Ravenser

I never could understand the point of moulding the chassis structure underneath . You can't see it and it frequently gets in the way - as here. It seems to have been a 70s idea that turned out not to be so good - Slaters and Airfix did the same with wagon kits , and with old Cambrian wagon kits there was a moulding to glue in place . I left it off the kit I built , after using it as an assembly jig.....

It looks quite exquisite and scores over the kit in 2 areas I can see - window grills are provided, and the brake pipe along the solebar is modelled

There's a photo+ picture on the Hornby website where it's described as an Ex SR Luggage Van in the heading and bogie passenger brake. But the end is very obviously ungangwayed and it's obviously a Van B ( at least its very obvious if you've slowly been building the Ratio kit) I assume the photos are the Ratio kit - the coupling looks suspiciously like it , unless this release is very close indeed This is certainly not the Triang van , though I can see how Hattons got confused

One thing we can reasonably expect from the manufacturers is that their models run and stay on the tracks. I'm quite willing to argue that we're better off with three RTR 3rd EMUs than two , so long as the model actually runs . In this case it seems quite a few examples don't , and replacing the mechanism to get something that doesn't derail is not acceptable. The Replica MLV chassis costs £65 - it's very nice , but you shouldn't need to spend that sort of money on aftermarket equipment to get a "Ready to Run" model to run When the motors burnt out on Bachmann A1s, or Heljan class 17s, we didn't argue that we were expecting too much from the manufacturers

You won't see much through the windows. I used Slaters seated passengers as they were cheap and tried to compensate with the paint brush for any old fashioned looks (You end up with a surplus of nuns though) - suitably coloured shapes is all you really need

As well as floating various tramway pipe-dreams I have actually made a bit of progress with Blacklade in the last 2 months. A sustained attack during part of my holiday last month has cleared a number of outstanding jobs . The remainder of the station screen wall has gone in , and although the back of the station building needs adding (I'm not actually basing the model on Kings Cross circa 1942, even though it looks remarkably like bomb damage!) , we are more or less there in terms of the station building Various other nagging jobs have been sorted out as well. I originally painted the baseboard fronts black, "as you do" but a friend urged me strongly to change the colour as he reckoned black was far too strong and dominant. As the frontage needed a second coat anyway, I decided to do something about it: unfortunately I couldn't find a small pot of a suitable gloss paint and had to shell out for a full sized tin - £10's worth , even sticking to the cheap B+Q range. The closest I could get to the recommended brown was something called "Cocoa Bean" , which is a purplish brown. It's much less prominent, and being much closer to the red-brown of the brickwork helps as well. I painted the plywood bracing straps on the legs while I was about it, which I'd had problems with running out of the back platform: somehow, despite my best efforts when laying the track , the back road had become misaligned at the board joint and although trains running out of the centre platform seemed to cope, things running out of platform 3 tended to come off. I know its a fudge, not recommended in the best finescale circles, but I unsoldered the rail ends and eased them across a bit so they aligned reasonably well, using a roller gauge to maintain the track gauge . There may be a very slight kink in the alignment as a result, but it's dramatically better than the status quo ante, and trains no longer derail. I also sorted out a minor programming error in one of the macros, resoldered a stray signal wire that had come loose , and Blacklade seems to be running well. A few other DCC jobs were also sorted out - the 150/1 is now fitted with a replacement TCS decoder so it can be easily consisted, the Bachmann 21 pin decoder I removed has been cascaded to the ROD which is now up and running (not that there's much call for it on Blacklade) A cheap Central 158 acquired from Hattons last year has also been chipped and runs very nicely A couple of shots of the station area as it now is: There are still a few things needing finishing off - I should probably fill in some more of the gap along the top of baseboard and touch it over , the Kadee electromagnets need sorting out (the red button is for the first of them, but for some reason , the magnet doesn't seem to be live - I've now got a further 2 heavy duty push to make button switches from Squires for the other electromagnets), and a couple of signals on the other board. Not to mention "make good and touch up" some holes in the ballast But for the moment I shall probably focus on the stock. The 3 long outstanding jobs - Van B kit, Pacer upgrade and Bratchill 150/2 - are all still outstanding. I seem to have backed myself into another parcels project, and have ordered a Replica chassis and DC Kits 128 Parcels unit body kit. Van B and Pacer are quite badly needed for operations, and the 128 is apossible workround , as 31 + 57' coach+ 50' coach hangs over the edge of the central platform and stricklythe Kadees on the Bachmann GUV are too high . And an awful lot of stuff needs weathering . Starting with the 150, the 108, and arguably the two 158s . The 156 and 155 are another matter - both need underframe surgery and sourcing castings is a problem . The 155 , being worse, and more frequently used, is probably the higher priority. I might even sort out the unused Provincial 155 sat somewhere

Thanks for the comments. I definitely need to do something about drive mechanisms - I now have 3 Felthams in the cupboard, plus an R1 , and I'm sure sourcing Halling bogies is the only way I'm ever going to motorise the R1 (DCC with 2 powered bogies in seperate underfloor pockets in a heavy whitemetal floor casting is going to be "interesting" - we're talking about 20mm w/b bogies and I don't think the wheel diameter is much above 6mm) . It would be interesting to know what's been used to motorise those Melbourne trams - though I think the diecast W2 that was around a couple of years ago was actually 4mm scale , which would give more room. That Melbourne layout is very nice, wall to wall green and cream as it should be - I was thinking of something of a similar size, but the difference would be it would be an underground tram station, viewed from the side as a boxed diorama , so the trams naturally disappear into the tunnel either side I didn't get long enough to see Grime St - I only found that room shortly before I had to go - but what I saw was very good. LCC 1 sounds very interesting.....

In a previous posting , I mentioned trams . I am trying quite hard to be a good boy and finish things off ,not take on new projects and commitments; but despite my best intentions there have been stirrings on the tramway front. It started when something caused me to look at the Street Level Models website. I spotted a card kit for Manor House tram station (LT), and that started something stirring. Wasn't Manor House the northern terminus of one of the Kingsway Subway routes ? It was - route 33 to be precise, which lasted until close to the end of London's trams. Could this make a modest diorama to display a tram or two? A quick check of the track map in the back of LCC Tramways Handbook ( no doubt long out of print) showed the track layout at Manor House as a crossroads of two double track routes, with a connection between two of the legs. But on which leg was the tram station? Did Subway cars terminate there? I mentioned in an earlier post about layout projects and commitments (here) that I had vague inchoate aspirations towards a tramway layout, potentially a London tram layout and that the Highgate Archway area seemed to have potential. The trouble with this was that it would also require a lot of space, or at least length, and if I threw in Holloway depot for good measure , probably with as well Manor House and the kit promised something smaller , but the crossing is a bit of a problem . Still the operating potential should be high . Initial thoughts crystalised into a figure of 8 , with the 4 arms of the double track crossing linked behind the scenes. At the northern end , this would just be a double track loop providing off stage storage, but at the other end, there would be a single track loop past a depot, , and two double track routes going off stage (using a cassette): A very crude sketch will show what I mean: - top is north(ish) Nearly all of this is prototypical , the liberties being the depot and connecting loop at the bottom , and joining the two arms of the crossing behind the scenes at the top . In reality, the right hand leg of the X continued via Stamford Hill, Hackney and Bethnal Green to Aldgate , while the top leg headed for Alexandra Palace, Enfield and Barnet Obviously this is all very loose and undimensioned, but then this is only a very general conceptual sketch of a might-be (one day) In the cupboard I had a Tower Feltham kit, and a Tower E1 kit , not to mention a KeilKraft West Ham car. Of course you can't credibly model London with a single E/1. I made the fatal mistake of looking at ebay for the first time in years , and within 10 days I had won two more Tower E/1 kits, a Tower kit for the centre entrance Feltham prototype "Cissie" and a nice diecast Corgi Feltham in LT livery. I think the whole lot came to about £30 Then there's the ABS LCC storesvan kit in the cupboard, not to mention the LCC B class kit, the etched LCC F class single decker Subway car, and the card M class from StreetLevel Of course I'm not committed to building anything Shenfield added the StreetLevel Manor House tram station and a changepit. The north leg of the X was MET , not LCC and therefore overhead - the wires continued to the layby loop at Finsbury Park (represented at the bottom left of the sketch) which was for MET services to terminate. Whether any did , is a moot point, but you could imagine Route 34, which ran from Ally Pally using the single decker cars modelled by Ks, being extended. Failing a Ks kit a plausible representation could be bashed out of a Mehano tram....The LT Feltham displays Route 21, which was a joint LCC/MET service from Holborn taking the left to top connection at the Manor House crossing and continuing to North Finchley. Kingsway Subway Route 33 terminated just south of the crossing This is all strictly hypothetical, you understand.... A trip to Kew Bridge last weekend was meant to supply some mechanisms for bogie trams. Unfortunately both the trader who supplies tram mechanisms and ABS were absent, and although there was a German trader who had a Halling mechanism on his stand he was only taking cash and I didn't have £47 in cash left ... Which is a great pity , because what I did buy was this: and about the only thing that would fit to mechanise it is a Halling mechanism. HO is really rather small, and this kit brings it home. Not quite the Holy Grail in whitemetal but not far off - the only Sydney tram kit of which I'm aware What on earth would I do with this kit ? Well, that's only too easy . A small layout based on the Wynyard terminus of the N Sydney tramways would make a good boxed diorama and could plausibly be done in something like 6 ' x 9"..... The awkward fact is that this is one idea which I might actually have space for , but Wynyard in the rush hour needs more than one trams , and the question arises what else I could come up with Of couse I'm not committed to building this, or anything else, you understand....

Somehow it looks slightly too heavy, though I assume it was a black loco. It may be it needs a touch of brown in it , and I think the number would have been kept clean - purely for practical operational reasons .Cab handrails would also presumably have been kept semi bright with use, and similarly the buffer heads wouldn't have been the general grey clag. Coupling rods would presumably be rusty or oiled steel simply because it's a working machine. The vacuum pipes would surely be brake dust brown. The overflowing water mark is a nice touch. I share your instinct that it isn't quite where you want it to be - but it's difficult to put a finger on why. The only things I can think of are - too cold/blue-grey a shade of grey , and perhaps too uniform

I don't like Pecision Paints either - the covering power always seems poor - and very much prefer Railmatch. Modelstrip will clean it off , and as someone said , even if some of the glue fails as a result , it's simply a matter of gluing the bits back - the laborious fitting and patching has been done. You've not written off your work , you've only written off 20-25% of it in terms of time

This is by way of a moan... I'm trying to sort out various bits-and-pieces jobs, and one is to replace the Bachmann/ESU 3 function 21 pin decoder in the 150 , which doesn't support advanced consisting, with a rather expensive TCS 1344 21-pin decoder that does. I have no need whatsoever for 6 functions - it was just that 21 pin decoders are few and far between, and a DMU that won't work in multiple is rather a nuisence on a layout where operational interest is supposed to be boosted by joining and splitting the things (Memo to Messrs Lovatt and Kohler - consisting is a Useful Thing, and even your cheap decoders should support it. I don't give a stuff about Mars Lights, function mapping and flickering fireboxes, but I do care about Advanced Consisting in DMUs) Attempt one was an ignominous failure - I couldn't get the body off because the two small screws at the gangway end wouldn't come out , being too small for any of my jewellers' screwdrivers . Having bought a new set of jewellers screwdrivers from a local shop, for a couple of quid - this time with some very small ones in - I managed to get them out with a 1.0mm flat screwdriver . The screws, though crossheaded, were way too small for my smallest crosshead Phillips screwdriver (00 - what else - it seems crosshead screwdrivers are numbered like paintbrushes or model railway gauges...). Thankfully I hadn't mashed the heads fatally in the first attempt The game plan was to switch the Bachmann decoder into my nice new ROD 04 . The decoder sits in the tender and all you have to do is remove the tender top . Carefully poised upside down , using the packaging as a protecting cradle, out come the back 2 screws withb a 1.0mm flat , cos they are way smaller than 00 crosshead. The front two won't come out..... The ROD is not going to be up and running this Bank Holiday weekend A hasty check of the Squires catalogue reveals - in 3 pages of jewellers' screwdrivers - just one set with 0000 screwdriver , at £13.99 . Which I will have to order - tools, Bachmann locos, for the opening of.... Question to Barwell - why are you fixing together parts of your models which lots of people will need to undo , using fastenings that require tools which are very difficult to source in order to shift them???

31 270 is the same model as the problem was originally reported to affect. Therefore this does not indicate that the problem has spread beyond the original batch. Unhappily mazak "fatigue" is a progressive problem, and it can surface after varying periods of time . Not that this is a consolation. I can only suggest you contact Hornby

Can you advise the number of the loco affected ?

As far as I'm aware the Bure Valley is the only 15" gauge line to operate tank locos, though I stand open to correction

You may have noticed in these postings occasional mutters that "I must build the screen walls for the station" . In most postings in this blog , in fact. Well, with the electrics more or less done (only the Kadee electromagnets and a couple of signals remain to nag at my conscience) I've finally attacked what is the last big scenic job on the layout. Quite a bit of tidying up, fettling and detail work remains but this is the last big block of new construction Here we have the back screen wall - the remains of a former trainshed - under construction. Main materials are mounting board and Howard Scenics brickpaper, treated with pastel crayon (Terracotta) to redden it And here is the vaguely ecclesiatic end elevation of the old trainshed, facing out towards Artamon Square, under construction The lancet windows (echoes of Liverpool St) were worrying me a little , but a peek in Observer Book of cathedrals revealed that the real things are based on an equallateral triangle. Place your compass point at the top of the vertical on one side of the window, and strike an arc upwards from the top of the vertical on the other side of the window. Turn the compasses round, repeat the process from the top of the other side. Where the two arcs intersect is the top of your arch. Cut carefully along the drawn arcs - bingo, a lancet . Phew The door is a spare from the Scalescenes Retaining wall/archway kit Only two sides are finished , but the improvement is dramatic: In the second view you can see the unfinished section of the wall - this still needs external brick pilasters adding , plus the brickpaper to represent the bricked up former windows . For this I have used Superquick red brick , toned down with pastels (Burnt Sienna, Terracotta) and the arches are from the Prototype models brickpaper sheets (red again, with pastel weathering). It is assumed the LMR Architects Dept vandalised the original station in the late 50s/early 60s. The gap will be taken up by the surviving station building, which is supposed to act as a "viewblocker" at this edge of the layout (I'm not entirely certain about the concept , now I come to execute it, but I hope it adds rather than detracts from the visual impression.) Just how all this has transformed the station and made it gel can be seen by comparison with an earlier show of the same area: Although width is desperately restricted , I have managed to space the rear wall off the backscene slightly - very slightly where it passes in front of the brown brick office - but enough for there to be a small gap between the wall and the backscene , meaning that the backscene is visibly somewhere behind it Giving a station this small a trainshed is not in fact implausible . Lincoln St Marks (ex Midland) - which could only take 3 Mk3s on the platform - clearly originally had one , and in its later days had it removed: and this seems to have been a pretty standard scenario for medium sized stations built in Lincolnshire during the late 1840s: New Holland Town (MSLR - opened 1848) Market Rasen (MSLR opened 1848): (Gainsborough Central follows the same pattern) Louth (GNR opened 1848 - here , as typically on the GNR , the roof was a two pitched affair , supported by cast iron pillars between the tracks ) with Boston being similar Firsby retained its overall roof until closure in 1970 , and possibly Alford Town may have done the same (all GNR 1848) In fact the only surviving overall roof is Grimsby Town (again MSLR 1848) which was renewed in 1976 I've leant more to MSLR practice as those are the examples I'm most familiar with, although lacklade is supposed to be an ex MR station

Turning up a bit late to this: - Diesel shunter : I think the Ruston 0-6-0 departmental units might be worth a shout, as they were long lived and used in a reasonably widespread set of locations - and I think were effectively a standard industrial type anyway. I'd vote against doing the 05. Firstly there is or recently has been a very decent Silver Fox resin body to fit the Bachmann 03 -04 chassis. I've done one myself , and frankly it was pretty easy . Secondly it's a very obvious thing for Bachmann to do as a newbody to the 03 chassis - in fact I recall dibber25 mentioning that he and Grahame Hubbard had discussed the idea at the launch of the 03 project . Thirdly , the 05s fell into 3 sub types - Batch 1(as represnted by the Ipswich locos, the IoW survivor ,and the Silver Fox body ) with small wheels and low cab profile , and a real primeval look, Batch 2a with larger wheels /high arc roof cab , and batch 2b with variations on the windows Other candidates remaining would be the 01 Barclay (Stratford and Holyhead) the 06 Barclay (Scotland) and er not much else . Things like the NBL shunters and the 6 wheel Barclays used at Immingham (another creature from the Triassic swamps) were too shortlived and too localised to sell widely (Consider that Nodding Donkeys have been with us nearly 30 years, not the dozen years some of the shunters managed) For what it's worth , if you did either the Barclay 01 or the Brush prototype machine shunter I'd have it for my boxfile as ideal - but I don't think that's indicative of the market in general - 144 WY livery - strong vote for the narrow band , with RR markings . That I can use for an early 1985-90 period and a later period starting 2000 . This time I suspect I may be reflecting the wider market - the early livery will not sell to those modelling the 1990s and onward, the Arriva branding will not sell to those modelling pre1995. - New DMU . I forget who's doing a 128 parcels unit (Bachmann?) , but the other options break down as a) cross country unit, b.) high density suburban c) less common low density unit . Under a) the 120 is the obvious candidate but . c) is what the mainstream manufacturers have targetted RTR , and b.) might seem logical , on the grounds that the big boys seem to be shying away - in which case class 116 wouldbe both widespread and novel (there ares till afewLima 117s out there)

Minor detail but in a boxfile diorama I'd have the tension lock bar off that coach double quick as you're not actually going to use it for coupling. Also I'd line at least 2 of the walls with brickpaper. The front wall might be painted black as a "not there/not part of the universe" neutral effect , rather than leave the bare file wall . Or as that wall has a mine head gointg into it - practice your rock making technique and do a rock face along that wall

With DCC Installing the point motors and decoder isn't necessarily the end of the story. Yes, it gets the points working , but more than just that is possible, and yesterday I took the final steps in commissioning the installation Working the points one by one through the handset is a little slow and clunky . Probably no slower than flicking a set of switches on a DC panel, but just as liable to operator error. I suspect that one of the major causes of derailment and intermittant running on the average layout is the operator having failed to set some point in the route somewhere, and I'm no better at it than anyone else Much more sophisticated automated approaches are possible with DCC, and most of them cost a lot of money. In fact I believe several small building societies are now offering mortgages of up to 80% LTV for first time buyers of Railroad & Co software... Having been born in Yorkshire I'm not going down any route that involves several hundred euros and the installation of lots of special electronic devices sourced from someone unpronounciable in the Black Forest. Fortunately that's not necessary. The NCE Powercab - which is what I have - offers a feature called "macros" . These allow you to store instructions to up to 8 accessory decoder addresses , and send them as a single operation. There's even a nice prominent button labelled "macros" between "select loco" and select accessory". Just press it. type in the number of the macro and press return - and instructions to up to 8 accessory addresses can be sent at once (I'm being very careful in my wording here - both the MERG point decoder and the DS64 accessory decoder have 4 outputs and therefore 4 addresses . The Lenz LS150 has 6. And one output/address can work two points , typically as a cross-over. ) The PowerCab supports 16 of these macros , numbered 0-15 (I presume the Procab does the same) Blacklade has 9 points (2 of which form a single slip), two point decoders, and 7 addresses in use - there are 2 crossovers, wired as pairs. There are 3 platforms in the station , one of which (Pl 2) can be reached by either front or back routes , 3 roads in the fiddle yard and the fuelling point. That gives 4 x 4 = 16 possible route options , though in reality it's only 14 , as you can't reach the fuelling point from platform 3 (the back platform) or from the back exit from Platform 2 So each possible route on the layout can be given it's own macro which will fire all the points necessary to set it up with a single instruction. Full entrance/exit route setting - for nowt. 'Cos it comes as a standard feature on the Powercab.... The first step was to check each point address and work out which way was Normal and which Reverse (these are the 2 options in NCE - Digitrax prefer Closed and Thrown). I drew a very crude panel diagram in pencil to record this - the standard convention being that Normal is a thick continuous line, and Reverse is a break in the line . Then I started programming the macros starting with macro 1 (Platform 1 to fuelling point) , programming the correct setting for each point in the route with reference to the pencil diagram. When route started to involve the slip it seemed like a good idea to run something through to test it and make sure I had the polarity right through the slip, so out came a153. Program macro , press button, enter macro number, hear points throw, run train. And so on steadily down the list of possible permutations After about an hour and a half I had a layout where I could set up any possible route in one go , just by pressing a button and entering a number . And the appropriate signals came off as well.. The 153 ran slowly and reliably back and forth across the layout. For ease of operation, I've written out all the macro numbers as a table on the back of an old business card and stuck it on the backscene at the station end. I've also drawn out the panel diagram neatly on two business cards , with point numbers, so that if I have to change points "manually" I do at least know which way to select on the menu . It doesn't really matter which way is Normal for a point so long as you know which option to select to set the point in the direction you want. The amount of time wasted trying each option in turn until the point moved was embarrassing, and trying to work out the number of a given point without aclear memory aid is very difficult - which is why the real railways put a block diagram with all the lever numbers marked in every signal box. I'd strongly recommend drawing out a panel diagram whatever your system, for these reasons alone. I don't usually do DCC techno- posts and this posting may leave folk with a different DCC system cold. However the PowerCab is quite a popular DCC system and I don't think I've seen any comment on using this particular feature before. Obviously 16 route macros will only go so far on a large layout, where there are more than 16 possible routes and some involve a lot more than 8 points; though I gather from another thread that great northern has been experimenting with macros on Peterborough North. However you wouldn't use a PowerCab to run a large layout anyway, and for the average small terminus 16 macros should be more than enough, especially if the fiddle yard is a sector plate or traverser. It really is a powerful feature to be able to set up any route completely and reliabilily just with a single entry , and the improvement in speed and ease of operation is dramatic Something similar should be possible on an number of other systems. The Digitrax DS64 accessory decoder supports "routes" at the level of the decoder itself. Unfortunately you can only set up routes involving points controlled by two different DS64s if they are linked by Loconet, the Digitrax cab bus, which means that you can only get comprehensive route setting thisway if you have a Digitrax system. I think Lenz support route setting , though I don't know any details and I have a suspicion it may even be available with the Multimaus

The MRC's S scale layout was Thame ,l surely?

On the tram side there is Kingsway Subway and Dogkennel Hill, both in OO And I think L49 may have built something with trams and underground - I'm sure I remember it at a show

Scalescenes downloadable kit. A little fiddly but very effective

Things are a bit heavy at work at the moment which is probably why this posting's three weeks late, but the wiring is finally done. Well, sort of just about. The new DS64 decoder is in , the NCE switch it is disconnected, the last two motors (Cobalt and Tortoise) are in , they're all wired up , and they work. I admit that one half of the slip is only about 98% reliable, but this was clearly the stiffest tie bar on the layout and always going to be the place where any intermittant incomplete throw was going to appear The whole lot is very tightly packed , as you can see - which was always the issue and why it took so long: The Cobart Blue seems slightly more positive in its operation than the Tortoises, even though I've now replaced the wire supplied by Circuitron with something thicker. Also very useful is the solder free connector block - if you have to disconnect or swap over wirews to reverse the direction of throw it's dead easy A minor benefit is that theboard is potentially self sustaining. Although the DS64 is powered by an independent 12V DC supply from the stabilised converter, and this requires the 16V AC feed from the other board, , in its absence it defaults to drawing power through the DCC data connection. This means the decoder works even without being connected to the other board. The Hoffman motor controlling half the crossover doesn't work (since this draws 16V AC) but the other 4 motors do The next stage, when things calm down a bit and I can have another play with the layout, is to draw up a panel diagram, showing which way is normal and reverse for each point and their numbers, to stick on the back or end of the layout. And once that's done, I can program Route Macros (a feature provided by the NCE system) for each possible route. So in future all I need do is key in the correct macro and an entire route through the layout comes off, complete with signals. The PowerCab supports 16 macros - there are a total of 14 possible routes on the layout . (For the curious - Platform 1 to fuelling point, FY branch, FY main 1, FY main 2; Platform 2 via crossover to pl 1, to fuelling point, FY branch, FY main 1 & FY main 2; Platform 2 straight ahead to FY branch, FY main 1 and FY main 2; Platform 3 to the three FY roads). Full entrance/exit route control with no extra wiring or cost, and no control panel at all I've also noted the wiring colour code on the back of a business card and stuck it in a suitable spot under the boards What hasn't been done is to install the ground signal under the bridge controlling exit from the fuelling point - it will be on the left of the track in this view, taken from the chair in front of the computer looking to my left...: This is because I've run out of contracts on the relevant point motors (the Hoffmann has only one, for the frog, and the spare contacts on the Tortoise at the other end of the crossover are used to switch the 16V AC supply to power the Hoffmann) . The only way to work the ground signal is as an opposed pair of LEDs inserted into one of the power feeds to the Tortoise: one LED will light if current passes in one direction, and the other if current is reversed.... I also intend to install a spare Erkon 3 aspect signal + feather in the fiddle yard as a visible indicator of what routes are set, in an effort to minimise the risk of driving into a point set against the train, and I have to sort out the electromagnet I wired (and which doesn't work) and wire up the other two. I suspect the issue is that I didn't scrape the lacquer off the wires throughly enough to get good electrical joints- afriend suggested using avery large iron (I have a 70W in the workbench) to burn off the lacquer But I'm leaving thisfinal round of wiring for the moment - the next major task is going to be building the screen walls round the station , the last big scenic job outstanding. Then it's down to detailing, stock, and operation It should now be possible to use the layout as a programming track while in situ in the study - meaning I don't have to set the whole thing up in the sitting room first. I just need to get at a suitable power socket...

Not a link I'm afraid, but acouple of pictures - hope it's not out of order posting them: and a link to where it fits into my modelling as a whole: layout(s) blog

Needs a full scale rework, I'm afraid , but an excellent place to start dabbling in detailing and modifying wagons. You need - a replacement etched ladder/walkway - the A1 Models etches for single or double walkway are still apparently available from MG Sharp , and I'm sure someone like Shawplan must do an even better version, though I can';t find anything quickly on Sawplan's website - A tub of Modelstrip paint stripper putty , (and a pair or rubber gloves for when you apply it) This will remove the teenage muck - Model filler. Remove the tank mouldings from the chassis, join carefilly and accurately with solvent, when dry use a little filler to fill in the joints /cracks sand down the filler with fine emery paper, and perhaps fine emery paper wetted , to a good smooth finish. And while you're about it fare away the edges of the mouldling base with a file to a fine edge. The base of the tank meets the chassis as a thin edge - not as a 6" thick slab sitting on top - A suitable coat of black paint. The easiest approach is going to be a spray can of Games Workshop Chaos Black. Apply new transfers (Fox though it's seemingly endless series of packs to get all the elements and you'll need to do half a dozen wagons to get the cost per wagon down to something sensible). Weather over the lot very lightly with dilute washes working vertically up and down ('cos that's how gravity makes the rain run) . Coat of matt varnish over the lot to seal and protect the transfers , and tone down the finish Improvements can be made to the chassis , but if you're committed to tension locks the biggest - remove the wretched things with the Xuron cutters, filing flat and filling the buffer beams - isn't possible . Replacement brass Olleo wagon buffers improve things no end As they say "here's 3 I made earlier". Several started out pretty much in the condition of your Shell tank (The back right one was Railroad , but Iended up repainting most of the barrel in the process of weathering - I think Fox would have charged as much for the pack with Shell stripes and logos as Hornby charged for the wagon) The two black stars were to indicate that the wagon was fit for higher speeds (ie up to 60 mph compared with the 15-25 mph of steam era tank wagons - some of which , when they were replaced with TTAs in the mid 1960s, were very vintage indeed - Edwardian tanks with wooden underframes were still to be found in oil company fleets in the early sixties. On black class B wagons , the stars were white, and I think they vanished some time after 1990

Progress on the wiring continues, though more slowly than I'd wish. The three station signals were finished and duly installed. . Wiring has proved a rather lengthy and tedious process with 8 fine short wires and two resistors needing to be soldered under the boards for each one. Resistors have been fitted to scraps of veroboard and the various wires soldered to these small boards in situ: the job's done now , but it's taken an evening's work per signal. They are driven off the spare contacts on the Tortoise point motors , and while this isn't perfect it gets a reasonably prototypical set of aspects. The only real anomaly is that if the roads are set out of platforms 1 and 3, you get a yellow out of platform 2, even though the next point is against you. To achieve a proper aspect here would have required a third set of contacts on the point at the entry to the back platform, 3 , to select between red and yellow. As it is. using the contacts I've got, BL 22 displays either green for route out via crossover /platform 1 or yellow/feather indicating route via the diverging road down the middle. It's almost certain that any route out via Platform 1 must be clear right through - hence the green , - but not certain that the middle road is clear right through - hence it gets the yellow . BL 20, the starter from Platform 1 does all the tricks, as in this case a second point motor on the same board is available for switching. Red shows the crossover is set against it, then switching by the next point gives either yellow ("main" roads in the fiddle yard via the slip on the second board) or green + feather- branch or fuelling point. Since the crossover on the second board is wired as such, there is no possibility of an incompletely set route in this case, hence the green. And BL 23, the Platform 3 starter at the back, gives either red or yellow. The feather has been wired to two of the pins on the bulgin plug, so that it can be switched by the motor for half of the slip, which is on the other board.The said motor has not yet been installed All should be a little clearer from the pictures and especially the signalling diagram in the thread I posted on how to wire the Hoffmann motor: Hoffmann point motor The only catch is that to see the signal aspects you need to stand at the far end of the layout. Unfortunately I tend to operate from the other end - the NCE socket panel is on the fiddle yard board , since this has the fuelling point road / programming track. Thus the signals don't really help check whether I've set the road. At least I know they're there.... The Hoffmann motor is now in place: in fact it's the only new point motor I've installed. The 16V AC is taken directly off the auxilary power bus, with one side switched by the spare contacts on the Tortoise . It is not 100% reliable in throwing and cutting off - ithe motor's shown a tendency to stick and stall in one direction . though the point itself is fully thrown. A quick reach under the board sorts this , and since there isn't space for a Tortoise in this area I didn't really have much alternative. One complication is that there is only one set of switch contacts on the Hoffmann. With the spare contacts on the Tortoise at the other end of the crossover in use for switching the 16V AC supply to the Hoffmann , this leaves me with nothing to switch the ground signal at the exit from the fuelling point . However NCE suggest that a pair of opposed LEDs can be wired into the power supply between the decoder and Tortoise on one side and the Tortoise will act as a suitable current limiter so that no resister is necessary. As the direction of the current changes with the throwing of the motor, the current will flow via one or other LED. They envisage this as a panel indicator - I don't see why it can't work a ground signal instead Other jobs finished include connecting up the Express Models lightting kit I installed in the Portakabin to the 12V DC stablised converter unit on this board. I found an old rocker switch in my electrical bag that came from I know not where and wired this in. In daylight you hardly notice that the Portakabin's lit : in poor light it's horribly apparent I didn't fit an interior... I also wired up one of the Kadee electromagnets as an encore, having found a substantial push to make switch in the electrical bag. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work - there's no buzzing noise when you push the button. I suspect I haven't scraped the protective coating sufficiently effectively off one of the wires on the electromagnet. Power supply for this is a variable transforfmer from Maplins , set to 15V (the max) to deliver up to 4A . I presume this is adequete. I then gave the layout a test running session , which had mixed results. Slow speed running is good . But there were derailments , seemingly caused by the unrestrained slip and dead patches , allied to the board joint , which is not ideal. Coupling issues probably played a part too - the Bachmann GUV has it's NEM pockets set too high , and one Kadee on the PMV needs the spring replacing . And I think the 3link on the Hornby 31 may foul the Kadee slightly. Added to which 31 + GUV + 50 van just fouls crossover 1 at the end of the centre platform - replace the GUV with another 50' van and all would be well. Another reason to finish the Van B. The 101is a little suspect too - almost certainly where there wasapatched repair to the chassis unit after accident damage. I have a replacement chassis in stock, so this could be a priority And an attempt to fit a replacement TCS decoder in the150 failed because I couldn't break inside - the two end screws just wouldn't shift