34theletterbetweenB&D

Yeow, I'd bush that crankpin hole right away if that were my model. Or apply to Hornby for a spare. That's way too sloppy, and a short time from wear out in my opinion.

Your 782 is coming up as a lovely characterful model. Never mind what's inside, this is what the phrase 'a coat of paint hides a multitude of tins' was coined for; back in the day when tinplate was a cheap raw material with which to attempt some modelling. Keep bashing away! I still believe that a well chosen selection of the most handsome Scottish prototypes would do the business in RTR. Artistry in exterior design, some lovely livery choices, top of the pile in the eye-candy stakes.

But this is the way the law works chaps. What was perfectly acceptable yesterday: we'll hang Johnny Scruff by the neck for snatching this lady's watch, Mr Soberly-Dignified was perfectly entitled to insert his pistol up the housebreaker's posterior orifice and pull the trigger; turns out to be unacceptable to the later thinking of the majority, even though that all seems perfectly reasonable to me. And the only way of assessing where the public opinion lies is by trial unfortunately. I had to endure the weary grind of this some years ago: two people, each believing they were aiding the other, succeeded in falling over, with quite a nasty injury to one party resulting due to impact with a low wall. A valiant attempt was made to implicate architectural features of centuries standing in the heinous infliction of this injury. Presiding magistrate threw it out. If the facts are as represented, then - while it is stressful for the guard - he will be exonerated, and at most the TOC or some other superior body quailified to look at this matter will be required to review whether procedural change or the like can afford yet better protection against passenger error.

Show them the picture (and surely it's a railway line that had a golf course built around it?). Propose a local rule that anyone playing a shot that goes down a locomotive's chimney is considered to have played a round in one, leaves the course immediately for the club house and carries the entire bar bill for the remainder of the day.

Now I am wholly reliant on photographs as far as comparison to prototype is concerned, with all the concerns for possible optical distortion in images. But some pictures of 30853 in company with 30854 in the same picture show '3' to be bent in the footplate department where '4' is pretty much straight. There's one pic of '3' in early crest with gives the impression of a cocked up front buffer too. Tell you what is definitely wrong, that front bufferbeam is far too clean and tidy: pock marked with rust and the paint off around the drawgear on all three was typical, even though they are generally otherwise clean and tidy. These were old engines, and it showed.

I do not - and will not - own this model, but based on what I have seen of this style of construction also employed by Hornby on the J15 and D16/3, there should be a simplefix. As already mentioned the vsisible step is the side of the casting forming the boiler underside and motor cradle. Just such a step was present on my J15. By carefully skimming about 0.5 mm off the two 'landings' on the block where matching surfaces in the body make contact, the mechanism went fully 'home' into the body and the step thereby 'disappeared'. On the D16/3 no such step was visible, the mechanism seated perfectly in the body. Thsi suggests to me that the design intent is such that there is space for the mechanism to go fully home inside the body, resulting in the desired smooth profile. It is probably small manufacturing variations that leave some mechanisms unable to do so, but a little user adjustment to the contacting surfaces will rectify. I know that some are leery of such things, but when the fundamentals are good it is worth going the extra step to ice the cake.

[complete tangent] That's a real education on the sound principle of putting lots of bright young things in close proximity to a lot of books. If there's one vital thing to learn, it is a healthy scepticism toward the most assertively declared 'received truths' of science, both pure and as applied in fields such as engineering. I still consider myself privileged to have experienced a live example in the field of geomorphology. After many years being taught 'orogenic uplift' as a foundational doctrine in the field, it was discarded overnight for 'plate tectonics'. It had only taken 60 years from Alfred Wegener's observational insights to finally overcome the weight of oppostion: mainly from academics whose entire careers were going into the dumpster due to riding a dead horse. If you want closure on the Tay Bridge, the re-discovered failed girder now prominently displayed in Edinburgh at the National Museum of Scotland is most informative. [/complete tangent]

The side elevation photograph generally looks well enough blown up to about gauge 1 scale on my screen. (They acknowledge that the 'paint' is electronically applied to an unpainted item.) A little damage in evidence on the leading cab door handrail; which actually looks quite realistic for an in-service 'ding', for those who like their models in non-showroom condition.

No, just an overactive imagination. ;-) I await this development with interest; if it's an easily replicated arrangement I may well copy it, in the best tradition of 'a good idea shamelessly stolen from elsewhere'. As it is my pacifics modified with a fixed centre line fin as a light blocker are thereby limited to 30" minimum radius or thereabouts. I just have to remember that such treated locos cannot pay a visit to set track based layouts.

Sticking 'Topliss level luffing patent' into Google turned up this link which my primitive browser refused to open. http://www.linkapedia-architecture.com/topics/construction/level-luffing-crane/18028833 There was mention of patent 4606469, which may be the one. It may be quicker just to go to this, because I think the operating principle would have to be made explicit as key to granting the patent.

Have Hornby provided a drawbar position that is sufficiently close to scale that the fall plate can actually reach and rest on the tender step? So far only Bachmann seem to have really mastered this, with a screw secured adjustable slide and very free acting fall plate on the two more recent steam releases I own (J11, C1) to very fine effect. Hornby's J15 and D16/3 which feature correctly modelled cab floor extensions rather than fall plates (this being the way Stratford did things) needed new drawbars making to space loco and tender to scale distance, such that there was then no chasm for the luckless crew to fall down. It cannot be said enough that a loco and tender ensemble look so much better if the layout curves allow scale spacing, with features like fall plates and cab doors as applicable closing off the gaps between the two vehicles.

It's shattered into a gazillion pieces. An inattentive late member of the steampunk platoon deployed it into action before the heaters had any chance to bring the materials from which it was constructed up to ductile temperature; what with Enceladus being a seriously cold environment, this really matters,

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.