Pete the Elaner

If that is annoying, you could renumber it to 6221, the only 1 of the first 5 to carry red. It got its double chimney before going red though. I got the numbers off from my 6220 quite easily but I can't remember how. It seems like they had a standard size for nameplates.

There seems to be talk of Peco motors here. The OP said Seep motor but tried to follow instructions for Peco points. Some of my club colleagues found that Seep motors are more demanding than Peco ones. A Peco CDU struggled with Seep motors but I have known a Gaugemaster one to work fine although I had some home-made ones available & one of these was able to cope nicely. The easiest way may well be to change the accessory decoder & sell the Bachmann one on. It will quite possibly be fine with a less demanding motor.

I am sure they do too. I can only assume they therefore intended this to represent it as it was in late 1938. Maybe this is to allow a future NRM special of it as preserved?

Someone at Railmatch must have realised that a glass jar with a lid more suitable for peanut butter gets stuck on & this is why other paint manufacturers use a different design. Refusing to refine or abandon it is arrogance. What is with the calm down comment? I am just stating a fact, not getting upset about it.

Treat them "properly"? You mean fiddle around because the manufacturer has arrogantly ignored a tried & tested design (a tinlet) which has been used by many because it does not suffer this problem.

A friend had a last minute invite for his layout so I helped out all day Saturday then again Sunday afternoon. Sunday was less busy than Saturday but still by no means quiet. Having spoken to some of the club members, the 2nd day seemed very much a success, maybe partly because it allowed people to go to Biggleswade on Saturday then MK on Sunday? There was a good selection of both layouts & traders. Plenty to see,

Relying on points to power sidings gets complicated & becomes difficult to troubleshoot more quickly than you can imagine. It can easily test your patience to the point when you just give up. The trouble is that you will end up having to run another feed somewhere, then this will cause a short until a seemingly unrelated point is thrown the wrong way.

Sounds very complicated. DCC provides a simple solution to that, Is there any particular reason you wish to avoid it?

The decoder will only draw the current it needs, mainly for the motor. The fault you described will have been caused by a fault within the loco itself. Layout wiring can be overloaded if you have too many locos running at once & this is 1 reason for using power districts, not for restricting the current available for any decoder to use.

I have described them as coping stones before, but sometimes it is easier to follow the language already being used.

If there is, it seems that neither of us have found it yet

I am working on my platforms right now. I have also decided to build my own flagstones because I cannot find anything commercially available which looks right. I tried cutting flagstones from 40 thou plastikard with a previous layout. Their size varied, which left me very dissatisfied with the appearance. I n ow have a laser cutter & had found the 2mm acrylic was acceptable. 3mm was just too thick & the cutter's heat causes anything thinner to warp too easily. Even when cut with a laser, the stones are not as consistent as I expected. They are an improvement on hand-cut plastikard though. Even laser cut, each slab needs to be tidied with a file then painted. Not the most interesting of tasks!

Hamilton is in York's Great Hall, which is basically dark with a bright skylight. It is therefore difficult to compare its colour with a model. As for chimneys, 6220-6234 had a single chimney from new. 6234 Duchess of Abercorn soon got a double for some testing when it was a few months old. This was such a success that every following member of the class, starting with 6235 City of Birmingham (the first 'City'), was built with a double chimney. 6220-6233 were then fitted with a double when they received works attention, 6220 being the last of the class to receive the modification. 6225-6229 got their double chimneys while painted red. 6221-6224 got their double chimneys while painted blue. 6221 was the only one of the blue 5 to receive red livery. It got its double chimney first. 6220 was painted in plain black livery before getting its double chimney. I find this odd because double chimneys seemed to be so successful they added them as quickly as possible, yet they painted it black a few months earlier. It is therefore the only streamliner which ran in wartime black with a single chimney. The above is what I have found from various sources. These changes were 70-80 years ago so records may not have been 100% accurate.

I have been advised to use a brass pin instead of plastic pot because it should be stronger. This should allow the conductor rail to be mounted a little lower too. 3rd rail should prototypically sit quite a bit higher than the rail, but unlike the real railway, we have to clean the rail tops. Dropping the conductor rail to the same level as the running rail is a compromise. It is up to the modeller to decide if it is acceptable or not.

Can you run it in compatibilty mode? Right-click on the shortcut or .exe , choose Compatibility & fiddle with a few options on this tab. In theory, it creates an environment which simulates older versions of Windows. I am not sure it always works though

While reading the OP, I noticed that the payment machine mentioned was card only & wondered how a younger person could have paid the fare? The station's machine is card only. I used to take the train to London at 15 & to my closest town from younger that that. Are payment cards of any kind available to under 16's? If not, how are they supposed to pay? I assume child fares are actually available for the route?

I have given it a mention on Kempston MRS' facebook page & will mention it at the club tonight.

You make some good points there. It is nice to be well paid, but by complaining about high charges, are we effectively saying we don't like anyone else to be well paid too? I often meet friends at exhibitions I don't often see elsewhere. It is nice to go for a coffee with them & the premium price seems acceptable in this situation.

If you try a TTS & do not like it, you'll be stuck because you cannot get it re-blown. With a Loksound v4, you can have it re-blown, either with a project for the same loco from another manufacturer, or move it to another loco entirely. With TTS, you cannot adjust the chuff rate, so if you get 5 beats per revolution, you cannot correct it. You can also only play 1 'spot' sound, so you have a choice between injector, blower or fireman shovelling, but not 2 at once. If you then sound the whistle, the current sound fades out then back in again. The 'running sound' is on a different channel so remains on.

I think lighting is something which gets upgraded when it has lived out its useful life. Venues will obviously choose modern, efficient lighting. Fortunately for us, this also seems to be brighter & whiter.

It certainly has some nostalgic value like this although I am not sure how long it ran in this condition. New in September 1938 & I believe it may have run in works grey for a while (I have never seen a model in works grey. That would be an interesting re-paint). Disguised as 6220 Coronation but in Crimson Lake in February 1939, when it was also fitted with a bell then shipped off to the USA. It had gone before any newer streamliners had been built. It got a double chimney very soon after it returned in April 1943, possibly even before re-entering service. At least it stayed in red until the end of 1944, if you still could find the paint under the dirt by then.

I understand where you are coming from. I have a 5-car 220 & did some timed speed runs on my layout about 2 years ago. When running light, the motor coach managed a scale speed of 125mph forward & 130 in reverse. When running as a 5 car set, it managed 70mph forward & 65 in reverse. The trailer cars certainly create a lot of drag. This is fine for my layout, so I have not looked at a way to reduce this, but I would find it quite annoying if I wanted to run it flat out.

By arranging a show at the NEC, Warley MRC agrees to their terms. It is a more successful show than holding it in the nearest town hall (Dudley I believe, which lost its railway station in 1964) otherwise they would not be doing it. If they cannot please everybody so it makes sense to cater for the larger market. There are plenty of smaller exhibitions where food & parking is cheaper, but you will not see the same variety of layouts, traders & associations.

Sharing the journey is another possibility. If 4 of you go together by car, you can split the fuel & parking costs. You can maybe also share the driving. It can become a good day out.

Any money made from club exhibitions goes back into the hobby. Bigger shows cost more to put on. Bigger layouts from further afield cost more in expenses to get to the show. Someone needs to pay for these. This is eventually the visitor. The venue needs to make money too. Making money from parking & catering is a way to subsidise the hire of the venue. Ultimately, the visitors pay for the show. If they didn't, there would not be one the following year & we will all lose out.