellow lines where i think chunks of body could be removed.... You would loose the central chassis fixing point marked in red, but in fact it is no loss when most replacement chassis would presumably be secured at each end.... However, this needs further investigation because there is a metal weight in there. I think the running plate needs removing to see what is going on underneath.

The motor is indeed a tiny object. There is a lot of resistance in the chassis due to the intermediate gearing between the coupled wheels, so much so that only my heavy Heljan 2-8-0 would push it! So it seems to me the motor has its work cut out moving the loco let alone a train as well. I had to remove all the gearing before the chassis would run freely. Excellent body that needs a lot of internal gutting if it is to go on a handbuilt chassis, and even more gutting if it is to accommodate a decent size speaker.

Don't worry ...... Borth-Y-Gest is closer to Ruabon than Oldham is haha... I will start a Ruabon thread once things start moving, but at the moment this thread is only a discussion to hopefully flesh out more information and the all-important photos. A Peco Code 75 single slip and a short diamond will help me see how some of the track plan works out in reality, but seeing as I am back earning a crust, not much hobbying will be done anyway. Hope the weather is better for you over on the Cambrian Coast. LG

I have not seen the town hall cleaned up. I remember it black like the population. Said to be the most deprived town in Britain, it felt that way when we moved there in 1947! Everyone was poor. I'd go in a new girlfriends house and look at the ceiling for the purple circle..........The stain left by the jerry. When a pal of mine took his posh girlfriend from daan saath on the No.8 tram to Shaw just before the war, he told her get two tickets to Four Lane Ends. She asked the conductor for two tickets to Four Laying Hens. She thought it was a pub! He was in the building trade and built like a boulder. She was slim and prim and didn't like him drinking to excess at weekend. I greeted him one Saturday afternoon and he came at me with a raised hand shouting I was spying on him for his missus. Northerners can be funny, but the north is no joke.

Lucky me..........In preparation for speed trials between Berwyn Halt and Corwen, one of these arrived in the yard at Carrog today. How the RTR manufacturers install all the fine detail for the price is beyond me.... Truly amazingly detail even on the frosted glass lights in the clerestory.... I don't know where I find the time, but I'm back earning a crust again. And so before anyone asks....No, I will not be lining it out.

Given a choice on a 1950's hot summer day of being beamed down to Greenfield or Ruabon, it's a no-brainer for me. Besides, it would be drizzling in Greenfeld and it goes dark at 7pm!