Phil Traxson

I worked in a cattle food mill in Burton on Trent in the late 1960's which had rail sidings which were close up to the building and loaded/unloaded directly through doors onto the floor inside with no outside platform. I'm pretty sure some of the breweries in Burton did too.

Try Colin at Alan Gibson, he certainly does the shorter 24.5 mm axle as I use them for the narrower of the 7mm narrow gauge kits I make.

Being in the same age group I should have thought of that, but prefer not to! Phil T.

I have 25+ packs of windows and doors in cast resin including domestic sash windows and a variety of industrial types in several different sizes all to 7mm scale. The list is on the appended PDFs Port Wynnstay Models Window sizes.pdf Window prices.pdf

The obvious answer is to wait a while, it's a model engine, annoying when you want to complete a job but hardly lifechanging.

it happened to a sealed unit in folding doors to our patio in a previous house whilst we were in the room, a bird strike by a pigeon was the cause, and the initial crazing where it hit the glass slowly spread over a couple of hours to cover the whole pane. You could not only see it happening but hear it as well. The pigeon did not survive, it must have been travelling at quite a pace.

Question! Why is the front coupling rod missing on the Buckjumper? Some where deep in the recesses of my mind I've read of this being done but can't remember why or when, perhaps to do with negotiating tight curves?

The Supermarkets in Wales are not allowed to sell non essential items, the shelves for these are either emptied or sheeted over and I believe the tills are programmed to flag up or not recognise these items if any one manages to take them from behind the sheets for the very reason you state, protection of the small specialist traders.

Hope AY doesn't mind this self promotion. Just a quick note. If you were reasonably happy with the GNSR van, I also produce the North British 6 wheel van, both in its rigid and its earlier flexible wheelbase version, although due to family health problems and a house move from Derby to Porthmadog I've rather run down my stocks (which were never great!) of everything I produce but am slowly getting back up to speed. There are 8 Scottish vehicles on my Standard Gauge list of 9 vehicles, I just need to restock on my out sourced parts, buffers and axleguard/axle boxes, for them and they should all be available again over the next month or two. Phil Traxson Port Wynnstay Models

I use one of these and a fine tooth razor saw to cut large numbers of spacers and bearing tubes for the kits I produce. There is a lockable back stop so repeating the same length is a doddle , it is designed so that you can also unscrew the handle and mount it in a vice too, made what used to be a real chore easy.

They do it on motorbikes all the time, between the riders legs too! My 'bike has two, one between my knees over the hot engine and one under the seat alongside the hot exhaust. I know, proves 'bike riders are crazy.

Always liked the looks and advanced design, for its day, of these cars but I'd like a run on the "Plunger Frame" BSA twin behind it for old times sake, though it would probably remind me quite how bad that suspension was, probably as backward as the Citroen is advanced.

That's probably because I was running it too slowly, it does sound more like the real one as it speeds up. I was a bit wary of going too fast on a short layout and (almost) working the camera as well, it was my first attempt at this, hopefully I will improve with practice but there 's no guarantee. That clip is very useful in helping with more realistic operation, thanks very much for showing it, it also gives access to more of the same at the end of the clip which gives even more help. I was definitely trying to run too slowly. I'm pretty sure the recording the sound file was built from was from No 12, the whistle is definitely the same as the Cholsely and Wallingford clip. I'll perhaps have another go at recording the model, but wait until I have a decent video before I publish it!

It's improving all the time, needs a bit of wear in the bearings, need a bigger layout! I have just had a 20 minute play and it didn't stall once right down to step 3 on the controller over the points, which is 1 chuff per second, on a geared loco I don't think it would ever go that slowly in real life. I'm now going to see if I can video it on my point and shoot camera, several firsts there!!

I think its just that its a 4 wheeler and very small wheels as well, it's at the same spots each time so I don't think it's a fault on the Loco. I've been watching carefully and it tends to drop into the crossing gap so rocks a little, more down to the small radius Peco points than the loco, a stay alive will just get it over the spot by acting as an electric flywheel where it loses contact.

Just needs a stay alive capacitor fitting then, though the hesitation is getting less as I use the loco. To be fair it only arrived on Thursday (29th Oct) and probably has only had a total of a couple of hours running on a very small layout, max run is only 8ft 6ins including both fiddle sticks, and so it is a very extreme test. It is just that I only have Ixion/Minerva loco's to compare it with and they just performed so well, immediately, out of the box. This is my first DCC layout and I am amazed at the slow running capability, I can get the speed down to imperceptible with all the loco's, to the point of having to look away for a time to find that they have moved.

Seems very susceptible to uneven track and wide point crossing gaps, I think that's just down to the small wheel diameter and being a rigid four wheeler though, rather than a fault within the loco. if my layout was bigger than the shunting diorama that it is I would consider wiring up a wagon for extra pickups and keeping it semi-permanently coupled up, but my max train is 3 four wheel wagons and a loco.

Hi Andy, according to the instruction booklet the sound fitted version has a Zimo MX644D decoder. The none sound ones have a Dapol Imperium 21 pin decoder. Fascinating to listen to, being a geared loco, with so many chuffs for such low speeds. Lost nearly 2hours yesterday when it arrived play checking and testing it. Phil T.

Received my sound fitted version today, just about two years since it was first announced by Dapol, and 9 months after the none sound versions, but hey ho! I have to thank Hattons for keeping me as up to date with progress as they could and speedy delivery when it finally was released. I was informed that it had been despatched Thursday by tracked post and thanks to excellent work by the post office it was delivered today, Friday, before I had chance to check its progress. Well done both, I am well pleased.

I can remember buying one in Woolworths for two bob late 1950's or early 1960's. (but I can't remember what I had for tea yesterday!!!) It was for a layout that included grey plastic Triang track that probably stood higher than Hornby Dublo., it was home to a Kitmaster (now Dapol) Pug.

Please excuse the quality of the photo, it's copied from a slide I took 30+ years ago of my 009 layout but it show the possibilities with the Dapol/Airfix engine shed. It was supposed to be a foundry here. I promise to not Hi jack any more of you're thread now, Sorry. Phil T.

Remember that industrial loco's are relatively small , if you ran a main line loco in there wouldn't be so much clearance. In my early life I lived in Burton on Trent and sometimes saw Bass and Worthington brewery shunters alongside BR loco's, even an ex LMS Jinty was large compared with them!

I have the original builder to thank for most of the layout, all the hard work was done before I bought it, he even gave me most of the materials to finish it. I just supplied the stock and am slowly (very slowly!) adding paint and details to it.

The doors are short so that they clear the track when both the sleepers and the bottom of the walls sit on the same level as in the photo, if they were full depth you would not be able to close them.