34theletterbetweenB&D

There is a reason, but that isn't it. H-D's mechanical parts machining was not to a high degree of precision, sadly very typical of most contemporary British light goods manufacturing at the time. This was overcome - so far as the end product was concerned - by the traditional approach of matching for good fit at assembly from the many, many, well filled parts bins. None of this 'just in time' manufacturing technique, H-D had a huge parts inventory, a contributory factor to their business failure with piles of cash spent on inventory that wouldn't find a place in sold product for a year or three. That parts inventory came into the hands of Wrenn, and was used in production - at a reduced rate compared to H-D - for years to come. The parts were assembled, but the only matching concern in assembly was failure: either 'no go' or 'not functional'. If the parts fitted and the resulting mechanism ran, job done. Same designs and parts, but bung in a few slack and tight fits and suddenly it doesn't run as sweetly as the same mechanism assembled from carefully matched components.

There is a simple way around it though, if it is the boiler shell casting technique forcing the hole alignment. Anyone with a Bachmann class 20 can quickly confirm that the bonnet hand rail knobs are cranked. The visible stanchion is at an angle to the plug in base. Application of this principle would enable non-radial holes to have radial stanchions. I have to admit that despite wanting things to be right, the J15s handrails don't leap out and poke me in the eye. The generally lovely appearance and performance carries my eye past this minor imperfection. And I could do something about it if I ever really wanted to. More important to me was sorting out the excessive loco to tender distance, something which once corrected instantly improves the ensemble.

The 'asset' for accountancy purposes was identified by a build plate; traditionally this was associated with the frame. For expensive classes of loco which needed to be out in service earning revenue, the maintaining works would hold extensive spares, up to and including complete sets of frames and boilers. This to expedite return to service. So long as there were no more build plates out on the line than the number listed in the books, that satisifed the accounting requirement. All the emotion around a specific loco is just that, in reality it is just a commercial asset for operating purposes: and no 1234 coming out of works might well only have the build plate in common with what came in with that identity. By the end of a long service life, none of the metal in a loco might date from its original erection, even build plates could be recast to record alterations. Complete 'Trigger's brooms' in short.

Difficult to test this type of loco with and without carrying wheels. Drag in this location is what I would be looking at. Regarding 0-4-4T, I have just one, an M7 bought from a kind member here some years ago, (and still have to get around to remodelling it into Stirling GNR type). Now it was hopeless for traction as received, and the reason immediately obvious: the bogie wheels not turning to match rail speed. With the bogie wheel wipers backed off to barely grazing the wheelbacks, GT85 in the bogie bearings and graphite on the wheelbacks, this little charmer will now start and move at slow speed a 12 coach set of Bachmann mk1s. On the level only, mucho slipping even on slight (accidental) gradients at one or two locations. If it goes onto a 1 in 80 downhill section with that trainload there is no stopping until back on level track, runaway! The stock all free rolling, my standard is 'gets away unassisted when placed on a true 1 in 100'. As observed above, free rolling stock does discover gradients on what is supposedly level track. I guess it is a matter of taste whether you like stock free rolling or not, but to me this is the 'secret essence' of the railway and I wouldn't have it any other way. RTR stock with dreadful inside bearings just doesn't make the cut; if good enough as a model it gets rebuilt for proper outside bearing pinpoint wheelsets, and then freely rolls away.

And if it isn't a mechanical problem once BB's suggestion has been investigated. I think that a sound analysis, so when: I would suggest that another possibility is the decoder frequently very briefly losing track supply due to either a momentary short or pick up failure; not for long enough that it shuts off and restarts, but enough that power to the motor sags off. I'd operate it in the dark to see if any sparking is evident as this often reveals the problem location.

I like putting limitation on sideplay on geared axles, simply to keep the gears as fully meshed as possible, and find that strips of plasticard cemented to the keeper plate side work neatly. I am very sanguine about the life of current RTR. I have had some of the Bachmann gear pounding away long term with not a hint of trouble; I am a dedicated daily operator - as far as I am concerned, that IS the hobby for me - and run my trains much, much more than the norm. The original version of their centre motor twin bogie drive as seen in the Peak, still operating well past twenty years old as well as ever on ZERO maintenance. Deliberately left it untouched after intiial inspection revealed the grease packed bogie drive lines and large self lubricating motor bearings. My 2-8-0 WD's now coming up to fourteen years in service - with lead ballast near doubling their weight over 'as supplied' - work as well as ever. Careful attention to crankpin and rod joint lubrication has kept wear in check. Likewise with all the more recent purchases. Barring manufacturing defect such as zinc pest; probably most of it will still be running sweetly when I am dead and buried. Yet to sample a Heljan steam model, but the Gresley O2 is to appear soon, and then I can join the fun.

There's no available objective data to tell us whether this particular model was better or worse than the running average of defects among current productions. Don't even know the size of the production run. Maybe they sold it in tens of thousands, in which case the defects reported - galling as they may be to the owner - were few and far between. It's all in the possession of Hattons, even Heljan may not have the full picture.

It sort of is, but. I dimly recall a write up in the 1960s, and the end result was pretty good for appearance. The only largely unchanged component from the B12 was the mazak block, and this had been bushed and rewheeled for 26mm drivers. The body almost toally disappeared, all that was left in the end was part of the smokebox saddle and front platform to the buffer beam! When the shape of the 903 is analysed it's so simple as to suggest a scratchbuild is the way. Flat sheet for the running plate, tube above for boiler and smokebox, linked by two cuboids for the cab and smokebox saddle.

It'll be a rare observer coming frsh to the finished model who ever guesses what you started from for this end result. That's class 1 bashing. You do realise that you are performing the magic spell that informs a manufacturer that here's a good subject that would make a really characterful RTR model?

Oh, I don't know, I rather feel the numbering makes it look like it could have come from Binns Road. Whatever, a very useful and interesting post altogether. The treatment of your scenic three rail track is really successful, very rare to see this done so well.

After the experience of several of their bogie diesel models, all truly excellent runners; and the most recent the Baby Deltic one of best models available in my view, not a bit. The BG is deeply realistic, crummy in reality... The O2 2-8-0 will be the proof of the pudding, one way or the other, and I am not in the least averse to a purchase of this model whatever the BG problems may have been. Wet finger estimate, you'll have between a third and a quarter of the traction of it running in two motor form. See below for explanation. It's significantly different I would suggest, in two ways: the linkage is near rigid, and it is all the time. I 'doubled up' several diesel models back in the bad old 'power bogie' days for outdoor operation without traction tyres, and made two discoveries both of which were a surprise. Compared to the loco with single power bogie running on metal tyres and leading, adding a second power bogie was worth near four times the traction from the resulting loco. The horrible ringpiece motors did better doubled up than the otherwise superior worm drive bogies, which chewed up their axle gears quite regualrly despite careful lubrication attention. My conclusion was that the push along capability of the spur gears of ringpiece motors made them more tolerant of inevitable small speed mismatches between the motors, than the non-reversibility of the worm gear drive power bogies. I feel that the error Hattons/Heljan made in the BG design was not going for a centre motor shaft drive to both bogies arrangement, well proven in US type steam articulated models, and a great many diesel and electric traction models.

Actually it had Walschaerts gear, in the Swindon adaption for inside the frames as generally implemented on the Star following the eye-opening experience of the Walshaerts gear valve events on 'The Frenchmen', (and which would subsequently be deployed on the Castle and King). The steam distribution in the engine was not the problem, Swindon had the best multicylinder valve events in the UK for the twenty years following their adoption of Walschaerts gear. The primary troubles were in the boiler, superheater, and grate. The boiler tubes were too long, designed before the combustion chamber innovation solved this problem satisfactorily; but even without this in conjunction with the development of a satisfactory superheater arrangement with changes to the tubing, this was largely overcome in the first few years of the Bear's existence, as the design received development attention. But the grate was another matter, the only one of its kind on the GWR; with fifty percent more area than a Star and requiring a completely different firing technique as Churchward himself acknowledged. (The situation quite closely parallels BR's DoG near fifty years later, a single loco on the LMR requiring different firing from the Stanier pacifics, and as a result generally disliked: yet it could and did perform when fired correctly.The Gresley pacific with near identical grate area to the Bear, had no such problem at introduction; the top link crews had long experience developed on the wide grate of the large Atlantic, then twenty years in service.) The First World War was badly timed for the Bear, without it Churchward might have had more of the class built, and increased the operational experience of the crews; he was 'nearly there'. That's the path to a whole 'Neverwazza' development line, changes everything subsequently at Swindon, Crewe and then BR. As for the cab, there's a wonderful story of how the slightly longer roof alone was disliked: some protesting fireman demonstrating how it cramped his style by getting a fire iron wedged between the roof and the fallplate. It seems strange to us now, but practically all the UK's railways yield tales of enginemen resisting the introduction of any enclosure of the footplate, beginning with the first simple weather boards. (Rather akin to the protests of car drivers over the introduction of seat belts: they abhored being 'trapped', preferring the chance of being 'thrown clear' - doubtless shouting as they whizzed through the air at 60mph "I'm fine, see!".)

Have you cut 'wheelarches' in the underside of the floor to clear the tops of the flanges?That's usually the trouble. I was well impressed with this model's traction, even before it got a little more weight.

Got to ask. Is 'backyard off' simply an idiom I have never previously encountered, or the result of a predictive text style 'spelling correction'? I was amused earlier this week by an urban development presentation that included 'flanneling' which was obviously not intended, but either of flattering or flattening might have fitted the context. Pretty sure that the 'buddleia zone' was intended to be a 'buffer zone' as there was no obvious place in the paving for plantings. Without the author present, it was difficult to divine.Seeing more and more of this leaking into print.

Regarding purchase of a complete model to get one or more elements you need from it: such as the mechanism... So far, I haven't come unstuck on such deals. I buy the model to be 'broken up' for the required part(s) as economically as possible, new or s/h. That the manufacturers are no longer stocking or supplying spares to any great extent works for us in selling on the leftovers. There are people out there wanting good bodies: to use on mechanisms built to EM and P4 standards, or to replace the one they dropped the soldering iron on (!), or to alter/weather/repaint without risk to a complete model. It may be necessary to wait patiently for a buyer, but come they do.

Should it come about that Bachmann still haven't got a modern mechanism out for the J39 by the time the split chassis parts disintegrate or wear out all their plating - they do you know, in that very special split chassis way - then an alternative candidate modern mechanism is from Bach's J11. The prototype had a wheel base and wheel diameter within an inch of that of the J39, and it fits very neatly into the original Bachmann J39 body shell after a little interior shaving in the firebox interior, so should be OK in a similarly altered GBL body. The gear train above the centre axle is on show rather more in the larger space between boiler and frames of the J39. There's plenty of space inside to add ballast to get the full 5F traction, which is the split chassis mechanism's party trick thanks to the usefully weighty body filing lump it constitutes.

On screen it looks like an O gauge model. Especially when I use my pinky to obscure the NEM coupler pocket. This is becoming nearly as large a 'blot' in OO as the Rapido coupler is in 'N'. Amid all this progress in appearance, we do need a better RTR coupler solution: designed specifically for OO, and not harvested from HO development.

The 'weathering' simply scraped off the wheels using my mk1 fingernail. (I can send you a clipping if required.) White spirit takes it off no bother. It adheres better on the plastic body work, but covers with the more realistic dark grey-brown mix which I use on locos which have had little cleaning attention

One of the first things I looked out, having fixed the 'step' in the J15 where the lower boiler element didn't quite go 'home' as supplied. No such trouble on my example of the D16, a perfect fit, such that without direct light on the boiler underside the break line is practically invisible. Very neat indeed.

The fiddling about on mine going very nicely. A new drawbar with holes at 11mm centres gives the overall length dimension over buffers suggested on the packet, which both looks right and still sails around the 30" minimum radius I require. (Cautionary note about the dimensions on the packet, three are wrong. The quoted 71m loco wheelbase and 4m overall width one would need to be brain dead to miss, the coupled wheelbase dimensioned for 8' instead of the correct 9', perhaps potentially more misleading.) Tons of space inside for fully concealed lead at the rear end, pretty close to a balance point in the centre of the coupled wheelbase now, with the bogie removed.

Having just gone out this morning to acquire one from KS Models in Stevenage, I agree. Reviewers have biases and preferences of their own, it is always best to make your own mind up. For my money, the best looking OO RTR 4-4-0 available. It'll need a D20 or D34 to stand a chance of toppling this one from the top of the 4-4-0 heap. In my opinion, YMMV. Lots to modify on it too, I'll start the fiddling around later this evening with any luck It runs so very sweetly too, very impressed, on which subject: I think Hornby first offered this feature on the Castle, and it lends an extra touch of authentic character. On the 7' driver of the D16, with the rods slowly swinging around, all very lovely in motion. It's a rarity for my late fifties onwards, end of steam operation on the ECML, but I shall look forward to its appearances jogging along on a short freight or parcels/sundries working.

It's symptomatic of high instability prototype picking obsession.

Which would mean worse than (or perhaps comparable to?) the 1947 and 62/63 winters both of which are well within living memory. Based purely on these precedents, one is bound to come along sooner or later. I expect one or two of our more hysterical newsmongers will soon enough realise that we are going to be invaded by all the world's refugees walking across the frozen English Channel. Could be good news for operators of reliable steam locos, as the entire modern traction fleet wiill be stopped due to the wrong (i.e. any) type of snow.

It is an organisation ultimately deriving from rock and roll: "I want it ALL, I want it NOW," etc..

Oh the joys of other folk's accidents. When my brother still worked for a major insurer he used to compile a 'best of the year' for our Christmas get together. Three that stick in the memory. "When I jumped off the tiled roof onto the flat roof (no, it's not what you think) my belt caught on a gutter bracket, my feet and legs went through the bedroom window, and I was knocked unconcious when my head hit the windowsill." "It rained so hard I couldn't see, and then I hit the stationary car I couldn't see because I was going (aquaplaning) backwards." "My wife thought she would have a bath before we went to the airport, but then the car came early and she didn't turn the taps off." Easily done. Half an inch of rain already this morning. About time, October has been very dry so far. But inconvenient the soil thus becoming soft before the acorn drop has finished. Must have picked up a ton so far, very prolific season. Back into the woodland they all go.