frobisher

13 hours ago, DCB said:

Attenboro'  ?

Attenburgh surely?

10 minutes ago, Forward! said:

According to Railway Gazette "they are expected to operate on all routes apart from to Inverness and Aberdeen."

Oh, oh well.

5 hours ago, Mike_Walker said:

The objections largely come from Scotland and are more a case of objecting to being given the castoffs of those nasty Sassenachs..

Technically, apart from one route, it's the Sassenachs that have ended up with them... ;)

I'm presuming these will be a little more "fit for purpose" North of Edinburgh, which allows the concentration of the Azuma's in those areas they don't need bi-mode capability and they can be readily reduced to being electric only units as per their design.

Also Hitachi might not have capacity to fulfil this order in the required timescale.

16 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Newport?

It'll need a suffix at the very least to distinguish it from Newport on Tay.

25 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Now think about urban life with no standards for potable water. Or how your IT kit is powered by standardised mains supplies. Or how the liquid fuel you blithely pump into your tank never fails to work. This is where the serious types who understand standards conformance keep the world working - reliably.

You're forgetting the most necessary step in that process, an enforcement authority with the necessary teeth.

29 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Works OK for trivial fairy dust stuff like IT.

And with due respect, that shows a failure to understand the problem being expressed.

18 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Electricity is increasingly being generated by renewable sources (three  of which- wind, waves and tides Britain is well endowed with) and railways are far more adept at using it than any other form of transport.  

Indeed  - we have a proposed 6GW turbine field going in to the West of Orkney soon, which is the equivalent of 3 average nuclear power stations.  I suspect that will mostly be aimed at keeping the lights on in Central Belt Scotland rather than railway electrification.

15 minutes ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

However, it seems equally clear to me (but not to everyone posting in this thread) that they weren't always class 43. They have always had numbers in the 43xxx series but that no more makes them a class 43 than a bubble car being numbered in the 55xxx series makes it a class 55.

I suspect though there was much more an element of design in the assignment of the number range for the PCs though so that they could be Class 43 in the future when TOPS absorbed the carriage range (indeed the carriage numbering for the HST sets clearly reflects knowledge of forthcoming "holes" in the TOPS range).

58 minutes ago, SulzerPeak said:

Hopefully, just hope its not another live steam novelty. Big call going against n and oo. Doubt the other big players will join the party?

Hornby missed the bus with British N gauge, and ditto 0.  The other players are eying what Hornby does.  I suspect Bachmann aren't really interested given the range of scale/gauges they are already covering (and their scarcity of internal manufacturing capacity which has lead to the whole EFE venture), Dapol are probably in a similar position.  Heljan are the most likely to dip a toe in when the water is a little deeper after being totally gazundered on their initial foray, and there seems to be some interest from Revolution staff at least.  Rapido might surprise us, but I think we might see some models from Sonic as commissions down the line.

The big model for Hornby will be the Class 66 as that must be appearing under the Arnold brand for the European market in due course, which means we should see some of the more obscure (otherwise) UK variants being produced.

1 hour ago, adb968008 said:

Northern must have decided minimum 2 car is the way to go, binned the 153’s yet got Brodies to do a PRM job on the 155’s..

 

https://brodie-engineering.co.uk/case-studies/overhaul-and-modification-to-class-155-units.html

i would have thought it easier for Northern to have dumped the 155’s instead of midlifing a fleet of 7.

The cost of modifying a 155 will be cheaper than 2 153's because you don't have the extra cabs to contend with.

35 minutes ago, Nova Scotian said:

May have missed it, but interested in the provenance of this model.

 

Is this EFE (Bachmann) finishing a commission that went south? Underneath is it Heljan, or Bachmann, or was it never going to be one of those brands? (eg. straight retailer commission). Went off the rails, sitting around designed and maybe even tooled, but without the cash to move to production?

 

Or have EFE designed this from scratch?

Most of those factors are irrelevant.

Is it a "failed" model "rescued"  by EFE?  If so it is not a failure...  Is it a model that was looking for a commission?  Well it's found it in EFE so job done.  Would it have been made without EFE?  Who knows, but the fact that it has is more important.

What we do know is that KMRC have a working relationship with Bachmann through EFE and that has produced some interesting products.  This is another one.

One defining difference is the Hornby shorties have the tension lock coupling moulded integrally to the bogie all scale length Hornby ones have clip in Airfic style couplings.

Isn't that the EMU bogie type used under the MK3 derived ones?

2 hours ago, Hobby said:

Out of interest, what's the difference?

The roofline has a large notch cut out on one end on one side as built, and no high intensity headlight and the big ones.  The head-code boxes are also functional in the early days and I don't think they were plated over until refurbishment (so 0000 or two dots before that).

2 hours ago, Hobby said:

 

It's an interesting point, they go back further than many people realise. I still have my 1965 Combine where I'd added a sheet of paper with D400 to D449 listed (and underlined!) on it. I can remember them going up and down the WCML along with the last of steam which I would think would surprise many people who don't know their history! I used to spot where Croston Road crossed over the WCML in Lostock Hall, back then there were sidings on both sides but it's all gone now!

It should be noted thar the tooling is currently for refurbished examples only which knocks out anything before the 1980's and all but a select few in BR blue.

3 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

@Mike_Walker still a flawed idea - DFT asked for one thing, TPE did another and both ended up with a solution that would not have otherwise been chosen and the 442s, where are they now?

Getting stripped and scraped at the moment.

30 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

In their current form, typically rigid. If the bufferheads were single pole magnetic (North left, South right)  with the shaft able to slide in the stocks, these could be the couplers. But with scale sized heads the curve limit would lie somewhere between 36" and 24" radius in 4mm.

In theory, if you could clip a clear plastic shim across the face of both buffers you'd have something that might go down to set track radii.

3 hours ago, andrewshimmin said:

 

On the contrary, TT120 now means those of us with extensive Triang TT collections (inherited from my late Grandpa in my case) are finally able to run them easily, as we can use the Hornby track etc (and yes, despite what Hornby say, it is compatible with only minor tweaking).

Now my inherited stuff can run, it is motivating me to get hold of some of the Triang models (and old kits) which I don't have, as I can now run them.

I'm collecting TT120 too, but the range isn't hugely extensive as yet of course.

That might beg the question of who's going to bite and do a TT tension lock for the NEM 355 of TT..?

10 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Reading the specs of a class 93, it seems a bit light on both diesel and battery for this job, but how about with a pair of 93’s as top and tail ?

 

would two get a mk5 set out of Marylebone on battery and give enough power on diesel for the rest of the journey ?

A single Class 99 might though...

20 minutes ago, markw said:

Of course the NEM pocket is similarly positioned as this is specified in the NEM standards, But the Cavalex HAA doesn't have a ccu  so I don't see how this is relavent to the claim that it is difficult to design a ccu to fit a short wheelbase wagon.

Hornby are also fitting them to their TT wagons so it's mostly down to appetite to do so I would say, regardless of scale.

3 hours ago, Les1952 said:

Neither of the Farcebook links in the previous half-dozen posts work- access restricted by FB to the poster and a small group who have particular access to them.

I'm not a member of the group or a friend of anyone there and I can see them, so there's possibly something odd with your FB settings..?

2 hours ago, Ravenser said:

A 3D body should be available from Lincoln Locos . Hornby are doing a 37 , which had the same bogies. A  Deltic with one of Lenny Seeney's bodies powered by a stretched 37 chassis ought to be reasonably achieveable for those wit5h a bit of determination

Wouldn't the Class 50 be closer to the mark and being produced earlier?

7 hours ago, Porfuera said:

There are some photos comparing a Peco wagon to a Hornby wagon. He also has other posts with videos of the wagons running.

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1581812358920619/permalink/1795405210894665/?mibextid=bKks23

 

Have Peco tried to reinvent the wheel there with the couplings?  The NEM standard is the 355 pocket, yet it looks like their coupling has fishtails for fitting to the NEM 362 type pocket... Or is the 355 pocket secured using those fishtails?

9 hours ago, Rhydgaled said:

This is quite noticeable on the Model Rail / Rapido 16xx - I once downloaded Autodesk Fusion 360 and started trying to design a version of the tension lock which would fit directly into the NEM 363 / PA34 interface and avoid the NEM 362 pocket but it's yet another of those projects I've never managed to finish. Not sure how I'd get the couplings made either or what material would be best.

What you want are the ViTrains couplings as used on their 37 and 47 surely?

45 minutes ago, mikejames said:

why?

So that they stayed with the commissioning franchises and couldn't be half inched by the XC franchise(s) as I understand it.