SRman

He's just big-boned!! 😉😉 😅

A couple of things from my workbench that are complete, or very nearly so. These Parkside wagons were started some time ago, and sat on the layout awaiting transfers. I added transfers last night, although I haven't put the tare weights on, matt varnished them today, and they now await some weathering. Eagle-eyed people might notice the missing buffer, which can be seen on the cutting mat nearby: I dropped it while varnishing it! Fortunately, the varnish dried very quickly, and nothing from the carpet stuck to it. Also on the workbench, but fairly quick job, are some 3D printed cats from West Hill Wagon Works. One lost most of its tail in transit, so I drilled a hole in its backside and stuck some brass wire into that. Suitable shaped, once painted you'd never know. I have done a black cat with a little white, a black and grey tabby cat, a ginger cat, and my favourite, a tortoiseshell and white female (or calico, as the Americans call it). Anyway, these are now ready to be cut from the trellis supports and planted on the layout. The reason 98% of torties and torty & white cats are female is the gene for black or ginger is on the X chromosome, so females can get both colours, males (XY) can only get one or the other. We own a tri-coloured male, so in theory he can't exist, but in reality, it means he's probably XXY. Additional info on tortie males: they occur as 1 in 3000, according to one source. I also found that with the tabby-like markings, cats like Sykes can be referred to as tortie-tabbies.

Perhaps I should have said, he bought the original steam sound decoders pre-loaded. He has reblown those, but now only buys blank ones, which is also mostly what I do now, then buy the sound projects locked to the serial number and delivered to me by email. That way I have the original sounds to fall back on if I experiment a bit. Perhaps the OP can clarify when he gets back to us. Steam projects have improved over the years, including more load-sensing facilities.

I have been messing around with ESU files as well. Many of the diesel files are quite decent, but the only decent British files are the Bulleid pacifics. The Britannia file is woeful, using electronic synthesised chuffs which, quite frankly, sound terrible. I used one of the Bulleid files to put sound onto a Bachmann C class 0-6-0. I know the Bulleids are three cylinder, and the C is two, but by slowing the chuffs down and synchronising with the wheel revolutions (using the LokProgrammer and a rolling road), I think I got a reasonable sound. I used a German whistle from an electric locomotive to replace the Bulleid whistle, and eliminated the turbine whine from the generator. It's still a work in progress, but it's almost acceptable now, I think. This is only a very short clip of it.

I believe the OP was saying he bought the decoders pre-loaded with the files. In that case, he won't have the original project to reload onto the decoder.

I have done a couple of Bulleids (MN and BoB) that were pre-DCC-ready versions. I directly hard-wired them with no socket at all. The live return goes through the chassis, but I had no problems with that. The red and black wires went to the separate pickup and to the chassis ground screw (I can't remember which went to which at this time), and the orange and grey to the brushes, which are entirely insulated from the chassis anyway - the original wiring had a wire going from the chassis using the gearbox top screw, so that's what I used when putting the decoder track wire.

As the saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it! I have a whole heap of v3.5 LokSounds still in use. If one stops working, I'll replace it (and its speaker) with a v5, but there's no point in spending money to replace a perfectly serviceable decoder. That's my thoughts on the subject, anyway. 🙂 Edit: further ideas: if the loco with the v3.5 decoder is playing up and stalling, replace that decoder with a v5 with stay-alive, then reblow and reuse the v3.5 elsewhere. There are still v3.5 sound projects available from major sound suppliers.

I found this too, and also found a spot of teflon powder/grease helped.

Mechanically there's not a lot to choose between any of the Hornby 08/09s, Bachmann 08/09s, and Heljan 07s, as all have decent motors with heavy flywheels and low gearing. The Heljan 07 suffers from poor electrical pickups and a short, rigid (vertically) wheelbase reducing the pickup area over potential dead spots. While there is no vertical travel allowed in any of the axles, there is a lot of side-play, which contributes to the pickup problems because the short and fairly soft pickup strips cannot maintain contact with all of the wheel backs at their extremes of side travel. I did a fix for this on the leading axle, which seems to have the most problems with the excessive side-play, by soldering extra phosphor-bronze strips leading back from the front edges of the existing pickups, bearing on the trailing edges of the driving wheels, and giving a lot more side-play allowance. Earlier Bachmann 08/09s had poor pickups too, with the pickup strips bearing on the tops of the wheel treads: later releases were much improved. Their 08/09 allows some vertical movement on the centre axle. The Hornby 08/09 has more delicate detailing (better detail in my opinion), and also lacks any vertical play on any of its axles. Fitting sound in the Hornby and Bachmann models is relatively easy, the Heljan 07 is much more difficult due to lack of free space (I haven't done one, and I note that a couple of other contributors have had theirs done professionally).

I used SR green on one I did years ago. I can't vouch that it was correct, but more importantly, it looks right. This is it on my old layout, so an old photo from a long gone camera. The loo now sits on my current layout, but I don't seem to have taken any photos of it, there.

Most likely, Rick. Mine weren't riding high but certain points caused problems, either at the blade end or at the frog. It behaves better now, but I am inclined to take it down to the more usual 14.2 - 14.3, if I can move the wheels with sufficient delicacy to suit.

I used a small flat-bladed screwdriver, but in hindsight it might have been better to use something like a curved pair of forceps/tweezers to push them out from inside the body. That, of course, would mean removing the body first. 😉

I had read some of the comments on the other thread, so the first thing I looked for was the bogies being out of square, but mine seems to be OK, with all wheels sitting flat on the track, or table ,or anything else I chose to sit it on. What I did spot straight away was that the wheels on one bogie were able to move laterally further than the pickups could reach at their extremes, but that was easily fixed. The other bogie was fine in that respect. But yes, the back to backs were set a bit too wide.

The befores were anywhere between 14.3 and 14.5 mm (they varied from axle to axle). The afters are currently 14.30 to 14.39, but I think I might take that down a fraction further, to around 14.25 to 14.30. When I said they were set identically, that was within the limitations of the delicate amount of movement I could achieve on each wheel set.

My EFE 'Booster' arrived today from Rails, so I immediately set about testing it on DC. While it ran smoothly, it felt a little stiff, so I set it up on the rolling road for a bit over an hour, still on analogue. Anyway, it freed up nicely, so I then fitted a Zimo MX634C - it was set as a 634D but the cab lights didn't work on that setting, so I tried the 'C' trigger (programme CV8=3) - then tried again with the functions and they worked exactly as the EFE blurb said they should, with directional marker lights on F0 and cab lights on F3 and F4. Running on the layout showed a few minor hiccups with points, where something was snagging in one direction only (that turned out to be a sharp bit on one of the dumb irons), and it didn't like the Peco code 75 3-way points. While the wheel back to backs were within the normal tolerances, I found it was acting like they were a fraction over-gauge, so set about removing the bogie base plates and tweaking the back to backs inwards slightly, using a micrometer to set them all identically. While I had the base plates off, I also fine-tuned a couple of the pick up strips, which have to deal with a lot of side play in the wheels and axles. On reassembly, it was back onto the layout where it behaved perfectly. There was one derailment which I put down to my not having put all the wheels on the track correctly in the first place (that'll do it, every time!),then drove it into the engine shed area with the finer scale points, and it negotiated those properly too. Happy with that, I decided to add the detailing - a coupling hook and steam pipe at each end, then trimmed to clear the tension lock couplings, plus I wanted to change it from having all lights illuminated at each end (directionally). That was a right royal pain to do because the existing lit headcodes are very tight fitting items and took a lot of persuasion to get out of their sockets. There's no danger of losing any of them in normal service, but I did damage a couple getting them out, and lost one in the carpet somewhere, but it is unlikely I'll ever want to put all the illuminated ones back in. It now has just two illuminated discs at each end and the rest are the blanked ones. I may change the painted white marker dots to a glossy grey to resemble lights that are off at some time in the future. And that's it, really. The model does look good, and runs well, in spite of a few niggles. I took a couple of photos of it parked in the loco yard, but realised I'd left grubby fingerprint marks on the sides, so had to give it a quick clean and snap another photo, which didn't turn out quite as nicely as the first ones.

Ahhhh, blessed relief! When my niece was visiting Melbourne many years ago, I took her to the Melbourne Zoo on a 43 degree day. When we went into the Butterfly House, that was a relief for both of us because they keep that at a cool 36 degrees! 🤣

Sorry about that: try this link (not guaranteed to work) https://www.google.com/search?q=15XX+pannier+Paddington&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwiRuM6S7tyDAxU_hWMGHaafB3sQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=15XX+pannier+Paddington&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzoECCMQJ1CtEFjSI2C6JmgAcAB4AIAB7wGIAbAQkgEFMC41LjaYAQCgAQGqAQtnd3Mtd2l6LWltZ8ABAQ&sclient=img&ei=5tCjZZGtKL-KjuMPpr-e2Ac&bih=686&biw=1490&prmd=isvmnbtz&rlz=1C1RXQR_en-GBAU964AU964#imgrc=Z3Tb1Htu5oAgTM Or type in "15XX pannier Paddington" into Google and look for images. It appeared on the third line down for me but that may alter if you use a different sized window.

There's a photo with a stove-fitted PMV in the background with the main focus being a 15XX pannier tank in the carriage sidings at Old Oak Common (Western Region). The yellow panel is clearly visible on the guard's door. I have seen the photo in at least one of my books, but Key Model World have very kindly used it in their "Reality Check" on the 15XX here: https://www.keymodelworld.com/article/reality-check-gwr-15xx-0-6-0pts , about half-way down the page.

Kernow have some mainly BR blue-based liveries on sale at a shade under £85 at present. I'm tempted to get a large logo blue one. These are all from later production runs (i.e. not the first run that had lighting problems).

Maybe it got so cold it couldn't move out again when it wanted to. 😁

I just looked it up: apparently there's a Big Potato in Tassie as well, and that's the one that is no more, after some high winds. High winds in Tasmania? Who'd have thunk it?

Also known by locals as the Big Turd! I think I read recently that it had collapsed, but I am open to correction.

Running the Bachmann refurbished 4 CEP 1522 in L&SE 'Jaffa Cake' livery in multiple (DCC consist) with 7113, an unrefurbished unit in BR blue and grey and 68008, an MLV in 'Jaffa Cake' livery. I know the blue and grey units would all have been refurbished by the time the L&SE livery was implemented, but I can't really afford another refurbished unit ... yet! All three have Lenz Silver decoders and run perfectly well together, as do all of my other Bachmann SR EMUs. This is only a very short video to demonstrate the running qualities.

I'll contact Richard in due course. I usually buy the decoders locally here in Oz, and pay for the sound file to be sent by email - I do have a LokProgrammer, an expensive device but I think it has paid for itself for my use. With the Met loco, I turned down the volume on the contactor sounds, but otherwise I think it is very good as is.

That sounds really good, Eric. I still love the sound you did for the Met Bo-Bo electric locos, and rate that as one of the best sound projects I have heard for an electric. I motorised an EFE 59/62 train some time back, but I'll have to seriously consider adding your sounds to it now. 😊