Barry Ten

On 07/04/2024 at 09:18, NHY 581 said:

Morning all, 

 

The Crack Catering Team are limbering up for what we hope will be a grand day out 

 

 

 

 

 

Just the "Class B" drugs for me please.

1 hour ago, Tony Wright said:

Good afternoon Chas,

 

When you next see me, and I appear to be in deep conversation, please make your presence known. Mo is always telling me that I should look around more, and see those who might be patiently waiting. Then (tactfully?) say to those with whom I'm in conversation for some time that there are others. It is difficult, though I need to be more aware.

 

This year, it's my perception that York was busier than ever; quite rightly so. To me, it's a 'far superior' show to Ally Pally. By that I mean it's much more of a modellers' show, particularly with regard to the trade support. If I'm wrong, please put me right, but was any trader at Ally Pally selling wheels, gearboxes, motors, loco kits, carriage kits, fittings and all the necessary bits and pieces to complete models? York doesn't really have 'box-shifters' as well. Granted, the layouts at Ally Pally will be as good as anywhere and it's wonderfully well-organised. However, parking is no longer free, I believe.

 

To me, York is still one of the best shows in the calendar; it really caters for those who actually 'make things', and need all the bits to do so (similar ones are the likes of Aylesbury and Wells, as well as the Society shows; there are others). 

 

Yes, the ex-GC RU I had on display was the 3D-printed one . Nobody has told me yet that it's wrong!

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

I went to Ally Pally a couple of weekends ago (I just happened to be in London) and spent three days at York as an exhibitor. York was by far the more interesting exhibition, in my view. Granted, one can't always see as much when showing off a layout as when one is just a normal visitor, but I felt I'd "done" Ally Pally after two hours whereas there was plenty at York I still hadn't seen properly by the time we had to leave. And, the trade support was far superior.

1 hour ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

And it has probably been through a few variations in output since  going on sale in the UK, and was notoriously 'flabby' in output when I first looked at one about twenty two years ago. That example couldn't get a Lenz decoder equipped WD 2-8-0 to reach scale for 30mph. On 12V DC the same model would run at scale for 60mph.

 

You might request that any visiting DCC systems have an adjustable voltage output. (The Lenz system I use is a good one, user adjustable voltage output to protect against N gauge burn out, and for O gauge traction to receive sufficient power, doubtless there are others.)

My Powercab was bought in the UK circa 2010 and didn't really work reliably until I swapped the power supply.

2 hours ago, 1471SirFrederickBanbury said:

It always brings me a slight chuckle when I remember how similar Hornby and TRS Trains smoke units to Thomas the Tank Engine toys!  For the kings ransom that Hornby is selling the smoking locos for, I wouldn't bother.  They should have used this as an opportunity to use something similar to whats used in the film industry for small fog machines, as the results should be realistic enough to sway people towards it, and there is no oil involved, being that its mostly water and triethylene glycol (I'm going to try to make a smoke unit to see just how dense I can get it).  I would certainly hand over my money for that.  

There's no oil involved in this either, it just uses ordinary water.

2 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

Personally the only sports I bother watching on telly are F1, tennis and my beloved QPR. I find the commentary excellent in all three, but particularly for football where it now seems to be possible to have dedicated commentary for your own football  team, certainly in the Championship - I can’t speak for the money pit division above us! I rather enjoy the combination of a commentator who’s also a fan paired up with a former player, in our case, Andy Sinton. The scream when a goal goes in is worth the money alone!

 

Andy

Only F1 and tennis for me, and not much of the latter since Federer retired (in fact it's my wife who was the main tennis fan, but I used to absorb a lot of it by osmosis while she was waching). I find Sky's F1 commentary team to be excellent across the board, with Martin Brundell's observations a particular highlight, combining technical insight with wit and passion. I'm not sure if it's a Brundellism but I particularly like "enthusiasm exceeded adhesion" whenever someone spins out.

11 hours ago, davefrk said:

At the risk of saying 'me to', here is my newly done Midland signal box in the NE regional colours as done when the NE region took over the Wharfedale line in the fifties and repainted everything.

 

Churchward etched brass kit modified and detailed, painting style copied from photos of boxes on the line.

 

Dave.

That looks very nicely done, and I've always liked that regional livery.

On 06/03/2024 at 10:17, Northmoor said:

SNAP!

It took me about two weeks in January, a bit at a time; agree about the black areas, I think that's what I finished with!  I think we actually have two of this puzzle - accidentally bought a second at a charity shop - so one will go to a friend.  It is a lovely pair of images with lots of little indicators of the beginning and end of the war.

 

Done that one as well, very challenging in places!

On 04/03/2024 at 23:08, SHMD said:

 

17:40 This time, though, something more interesting was on the apron - an Airbus Beluga. (I call them Guppys for some reason!)

 

Like me you probably remember the Pregnant Guppy and Super Guppy aircraft which performed a similar role to the Beluga?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_Spacelines_Super_Guppy

I've seen the Beluga flying north over Aberdare a few years ago. Pretty hard to mistake for anything else, even at altitude.

13 hours ago, Woodcock29 said:

I don't know anything about the range of couplings (if there is more than one?) that might be available for smaller knuckle couplers from Sergent but have had experience here in Adelaide with using Sergent scale buckeye couplers on a South Australian P87 layout. I operate on this layout once a month and we mostly find they can work well or be quite awkward. The buckeyes need to be seen from above to use them as you have to line them up perfectly if using them in shunting operations which we do. If they stick either open of closed they need to be tapped with a magnetic stick - we do this from above also but it seems that can be done from the side. In my view they're ok for small layouts where you can get the above access required.

I don't think Sergent couplers are being made any more.

I've finally got around to weathering the Nu-Cast 2021 I started a year or two back. Just a few small bits to add and then I can start another loco kit with a clear conscience.

Here's a short clip of the 2021 on a test train of 19 wagons.

2 hours ago, jwealleans said:

 There were very overt campaigns to induce Barclays to disinvest from apartheid South Africa and in support of the Miners.   I have to say my innate cynicism just made me wonder how much of it was trust funded posturing.

In the 80s, at least in Newcastle, it would have been a brave student who attempted to open an account with Barclays. I think there was a kind of picket-line you had to cross. I went with Lloyds, much easier.

Just my minor contribution to the chassis topic, but I don't (usually) bolt them on at each end. I fix one end tightly, but arrange the other to be retained, but allowed some slight give (both lengthways and sideways). Often that retention is achieved by just sliding the front frame spacer beneath the back of the screw-link coupling.

1 hour ago, Captain Kernow said:

 

2) I'm not sure I would want to make the centre axle higher, not being funny, but I'd prefer to put the effort into making sure that the track was completely level...

 

Most (all?) of the Comet chassis I've built do have the centre axle hole etched slightly higher than the outer ones - you can tell as soon as you put the wheels in as the middle ones will just "skate" along the rail tops. I can only speak from experience but the chassis do seem to work very well with this arrangement when built fully rigid.

44 minutes ago, MikeParkin65 said:

A little unfair to say 'lots of reports' - there have been some reports on the thread on this forum and the manufacturer has been very proactive in reaching out and offering ot look at any model the owner had an issue with. I do think its been one of those little frenzies that can afflict this forum where an issue with a few models from a large batch is presumed to afflict all. I've got one, sound fitted, it waddles a little but it will also shift a 14 coach rake on test which is all I need from a station pilot. 

I think it's a fair observation about the 15XX. There have been numerous reports of tight spots, waddling, pickup malfunction and paint/glue assembly issues. Even mine isn't perfect - there's a glue blemish on one cylinder, a minor waddle and a small but noticeable tight spot at low speed, tiny yes but more than I would have accepted if I were building a chassis. It is potentially a very nice model but it seems to have been afflicted by more than the usual number of issues.

Looking at the thread on the new GWR railmotor, there seem to be quite a few snags with this model as well.

2 hours ago, t-b-g said:

I can't recall whether it was in a magazine article, or perhaps at an exhibition, that I saw somebody "doing a job" on a Lima Crab. They had either widened the loco or narrowed the tender to get the relationship correct and had corrected a number of other errors. From memory, it is the width of the tender that was wrong. It looks it in the photos but I would need to measure to confirm.

 

It looked half decent when it was done. I don't think anybody would bother doing such work nowadays.

 

From recollection it was the loco that was too narrow. There was an article in which the footplate was widened by adding plastic strips, and I think the cab widened as well. It looked OK because as you say, that was the only "easy" way to get a Crab. The theory was that the Lima designers had interpreted the difference in width between cab and tender as a mistake in the drawings, and "corrected" accordingly.

The roughly contemporaneous Hornby Patriot had the opposite problem in that tender was too wide and long. There was another article showing how the tender body and cosmetic frames could be cut down to something more realistic, all without requiring any alteration to the mechanism. It was a bit of a mystery why Hornby had made the tender oversized to begin with as they needn't have.

14 minutes ago, Chamby said:

I can be very happy with a model until some bright herbert comes along and points out what is wrong with it.  After then, it becomes impossible to view the model without also seeing the defect.

A case in point might be this Wills station I built at the end of last year ( it's pretty good as a representation of an LBSC building). I was dead pleased with it for at least a week until I realised I'd managed to get the roof tiles on the wrong way up on the "road" facing side! Even though I thought I could live with this, since the wrong bit would never be seen, I've decided to bite the bullet and redo that bit of the roof. In fact I bought the relevant Wills sheets yesterday.

The upside down sheet is the one over the porch. It's surprisingly easy not to notice unless the light hits in the right direction but it must go!

2 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

 

 

From memory, one made it to cinema stardom (complete with fake smoke deflectors) in a POW film starring Dirk Bogarte (is that the right spelling?). Does anyone know the film? It must have been after the loco was withdrawn from BR because wasn't it derailed?

"The Password is Courage"

https://railwaymoviedatabase.com/the-password-is-courage/

1 hour ago, Andy Hayter said:

I use crocodile clips.

 

Re use of brass strip: Brass is weak with regards to work hardening.  Bending back and forth - as I guess your strip will do as cassettes are added and removed, lakes the metal crystalline and cause it to fail.   It's the same process we use when that rusty nail fails to come out of a piece of wood.  Waggle it back and forth and lo, it snaps off.  

I'm not sure if there's any science to back up the following anecdotal observation, but in line with the weakness of brass, I find that when forming sharp bends in wire (eg for handrails or Spratt & Winkle loops) if I form the bend slowly, it seems to tolerate being undone and adjusted more than if the bend is formed quickly. Could be complete cobblers of course.

I find the gearing on the Bachmann Std 5s to be a bit on the slow side for express passenger service.