Free At Last

The only criticism I have with mine and I have read of others with the same problem is that it doesn't re-align with through track when rotated 180°. For that reason I only have entry and exit roads on one side.

I started making this Airfix footbridge in the '70s using two kits but stopped before completion as I was not happy with how high it was when platform mounted. I recently found it in the loft and thought I 'd give it another go and try lowering it. I cut the upper staircases in half and extended the walkways to suit my platforms.

Is TooT OO on TT track?

They have a problem with Mazak rot. Google Hornby mazak rot My little used Royal Scot suffered this but not as bad and I managed to repair it by filing away some of the mazak around the tapered mouting post and the idler gear so that the worm would mesh again. It was out of service again recently due to the gear wheels splitting. Hornby's factories made these models with excreta.

Sounds like the type fitted to a urinal cistern that only starts to fill when someone washes their hands and when filled after so many hand washes it automatically flushes.

I remember the first Stones concert I went to was at the Liverpool Empire in 1966, It cost £1.00. On the same bill were Ike and Tina Turner (P.P. Arnold was in the Ikettes), The Yardbirds and Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers (who?), Long John Baldry was MC.

Was it on here where someone pointed out errors in a loco on release after the manufacturer had been showing cads and samples and when asked why they never mentioned it earlier they said they were not getting paid to design it for them.

I have just converted a Bachmann Branchline Jubilee 'Galatea' to run on dcc, bought new on release, tested and been in the cupboard since. I tested it on dc and it ran ok and no problem with wheel centres. The only problem was with the tender wheels which had too much sideplay and were easy to fall out. I cured that with a tiny piece of 0.5mm plastikard pushed to the back of each axle hole. Hardly any slack now and runs round my curves ok. I drilled an 0.8mm hole in each of the chassis halves for a piece of brass rod to solder pickup wires to and wired the motor and pickups through to the tender where I also installed pickups and an 8 pin dcc socket. The decoder was from one of my other locos that has recently had Youchoos sound installed. Thanks go to Hornby and Bachmann whose prices have convinced me to spend my money elsewhere.

Have a look on eBay too.

Production samples have arrived. https://www.Dapol.co.uk/78XX-Manor-Production-Samples-Have-Arrived

Yesterday I fitted sound to a Bachmann Webb Coal Tank, easy as it has a Next18 socket and a ready wired space in the bunker for a speaker. The recommended speaker is an 8mm sugarcube but on fitting I found it too tall and the pcb board with the solderless speaker connections on would not sit on properly and one pad was not making a connection. A 1mm plastikard shim was made and this did the trick. On putting the body back on I noticed I should have cut out the plastikard around the half round bit on the pcb as it fouled the body fixing lug but only took seconds with a scalpel.

This afternoon I set about fitting sound to two Hornby Duchess locos, Sutherland and Abercorn. Easy install as the 8 pin socket is in the tender and as there is no bunker for the coal on these two tenders, plenty of room inside for a dual speaker. I did one and connected it to a loco and went to set it up on Decoder Pro. The first thing I do is read and save all sheets but instead of the wheels 'ak aking' it was like programming a Sinclair ZX81 with a cassette tape, strange I thought but this is new to me so I let it run it's course. It read all sheets and I gave it a new number and a few tweeks then went to run it on Decoder Pro and it made a noise like trying to run a dc loco on dcc. I stopped it and tried again and got the same result. Thinking the decoder may be duff I removed it and re-fitted the previous working TCS decoder and that was the same. It turned out I had fitted the tender to the wrong Duchess and the 4 pin loco to tender plugs are wired different, one has pickups wired to the centre pins and motor to outside pins and the other completely the opposite. Who would have thought Hornby were that sh*te. Luckily after trying the sound decoder again with the other loco it was still working, huge sigh of relief as they cost £110. Lesson learned but I will have to check my other locos with these connections to determine which is the standard. Knowing Hornby there won't be one. I've always programmed my locos on a program track after installing a decoder and now use Decoder Pro and I have never had one wired wrong yet, but I thought there would have been some notification of a short if there was one.

Can you post the link?

My modelling spend last year was just £17.00. on a decoder for the Bachmann 1P, being the last loco I purchased in 2020. There has been nothing available since at a price I will pay. Having money burning a hole in my pocket I have recently decided to spend it installing sound in my locos. Thank you Bachmann and Hornby for influencing my decision. A Kernow Steam Railmotor & Accuascale Manor are the only things I have left on pre-order.

Since I decided I was not going to purchase any more locos/stock that do not represent value for money to me I now have funds for other things. I thought I would dip my toes into dcc sound and started with a YouChoos decoder for the Bachmann 1P, an easy one as the speaker is already fitted. Being impressed with it I decided to have a go at installing sound to a Hornby Stanier Tender as I have a lot of locos with this style tender. I bought a YouChoos decoder each for a Princess Royal and Princess Coronation with Dual Icecube 28x18x10 speakers. Had to do a little bit of work to the tender weight to accommodate the speaker as I wanted to leave it in. The first one took a bit of playing with to find the best place to pack the kit without removing any plastic. Once I had settled on a method the second one was a doddle. I unfixed the 8 pin socket and cut off the mounting posts and made a plate to refit the socket with plasticard. A bit of paint and it looks a goodun. Speaker fitted and the small stay-alive capacitor that came pre-fitted has a ready made home. Carefully coiled the harness and held with a bit of tape ready for the body to be refitted. And here is Princess Elizabeth having her first run. Looking forward to forward to doing the rest of my stock. Special thanks go to Bachmann and Hornby for influencing my decision to spend my money elsewhere.

People who start their conversation with 'yeah no' when they haven't been asked anything.

Sam takes a look at the L&MR Flatbed Wagon...

The model is not available yet so he won't have been able to strip it down. It was more likely a comment based on an observation.

These look the same only cheaper, the difference may be in the postage. https://www.railwayscenics.com/wired-pin-male-and-female-micro-jst-plugs-and-sockets-white-p-1974.html

In the drop down box under your username go to Account Settings

Grown men in town wearing footballers outfits.

Hearing someone say 'no no no no no no no' instead of just no.

I fear the Borg are among us.

Found two on my shelf...

I find the gaugemaster cdu is ok for operating more than one seep pm1. Here it is firing 3 and recharges quicker than I can operate the switch. It is powered from a 24vac transformer.