Neal Ball

Thanks Andy. No 2237 was a Reading based engine until about 1934 when it was sent for scrap. There are a couple of photos of County tanks at Henley-on-Thames on local services. Strangely I have not found any photos of the County 4-4-0 locos at Henley, but I suppose the County tank, together with Pannier tanks might have been sufficient in the 1920's and early 1930's until the 61xx were introduced. At the same time you started to see Hall class 4-6-0 locos as well. Thanks again,

Today has seen the final bits of glazing added to the clerestory carriage, hopefully tomorrow I can turn my attention to the door furniture etc. While that was drying, I went back to the County tank. Today's jobs were the weight and sorting out the pick-ups, whereupon it ran very nicely. The rear pony truck needs springing I think - it hangs too much! I've added a pick-up to it as well, but at the moment its hindering the wheel rotation - more fettling needed. Anyway, a couple of quick iPhone photos:

At the same time, the a23 Clerestory is being glazed. The carriage is seen drying - At the same time I test fitted a door handle and grab handle.

Manor news! My Manor loco has had its coal load applied - it is still just as loud 😎 and I have used a little bit of weathering powder to try and reduce the shine form the LED lights. Seen here with the e153 Composite Brake 3rd

Good luck Andy, let us know how you get on. As ever with something like this, I relied on the advice from John at Youchoos to determine the maximum I could do. Regards, Neal.

Evening all, thank you for the comments - we’ve been in Benidorm for the day! It’s very Marmite, but if you stick to the old town then it’s very good. A return coach trip for €12 each isn’t too bad and we met up with some friends from the UK. ( it’s 1 1/2 hours drive from here or 2 hours by coach ) bargain at €12? To answer your questions and comments as below: Thanks Andy, I will try the tat shops here and see how I get on. (Our Chinese tat shops sell everything) Thanks Clive, I looked at removing the loco body, but decided against. I merely snipped the cables in the tender marked LS. You would hope that Accurascale do a louder sound, perhaps @McC could advise, Yes the loco is lovely and yes the factory fitted sound is underwhelming. Thanks for this, good luck with the 7F. Both of the original speakers have been removed (tender) and isolated (smokebox). I should add that wiring in this way has invalidated the Accurascale warranty 🙁🙁 Agreed. The size of speaker I chose, didn’t allow that to be an option. I pushed it for size and sound! I’m very happy with the sound project now, it’s made a big difference. No, I’m using the Accurascale sound project, Hope that Helps guys. Note my comment earlier guys; by doing this change it has invalidated the Accurascale warranty. 🙁 let’s hope Accurascale upgrade the sound project to be louder on the next batch of Manors. Plus of course any future steam loco must be LOUDER 😎

That’s going to be a nice addition Rich. I assume there would be two fellas inside, peering through the windows? I can’t have been nice inside there.

The video doesn’t really do the sound justice. From sounding like a whisper (so much so, that the radio often drowns it out!), it’s now very loud. Someone commented on Facebook that I should have used a thin speaker from Road and Rails, but I think the depth of the enclosure is also making a difference. As you know, I always work on the basis of squeezing the biggest possible speaker into the space. I was very surprised at how small the Accurascale speaker was. Next week, I will look to see if we can buy metal glaze here and give it a go.

It’s been a long time to get to this stage - I can’t believe the original sound is so low - far lower than the videos show. But now it’s a decent sound to rival my Youchoos fitted sound Castle class locos. I don’t mind low sound, as long as I can turn it up, but the original Manor project is at max….. so it’s obviously a speaker issue. Accurascale should have spec a bigger / beefier speaker. Leaving that aside, it’s a lovely loco and runs very well. Im looking forward to their 57xx.

More Manor work this afternoon 😎 In which I take a drill; scalpel blade; cutting disk and soldering iron to my Manor class 4-6-0 loco no 7801 Anthony Manor. Anyone who is squeamish, or from the Accurascale development team, should probably look away 🤣 I started off with the loco on the bench and it was programmed as 7801 through Decoder Pro: Next up was major surgery on the tender: Space was cut into the tender base in order that the new speaker could sit above the DCC decoder. I have also drilled some holes into the false coal load - plus I have drilled out the base of the water filler cap. The new speaker will be a Youchoos 2watt 4ohm double ice cube speaker. But in order to fit it, I needed to remove the smokebox speaker - it was a simple case of snipping the cables. Then I had to take out the small speaker under the mainboard. By comparison the old speaker was tiny - no wonder you couldn't hear the sound. With the speaker removed, it was a simple case of soldering the speaker connections onto the strips under the PCB: This is how it looks under the coal load: The crew have been added (These are Modelu ones) and as I left the railway room, real coal had been added and glued to the tender coal load. The video below shows one scene before the changes and then several after. This loco is now as loud as my Castle class locos: Apologies for the shaky iPhone images! The difference doesn't quite come across, but its huge - it was definitely worth doing. It was ridiculous that the sound project was so low. Overall, it has been a very productive afternoon.

Wow! - presumably thats the CAD, what are the test prints like? Excellent work.

Then to finish off the Manor set of photos, it is seen here on the turntable at Henley-on-Thames. This one seems to be running ok - it defiantly is a different loco to the original one. I am hoping to get a complete day in the railway room tomorrow and should have the loco running round all day. Assuming everything is ok, I will add the crew and coal. Then change the speaker for a better one. Hopefully that will make it louder.

Apparently, I missed National Banana day this week! For my own celebration of all things Banana, how about a GWR / AEC railcar - built in 1936 by Gloucester RCW. Or how about a GWR 4-6-0 Castle class loco. This is no 5076 Dryslwyn Castle seen outside the signal box at Henley-on-Thames. This loco was built in 1938 and later named Gladiator in 1941, it was the second loco to be called Dryslwyn - the first one was built in 1936 and was 5051 - but was the renamed just over a year later to Earl Bathurst. The latter loco is now preserved at the GWS Didcot. I have recently been reading the "Castle class 4-6-0 locos 1923-1959" book by David Maidment & Bob Meanley, Im almost finished and have thoroughly enjoyed it.

Apologies, its been a while 😎 things have become a bit busy of late. How about a Manor to keep you going?

Yes! Thank you -Thurs / Fri.