Ravenser

In the lower depths of the brochure , where it's just grey bars and there are no T-numbers. LNER and BR Gresley Brake 3rd and Composite (as well as Collett Brake 3rd, Composite, and Mk1 BG and SK or TSO) So phase 3/4 These bits of the brochure didn't get much attention at the time, because the scepticism about the whole venture was so strong that Phase 3/4 were largely dismissed as vapourware

I would assume that the Gresley coaches announced are 61' corridor coaches. Non-corridor stock is normally a second priority with Hornby in OO, and in any case they haven't announced anything suitable to pull non-gangwayed stock

Its called S gauge!

Consol boxes will come on the same ships as any other containers, into Felixstowe, Southampton or London Gateway (in order of importance). I would expect import consol boxes to devan in the Ipswich/Felixstowe area, the Southampton/Eastleigh area , and probably in Basildon /Purfleet /Dartford for any Gateway shipments I'm aware Hornby cartons are marked "via Thamesport", but the shipper's marks and numbers on the cartons aren't definitive as to the routing taken by the container- least of all when the consignee controls the routing, which I'm reasonably confident will be the case here

If they've sent out a message like that , and said it's stolen in a subsequent clarification, it implies they have reasons to think its been stolen. You'd make the checks at both ends first before sending out a message externally We do not know this moved consol. The file and the paperwork will show you in 2 seconds , but for what it's worth the reported wording "missing from a container" tends to imply a full load to me What we can say is : - It's out-turned short - Nobody can find the missing stuff - Hornby seem to think the missing items may be in circulation in the UK , so keep your eyes peeled Beyond that we're guessing , without sight of the paperwork

That said, given that Hornby have circulated a message here, that seems to imply they think the missing goods may be here, not in China. We can't be certain of what's going on without seeing the file and the paperwork - and obviously we never will. But reference to a container sounds like an FCL move (even if it's LCL/FCL "buyers consolidation" as you suggest). Clearly it's out-turned short when compared to the bill of lading/commercial invoice. If the box has turned up at the warehouse this end with the bolt-seals missing , you might suspect that something has happened in the UK. I would have hoped the haulier's driver might have checked the bolt-seals are intact when picking up the box at the terminal, but I'm not betting my life on it. if it's LCL /LCL through a grouper then there are questions about whether the missing goods have been left behind in either the origin CFS or the grouper's devanning warehouse here, or nicked off a curtainsider during final delivery or whatever

It seems that Hornby have put back the official due date for all "pending" projects to Winter 2024/5, originally reported in the Black 5 thread Black 5 thread - Hornby delays It seems that doesn't mean everything is going back that far- it seems to mean that something(s) are going to slip that far, and Hornby are still sorting out what is where and the overall batting order for these projects We know for example that the TT Class 66 and two TT 0-6-0s have recently gone out for tooling, and the OO Black 5 sounds like it's a little behind that. They might be with us in 12 months time Where the Flirt is in that process , we don't really know . If we have seen a prototype model displayed, then it ought to be not too far behind those - maybe ready to go out for tooling soon???

Yes, DCC chipped locos can run on DC , provided the relevant CV for this is enabled. However you may need access to a DCC system to program this , as it might not be enabled by default I think the Pecketts require a small decoder with a 6 pin interface - ie an N gauge one. A quick look on Google suggests a Gaugemaster DCC93 would suit , but those cost around £25 each

I think I would reinstate the loco spur at the top of the throat , and use 2 pilots one at the top and one at the bottom Access to the top platforms from the current spurs would be a real pig

Not quite true - Classes 31, 37, 47, 50 are also on Hornby's list (as is the Azuma) and ALD have announced a cottage production 25. But none of those help with modelling the ECML post 91 , bar the Azuma

The spaces you describe are pretty tight for OO in any form , and big modern stuff is going to look very ungainly going round them. Most modern OO requires an absolute minimum 18" radius, and 24" radius in OO is normally regarded as the minimum for credibility on main running lines. In the context of attempting a double track continuous circuit in OO on a 4' wide board you are immediately in trouble More serious is the fact that Mk4 coaches are 12" long in 4mm, and a class 91 or a DVT is about 10-11" long. There is no way you can get an ECML formation of 91 + 9 x Mk4 x DVT , or anything close , in that space. In OO it would be tight for a little country branch line worked by tank engines and 2 coaches I also think 4' width is way too wide to be reaching across to get at the back of the board. Alarm bells would start ringing in my head about accessiblity at the back once the baseboard width starts to go beyond 2'6" I don't think you can do the theme you want in 4mm in the space you have . Therefore you have to go into a smaller scale , or do something very different in 4mm Your options in a smaller scale are therefore TT-120 or N. Now while I'm supportive of TT-120 as an intermediate size, Hornby have not expressed any intention to do any overhead electric stuff in TT:120. To be frank, anything 25kV is normally at the end of the list when RTR manufacturers are deciding what to make , in any scale. Once Hornby's list of announced models p;lays out, some representation of the pre-electrification ECML is possible - you will have HSTs and 47s in TT:120. Ideally you'd want Deltics too. Now there should be a route to a Deltic in TT:120. It would invlove getting Lincoln Locos to shrink their 3D printed Deltic in 3mm scale down to 1:120 scale - something Lenny Seeney has said he would be open to doing for anything he makes in 3mm. You would then need to disembowel a Hornby 37 (when it appears in TT:120) and reuse the bogies/gear tower and motor in a new longer frame , with longer drive shafts, to build a home brew Deltic chassis (EE bogies for 37 and 55 were basically the same) . That is a possible route to a Deltic in TT:120, but I really don't think it's a project for someone new to the hobby. But at that point you would have HST, 55, 47 in TT , with Mk3 and Mk2E/F coaches. Something could be done. However the post electrification era ECML looks very difficult in TT:120. Lincoln Locos do an astonishingly large number of loco types , but they don't do a 91. You'd still have to construct a chassis /mechanism for it, with fewer resources as Hornby's diesel announcements in TT:120 are almost all Co-Co. And you'd need them in squadron service. One is not enough If you want to model the electrified ECML in that space , N may be your only option One further issue - the ECML notoriously was electrified on the cheap using overhead suspended from wire headspans . Catenery is always an issue (one reason why 25kV is a modelling poor relation) but I really wouldn't want to be scratchbuilding wire headspans at either 1:120 or 1:148 scale It may be all you can do about the overhead is erect the masts on each side and leave the wires to the imagination

All you can do is open your blog in s second window, find the original post, and note the date , then manually set publish date on the revised edited entry before hiotting thev button to Publish. As I said, a bit laborious

As far as I can see , Publish Immediately is the default, and you have to laboriously check the original post date and manually restore it to avoid the issue I am having to go back and restore photos - as others are doing - but that's not something you can do for a whole blog in one hit. Hence the issue crops up

That seems exactly the same kind of failure as I've had on two Peco Code 55 N gauge points . I'm not terribly happy either , and am now checking with my nearest model shop that he has a replacement It seems there is a problem with tiebar attachment with current Peco production of Code55 in multiple gauges...

Given the references to vintage H & M Clippers and Duettes , can I raise one worrying issue? I understand that old controllers from the 50s and 60s commonly had rubber insulation to the mains wiring , and this is likely to perish over time. At which point it may not insulate ..... I remember some years ago reading a second or third hand horror story, where apparently someone was using vintage Hornby Dublo transfiormers from the 1950s . The insulation was rubber and had failed , specifically at the rubber grommit where the mains wires entered the metal case . As a result the case had become live at 240V AC , and when the modeller touched it, he was electrocuted and killed. Or so it was said... I have an H&M Clipper in the cupboard. It was acquired second-hand from a school friend, and I suspect it goes back to the 1960s. It has a cotton net cover on the insulated mains cable, and I daren't even plug it in and switch it on in case the insulation has broken down. How many of these vintage Clippers and Duettes being talked about are actually still safe to use?? (I replaced the Clipper with a Gaugemaster 100M nearly 30 years ago , and this unit is still in regular use when I need a DC controller for the Boxfile. It seems to do a pretty decent job. There's a 20 year old Gaugemaster Comi tucked away in the cupboard, and I'm dismayed to realise even my NCE PowerCab must be 15 years old)

As someone who's put a fair amount of work into two blogs on here over about 15 years , this thread is definitely making me feel welcome... Not only do most posters seem to feel that the effort has been a complete waste of my time, there is a distinct implication that the content resulting from that effort is an unwelcome waste of their time. Since the question has arisen, two or three technical measures might help the blogs section. Firstly the popup advert is obliterating the centre top of the Blogs page , meaning that the most recent entries are crushed up on either side of it, making them very poorly visible. The same issue afflicts the "front page" of individual blogs - the most recent entries suffer in the same way. It is not possible to close this popup to restore easy legibility Secondly, at present one individual is effectively spamming the blogs. The edit facility resets the date of the posting to "now" when posting the edited entry unless you take the trouble to record the original date and backdate the post to it's original . Someone who shall be nameless is using this as a trick to repeatedly bump his existing blog posts to the top of the page - there are about 8 of them - thus hogging the limelight and pushing other bloggers who are posting new content out of his way. I have some sympathy with the posters who are restoring photos to posts and end up "posting immediately". Restoring the original date is a bit of a pain, and they are attempting to repair their content. But the deliberate bumping is gaming the system Thirdly , although I laboriously added links to a sorted list of postings in the sidebar, it seems the facility to make these a hyperlink had vanished last time I looked and tried to add a new entry, and it seemed like the prior hyperlinks had been stripped out . This also seems to be a recent change, and it doesn't help things either

It has always been understood that building British big steam to an exact scale gauge would cause issues , with the clearances restricting models to scale curves. Therefore something somewhere would have to give... (And hence OO...) I think you may have found the compromise Hornby made to get these round trainset curves. Over-width cylinders are one dodge for providing the necessary clearances to do the valve gear in a dead-scale gauge and still get round R3 curves. If you want a scale gauge for 1:120 scale British outline , and if you want 12mm gauge done to 1:120 scale not 3mm/1foot , think you will have to swallow this I was wondering exactly what they had done to achieve the theoretically impossible

It is true that Ian Beattie's drawings are not always entirely accurate However it is extremely unlikely that Hornby have worked off Ian Beattie drawings They've made A4s before - rather more often than one or two people on here from other parts of the country are happy about - and the current 4mm version has been given high praise by some very knowledgeable Eastern modellers. Margate doubtless have their own extensive sources of info for these locos. They might even have scanned one So this is pretty well certain to be two independent sources agreeing , and if that happens we can say that agreement in error is very unlikely. Mike Trice has put the matter beyond doubt with a photo, but it was always very likely that if the model matched the drawing then this wasn't one of Ian Beattie's occasional errors

Here are enough photos of the real thing without the valances for you to judge the model: A4 photos

It's just occurred to me - I believe the LNER (ex GC) side of Manchester Piccadilly (Manchester London Rd then) was just 3 platforms . Now that was the end of the GC main line, and saw A3s from 1936 ...

I thought there was also some suggestion that there was a suppression issue with the old Ringfields?

It strikes me that 66 + 08 provides a very credible package for a lot of contemporary small freight operations Just going back to the 08 shunter list for a moment , and 08 375 . The Port of Boston evidently feel they have a use for a shunting loco. The Boston Docks branch is a single-track length of chewed string that trails off the network past the old goods shed, crosses the A16 and plunges into the back-blocks of the town. There are one or two trains a week I think , and I believe the traffic at present is steel. I'm not certain whether the line into Boston is currently ok for 66s : I recall there have been problems with the state of the track for locomotives north of Boston, but they are clearly OK to get freight trains into the port I'm seeing a small terminus /fiddle yard freight operation, with a scenic area 5' x 15" . Possibly 2 boards each 2'6" by 15" which box up as a crate. The fiddle yard is a 22-23" cassette hung off one end of the scenic section. That will take a 66 + 3 bogie wagons. The loco comes in , drops off the wagons, maybe picks up some outgoing wagons , and departs. The 08 fusses around shunting everything into place. Use a bit of modeller's licence to add a second traffic flow and you have a fair bit of potential With that footprint you can lay the whole thing out quite spaciously and use large vehicles and still have something that is little bigger than a ferociously compressed micro in 4mm. Scale up that footprint to 4mm and you are talking about something around 8' x 2' with a 1m train length. Not something that's easy to accomodate at home,. But this would be..

Platform 5 also list 08 511 at Eastleigh, 08 670 and 927 at Bescot Yard, and 08 730 and 08 934 at Whitemoor Yard . All for GB Railfreight , and all but 08 934 owned by Railway Support Services (latter is GB Railfreight's own) . Meanwhile GB Railfreight's own 08 818 and 08 925 are with HNRC at their Worksop depot/wagon works . Of all these locos only 08 670 at Bescot is marked as "Locomotives with engineering acceptance to operate on Network Rail infrastructure" It's worth prodding this one a bit further - what exactly are these locos doing, and can we get layouts out of this? It would seem my suggestion of a wagon works with 66s bringing in /taking away the wagons for repair, and an 08 or two to shunt the site is bang on the money for HNRC's Worksop operation I tend to take the view that the opportunities in OO largely involve things that haven't been done before, or things that haven't been done to 21st century standards, (plus replacing tooling that is actually wearing out.) The supply of those in OO is running low. LMS Period 1 and 2 coaches and Period 3 CK, and a few things like J94 and 14xx (where DJM made a horlicks of his effort to beat Hornby) are available; there are hints that some of the old Airfix/Mainline tooling may be starting to wear out. But almost everything else in volume-built locos and coaches post 1923 has been done. And Hornby are not ones for re-tooling things unless they really have to So I don't think it's really a question of TT:120 starving OO of investment, so much as Hornby feeling they are starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel in terms of tooling opportunities in OO , and looking for more promising opportunities elsewhere to spend their tooling budget on. A Class 66 in TT looks a lot better prospect than pretty well any loco subject you can come up with in OO. Why invest in a 3rd rival new-tool 37 in OO when you can do the first one in TT:120?? That doesn't mean Hornby will stop making OO. Dapol haven't developed much new tooling for N recently. But they've made vigourous use of the tooling they already have...

Why do I have nightmare visions of a strobe-lit Pullman Disco???

A quick look at the most recent Platform 5 volume I have (2021) shows approximately 175 Class 08s listed , plus 10 Class 09 There's quite a few shown as at the Weardale Railway and occasional preserved line listings, but an awful lot of them are shown as at obvious depot or industrial locations. Thus 08 375 , listed as owned by RMS Locotec and operated by Victoria Group , Port of Boston, Boston , is pretty obviously an industrial shunter in commercial use. It's not marked with the asterix showing "engineering acceptance to operate on Network Rail infrastructure" Your figures may be accurate for locos cleared to run on Network Rail - but there's an awful lot of 08s in commercial use that aren't 08 442 - ArrivaTrainCare, Eastleigh Depot . (Not NR cleared) 08 445 - Daventry International Rail Terminal (Not NR cleared) 08 447 - Assenta Rail, hamilton, Glasgow (Not NR cleared) 08 460 - GB Railfreight, Eastleigh East Yard (Not NR cleared) [Hornby are doing a GB Railfreight 08] and so on and so on Those aren't in preservation