lapford34102

There will be more steam at the next outing though quite when+where I've yet to get confirmed but there's at least 3 in the pipeline. Any preference for Western or Southern ??? Now now Pete though I was somewhat surprised Marc didn't get excommunicated for running his Hunslet on Poynton at Wrecrail. On that subject a new layout should be at Shenfield in Sept which will be BR Blue though late 70's. The boards are done, track laid and tested and the scenery started. Boringly conventional in format compared to Drewry I'm afraid but hopefully with the same ethos. One of the locos is here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/68907-tops-rail-blue-class-08/ That's it for the mo as I have an early morning appointment with the grandchildren and a big box of Brio railway Stu

Hi, Thanks Mark, it was a really good day and don't worry, you won't get away next time.......... Cheers Stu

Hi I'm sure it's been mentioned on here before but Humbrol are moving production back to the UK after issues with the consistency (pardon the pun) of the Chinese production. http://www.humbrol.com/manufacturing/ though how far they've got I have no idea but I'm told some is in the system. At the moment there some seem to be a deal of variation in what you get and while I've never had any drying issues I've certainly had problems with the covering power of some of their colors. I believe one of the problems they encountered was in the pigment quality. While I agree with the comments regarding Revell and Vallejo it does depend on what you're doing whether enamels or acrylics are best and what you can get easily. For rail colours I had problems with Railmatch when they first came out and have never touched them since sticking to Precision. I had hopes for the new Humbrol acrylics rail paints but had issues with them and thinning but they now have a new thinner out so may try again. Whilst i use exactly the same trick as james for small jobs for something bigger I use an electric stirrer as there's stirring and there's stirring. Most people rarely do it long enough though even that won't help if the paints poor to begin with. Not sure Tamiya's range has been mentioned, it's great for an airbrush but lousy for the hairy stick unless you add some retarder. Cheers Stu

Hi, The layout appearing at Wrecrail ( http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/63050-the-wrecking-crew-presents-wrecrail-2013/ ) in a couple of weeks time and I thought in need of a bit of work. It had spent the winter in a leaky garage, now re-roofed, so what with that and general wear and tear it was looking a tad tatty. So it's been tidied up and had a few minor changes to the scenery. I've also been playing with static grass but of the cheapo puffer bottle variety. Considering the whole enterprise cost me about £5 I'm quite pleased with the results. The fencing is fine netting from Hobbycraft which her Ladyship found for me and the posts.... Well having had problems on St Jude with wooden ones which once broken were a pain to repair I've used a mix of plastic and square section brass which hopefully will be more durable. . Cheers Stu

"I wonder how the line was worked ?" There was a 4mph speed limit on the Tram which was largely adhered to so little likelihood of an actual collision. Although the original rules specified Pilotmen and the like in practise from the 50's on it was basically the yard phoning the quay and visa versa and a deal of common sense from the crew. The shunters were there to check clearances to badly parked cars and to stop enthralled visitors from throwing themselves under the wheels. Stu

It took a long time to sort out satisfactory alternative bus transport. Stu

Hi, what period are we talking about. From memory In the late 60's/early 70's it was a couple of Mk 1 based TPO's, a couple of Mk 1 coaches and a one or two BG's/GUV's etc . Prior to the Mk1 based TPO's appearing about the time of the Bournemouth electrification the TPO's were ex Southern stock IIRC. Did it drop vans at So'ton and Bomo - can't actually recall but got a feeling this was a separate working from the papers. Can have a dig later if required. HTH Stu

Hi Henrik, Nothing is planned. I start off with a couple of wagons on the layout. Then make up a short train of 2/3 wagons and drive it on, shunt the wagons to change them over and just keep doing that. I've got too many wagons so it's easy to use a variety. Hope this makes sense. A Danish layout - that is unusual. Stu

Hi, Peter, I did end up with a Sprog and am slowly getting my head around it. I've been using it to simply get a grip on the intracacies of CV's and the like but not for driving. I'm sticking with my ancient Compact for that, I can cope with that. Ken and Simon, thank you for that :-) I have a layout on Carendt.com that I keep going to look at for similar reasons. D.L.'s backscene came up in another thread and I've been a little surprised at the reaction it's generated, knew it was a bit odd but still..... Got the layout in from the garage tonight. After evicting the wildlife it's had a clean and a test., wheel cleaning next :-( Cheers Stu

Hi, A question about vehicles. I'm assuming japanese vehicles are nearer to UK "N" than the continental ones which I know are the wrong scale. Any advice of suppliers please. Excellent work by the way, you must have pretty good eyesight. Stu

Hi, As D.L. has come up in another thread perhaps timely to give a mention to the Soar Valley show at Loughborough on the 29th/30th Sept where it will be making an appearance. Details here http://www.svmrc.co.uk/page4.php Please say hello and if your luck's out you may get a controller pressed into your hand! Cheers Stu

Just so and apologies for that but we do seem to be looking at one of the biggest shake ups in our railways since Victoria was on the throne plus there's an element of joined up thinking here which is somewhat novel for UK transport policy. So to put things back on track is there/has there been a future proofing policy that any new structures etc are built with the possibility of OLE kit being put in at some unspecified time. Stu

Once past Millbrook and the Freightliner complex it's a fairly simple run all the way through. Just the main line and a few loops and sidings though the Lymington branch would need considering. A couple of questions though. Would the electrification kit put in the Weymouth section have to be thrown out or can it be adapted for 25kv. Also what about structures, are the built with the possibility of OLE kit being put in at some stage ? Stu

Welcome to the new world order! Amen to that. This'll give the Roads lobby indigestion - hopefully :-) Think it more likely they would head West first; Basing - Exeter hopefully joining up with an eventually electrified GW main line there, you could then start filling in the gaps such as Soton - Salisbury then on to Bristol. Also west from Soton to Bournemouth/Weymouth. Dual mode on the 444/450's is fairly straightforward as I understand it and Basing would be a logical changeover point. Stu

Hi Marc, Would you please refrain from posting any more pics of your layout. I am finding it most distracting! Here am I trying to get my head around "N" and you put this up......... Really excellent and hopefully I'll get a chance to see it for real one day. You might have mentioned it somewhere and I've missed it but is it a sound chip in the 08? Cheers Stu

Hi Jo, I've been following your progress on the layout and was hoping to get to Showcase to see it for real. Sadly not going to make it there so I keep all my questions till after the show, you've probably plenty to do. Have a good show. Stu

Hi, When checking back on threads I’d posted in I was somewhat surprised to realise the number of views on this thread had steadily gone up. I’ve no idea if it’s been one or many but there must be something on here of continuing interest, rather gratifying it has to be said so thank you whoever you are. DL will be at the Stowmarket show at the end of next month. Always a good show and for me not without a certain poignancy as it was the much missed Keith Wright who originally suggested DL for a slot there as part of the DEMU presence. So for obvious reasons you probably wont be seeing either of these two loco’s below. DL was always intended to be flexible in terms of time frame by changing the stock, the odd figure and the road vehicles, the last being something that inexplicably bugs me when people get it glaringly wrong. The two loco’s in question are both Bachmann, a 57XX pannier done up as an early 50’s example with red plates. Which WR loco’s carried red plates seems to be one of those rather vague areas when it comes to hard info so I’ve probably got it wrong but I can live with that. Nothing very special about the 45XX except it has a sound chip, my first steam one. It’s not a specific 45XX sound file (does anyone do one?)but comes as “generic british†. It’s actually quite effective and will do until an accurate one appears plus people seem far less genned up on steam sounds than they are on diesel sounds. The chip is a Loksound 3.5 micro with the speaker mounted in the bunker. Both are really work in progress weathering wise as I need to get to grips with weathering the motion, brake gear and ashpans. At the moment I’m using either a Lenz Compact and a Hornby Select as my controllers. Both horribly limited in their capabilities but easy to use and if they go up in smoke not exactly the end of the world. I’ve been considering an upgrade and there’s a few decent systems in my price range but a couple of people have pointed me in the direction of the Sprog. As I understand it it’s an interface box and software that uses your computer to do the hard bit. Eminently sensible for it would seem but I’d be interested to hear others opinions. Stowmarket is DL’s last confirmed booking for the moment. It will have done 9 shows in 16 months so I’m quite happy with that as it hasn’t been over exposed and also made for a reasonable balance between doing Shows and everything else. If it never left home again I’d be pretty satisfied but we’ll see what happens. Cheers Stu

That's the one ! Many thanks :-) I'd give a lot to have the space to have a shot at something similar given how much easier it would be, the furthest I ever got was an 8' x 6' skit on Wareham done in the 80's but by then we had Lima 33's and MTK TC's. As mentioned in the other thread for it's time it was real edge of the envelope stuff and it would be fun to see what today's modellers would make of it. Cheers Stu

I've come rather late to this so apologies if I repeat anything already said. It's already covered a lot of interesting ground but I'd like to get back to JSW original thought provoking post. There's a lot of steam to diesel transition layouts around, equally there's a lot of green to blue transition D+E layouts about. What seems to be virtually non existent are steam to Corporate Image layouts. Not unsuprising if you think about it as this period lasted barely 2 years and was limited to two distinct geographic locations. My particular interest is the Waterloo-Weymouth line in 67 as anyone who has seen my collection will atest. With all due respect to others I can only remember seeing one layout attempting to recreate this and this was back in the mid 70's and was a very commendable attempt considering what the builder has to work with. The TC stock was converted from Dublo Tinplate coaching and few here might remember the original article in MRC back in the 60's. Anyone who is attempting either SR or NW during this time is now far better served in RTR or kit stock so is it a case of little interest or something else. Books about the end of steam appear pretty popular so maybe it's that steam fans of the era have a problem with the corporate colour scheme. Or it could be simply that the layout options are pretty limited. All you need is a main line and room to run fairly serious length trains. Were there any branch or freight only lines that could be modelled. No idea about the NW but there were precious few options on the Southern. A bit of artistic license could be used for something based on Lymington or Swanage though you'd have to fudge the timeline a bit and Wareham would be a reasonable starting point for something a bit bigger that could include freight. Interesting stuff all round. Stu

Clockwork P4? Nah! far too mainstream, you want Push Along P4. Actually I think I saw that at a recent show............................. Finescale wireless DCC Brio - now you're talking Stu

Sent a copy of this to Downendian to add to the spreadsheet but in case anyones interested a far from comprehensive but possibly useful list of allocations is attached. Taken from the appropriate Locoshed books I think I've a leter one which I'll add if I find it. If not perhaps others can fill in the gaps. Stu Class 22.doc

I've put one in mine and it works fine. Curious........ Stu

Very very nice Stu

See Howes are now listing a 22 sound chip. Stu

Hi, Thanks for the links and the encouragement (!) to try Kaydee's. Pleased you enjoyed the layout and thanks again for your help. Any good with "N" gauge.......................................? Stu