Pacific231G

Hi Dave They do sell servo motors (PSS125) but I'd be surprised if Peco deviate from the current arrangement of loose heeled switch rails and a sprung snapover mechanism. They'e used that for their 83 line and it's worked well for them since they first introduced Streamline in the 1960s. The entire switch assembly may well be identical to the current code 75 one in which the switch rails are not actually tapered rail but folded. That would make the switch rail- tie bar assemby the same so it should be fine with the current solenoid point motors. In my experience it's at the tiebar where turnouts tend to fail; Peco track and pointwork is notoriously reliable and I can't see them risking that reputation with their new bullhead range.

For most locos with an unrealistically high top speed that would surely be an improvement but would the motor tend to overheat with a higher current at lower speeds? That is important in other types of machinery though I assume that stalled DC motors overheat because of the lack of back EMF.

By coincidence, after watching James May's programme I came upon this from A.C. Gilbert's 1938 American Flyer catalogue I don't know whether the amount of assembly was more or less than for Tri-ang's CKD range from the early 1960s. Offering a complete train set in that form was interesting but it certainly didn't include assembly of the motor. I don't think the idea reappeared after the Second World War and I don't think that Tri-ang's CKD range lasted very long so perhaps there was too much disappointment from locos that didn't work after they'd been assembled. ISTR that Hornby also offered his pre-war O gauge tinplate railway items in a self assembly form compatible with Meccano. A.C. Gilbert seems to have been the American equivalent of Frank Hornby with his "erector set" being very similar to Meccano and a strong commitment towards toys with a technical and scientitically educational flavour. I don't though think that Frank Hornby ever conceived of anything like this "perfectly safe" set from 1950-51. This was the era when we (or anyway Americans) were being told to anticipate railway locomotives powered by small nuclear reactors. For once the description "most extraordinary set ever developed" seems quite true though not perhaps in the way that A.C. Gilbert intended. I wonder if any of the kids who were given this set actually found any Uranium with their geiger counters. Did one or two of them even end up with a Nobel prize for physics? both images licensed by the Eli Whitney Museum and Workshop under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Far more examples of Gilbert and American Flyer catalogues at http://www.eliwhitney.org/

I enjoyed the content of this programme but it was rather spoiled for me by poor camerawork/directiion. I know it wasn't really a how-to programme but I still wanted to see what he was doing and most of the time I couldn't. If you show someone demonstrating something then you've got to have close ups that are in frame and in focus and held for long enough to see what they're doing. That's not easy when they're working on objects as small as the components of a 00 loco but it is entirely possible (even in a live broadcast whcih this wasn't) and James May is an experienced enough presenter to take direction for this. Remagnetising rather than using a new magnet made sense as the object was to reassemble the original loco. The insights into the history of the manufacturers was informative. I know plenty of people who still think that their current purchases from Hornby are directly descended from the Hornby Dublo they or their fathers/grandfathers had as children rather than from Tri-ang.

Hi Martin I noticed while travelling on it today that the northern arm of the Greenford Branch triangular junction at West Ealing still has BH pointwork (two turnouts and a diamond) with some BH on the two arms towards the GW main line. The rest of the branch is FB with a lot of it between Drayton Green and the northern triangle fairly recently relaid on steel sleepers. I'll take a closer look next time I travel on the branch (if I ever do see below) . Slightly OT but, while waiting for my train this morning, I was struck by the strange logic of TOCs. I'm sure you can spot the obvious inconsistency

Hi Martin You're probably well aware of this resource but I found a useful table of rail dimensions compiled by the S scale society here http://www.s-scale.org.uk/rails.htm It includes over sixty types of bullhead and almost three hundred and fifty types of flat bottom as well as bridge rail and crane track. It's particularly useful for some of us as it includes non British rail (India, Australian, NZ and French for bullhead) both bullhead The scale dimensions are naturally for S scale but the table can easily be inserted into a spreadsheet and recalculated for other scales (which I've just done for OO and H0)

I'm not at all sure about this. Some modellers may have had skills drawn from industry but John Charman was an RAF officer, I think a pilot. He used CCW bullhead track for Charford. I've not been able to find out much about this track but it seems to have been a chaired component product rather than RTL. Others who definitely built their own track included Philip (P.D.) Hancock an academic librarian, Rev. Peter Denny an Anglican vicar, Rev. Edward Beal a Church of Scotland minister, and John Ahern an insurance broker. None of those professions would be likely to foster engineering skills and they all seem to have acquired their skills in building track and other areas from railway modelling rather than bringing them to it. The great thing about our hobby is the very wide range of skills involved, technical, cerebral and artistic. That's far wider than any trade or profession I can think of.

I would Brian. It's not just the infamous disappearing knuckle spring; the coupler as a whole is a precision piece of engineering and even a fleck of paint or glue in the knuckle or the draft gear box can stop it working properly.

Hi Martin Well Rivarossi did at some point when they moved from what I believe was 1:80 to 1:87 scale for their European prototype stock. I don't think they advertised the change and the catalogue refers to "H0 Gauge 16.5mm" so perhaps deliberately vague about the scale. I used to have a Rivarossi 231E (an SNCF Pacific) and in many ways it was a lovely model but it just looked daft when coupled to 1:87 stock. For 00 and HO whether the scale is 1:76 or 1:87 is surely only relevant to the sleepering not the actual steelwork. For American modellers Streamline uses sleepers that are to the same scale as the gauge 60cm (2ft) spacing but their ties are normally narrower (9 inches) and more tightly spaced (~21 inches) than in Europe or Britain (~24-30 inches); the change from regular Streamline to 83 Line would therefore have been about the same in terms of tie width and spacing, though in the opposite direction, as from regular Streamline to OO Bullhead. I wouldn't hold you breath on classic Streamline ever being anything but 00/H0

I'm not sure where that 5% figure comes from. According to the Director's Report in the latest published accounts of the Pritchard Patent Product Company Ltd. for 2015, 28.75% of its turnover related to exports (up from 25.06% in 2012). Peco Publications & Publcity Ltd. who also run Pecorama are a separate subsidiary of the Pritchard Patent Product Company (2001) Ltd. which is the holding company. Ratio is listed as dormant so its business has presumably been absorbed into PPPCo Ltd. I believe that Peco do make track for other companies so the exports won't just be their own consumer range but it does seem that the home market is their main market though I'd guess it's the exports that make it profitable as their largest fixed assets are dies and moulds, about 40% of the total and double the value of plant and machinery and of freehold buildings and land. The number of people they employ has also risen slowly but steadily. (This information is all avaialable from Companies House)

It must be awful when someone forces you to read a thread Following this and previous threads and then trying to separate truth from opinion from other sources has actually taught me a great deal about both trackwork (real and model) and the history of our hobby. Shame I don't have room for anything longer than medium radius points so I'll be waiting even longer for bullhead in that size and will just have to pretend they are no. 8s and avoid parallel crossovers.

Sorry. I wasn't being entirely clear. Yes that is the case and it is 12o (according to Peco, Templot and my own protractor) but the long points have a shallower but curved frog and are then curved beyond the frog to get to that same angle. That's not necessarily unprototypical but would never be found on a crossover. While using the same final exit angle makes it easier to put together quite complex track formations it makes it hard to get the flowing bespoke pointwork that was very characteristic of steam era railways in Britain. Elsewhere, there seems to have been more use of standard pre -assembled switches and crossings *. I have a copy of the 1940 British Military Railway Engineering manual. Apart from using derailers rather than catch points, it follows standard British railway practice of the time for everything from track construction to interlocking and signalling but the military had standardised on just three turnouts, No. 6, No. 8, and No. 12, using a standard switch and lead for each. Given that most of us consider a No 6 to be rather generous its notes are interesting "The No. 6 will only be used in very congested areas such as docks and where small shunting engines usually operate; the No. 8 is the standard for general yard and station work; the No. 12 will be used only in places where high speeds are expected" I also liked "The laying of diamond crossings, slip roads, scissors crossings or similar complicated track layouts should be avoided wherever possible. These layouts require special fittings, are difficult to lay accurately and to maintain" It does seem that the Royal Engineers also had a favourite size of turnout, clearly not because it was a "very pretty size" though in engineering what is good often looks good. As well as minimising the need for onsite cutting of rail, standardisation made it far easier to maintain adequate stocks for use where they were needed, often in a hurry. It strikes me that the needs of a military quartermaster may have had quite a lot in common with those of a model shop owner. *Though they obviously inherited far more including a great deal of bullhead from the old companied, SNCF standardised on just five crossings (nos. 7,9,12,20 & 30 plus a no. 6 used only for symmetrical split lead points in marshalling yards) and three standard switches (with deviation angles of 0o18' , 0025' and 10 )

Thanks for that Martin, it's interesting. I'd rather assumed that for a prototype turnout with a crossing angle as tight as 1/6th you'd always need the sharper deflection at the switch. I agree about the 120 final divergence angle. It seems to be a peculiarity of their long turnout and, though I know why it was adopted by Peco, it does lessen the advantages in terms of avoiding buffer locking etc of using them in crossovers . Their short and medium turnouts have the same crossing as each other but different leads and, so far as I can tell, the medium turnout has virtually identical geometry to other nominally three foot radius turnouts I've compared it with. I did wonder about where on the prototype a crossing as tight as a no. 6 would actually be used.

Hi Stephen I think you misundestood the comment. It was made on one of the American forums and "premium product" means that though it was more expensive than some of its US competitors the extra was worth paying. Streamline was already popular and they seemed pleased that a version of it based on American trackwork had now been introduced. By the way, don't bet that the new bullhed track won't be used for H0.

Hi Martin Thanks for the comparative diagrams I've just been looking at the file in Templot. I don't know that Peco needs to feel nervous. Has any company offering a finer scale product been criticised for its previous offering being less fine scale? I looked at the reaction to the introduction of 83 Line in North America (I was thinking of using it for something else) and it didn't seem to lead to any criticism of the existing Streamline offering. Generally, Streamline was seen as a premium brand amongst RTL offerings and it was great that they were now offering a more specific scale development of it for American modellers. There was very little criticism of the bulky latching mechanism, the first thing that most advice to improve the appearance of Peco points goes for followed by the checkrails, and almost none of the switches being loose heeled. Streamline does "represent" proper railway track, though not as closely as many would wish, and it is a giant leap up from the various setracks. In any case some people will condemn anything OO as a toy not a model, (an absurd view IMHO). Something I have genuinely been wondering about is this. If the new points for BH or their equivalents from SMP etc. are roughly equivalent to an A6, this is a turnout that I understand would only be found in very low speed sidings. So, if you use a scale model of that A6 to represent a far longer main line turnout does it look the part, albeit compressed, or are there are other differences that should be taken into account?

Individulay wasn't replaced by Streamline. I had though thought that Peco had discontinued it for 00 and H0 a few years ago but I'm looking at an advert for it in last month's Continental Modeller. The currrent offering is Code 82 FB with wood type and concrete sleepers, point timbering, "Pandrol type fixings", sliding fixings for switch rails, as well as code 80 conductor rail and chairs. It's actually quite hard to find it on Peco's website but at least nine products still exist in the range. The Individulay range used to also include items like preformed crossing Vs, wing rails and check rails but presumably the market for these became too small as those using it were more than likely to make up their own. What I can't determine is when bullhead rail was discontinued for 00 and H0 and when Pecoway, as assembled track and points on fibre bases, was withdrawn. It's likely to have stayed in theiir catalogue long after they stopped advertising it but that too continued well into the Streamline era. . Possibly for the overseas market- double champignon was for example very widely used in France even by some metre gauge lines- but more perhaps for the dedicated minority of modellers working in British H0. I can't see any reason why the joiners wouldn't also be relevant for EM or indeed any other scale where Code 95 would be appropriate.

But think of the alternative. I just had a nightmare vision in which the Lawyers were funding their First Class seasons with fees from disputes between Network Rail and TOCs using different gauges on the same line.

Hi Martin There is no mystery about it at all. They put it on the market alongside their existing Pecoway and Individulay ranges and the competition from Formoway, Gem, Wrenn and others and very many modellers started using it. OO is a compromise so I'm not sure what "actually OO" means. OO means 4mm/ft scale models on 16.5mm gauge track . In any case it's not the only compromise that most modellers have to make- the incredibly sharp curves and "gasworks sidings" pointwork almost all of use are an even bigger compromise and clearly many modellers preferred the "longer finescale look" of Streamline over the "correct" BRMSB sleeper spacing. This is an original Pecoway 3ft radius turnout using BRMSB standards against a code 100 Streamline medium turnout. The geometry is identical but the Streamline point appears to be longer. This is an optical illusion of course but for many people it has clearly worked and it's surely a matter of choosing what best gives the impression you want not of "correctness". I've seen no sign at all in Railway Modellers from that period of any attempt to "push" streamline even less of a "pretence carefully observed" or of anyone being "expected to keep shtum" and I'm afraid that, though I'm sure that wasn't your intention, it does sound like a bit of an attack on Cyril Freezer's integrity. Given the number of EM layouts and those built with trackwork other than Peco that appeared in RM what's your evidence for a pretence? I agree that bullhead track has a particular "look" of its own that is very evocative and it's great that there will at last be a bullhead RTL track available but, at the time Peco introduced Streamline, BR was already committed to replacing all bullhead with FB. I doubt if anyone would have predicted then that there would still be a significant market for model BH track sixty or so years later.

In principle a Kadee coupler shouldn't work at all, at least not its delayed coupling mode, without some relative sideways movement of the two coupler heads but if you don't have room for the standard gear box there are more compact ones like the #252 and #233 gear boxes similar to the rather older one on the left hand wagon below. The right hand wagon, which is a modern Piko model, is fitted with NEM boxes in a close coupling unt and you can see that they are smaller. It's worth exploring the Kadee website http://www.kadee.com and their catalogue and primer are both available as pdf downloads. I've tried Bachman EZmate couplers that have a solid shank (without the articulation incorporated in Kadee NEM263 couplers) in some wagons retrofitted with fixed NEM boxes and the results were very unsatisfatory. I assume that all of Bachman's NEM boxes are in close coupling units so do have sideways movement Note that the standard NMRA draft gear boxes, moulded into the chassis of most US stock and also supplied separately by Kadee and others, are NOT the same as NEM pockets. Apart from being at a different height - the scale height of a real North American draft gear box- they also allow room for a centring spring arrangement of some sort and have a separate lid that is snapped or screwed to the body after the coupler shank has been inserted. Because US stock doesn't have side buffers, close coupling is less of an issue though the standard Kadee couplers come with short medium and long shanks. NEM boxes on the other hand are usually a single moulding of an open box into which the swallow tail of a standard NEM coupler shank is a tight fit and locks into place so the coupler is a rigid mount in the box. This as you say is why the extra articulation is fitted.

I have a photocopy of the Maurice Dean Portreath article from the August-September RM. I cant post the plan for copyright reasons but if anyone wants to see it for private research PM me. Dean's Portreath didn't actually last long as a visit to the Culm Valley line inspired him to use the same baseboards for a fairly complete model of the branch. For that he didn't use the "Dean Fiddle Yard" (as CJF referred to it) trick of hiding it behind the terminus with a link to provide a continuous run but instead had an imaginary "junction yard" fully scenicced in front of one of the two through stations. Maurice Dean seems to have been a serial builder of relatively small layouts with most only appearing once in print. I don't know if he was a regular exhibitor. His subsequent layouts that I've seen in RM and MRN were based on real locations but compressed. They included Wantage (00 in 4x2ft6in with very tight curves !) , Welshpool NG, Jersey and the Rye and Camber Tramway but there may have been others . He tended to use a solid baseboard and lay an oval with a passing loop (which presumably served as a fiddle yard for out and back working) then have the terminus effectively as a branch inside the oval as in Portreath and as used by Awdry for Ffarquhar. I was looking at Dave Johnson's Portreath article in a bound volume of RM recently but it only had the name and a GW theme in common with Maurice Dean's Portreath and was a well modelled but fairly conventional linear BLT-fiddle yard.

That's really good to hear. I hope I'll be able to see the layout at an exhibition sometime. I enjoyed your video of the layout. Good to see one properly shot and edited and it does show off the layout's operational potential.

I think I saw it in person but I was very young. From published photos of the original Ffarquhar I'd say you've done a brilliant job of recreating it and I can almost see the late Reverend himself at the controls. I wonder if you might get in touch with Christopher Awdry. I found the Cyril Freezer plan that I referred to in #38. It was "layouts for the modeller no. 3" in RM no 11 (still published by Ian Allan) in July-August 1950. It was "based on the principles laid down by Maurice Dean and followed by Colson" and was for a 6ft x 5ft layout with a central operating well and a through station with a goods siding where Awdry just had a halt. There's no reference to his visiiting Mauruce Dean in that article but he did have some photos (though no plan) of a similar layout built by E.F. Colson in a butler's pantry 6ft x 4ft-5 ft 6 ins in his Editor's Notebook in the January-February edition no 8. following a visit. Colson's layout was "based on and inspired by" Maruce Dean's Portreath. Colson and Dean both lived in Britsol a short walk from one another so I assume they were acquainted.

The goods facilities look a lot better with this plan and I can envisage one of those multi-storey goods depots like the one that used to be just outside Paddington . I hope i'm not being too negative but, unless you've got it to work well on another layout, I'd be very dubious about using curved fiddle yard sidings, especially with fairly tight radii. We tried it on an L shaped group layout a few years ago and, despite very precise track laying (not by me!), it was a complete disaster with longer passenger trains derailing first time every time .That fiddle yard used points to access a fan of sidings and I suspect a 1800 curved traverser would be even trickier. In the end we went for a more conventional U.

Littlehampton, particularly in earlier days, strikes me as having considerable potential as a very compact MLT. I don't know whether coastal trains in steam days came in from Brighton and went out towards Chichester and vice versa as they do know but if so that would make for pretty intensive operation. The station site was usefully narrow between two one-sided streets of terraced houses with a small MPD on one side of the platforms and a narrow goods yard on the other. It also had the significant added bonus of a short harbour branch that kicked back from the goods yard usually worked by Terriers. Apparently before the war there were even ferry services from Littlehampton to Honfleur and the Channel Islands (I've not yet been able to find out much about that but it gave the Steam Packet pub its name) The port assumed some importance for and after D-Day. The harbour branch closed in the 1960s. In its later years it handled coal and timbers but probably a larger range of cargo in earlier times. There are some aerial photos of it during the 1920s here http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/asearch?name=Littlehampton&gazetteer=Littlehampton&PARISH=Littlehampton& COUNTY=West%20Sussex Littlehampton also has a couple of particularly good fish and chip shops- I went to Oscas on Pier Street which had the longest queue and it deserved to but check Trip Advisor and beware of being mugged by the local Herring Gulls while eating them on the quayside.

Excellent. I'm impressed at this much progress in just a couple of months. It already seems full of appropriate atmosphere and I can almost hear the flat brummy vowels (I was born there!) . It's obviously a bit longer than CJF's plan so I'd be interested to know the overall dimensions and are the points medium or long?