Etched Pixels

gimp will happily let you digitally work with the sheets, cut and paste etc. Very handy for adjustments and for adding registration marks for use with machine cutters (yeah I'm lazy but I can't cut straight either)

i've heard it called several things in my time, even by the locals

spent a good few weeks there doing my bit for the ERTMS scheme

The Aber cabbies all knew "Mach" (which seems to be what a lot of locals call it anyway) "macky nellith", "machthingy" and all the variants (along with essential local places like 'Aberthingy') that the students and the escaped Brummies use. [And I'm also almost an escaped Brummie so I'm entitled to call Borth 'Little Birmingham By The Sea' and giggle at the fact Aberystwyth is full of people whose accents are 'Birmingham area OAP'].

At least Mach is different enough that people realise there is a problem, whereas the poor Talyllyn (not Tally-Lynne) seems to be misnamed by just about everyone without realising.

We have more fun with Cwmtwrch and Crymmych Arms. (memorable quote from someone pointing at a map 'Ok I surrender')

Alan

For attaching bogie sides I've had some luck with evostick, but if its got to be strong then drilling 0.3mm holes into the plastic and running wire through the parts is sometimes the best way (eg when attaching bogie sideframes). It also helps if you roughen up the material you are joining. PVA will also key to ABS type plastics to some extent so painting it in dilute PVA can make it easier to fix or paint (eg for Peco buffer stops)

As built all were fixed, but alterating the RH one to hinged started circa 1964. It would be nice to have the early variation as an option so you can run an early 'Thousand' (introduced from December 1961) with a very late King (which were all withdrawn by the end of 1962).

Indeed - but the higher level grilles are still a slat short even for those locos as far as I can see from the early photos ?

I'm also wondering if there should be more of a downward curve to the bottom of the valence below the buffers. Can't quite decide and I'm always wary of trying to judge shape accurately from CAD images.

Very nice - and the headcode box looks right.

Grilles are indeed a bit odd as noted - the 3 left and right most on the roof angle are a slat short. as well as the one body side grille being different on the real beastie.

Underwear also seems to missing a pair of small brackets for the pedantically inclined

(see: http://www.railphotoarchive.org/rpc_zoom.php?img=1579020120000 ) and look at the left and right hand edge of the panels.

Looking really good. I assume the bottom edge of the valence is constrained by the mechanical needs for clearance ?

I've never bothered with seating in them as it's not really visible. The pre-printed partition bits mostly serve to stop light shining through combinations of windows that physically shouldn't be possible, and which is noticable, as well as provide the immediate layer of viewing on compartment stock.

If you light a coach its entirely different but even then its a couple of bits of plastruct glued together (eg the 3.2mm bit and some strip) to make a seating strip and then saw it into lengths. It has one other advantage - it makes the compartments much stronger as the compartment walls are well supported by them.

Couplers - can be done various ways. Mathiason Models 3 link couplers might be overkill though 8). Really for Rapido you've got a choice between mounting it on a bit of strip from the bogie or mounting something like a Peco coupler & pocket on the body end (again check the clearances for your curves, you may need to file the front of the pocket so the buffer beam itself forms the pocket front in part.

Alan

No I was thinking of putting the 20x11x11 cube at an angle and the layout flat 8)

I was pondering rack stuff actually as a good way to use the space, and T scale mechanisms will climb 1 in 4 8)

So can it be slightly longer and wider providing its lower so that if you stuffed it into the 20x11x11 at an angle it would fit ?

Currently listening to Lutaver'e : Ros - shame that seems to be the only album they ever did as the are awesome even if (as they are Belarussian) I have no idea what it's about !

Even beyond language issues Wales has a few.

Builth Road is nowhere near Builth as the 'Road' implies - but over time created its own village of that name.

Westminster incompetence produced entire misnamed railways as the acts of parliament helpfully 'corrected' spellings - thus the FFestiniog and Burry Port & Gwendreath Valley, both of which are wrong (but stuck in law) and nothing to do with English v Welsh spelling.

Outside of Wales one that is really taking the mick is Sandwell & Dudley

It's in Oldbury, okay its vaguely near Sandwell but it miles from Dudley, Oldbury and West Bromwich would be a more honest name !

Swansea we have a busway. Now it is not guided as the busses come with a steering wheel and driver to operate it. Its a piece of tarmac on spare land, it works really well, and about the only thing they had to spend extra money on is the magic gates to stop idiots trying to use it. In future it can be cheaply converted into a road or similar as well.

Alan (doesn't get guided busways)

The metal is fairly soft but can be gently coaxed back into shape if need be (or slip in some thin packing shims of paper)

More madness with Hornby buildings

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180657561928&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

Bet a few people are wishing they hadn't glued theirs down right now !

The local council will most likely start work on ripping it up, or at least severing the connection where the level crossing is.

 

Whilst it would be nostalgically nice to retain it, the fact is that its resurrected use would cause far more traffic disruption than it used to. When I was visiting Weymouth just after New Year, the volume of road traffic in town was quite incredible. I am told by a friend who lives in Radipole that it's just as bad now, even though the Bypass has now come into use; quicker for her to walk to town than drive.

Sounds the perfect place for a tram. Pity April 1st has gone 8)

I've got a sprogII and I'm a big fan of it as a programmer. As a layout controller you need reasonably up to date firmware and its really only up to driving either a booster or a small N layout.

I run it with JMRI on a PC with no problems (Linux in this case but SprogII seems to work well with most systems although Windoze 7 people seem to have endless USB serial driver problems). Vendor support seems excellent.

(and you can add updated Decoder definitions to your install btw..)

For the 158/170 etc don't put the decoder in the roof as the guide suggests put it between the bogies where there is plenty of room for most N decoders

Most of the N gauge decoders will fit nicely. That said at about £21 the TCS is one of the cheapest actual N sized decoders with wire harness.

You can in theory use the Bachmann 6 pin one but you'll need to either do some quite fancy wiring to the pins or wire a socket too, at which point it might save you £4 and won't work on DC.

Well it's all too believable given the Hymek headcode brackets and the Mark 3 door light blobs on the blue ones

Now I shall have to find a new excuse to alter one 8)

(PS: The Farish 47 in I/C has an aerial that nobody fussed about even though its also wrong for several years of that livery)

Alan

Yes - that's one I've seen of 5116 which has token catcher but had the steps plated. Curiously the original picture at the start of thread has steps not plated, so at some point between April and December 1970 someone put the token catcher back together and did the steps. Curiouser and curiouser..

Alan

Is it not that the lead loco has the catcher proper removed, just the mounting points (bits of angle or something) remaining, whilst the second loco retains the catcher?

I think you are right (could do with a clearer photo).. poo that's going to much harder to model 8)

Wonderful - I've been trying to find a photo of 5116 in blue with steps to see if the token catcher was still fitted !

Can I put in a plea for some earlier 86s quite soon please! My OHLE posts are up and just waiting for a white window/cab roof combination and an un-named Rail Blue without cantrail stripes to glide under! Thanks in anticipation Dave!

The nameplates are separate fittings so you'd only need to not fit those, and lift the arrows of confusion and cantrail then re-decal it (the arrows moved when they were named). I've yet to try lifting the cantrail to see if it'll come off without harming the blue but it's on my TODO list.

Someone should do this, the development of steam locos would have been vastly different!

 

surely train lengths and thus station lengths would have been shorter as you'd fit more people in each coach?

The continental loading gauge width isn't that different to the broad gauge one but with far narrower track (as come to think of it were some of the historic Irish ones), neither led to shorter vehicles, in fact in Europe they seem to have led to larger ones (26m being common).

Some BR era SR push pull stuff was converted from SR coaches but a lot of the SR stuff was from pre-grouping coaches either conversions or purpose built pre-group coaches such as the balloon trailers.

Why not? Isn't Ribblehead a scheduled monument too?

 

Ed

It's now a footpath, and it would require significant modification to carry modern trains (especially as a diversionary route Cornwall rather than just sprinters)). Ribblehead on the other hand is in constant use as a rail bridge so nboody has to argue about putting trains back on it.

I wouldn't be surprised if a modern concrete horror wasn't cheaper or indeed a modified route.

Alan