34theletterbetweenB&D

Alternatively between gradient transitions lifting it a little, the end of the fall plate inside the curve contacting some part of the cab, that may push it upright. I had this trouble on a Bachmann loco with a hinged fall plate, but a quarter hour of patiently wiggling it up and down made it able to fall under its own weight, so it comes back down to rest on the step when the force acting to push it up ceases. This may be a little obsessive of me, but I do like the appearance of a floor between loco and tender, and feel it adds a lot to a model.

Coming late to this (still in catch up after a long weekend family event coinciding with the NEC show) I simply take it as good news that Peco have acted on the need to produce a matching set of LH and RH points to get their 'superior OO' range started. Cannot get fussed over the timber spacing in what looks to me like a mock up sample: Peco know how it should be, by the evidence of their own O gauge product. And the market uptake is likely to be very rewarding: I well remember the 'hair-shirt brigade' inveighing against the prospects of better RTR in OO, and predicting catastrophe if any maker had the temerity to produce models with competent mechanisms and the sort of detail and fidelity that was the accustomed standard of club member kit and scratchbuilding. Well here we are and all is well! What's more the significantly smaller sales volumes of N and O gauge are supporting the development of better RTR in those scales, so no concerns regarding OO. Build better mousetrap, world makes tracks to your door.

Among the many details that have been enjoyable on the three GER origin tender types that Hornby have ventured so far is a good representation of Stratford's wooden construction cab floor extension, instead of the fall plate generally typical of UK practise. Adds so much to the character. And I do agree with others above, that having come this far, surely a Stratford tank engine design is now de rigeur?

Irresistible to add that the distortion in this panorama to produce a mega-tender, gives a suggestion of how they might have looked with a tender large enough for a mechanical stoking engine and a bunker for 15-20 tons of coal; to enable the full power capability to be sustained beyond what any fireman could deliver. No need to stop for bankers on Shap or Beattock had that been done. Would have required installation of a few 80' turntables scattered along the WCML. And it is one snappy livery - when kept this clean.

Off topic, but that is welcome news, as I fancy the new 4mm LNER Toad E kit when that appears.

There's a couple of moderately significant and widespread in service Stanier classes which would inevitably be seen alongside this class, the current RTR models of which simply cannot live with that I would suggest. Make a distant view on your layout, and within it to aid the forced perspective is a particularly fine example of 4mm RTR?

Showing my total and complete ignorance of Ebilk protocols there, never having used it...

You are not alone, I'd take the Bachmann compromise over the Hornby every time. In time I can get around to replacing the cast outside frame in correctly positioned thin sheet with full depth Cartazzi box detail and steps, and not have to do anything about the wheel mounting. (Works down to 30" radius) Accidental discovery with the very neat Hornby Cartazzi frames moulding. With the insides carved away to permit a flanged wheelset in a pivoting truck enough side to side movement for my 30" minimum radius I was happy enough. But I had broken the bar across the rear of the frames moulding. On trying this loco on a set track layout, the wheelset simply pushed out the frame moulding, and it sprang back into place when it arrived on straight track. While that might cause the plastic to fail at the bend point if regularly repeated, it does suggest that lightly sprung hinged frames would work: 'perfect appearance' possible down to 30" radius - and maybe as far as 24" - slight compromise then visible on yet smaller radii. I'd buy that as a compromise.

As an FYI, not at all. The Quad-Art was built to pre-group compartment widths, i.e not much! I may be wrong on this, but my recollection would be that a Quad-Art First compartment was barely wider than a regular third in the standard Gresley and Thompson non-gangwayed coaches, and the thirds were narrow in the extreme. Moving in or out of one of the latter when full with seated passengers required considerable care to avoid treading on anyone else' toes.

A similar GNR 'antique set' which was also a unit train lurked in service until 1966, and is regularly requested, the Quad-Art. There's even a restored set to scan. Although designed for a very specific inner-sub service, these regularly got out and about in excursion traffic, torturing the passengers bladders; there's a very fine colour pic showing an Ivatt Atlantic with Quad-Arts 'racing' an N2 (the usual traction). Were I a betting man, those would be my pick as 'most likely'.

I'll joyfully trade my assembled Kitmaster tender for the big one from the Rapido/NRM production. Naturally there will have to be a financial adjustment, because the Kitmaster is a RARE! COLLECTABLE!.

Is it simply that this version is the obvious choice, in offering the maximum potential as a basis for all of the Plate, Trestle and Twin Bolster variants as built by all of the LNER, LMS and BR? As a generic type of wagon it's an entirely logical addition to the range; I am surprised at how long it has taken to appear, especially given the long sustained production of class 37s from multiple manufacturers, which class could be seen with these wagons every day of the week. Ask Parkside for their opinion on whether these kits left them so equipped.

One was allowed on at the end of steam for a special y'see. and I have a good mucker who likes these machines and all. I'll pilot it with the preserved Ivatt C1 or Stirling single to help it keep up.

You and me both in this liking for decent weight to supply the adhesion for traction, but I am sure your know that lead is out of the frame - unless manufacturing in Italy - because these are toys. This despite the fact that the boys buying such toys are unlikely to be seriously harmed by lead poisoning, and more likely to be pulled over into firm contact with the deck by the unexpected weight of their new toy. There was some talk of tungsten castings to increase model weight a year or three back, but nothing seems to have come of it in OO RTR so far. That said Bachmann manage 14.5oz/400g in the 9F using mazak alone and there is still significant internal void space, and the Duchess' volume is significantly greater than that of the 9F: so I should think 600g can almost certainly be done with mazak. (Though selective use of tungsten would be welcome for small and hard to balance types.)

Don't worry about the chow, the choice and quality has improved dramatically over the past thirty to fity years (location dependent). Mind you, it only had one way to go. It took the retirement of the war time generation, people grimly resolved to consume sawdust, cardboard, wallpaper paste, old lifebelts, indigestible innards and recycled engine oil in the national interest, provided it was priced at less than the cost of the newspaper it was wrapped in or was serving as a 'tablecloth', to enable this change. There are still a few outfalls serving this dwindling customer base: if it has a handrail alongside the street entry door, and net curtains at the window, you really don't want to go inside.

You would have to ask, the Hornby team are responding. The way I read it at the time of the N Belle release, it was 'if this makes the necessary profit, then there is the possibililty of a future N production'. Just how well they did with the Belle, that is known to Hornby alone, so is the IEP, a possibilitee?

And the rest. It looks like the thing it's meant to be, the template for all future maximum express steam power types in the UK. Key features: Introduces the leading bogie to the UK, confering stability at speed. Cylinders between bogie wheels, a strong and stable construction, dynamically offering good damping of the swaying couple. Trailing truck for track kindliness and to eventually accomodate a wide firebox. Relatively large tender with loads of coal and water for sustained power production and a chimney top 'volcanic eruption'. Well Bill, our longer established RTR suppliers of UK model railway have generally neglected to explain just what the difficulties can be, and the need to laboriously prod around for the best solutions with the fewest compromises. This all to often leads to a general customer perception that it is all a piece of cake. Go on, be yet more different from all the rest...

That's completely correct. I believe there is a good compromise solution for the model however. In summary, make it possible for a functioning flanged wheelset to be substituted for the flangeless wheelset for better appearance as a display model; with the truck having the option of a functioning pivot by removal of one securing screw, even though very constrained in movement by the other hardware present. Leave it to the owner to make his or her own compromises on appearance, by cutting clearance for the truck and wheelset to swing as required, sufficient to get the model around the owner's layout curves. Having the truck with a functioning pivot option simplifies this possibility.

I would be most interested - if Rapido can find the time once the model is on sale - in a brief essay summarising the difficulties of getting a concealed and competent drive into such a tiny and awkward prototype which also has to go around set track curves. I was very pleased to order this model, not least with the thought of 'someone else can work out how to overcome the many obstacles!'. That's entirely decent. What you might consider, is asking if the preorder customer is willing to pay some or all of the now necessarily higher price as a donation. Let's just say that some are very keen on the continued health of our national railway museum.

Sounds like we have a good method for communicating politely to Hornby concerning these two points. Getting the tender right by deleting the 'shelf' or spurious valance under the footplate should be a no brainer. (If Hornby have scanned the prototype, it will be an element that had to be added, because it really isn't there!) As for the rear truck, it truly will need a flanged wheelset to look well in Ivatt form. Design cleverly to take a pin point axle wheelset and secured by two screws, the forward one in the pivot position, the aft screw holding the truck wheelset just clear of the rail when in place, but removeable to allow limited pivotting action. On the models as sold, truck fixed in place with a flangeless wheelset installed, with a flanged pinpoint wheelset included in the box for display purposes: leave the modeller to make the compromises required for operation with a flanged wheelset on their layout's minimum curve.

I would suggest not. My purchases of the most recent introductions that serve my interest from Bachmann, Heljan and Hornby - the well established OO RTR producers - are all bob on. As good or superior to the appearance of the Bachmann WD 2-8-0 of 1999; which started the party of OO RTR as good as a kit model that had been assembled and painted by a modeller with skills above the 95th percentile. Oxford Rail are new starters to this game. I would suggest a fairer comparison would be to Hornby's first newly tooled releases from China, which were not to the standard they would attain after half a dozen years experience with Sanda Kan. Use the first releases of the Hornby Gresley gangwayed coaches as a comparator: width, body side profile, beading position, simulated teak graining direction, all in error. The quite exquisite rendition of the varnished teak from a multi-layer printing process all gone to rat shit by inaccurate application to an inaccurate substrate.

Even considering Scotland alone there are many locations worse than Edinburgh. Perhaps 'It could not have happened at a more critical location'?

I have known such an 'uptight person', and also mnuch of the plentiful distress they caused. Two aspects. All sorts of people have their own significant problems, and some are even more serious than yours. Recognising that is important. If you want to be called Duncan/Dana* according to how you are today, and it isn't regularly coordinated with what you are currently wearing, and you get offended if people ask because 'you should be sensitive enough to realise': then all of us ordinary mortals really do need something - how about wearing a name badge?, no, that was a gratuitously offensive suggestion - to let us know. *Not their real name.

Didn't the GWR just standardise everything? Company servants on being photographed, shall assume flat cap, face camera, and stand legs apart and feet splayed out 120 degrees or greater.

I'd be outdoors now, having done it once before, but the wildlife (squirrels, badgers, corvids) damaged the track regularly over the two years I tried it in our present location. Peco streamline code 100, as earlier recommendations, the plastic is the crucial bit, their plain track base lasts, the salvaged lengths after a dozen years outside still in use now over thirty years old. The point bases not so good, so these were replaced after seven years, the new ones overpainted with a dense black paint, no degradation experienced. The railjoiners mostly got split and failed, by frost action in my opinion; fine through the warmer months, 20% ish failed every Nov-March period, which is the frost zone for this part of SE England. The thought of using a Relco, or more suitable yet a farm 'electric fence' supply to keep critters off the rails could be a winner. I would use DCC outdoors, it is ideally suited to this application. Being a bear of simple brain I would make it 'one or the other' by having a single plug socket to power either the electric fence supply or the DCC kit: no way to have both supplying the track at the same time.