SRman

Yes, I noticed that too. I think they just made an error in the captions.

From memory, Chelsfield station itself wouldn't be that hard to model; a simple two platform through station in a bit of a cutting with long pedestrian access ramps and not too many buildings. Third rail on straight track is not too bad to lay ... it's when you get to the bendy bits it becomes a real pain to lay without the third rail chairs shooting off into the wild blue yonder when one lets go of the rail end accidentally! I used to live and go to school in third rail territory, many moons ago. Now I'm almost as far away as I could get, in Melbourne, Australia!

I have the orange V one with sound on order - it sounds very promising, even with the limitations of YouTube and the garage environment. p.s. We'll convert you yet, Rick!

Is that a hybrid Lima 31 chassis with Hornby works, or summat like that??

I don't have any numbers to give you but a few earlier sets received the later buffers after repairs or works visits, for whatever reasons - I'm guessing accident damage would be the most likely reason for changing buffer types, which also means that the buffers at one end of the unit could have differed from those at the other after this.

Yes, it was nice to catch up yesterday. I don't blame you for not running today - I'm still melting here!

The first arrival is one of the versions I have pre-ordered except I ordered it with sound. The sound ones should follow soon but I am not sure whether they are coming from the factory with sound or they are being retro-fitted by Kernow. Whichever way, I'm looking forward to seeing it 'in the flesh'.

Now there's an idea! Over to you, Dapol Dave ...

I had exactly the same things in mind too, except that both of mine will most likely get the small yellow panels.

It really sounds as if you are getting the hang of the DCC thing, Peter. If we had asked you six months ago to change CVs to alter starting voltage or tweak the top speed or even change the direction of travel, would you have even known what they were, let alone believed you would be chatting quite happily explaining what you did to improve running on locomotive XX in the Llanbourne topic?

Some very interesting shots from both bingley hall and gwiwer there. That last one in bingley's set shows a good set track formation on the left!! What a contrast there is between the narrow and broad gauges, with the standard gauge in evidence too.

Have PM'd Rick with the details.

The chances are that SWD will be able to offer the sounds from their own list even if they have a few differences compared to the Kernow ones. After all, that's what has been the case with Bachmann and SWD sounds too.

I can fully understand where you are coming from, Robin. I have pre-ordered two Hornby 2 BILs (one 'standard', one NRM). I also have two 2H units pre-ordered from Kernow Models, one with sound. I haven't been game to pre-order a Heljan Gloucester parcels unit (also due in March) in case all these others suddenly drain the credit card before I can catch up again!

They are coming on well. I have done the same trick for weight in plastic kits in the past, filling toilet compartments with lead and even plasticene at times! Just an idea but for those seats that show in the windows, is it possible for you to get a paint brush on to the very edges without touching the glazing itself? If you can, you could paint the visibe edges with black to disguise them somewhat. p.s. I agree with the comments re the Bogie 'B': i have frequently criticised it for the over-complication, using 100 parts where 30 would have done (so to speak ... don't quote me on those numbers!). And, after all that, they still didn't include the window grilles! It still made into a nice model in the end, though.

I had to phone Kernow to renew my credit card details with them the other day and had a pleasant chat about the 'Thumpers', having also been advised they were due early next month. I asked about the sound and was told that sound-fitted versions may take slightly longer to arrive and that South West Digital are responsible for the sound and recorded a real 'Thumper' recently for this project. SWD sounds are generally pretty good although the "driveability" of some of their earlier projects was a little questionable as they forced one to drive according to the sounds rather than the sounds following the driving style. Many of the later or revised projects seem to be better in this respect so I hold high hopes for the quality of the end product.

I agree fully with you here. I would add that even in the days when I ran analogue DC on my old layout I was able to run multiple units quite happily on an H & M controller. While I am predominantly a Southern modeller I also have a 'side' interest in DMUs and ran up to five units in one train on few occasions, including a mix of original and modified Hornby and Lima units (of classes 101, 104, 117, 110, 120 and 121). While not up to modern low-current motors none of the Lima or Hornby ring field types drew a huge amount of current and both brands seemed to be quite compatible with each other.

Jeff who???? I intend being at Roger's meeting next week. I'll try to remember to bring the 33 to show off, although i still want to try more speaker variations and combinations before I finalise the installation. Coming in a bit late here but the other guys earlier were right about reversing the loco's default direction. Swapping the orange and grey wires to the brushes is the real answer but adding 1 to CV29's value will also work (assuming CV29 wasn't already reversed, in which case subtracting 1 would be the answer!). Great photos of great modelling skills as always, Peter. Your layout and models are quite rightly admired by many on the forums ... and in the BRMA.

I decided to take a few videos of various workbench projects actually running on the layout (for which I still don't have a firm name, yet!). These are a little shaky as they were only on my mobile phone and I have strung some of the clips together but couldn't use decent transitions on my Pinnacle software in Windows 8 - it kept repeating the last second or so of the previous clip. I will eventually set up the tripod with the proper video camera and take some better quality vids but, in the meantime these will have to do. Bear in mind that most of these models are not yet completed, missing things like glazing or handrails or final paint touches before adding transfers. The London Transport 'Q' stock, made from resin kits (mostly Radley Models but a couple of DC Kits too). There are 1923, 1927, 1931 and 1938 cars in this train, powered by two Black Beetle motor bogies with one T1 decoder in one of the 1923 cars. I want to add one more vehicle eventually, ideally a 1935 car but these are n longer readily available so I may have to wait a while. The Ayjay Models 'Tin' 2 HAL unit, powered by a Black Beetle bogie with an NCE decoder on board. I still need to tune this decoder to better suit the running qualities of the Black Beetle. The Golden Arrow Productions (GAP) G16 4-8-0T on Hornby Stanier 8F chassis (ex- 2-8-0 !). This still needs a little adjustment to the wheels' back-to-back settings as it occasionally stalls momentarily on certain curves and points. And the GAP Maunsell 0-6-0 diesel-electric shunter using a Bachmann chassis and a TCS M1 decoder. This has a 'stay alive capacitor but has the old-style pickups on the wheel treads which means it still stalls if too much dirt builds up on the pickups. Note also that the body is not sitting fully down n the chassis at this point. Also, please ignore that second mineral wagon that kindly chose to derail while I was trying to video and drive at the same time!!

... and yet another 'quickie' taken on the phone camera but this time three shorter clips strung together. This shows the Heljan 33 I fitted with a Digitrains (Paul Chetter) Zimo multi-drive decoder and (currently) two 8 ohm speakers in parallel, one bass enhanced in the fuel tanks and one 'sugar cube' in the main body. I still intend experimenting further with speaker combinations.

Yes, they were in the early matt shade of rail blue which did appear lighter due to the finish.

Hi Peter. It is usually advisable to remove the capacitors as they affect the decoder's ability to adjust for BEMF, although some brands/types of decoders are better at coping than others. You could also adjust CV2 (the starting voltage) to make it more responsive. I am usually not impressed with Lima running qualities on DCC but I was so pleased with 31 327's running I decided to do the other one, with the resulting tales of woe above. It ended up being a lot better than the initial problems would suggest but it took some perseverance to get there.

Addendum: after about four hours of running 31 004 is now behaving as expected. I had to change the value in CV2 to compensate for the stiffer mechanism (set to a value of around 50). That's still with the Digitrax DH123 decoder but I may try the Gaugemaster one again after this - it works very well in 31 327.

And a few more 'quickie' videos, taken on my phone. This time they show the Bachmann class 24 D5014 with Howes sound in tandem with a Heljan class 33 D6585 with Digitrains (Paul Chetter's) multi-drive sound, while the Hornby 4 VEP, now fitted with an ESU Lokilot decoder, circulates in the opposite direction. The two diesels were not consisted as I haven't speed matched them - the 24 was running on speed step 43 while the 33 was on speed step 70 and they were almost perfectly matched on those settings!

Encouraged by how smoothly the DCC conversion of 31 327 went, I decided to do 31 004. This one also ran very smoothly on DC so I thought it would go just as well as 31 327. WRONG!! The actual hard-wiring went more smoothly because I knew exactly what I was doing this time. I pulled the Digitrax decoder out of 31 327 and plugged it in to 31 004. It ran like a dog! It stuttered and stopped and refused to complete even one circuit without stalling. I thoroughly cleaned the wheels, oiled the mech, cleaned the wheels again, making sure I got the backs as well, checked the pickups and tried again. It was better but not brilliant, so I tried a Gaugemaster decoder (demonstrating the wisdom of using the JST-compatible decoders!) with BEMF but that was no better (probably slightly worse), so I put the old Digitrax one back in. The Gaugemaster decoder worked a treat in 31 327 though. After much persuasion (both physical and verbal!), 31 004 has been trundling around the layout for an hour and a half now. Hopefully this will free it up somewhat. I took a few photos of the hard-wiring process this time so you can see what s involved. Incidentally, I removed that capacitor between the brushes on both models after the photos were taken. And here is 31 004 in service. I detailed it with the separate handrails on the fronts some years ago. 31 327 was easier in some ways because it only had two handrails at each end whereas 31 004 has four, albeit they are all straight ones. It now just needs the red circle coupling codes added above each buffer (these early 31s had electro-magnetic control), some pipework on the buffer beam at the end without a coupling, and a lot more weathering added.