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34theletterbetweenB&D

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Everything posted by 34theletterbetweenB&D

  1. It's a same old, same old, product based on the Airfix GMR tooling, needs traction tyres to move a load. There simply isn't a good OO model of this class available if reliable performance with no need for traction tyres is on your priority list. IMO. Hornby have all sorts of superior more recently tooled tank engines if you want to chop in your points. I heartily commend their J50, L1 and the Oxford branded N7, and even the Airfix GMR tooling derived N2, All are models which perform very well.
  2. What with using Kadee on carriages, I use their magnets; both the permanent type between the rails, and electromagnet under the track types. These reliably operate the Brian Kirby mod, with both coupling hooks equipped with staples; in addition to what they are designed for.
  3. Railways are interesting, period. Therefore models of railways are interesting. I was within a hair's breadth of going for North American HO in my later life reresumption of railway modelling (usual break for careering, mortgaging, marrying, etc.) when Bachmann popped up with RTR OO models of a quality hitherto only available in 4mm by kit and scratch building, and thus I stayed with UK prototype. Would I like to build a model of the railway on Java one of my forebears engineered? Do I fell tempted by Indian railways? What about 'Cape gauge' Garratts? Oh yes, if the chance arose - now unlikely I know.
  4. I find this solution very comfortable - you need plenty of light so hanging a magnifier off the front edge of a shade on an 'anglepoise' mechanism works well. With two 24" daylight fluorescents the illumination is terrific Sadly 'Thousand and One Lamps' (of anglepoise fame) in Bromley have ceased trading, that's where mine came from, in a purchase of 100 I made to supply a visual inspection process, which three years later was successfully automated. A few were retained, most sold to employees; plenty that wanted them, ideal for garage inspection lights among other purposes.
  5. Good guess. This really happens, such that mined coal with the desireable high 'volatiles' content steadily loses the easy ignition the volatiles provide, which is so useful for steam traction economy. If volatiles content falls significantly, a crew will find it more difficult to time firing for those route sections where a major power iincrease is required; because they cannot depend on rapid ignition.
  6. It shouldn't, as it is no more than four rod coupled axles. (The sensible mechanical choice is to drive the leading axle.) The failing of the current Bachmann 03 - which has a decent mechanism as far as the wheels are concerned - is that some mechanical ignoramus put the jackshaft crank representations on cast in pivots on the chassis sides, and slack to boot. Had the jackshafts been on an axle running through the block, exactly as for the wheelsets, it would be fine. (The cast in jackshaft crank pivots 'inherited' from the prior Mainline and Bachmann 03 and 04s were a consequence of the split chassis mechanism used on these earlier models. It's wonderful how a bad idea lives on in consequences after it has been eliminated...)
  7. That problem bit must have had an inclusion or porosity. Request a replacement. This said I have a barbarous implement inherited from my late Pa, about 150W with a bit like a tomahawk, from his days at Philips when he worked on electron microscope development. It's very handy when I need a lot of output for soldering brass church furniture in locations where naked flame is inadvisable. It eats bits like fury, but between employers of my late FiL and myself I have enough bus bar offcuts to fabricate my own.
  8. Clearly from Hornby's position the anticipated answer is going to be 'Yes' to both questions. There's a proven customer base out there that reliably buys what is sold under the Hornby brand label, and as long as this endures the pattern continues When the 'same old tat' disappears from the catalogue, we'll know that the answer has changed to 'No'. And I am equally looking forward to a Trout or three, and the filth will hide the North of the Border stuff...
  9. Quite, and moreover I have found no need for stay alive in my 20 some years with DCC on an all live crossing , metal wheels on all stock, layout operation, even with small 0-6-0T. The advertised attractions of the Lenz 'Uninterruptible Power Supply' unit - based on my previous half a lifetime experience of DC operation led me to purchase and experiment with it, and it did all it said it would. But it proved totally redundant, the DCC constant supply on all metal track reliably 'punches through'; and consequently the Lenz UPS-1 went off to a set track based DCC operation which could use its assistance. And this is a 'horses for courses' matter. If you need it, then use it. If you don't need it, then that's one fewer thing to purchase.
  10. Not least because all the current RTR eight coupled tender loco models, with the sole exception of Heljan's weighty O2, vary between light footed and just about a match for the best of the six coupled MT tender locos. I have added internal weight to O1, O4, and WD to make the pulling as good as the external appearance suggests, and fitted H-D cast metal 8F bodies on the current Hornby 8F chassis, which better exploits the capabilities of these various mechanisms with the 'Hornby Doubly' mash up the champion for traction. Hornby could doubtless match this on a new 8F, as could a competitor or three...
  11. Chassies does it for me, as unambiguous. But a group of chassis is also valid. (It's a term borrowed from French, so we can English it according to personal taste.) If you enjoy building kit mechanisms, then that's one way. Personally, since competent RTR mechanisms came along I have been using these to get good old kit bodies running again. With past experience of building mechanisms it's usually the work of moments to rectify any running problems that have made the s/h price 'right'. The extra weight from metal kit bodies typically enhances tractive performance of the mechanisms when compared to how they ran under lighter plastic bodies. The bonus is selling on the resulting bodies, tenders, bogies etc. , made easier by the brands not regularly selling 'exteriors'. Not unknown for the 'resulting parts' sale to yield as much as the buying in price, "which is nice"... From another crash victim, formerly 34C.😎
  12. Once it is running, how well does it respond to power reduction? The slowest stable crawl it can maintain will be the best start speed it can manage. I wouldn't worry about the electrical side, it runs so that must be OK. Most likely cause is wear in the bearings and gears that has to be overcome on starting, by a motor with pretty feeble torque. These mechanisms were intended for kid's trainset operation, like fast...
  13. There's a much greater enhancement yet, demonstrated on Bachmann's two 0-4-4T; which makes all previous front coupled tank loco designs obsolete: superior body construction and mechanism layout. Make the front of the body in metal. Make the rear of the model in plastic. Place a lightweight coreless motor behind the coupled wheelbase driving onto the rear coupled axle. Likewise, place lightweight DCC tackle behind the rear coupled wheelset. That way you have a loco with the point of balance between the coupled wheels, so traction is stable and reliable forward and reverse, with no need for traction tyres. Bachmann missed one trick from their demonstrated technique, pick up wipers are used on the bogie wheels. The split axle collection found on many of their products would have further iced the cake; but the little G5 0-4-4T I own is a delight nonetheless.
  14. Old scalpel blades are good when the going is really tight. Insert using a Swann-Morton craft knife or similar to avoid injury. I have been known to ease the lugs on really tight assemblies which might need to be opened up again.
  15. I feel that 'biggle' would be more appropriate to this particular specimen.
  16. Not a clue, but the catalogue photo shown on retailer sites is unchanged from whenever it was introduced in loco drive form - circa 2002? - with all these weaknesses: Socking great lump of metal through the bottom of the boiler, where there should be airspace between boiler uinderside and frames: skillfully garnished with a large spinning gear shaft end both sides! - and carefully chromed so you cannot miss it. Fictional valance on tender frame resulting in misrepresentation of the springs and axleboxes. Lumpen brick of a pony truck. Poor traction because it is too light. (Nothing wrong with the motor and drive train's output , put an old H-D or Wrenn cast metal body on it and it pulls like a heavy freight loco should.) Hornby have all the technique required to produce a vastly superior model. Unless your need is urgent I would wait until they pull their finger out...
  17. I believe not, all turn at the same rotational rate, at least on the examples I have seen from the first 'mazak rotter' production run, all purchased cheaply s/h as failed mechanisms. Easy to modify so that the centre axle is an idler by reaming out that axle muff. (Any resulting loss of traction on this mechanism hardly matters, in that in this modified form it is capable of starting and running at scale maximum speed trainloads heaver than I ever saw them with: 30 Bach mk1 carriages, or 80 4W wagons, mix of Bach and kits; that does enough for me.) Quite so, never seen any deficiency of traction from Heljan's arrangement. You would hope the designers take a look at other brand's products to pick up best practise... I am awaiting sight of both new introductions, to see if either offers correct external appearance of the Brush 2.
  18. Surprised, I rather thought it would be Heljan next to be dangling a new tooling Brush type 2. Whatever, looks like my Airfix GMR bodies (now on their 3rd DIY mechanism arrangements, salvaged Hornby mazak rotters superseding HO Athearn PA1, which superseded twin Airfix mechs for that full stereo coffee grinder action) are going to be retired. Unless this newbie doesn't capture the appearance at least equally well...
  19. It's all classically fictional in its Triangness, the well length and bogie wheelbase correct for the 50T rivetted construction Weltrol P, but with the welded frame construction, narrower side members and also a centreline member, from the 55T Trestrol C. Shunt three of the Triang items into Micklehacking wagon works and a little sawing, liberal application of plasticard, cementing and a pair of suitable trestles can result in a credible Trestrol B and C, and a Weltrol P.
  20. The ideal finishing abrasive for the purpose is jeweller's crocus paper or cloth. I think it will now be expensive. (I only have some because my late FiL was a specialist in abrasives manufacture, and I got a chunk of his stash.)
  21. 'Sometime' being the significant word. The current disruption to container freight shipping due to events proximate to the Red Sea - Suez Canal - Mediterranean shipping route will be properly biting by then. One might hope that the recent experience of the Suez Canal constipation event will aid the forward planning to minimise disruption, but I wouldn't bank on that.
  22. The fruit of my experience is that standardising on a decoder brand is helpful, only one manual to absorb. As it is I use two, Lenz and Zimo, and operate using a Lenz system, now coming up to 20 years since purchase. Straightforward decoder programming on both brands, bombproof reliability in operation, stable speed control and stopping distances. The caveat, this is solely OO experience, largely using current RTR mechanisms as supplied* with some kit builds with Mashima or similar motors: no traction tyres allowed, and all metal wheels on stock, I don't use sound, and stay-alive is not required on my all live crossing points system, mostly Peco, some SMP and Marcway kits. *Swapped out the bronze wheelsets on an early Heljan product for their nickel silver replacements, various simple rearrangments to improve pick up integrity and gear meshing on RTR product introduced prior to 2013.
  23. The parallel with the more recent strongly promoted Wankel rotor ICE to supplant all them pistons whizzing up and down comes to mind. The experiment that unfortunately doesn't appear to have happened, is the combination of water tube boiler with a steam turbine, the latter an undoubted technical and operational success on rails. The turbine offering much reduced vibration with better use of high pressure steam, as it is the equivalent of a uniflow multi stage compound, should have made life easier for the boiler. A more radical locomotive layout on smaller wheel diameter bogies would present fewer constraints on boiler design, and potentially a better ride with reduced unsprung mass and a smaller reduction ratio requirement from turbine shaft to axle.
  24. It was noticeable that when it came to comments from overseas customers about model railway vendors in the UK, one name dominated. As for access: I recall that earlier the message on this was 'no takers'. Unsurprising, all those currently active in the trade and thus possessing the necessary experience already have their name before the customers, and there's the risk identified here:
  25. Looking further afield, the water tube boiler was tried by major steam rail traction constructors around the world, with limited success. The Stephenson fire tube boiler held out to the end. International comparisons here: http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/locoloco.htm Scroll down to ' The Pressure is on' and take a look. (You may end up reading the whole site, very interesting altogether.)
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