Ian J.

Hi all, At some point in the future I have a job to do narrowing the check rail gap on a batch of Peco Code 83 turnouts, both straight and curved, being used on the fiddleyard boards of my layout idea. This is to allow the back-to-backs of RTR stock to be eased out to 14.8mm to allow for better quality running, and the scenic sections will be using handbuilt finescale OO track. Can anyone advise on best ways to do this? My current thoughts are to: lay the turnouts cut the stock rail check rails off file clearance from the base of the rail clear out the plastic from between the sleepers put two small, flat-headed screws between the sleepers solder the check rail back in place with a narrower gap Does this sound OK, or is there a better way?

I always found that bananas tasted of banana, not pork... 😉

I was going to tell a joke about crops, but it's too corny.

I take it you have an ECoS command station of some kind? I wonder if it might be something in the JMRI that doesn't recognise the CVs. I will check my SPROG III/JMRI set up later today to see if the problem exists there. If so, I'll contact @Crosland to see if he knows how to get JMRI updated appropriately.

That top pic looks suspiciously like something Southern... 🙂

Looking at the pics on the Kernow thread, it looks like all the detailing is missing from the front, so it's probable that the ETH plug/socket/leads are in the detailing pack.

There aren't many QBs who can handle short pocket times and collapses. Patrick Mahomes always seem to manage to slip his way out of trouble, but many others, even some of the more mobile ones, can't. So teams with poor pass protection against the pass rush are still going to struggle, even with a good QB.

Felling in love again...

Watching games live on NFL GamePass is fun - my friend (a Raiders fan who got me into the sport) and I like to take the p*ss out of the adverts. If our teams are losing, which they have a habit of doing, it at least provides a bit of entertainment 🙂

I pay my NFL GamePass subscription, and watch the games I'm interested in (Falcons + Raiders) live, or very shortly after broadcast if they're very late games here or are blacked out due to Sky. I find the various commentary shows, whether U.K. or U.S., in general not particularly useful.

The problem is that we've tried to negotiate some kind of continuation with the E.U. of how rules were while we were still a member state, and it's those half-in, half-out, not properly settled arrangements that are causing the problems. For all other countries/regions in the world, the rules have just stayed as they were so haven't had any additional issues, with the exception of the attempt by the U.K. government (and the E.U., I think) to get V.A.T. collected by the retailer at source regardless of country. What does confuse me is why Accurascale don't just get everything sent to the Republic of Ireland first, then only have one headache to deal with in getting their product into the U.K. to Birmingham.

I'm a 'republican' at heart, but I'm of the opinion that the numbers in our population are currently significantly in favour of the monarchy, and that any protesting against them is in effect 'tilting at windmills' (or to put it another way, p*ssing into the wind). If there is to be a change, it has to be with the heartfelt support of the population and in my view that just isn't there, and as far as I can work out there aren't any viable emotional arguments that could sway the public opinion. So in the meantime, I will bide my time and stick to being a 'quiet republican'.

I was just looking for this again for bookmarking a post, and noticed it had gone. Any idea on when it will be back?

It's posts like the previous two that need to be specially archived and stickied as references somewhere easy to find 🙂

That's the image I saw on the website. As to replacing the tension lock, there are problems with what we as users would want as there will be conflicting requirements. I know I want an unobtrusive, DCC-controlled coupler suitable for finescale OO operation with eased out back-to-backs on +28 inch radii curves, where having a bar to push against for propelling over pointwork isn't required (the buffers do their job without override). Too wit, I have in mind a modified AJ-style coupler controlled by, possibly, a Preci motor unit otherwise used for Kadees. The issue there is the motor won't return a non-sprung coupling to a resting position, so I'd have to add springing in situations where the AJ-style wire is too short to be self-sprung. I'm absolutely sure that's not what most users want, as the lack of bar for propelling on set track tight curves would be a non-starter. Edit: also, I'd want the coupler to be body mounted. Couplers on bogies are a no-no for me as it prevents detailing on buffer beams and puts the wrong stresses on the train as a whole. Of course, with what I've outlined above as minimum radii, close coupling mechanisms just aren't needed.

U/Q.

The pictures on AS website show them fitted to conventional mineral wagons, not Chaldrons, so I was writing both on that and the OP's original post.

As with any coupling that doesn't have a built in override bar or arrangement of some kind, you will be restricted in the tightness of the radii on your layout if you want to use these for pushing, and that means all radii including those through pointwork. I'd suggest they are only really suitable on a minimum radii of approximately 36 inches where propelling is being carried out. However, I think, while they look 'OK' and certainly better than the likes of the tension lock, they don't unfortunately look the part of the prototype three link, screw link or instanter. I'm not entirely sure how well they'd work for any form of automatic uncoupling either, and on heavy trains there might be tendency to uncouple somewhere near the front of the train as the magnets probably aren't strong enough for long trains.

There are at least two public 'years' with different quarters - calendar and seasonal. So when an announcement is said to be 'Spring', it could be 2nd Qtr (Apr-Jun, calendar) or 2nd Qtr (Mar-May, seasonal).

I just hope they don't use a roof-marring slide like they did with Rails' Terrier.

Allowing general users to inject anything into a database is a really bad idea. It's explicitly prevented for so many security reasons on pretty much any RDBMS and/or NoSQL system. The only way to allow users to re-upload content would be to develop an interface to check user input to ensure it complies with what the database expects and weeds out the inevitable malicious attempts to misuse it. Which, funnily enough, is pretty much what we have already.

...and ordered 🙂

A shame, but perhaps the expected outcome. I will have to see what I can do to restore images now, but I fear for threads where useful images are gone and the members who uploaded them are also gone (left the forum, passed on, etc) so no repairs can be done to make such threads viable again. I don't suppose sites like the Wayback Machine might have some images?

I've put a pre-order in. Not exactly right for the geography of the revenue era version of S&P, but would fit in nicely for the heritage era for hauling excursion trains from Tynworth to Penmouth Harbour, much as what I would be using my USA Dock Tank for 🙂