Suzie

I recall that from the London end there was the class 86 then two first class turquoise aircon Mk2s, an Intercity executive Mk1 catering vehicle, six second class turquoise aircon Mk2s and the DBSO. The Mk1 catering vehicles were never repainted in to turquoise and some survived into the Mk3 sets. This is the typical formation, and all apart from the DBSO has been made by Hornby to create this livery combination. Some of the first class coaches were rebuilt with a catering area (RFM?), and presumably an extra second class coach (might have been a first) was added to replace the redundant buffet coach. These were the only all turquoise trains. The locos were often substituted with non Anglia liveried ones (usually Virgin), and another class 86 (pantagraph down) would sometimes replace the DBSO giving a top and tail formation. Later on the 86s were more often substituted with 90s in a much wider livery variation. There is a really good site somewhere that I cannot find currently that lists the composition of all the Anglia sets (numbered AR1 - AR13 at the time) which is well worth finding, and there was an article in Model Rail that may be of interest if you can find it.

A nice comfortable Mk1 compartment in an unrefurbished 309 EMU would be a nice nostalgia trip, with all the quirky Mk1 fittings. Something a bit more realistic though would be a ride in a Mk2 DBSO, always a nice and uncrowded ride because most people did not realise there was passenger accommodation in there!

It might be that your command station is outputing a DCC waveform that is not compatible with the decoder, they do not work with Bachmann's own E-Z Command system!

This makes a difference because you are not getting a good DCC signal to the decoder, and the Bachmann 36-553 does require a very good signal, much better than the minimum specified by the NMRA. The proper cure (short of getting a good decoder!) will be to do a bit of work on cleaning the wheels and pickups (and possibly the track too). You should notice an improvement in responsiveness to the controller when this is done. The CV29 fix works because you are preventing the decoder from switching to DC mode when it has given up trying to decode the data packets, so it tries again at decoding rather than trying to guess the DC voltage on the track, and if you are lucky it will actually decode one before the stop timeout (which is much longer than the DC timeout for reasons of practicality).

There are various different function decoders available. If you are using one per coach you might like to consider the ones with more functions if you want to be able to control the lights in individual compartments. Zimo do the MX685 8-function decoder for example.

This is already modelled at most shows. Forget live steam and live Diesel. How about live electric?

And we still do not know if you are using DC or DCC!

Albertzzz You have not said whether you are using DCC or not, but if you are using DCC there are ways to do what you want quite easily. If you do not have AC LEDs you will have to put inverse parallel diodes across them, but it is quite straightforward. Sorry about the colours but it is not easy to change them in a JPEG image!

There should be a few AC bits left over from the 313s on the south coast that were converted to DC only that could be used to make the 507 and 508 work on AC. I think that realistically if they are no good for Merseyside they are not going to be much good for anything else except perhaps rural branch line use, but last time I travelled on Merseyrail the ride was all I would expect of an inner suburban journey.

So the Altrincham line was converted to tram because of capacity issues in Piccadily, and the Piccadily - Victoria tram was required because there was no chord between Victoria and Piccadily. All issues that are likely to now be addressed by infrastructure improvements after the heavy rail routes have been lost. Joined up thinking! I am sure that Victoria should be able to cope with extra capacity. The apparent congestion currently is down to similar trains coming from both directions and reversing (or parking). There is no reason why many services could not run through currently if operations could be consolidated. Perhaps life would be simpler if Merseyrail could be encouraged to not stop at Kirkby but go all the way to Wigan (and Preston?) which would give transpennine trains from the east simple destinations of Manchester Airport, Liverpool, Southport and Blackpool. Four platform faces with 25 trains an hour at each one makes for 100 trains an hour, over 100 000 passengers an hour on well loaded peak trains (12-car EMU rather than single 153s!). It is capacity elsewhere in the infrastructure that will be limiting.

If you like the car then it will probably be worth doing at the recommended interval, but if you are paying that sort of money, especially if using pattern parts, make sure you get a guarantee. My experience of changing a timing belt and tensioner on one car ended in disaster when I was supplied with an old stock faulty tensioner by the main dealer, it failed (only causing the belt to jump a tooth fortunately) and they 'very kindly' supplied an identical tensioner under guarantee - but that failed as well with lots of bent valves and a cracked head the result. DIY still saved some money because the complete ready to bolt on replacement head from Ebay only cost £160 - compared to the £400 or so it would have cost to have the belt done at the dealer, but I really do prefer timing chains now!

The big problem with a lot of consumer goodies nowadays is that they are so buggy when you get them home you have to take them back for a refund! Most equipment will be obsolete before it wears out, some is actually obsolete before you buy it.

The ones with live pause have hard disks, you do not want to do live pause on a DVD.

I will concur with the Panasonic being a good investment. They are not perfect (the Japanese appear to not understand aspect ratio) but appear to be better than anything else on the market. They cost a bit more than other makes, but will last longer. You get good connectivity too with firewire and USB ports, and you can copy anything you have recorded to the hard disk on to a DVD for taking elsewhere to watch. The DVD drives last a lot longer if you only use them when absolutely necessary!

Last time I was at Barrow hill there was a 506 cab tucked away in a corner...

The only way the busway will be cleared in 5-10 minutes is if every bus is accompanied by a breakdown truck! It is going to take around an hour to get a breakdown vehicle to the bus, especially with all the surrounding roads congested with guided buses everywhere, and then it is not always going to be straightforward.

You do not need to know the current address to change CVs in in service mode, only operations mode (on the main). If changing the address it is always better to do it in service mode (on the programming track) rather than in operations mode as some decoders will not let you change the address on the main.

On the Multimaus just go into service mode programming and program CV1 to 3. Whatever the address was (long or short) it should now change to short address 3, and should reset any consisting as well.

It will be fun to see it modelled, the class 33 with bell and rotating beacon on the front, and the policeman going from door to door trying to find who has parked on the line again while the train stands blocking the roundabout.

Has anyone got a link to it?

There are very few trains nowadays that start off full at their first station and stay full all the way to the destination, and it appears to be policy that trains run all the way without a change whether it is sensible to do so or not, so there is no reason to suspect that this cannot be done with international services as well. An international service from the far north (Glasgow International?) should be able to pick up at (I am making up some names here) Manchester and Liverpool Parkway, Birmingham Parkway, Old Oak Interchange, Stratford International, Ebbsfleet, and Ashford International, and it really ought to be full by then for the core part of the journey. It should help with removing Ebbsfleet and Ashford stops on the core St Pancras - Paris services and thereby speed them up. I don't think that passengers from the north are going to quibble about a couple of stops in Kent if it means avoiding an hour and a half detour via St Pancras! St Pancras might be the interchange of choice for people from London and the south of London as well as ECML, but anyone from the west and Wales will rather be getting on at Old Oak Interchange rather than playing sardines on Crossrail and I am sure that a premium can and will be charged for the convenience. Even the WCML south of Rugby can have a couple of platforms close enough to Old Oak interchange to be about as near as Stratford Great Eastern is to Stratford international. Once the capital cost of buying a train has been borne, the cost of running it varies little by how long it is. A 400M international uses one slot the same as a 4-car EMU. Even if HS2 is all we get it should be enough to make north of London services fast enough and attractive enough to be commercially viable. It is the messing about in London that makes International rail travel unattractive for anyone not starting their journey from London.

Ah well, if a modern and presumably state of the art electrification system like the 50KV 60Hz Tumbler Ridge line with its 6000HP locos (just a tad more powerful than your traditional Co-Co diesel) gets scrapped after eighteen years because of a temporary downturn in traffic (line would appear to be busy again now, but with diesels in the unventilated tunnels!), there is probably no hope for the future of electrification. No business looks more than three months ahead any more, not even those which rely on long term investment for their future, especially those still in the hands of government.

The parallels of this with not just the great central, but a very particular part of it that went ten years later!Â

Very pretty. Not much need for the fuel tank on an electric! Thank you.

If I was a skilled graphics person I would try a skinhead version with twin diamond pantographs for Liverpool st. - Chelmsford DC operations. Class 79 perhaps?