Waverley West

18 years of waiting for Hornby to release an original Railfreight liveried version and a white-striped 31/4 are over at last. No more Hornby 31s for me now. What a difference in attitude there is between Hornby and Accurascale in covering liveries and making the most of tooling. 

I'm tempted by a white stripe 31/4, but will also look forward to a headcode-fitted original Railfreight version and a standard headcode-fitted blue 31/1 in the future. Not to mention a coal sector one and maybe a petroleum one (or two) as well.

They're not really must-haves for Scottish-based layouts, but these look like they're going to be too much to resist. I have seen a photo of a 31 parked at Haymarket though and they were sometimes used on Edinburgh - Newcastle services too.

Nice one Accurascale. As other have said, so much for cutting down on my modelling budget.

Looking good, Mark. I think a few of these might well be winging their way towards Waverley West. Just need to decide exactly which ones.

Looking forward to seeing them (and you!) in Glasgow on Saturday (tickets booked and ready to go).

Cheers

Dave

PS I still think there's a gap in OO for these...

I recently bought some of these...

http://www.precisionlabels.com/k18.html

They did the job perfectly as replacements for a couple of horns that had broken off on my Bachmann 37s.

8 minutes ago, meanach said:

Very useful thanks. The ESu packs I have are the 50709 type which are more yellow. They don’t seem that common in the U.K. ?

No, I find I have to hunt around sometimes.  The same goes for the 50708 lighting strips I use too.

Coastal DCC have some 50710's in stock at the moment...

https://www.coastaldcc.co.uk/search.php?search=50710

Here are a couple of photos showing the pickup arrangement I use. One pickup on each side per bogie, but it's plenty in my experience. The wires are fed through the chassis through a hole drilled immediately adjacent to the bogie pivot. I normally glue the wires to the bottom of the bogie, to stop them rotating with the axle.

The dog hair on the second wheel is optional (but inevitable if you have a Labrador    ).

1 hour ago, meanach said:

As Columbo would say.. just one more thing, is that the ESU power pack mini , a stay alive I use with sound decoders that you are using ? It’s just they are quite beefy !

No, sorry, these are the ones I mean, ESU 50710...

https://railsofsheffield.com/products/esu-loksound-50710-led-powerpack-double-pack?variant=35450577125448&currency=GBP&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=google+shopping&gclid=Cj0KCQiAoY-PBhCNARIsABcz770KURKDp4nPwq6qWz9QWB83n6-y9T47nTNYXs_uanXBHoO4Ps70j_kaAmT7EALw_wcB

Nice and compact. They fit perfectly in a toilet compartment. You get two in a pack. As well as eliminating flicker, they also reduce the need to clean the coaches' wheels. In fact, I have so far had to clean very few wheels once these are fitted.

14 hours ago, meanach said:

Hi Dave . I tried the ESu strips a while ago . What have you used for pick ups as I had little joy trying to fit early Bachmann mk2 /1 s . I had drag and flicker !  Cheers , Ian 

Hi Ian,

I use replacement wheelsets from Peters Spares (such as https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/312097566608?hash=item48aa76ef90:g:fbQAAOSwYKNau6Qs). These are insulated with the axle being electrically connected to one wheel only, so I alternate the live wheels along the rake (meaning there is only one wheel live on each side per bogie, if you see what I mean). 

I also use DCC Concepts low-friction pick-ups (such as https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/323063295527?hash=item4b3812ae27:g:zxwAAOSwWUlan5PA)

Even with these pickups though, I find there can still be quite a lot of friction over a full rake, so I tend to trim them (cut the coil in half). This still provides plenty of pickup in my experience.

Finally, I use ESU power packs soldered to the ESU strip, which eliminates all flicker in my experience. 

The result, in my experience, is low-friction, completely flicker-free lights, even over complicated pointwork!

Hope that helps!

Dave

Just now, TomScrut said:

 

I have just had a look at mine, I think it is the shape of the dome above the windscreen that is forced into a flat shape across the windscreen that means that printing the line straight will be extremely difficult. If you look at one in the light, the shape just seems a bit strange over there.

I do remember how hard it was to get the various front end stripes even reasonably straight on my version when I resprayed a Swallow-liveried one into the original version of the IC livery.

4 minutes ago, GordonC said:

 

Is it the top edge of the windscreen thats drooping or just the way the orange stripe line has been painted? On the prototype it looks like the orange stripe should basically meet the top of the windscreen rather than go up and over it. The actual windscreen glass looks like it has a straight edge

It looks to me like the orange stripe is all over the place. If that was a transfer I'd put on, I'd be doing a lot of nudging to straighten it up. As GordonC says, the top edge of the actual windscreen looks straight to me.

I think the moulding line is very prominent though and it would be nice to think Hornby would do something about it. Unlikely, I'd say, but I'd be very happy to be proved wrong.

I'm pretty happy with my current HST power cars though on the whole.  There is already space in both power cars for sound chips and decent sized speakers, and the couplings have never caused me any issues at all (unlike virtually all other Hornby loco couplings).

1 hour ago, JSpencer said:

 Ah, have you tried their Roco like couplings? These are must in my book when using long rakes and close coupling systems.  (not that we need them on an APT mind you).

I have, thanks, but I experienced the same problem. I find removing the coupling hook is often sufficient on the Hornby Class 31. On their 50, 56 and 60, I file down the v-shaped piece of plastic behind the buffer beam, making it easier for the coupling to switch from one side to the other. This normally solves the problem, although it does result in a bit of a gap to the first wagon/coach. This can sometimes be reduced by using a shorter coupling though.

Just now, SamThomas said:

Could the problem be with tension lock type couplings ?

Being used to close coupling mechanisms for decades I've found that the european "hook & loop" couplings do not work that well with them & best results are with couplings that when couipled do not have much if any side play - such as the Hornby "Rocoalike" (which is slightly longer than the Roco one) & Fleischmann Profi.

I've also found occasional issus when mixing close & standard coupling mounting even with identical heads.

I don't think so. It's to do with the centring mechanism, which uses a small spring. The spring is completely overwhelmed by anything resembling a heavy load. With anything more than just a few coaches, the spring just isn't powerful enough to return the coupling to the centre, with the result that when the train passes through a reverse curve, the coupling remains on the "wrong" side of the v-shaped plastic which is supposed to create the close coupling on the straight. The result is that the coupling drags the leading bogie/wheelset off the track to one side.

I much prefer bogie-mounted couplings, which work pretty flawlessly in my experience, as used on all my Bachmann stock, for example. Some CCMs work OK (again, Bachmann's version fitted to their Mk 2fs, for example), but many don't (the version Heljan uses on its bogie wagons is another example of a CCM mechanism which usually needs major modification/replacement in my experience).

But, I digress, back to the APT, which I'm very much looking forward to.

12 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Don't believe everything you see on telly. I'd make an educated quess that most of the shots in that show were set up for the cameras. The real work takes far too long and is too boring for people watching the box.

You may be right, but I have too many Hornby diesel locos which have needed extensive modification to their couplings to stop them dragging rolling stock off the track through reverse curves to believe that their on-track testing methods are exhaustive.

1 minute ago, Mike Harvey said:

 

I bet the programme makers were worried that two days of comprehensive testing would not make for interesting TV, so just included a snippet from the test process.

I hope you're right, but I'm not convinced.

56 minutes ago, SamThomas said:

With all the space Hornby have/had at their disposal you would think that they would have a decent length test track with some gradiants.

I was watching an edition of Hornby A Model World last night, the one about the development of Churchill's funeral carriage. It was very disappointing to see how little on-track testing the coach seemed to go through before being accepted.

Apart from using what looked like just an 8' x 4' roundy roundy set-track layout with the only reverse curves being through the points, the testing simply seemed to involve dragging the coach as the last vehicle in a rake of 2/3 coaches around the layout, with no trailing load whatsoever.

A quick google reveals that the funeral train consisted of a six-coach rake with the funeral carriage as the second coach. The least Hornby could have done would surely have been to test it in that formation? Despite his pleasing enthusiasm for his job, the person in charge of the testing seemed to be a product designer/developer, rather than an enthusiast and had no thought whatsoever for the possible drag effects of trailing coaches.

If this is the sum total of Hornby's on-track testing, it does at least give an indication of how they can pass the close-coupling mechanisms on their diesel locos, which has long been a bane of mine. I can imagine their CCM mechanism working with a short rake of a few wagons behind the loco, but not with any significant number of wagons (in my experience and that of many others at least).

On a more positive note, it was good to see the effort being put into getting the light grey colour on the APT right. When Hornby first released its horribly orange/yellow version of this colour, SK defended it by citing RAL values. That approach seems to have been abandoned in favour of visual cross-checking against the real thing. I'd say the light grey on the latest APT is not far off the mark, especially given that it is a difficult colour to reproduce and that it looks different in different lighting. 

Having sold off my 1980s set, I'm looking forward to getting my 7-car rake to go with the 2 coaches already received. I will have to do something about those capacitors, but it's a bonus that pickups are already fitted,  which will speed up the process of fitting replacement lighting.

Belated Happy New Year to you, Alain!

More great videos, especially the one with 37012 on vans and timber. I have one of those on my workbench ready to do. 

Best wishes for 2022

Dave

2 hours ago, hexagon789 said:

Happy New Year!

 

Waverley looks rather busy for New Year's Day there

That was the pre-Christmas rush...

47644 had failed on departure with an Inverness service (dirty wheels), and 37417, recently released from the WW works, was deputising.

On the left is an HST set about to depart for King’s Cross. In the centre next to 37417 is a Glasgow-bound push-pull set, while on the far right is 47745 with a X-country service bound for Bristol via Carstairs.

18 minutes ago, Traintresta said:

Some tight clearances through those tunnels!

The tunnel outlines were actually traced from a photograph of the real thing, so they're pretty accurate.

The real tunnels also have "limited clearance" signs too of course, as they're tight tunnels.

On 02/11/2021 at 17:56, Deborail said:

My Dapol Class 121 recently won’t run. It will make a whining sound and run very slowly or stop. The motor is obviously running but somehow the energy is not being transferred to the wheels. 

Could it be that the black plastic ends of the carden shaft(s) are slipping on the shaft? I had this problem, mainly because it regularly runs coupled to a Bachmann DMU which has different speed characteristics (must fix that!).

Replacement shafts are available from Dapol if this is the problem. I couldn't work out how to secure the old ones again once they started slipping.

21 hours ago, SHMD said:

Please tell how that the deformed paneling was achieved.

 

 

A phenomenal shot sir.

(Not banger blue but still very very nice.)

 

 

Kev.

Just a curious trick of the light, I'm afraid. It would be good to see that sort of thing modelled on loco bodysides in particular though. The amount of rippling visible on some classes is quite striking sometimes.