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Thanks Fran! Not so though... one of these would do nicely. (Image courtesy of Hugh Searle on Flickr): Guy

That's shocking news Fran! At the end of the day, your models speak for themselves! I'm very happy with my Yeoman PTAs and reasonably happy with the ARC ones ( ). The one thing I would say is that even with the very nice hi-res pictures that you supply through forums like this of pre-production models, it's inevitable that some issues still don't get picked up until after delivery. How you act after-sales is just as important for your long term reputation as your excellent pre-sales transparency and engagement. Looking forward to the 37! Cheers, Guy

Hi Fran and MCC, Just wondering, has the hood been tweaked and does the mould line now look better on the production version? Do you have any pictures of this to show us? Cheers, Guy

A few of us were privileged enough to view the 3D prints last week. What can I say.... they look stunning! The attention to detail is remarkable with all variants and sub-variants covered. The bogie and under frame detail is superb and it's great to see all of the cab variants properly modelled. Looking forward to doing a signature loco for my layout: 56001 Whatley (as well as many others). Guy

Depends on the lighting conditions… there are several exec light greys in play in my photo below of my 150/1 and /2 3 car set (Bachmann and Railmatch) and they all look more or less the same to me. I’d say the latest 150/2 pics look similar. Would be good to see original 150/1 and the new 150/2 in same photo side by side. I expect they are the same.

Or just do some modelling (if we are sharing 'here's what I did' photos Charlie!).

Fairly certain RMC didn’t have any PGAs. Redland or Tilbury. Guy

ARC stone trains at Kensington Olympia… my favourite trains at one of my favourite locations! In all the thousands of pictures of Whatley and/or trains to there, I’m not sure I’ve found any evidence of the Redland hoppers working into there during the late 80s. Tarmac yes, but not Redland. This might suggest Tytherington as a more probable origin than Whatley? Edit: That said, I think Huw Millington’s Flickr collection contains pictures of Redland and Tilbury branded PGAs clearly mixed with ARC PGAs in 1986 so perhaps they were used for a short period this year? eg https://www.flickr.com/photos/hmillington/2034865891/in/photolist-ktmXSc-PZfNRs-drGoh3-zGFnV9-2mmoTR8-mhwo5u-eTxqyf-2d1d3jF-JrN9ur-46TjzA-46Tiqq-46TBkh-46TjkW-46PdJF-46PeHR-46Tinf-23YZkvW-46Tss9-46TsML-46PnQB-46TsDS-46Pnvr-FWbHBY-46Tt1b-zZh3xc-A1d5yK-rywSjk-XZnAVb-46TMTG-46TMZ5-46TMp3-2m4ftUa-ig4UNN-46PGbK-2kH2QCT-SK5EK1-29FYBAW-479RTQ-75ztv8-Wu73dm-HTQNPn-YM6dpJ-pFM4Qe-75zuW8-RrfYkS-W2NbYM-23HfKSE-mxXova-HTQQW8-TQ2CZt Guy

Feels painful now but you have to deconstruct to progress sometimes! Looking forward to seeing your progress Mick. Guy

Hi Gearjammer. Thanks for stopping by! You are right about how things have changed at the quarry over the years. I'm aiming to reproduce it in around 88-92... the end of the 56s and the introduction of the 59s. As you can see from the excellent photos that others have posted (especially Robin), there were big changes made just before this period so everything will look fairly new (not too overgrown). It's should still be easily recognisable though. Locos going beyond the bridge was not uncommon in this period. In the Rolling Stone video (https://www.video125.com/products/rolling-stone) there is footage of a 59 on the quarry side of the bridge (from memory). The 25 was used for a few months as a switcher in the early 90s when the Steelman "Pride of Whatley" was out of action and before 120 arrived. Apologies for not posting much recently but I have been flat out working on the extension (3 more scenic boards) which will take the layout all the way up to the tunnel entrance (a compressed depiction of the reception and departure roads). Most of the tedious woodwork has been done to cut space for the stream into the two scenic curved boards. I'm now just doing a little bit of ground work with polystyrene before a base covering of sculptamold. I have lots of photos of the location but I'm always in need of the occasional angle that I don't have. For example, I'm working on the culvert just next to the wagon depot at the moment (as you can see in the picture below). I realise now that I don't have a clear photo of the pipe or tunnel as it comes out of the ground although EWSJo tells me he thinks it is a box-like concrete structure. A good photo of the little transformer/substation on the other side of the tracks from the culvert entrance would be useful too. Here are a few pics of current progress. Guy

Hi Steve, I’m working on it almost every night now. The curved boards have all now been modified (some quite extensive woodwork required) and track is down on everything except two curved boards. I’ll try to post some updates at the weekend. You need to share progress pics of your ARC JHAs too! Guy

Nice!

+1 here for wet and dry. Not sure what that previous comment was about it not scaling. Just pick the right grade to represent the particle size for your scale and off you go. Guy

I think I can see why i have the impression of being too deep. Looking at photos (thank you Paul Bartlett!) show the hood only partly overlaps the top rail of the wagon. E.g. https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brsparevenueconvert?fbclid=IwAR2XYeMFXM0vlZXpU_06Ry_NPPwUvMuQMPDaXy_JQpAaS-xetyheQUO-92Y The EFE (FTG?) one seems to cover the top rail completely. Guy

Some nice announcements there. Finally after more than 10 years a 150/2 in Sprinter livery! Sods law that this should come out not long after I gave up and did my own repaint to run as a centre car in 150144. It's nice to see that Bachmann have included the window in the gangway too. That must have needed a new tooling or slide as this is a variation not done before. I note that the NRN pods are still on the roof though. Not really correct for pre 1990. I still have to remove mine from the model. I wasn't too bothered about the gangway window when running as a 3 car set but it needs correcting too. On the hooded SEAs, something looks really wrong with them. Are they too high as well? Here are Phil Eames's ones from Calcutta sidings for comparison. Guy

If you are buying a 14 car set that’s around £800 of train. Why worry about a few decoder chips? At £20 each for a basic one that’s £80. Not bad compared to the price of the set (10%). It’s not like you need to stick 4x Loksound v5s in it? Even if you want sound, you’d probably only have one chip in one of the NDMs and either through wire another speaker or live with the fact that the sound is emitted from approximately the right place on the train. So what does it matter whether the second NDM is powered or not? Guy

Not very from placing the rake on the fiddle yard curves. Although I am looking forward to seeing it sweep through the reverse curves on Whatley! Errr.... my train set, my rules (or something like that). Obviously not at an exhibition (I hasten to add). Guy

It is backing on to the train, yes. Is this the correct light pattern for that move... I've no idea. How many modellers would replicate this light pattern when doing such a move, probably none. Guy

Ok, this is a preserved line but illustrates my point well: headlight and taillights all on at the same time. Guy

I did a quick test of my trailers on DCC earlier this afternoon. I'd say the lights last about a half a second after removing from the track. Hard to tell as the LEDs fade out gradually so hard to tell the difference between on and off once they get dim. Should be enough to smooth out any momentary interruption from dirty pickups though. FWIW, the capacitors charge in a few seconds so no need to leave them on the track for ages to test. There are calculators out there on the web that tell you how long a cap takes to charge to supply voltage based on various factors. Guy

This chap claims his small set of LEDs stay on for 5 seconds with a 1000 uF capacitor:

Is that a voltage regulator on the board? Looks like it. If so, given the capacitance I wonder whether the cap is actually more there to smooth the dcc signal after rectification before feeding it to the regulator. So nothing really to do with ‘stay alive’ at all! Guy

If you watch the video closely of the 14 car set that was released earlier in the year, you can hear that both NDMs are powered (based on the noise of two motors going past). Of course, I think these EPs were unpainted in the video so no telling whether this will be continued in the sets. As others have pointed out, it might be simpler to produce a single vehicle than both powered and unpowered. I'm thinking particularly about the Rapido APT-E or the Realtrack 156 where vehicles were both powered as it was actually cheaper than producing powered and non powered versions. Guy

Better put that spare NDM on eBay now then @Roy Langridge? Guy

I think Ben’s point is slightly different, I don’t think he was saying it was ‘bad media’ (although I take your point about hs2). I read it to mean that blaming the failure on the media alone is what is lazy. The trains failure might have involved the media but they weren’t the only cause (eg political situation etc). Guy