AMJ

I have seen survey results and quite a lot of general embers of the public do not know what the motive power is. One question other than date and time of travel was your loco steam or diesel. Based upon the date there were many who said steam even though the rostored loco was diesel.

It is likely that many railways will be doing some belt tightening during the pandemic. There are going to be a few who will be using heritage diesels rather than forking out cash on expensive steam locomotive maintenance. Suspect that a few of the regular steam lines will be diesel for 2021/2 but that will be far better than closure. Llangollen needs the coach tours going back to the area. Folks on the holiday packages will have already paid for the train trip so they tend to buy in the café, bar and shops. Even at the lower group rate the railway will be getting in more funds from them than other casual visitors per capita. How many of us think that I need to eat so I'll send a bit with them and get a snack? Similarly when I stay in Porthmadog area I like to have a meal in Spooners knowing that puts money into FR's coffers.

The number of staff on a loco footplate depends upon the rulebook for the railway. At Middleton we have a limit of 3 so that can be driver, fireman and a cleaner (aka trainee fireman). I have seen some preserved locos fitted with the "can operate over BR metals between point x & y" type of plates and must see if I have any photos. Safe working is all down to understanding and agreement of practices being carried out between all staff. As a curved ball, there were a number of locos given loaded tests on BR metals that never carried plates. One well known image exists of a Hunslet w/n 4000 on goods trials before shipping to a Peru at Guisley.

From where you are staying the Aagrah is 19 minutes walk along the wide flat path alongside the A64 - same side as the hotel. Suggest you do that as you can then sample the Kingfisher beer without needing to worry about drink driving. For the centre of York use the Park & Ride just as you come off the A64 at Askham Bar about 4 miles away. Easy access an low floor bendy buses.

On the A64 between York and Tadcaster there is the Aagrah which is part of a chain of Indian restaurants from Shipley (near Bradford) the buffet is a good way to try everything. Saltaire is a world heritage site worth a look a mile or two from Shipley. Many of the decent curry houses in Bradford are on the outskirts. Bradford has the Media museum a short walk from both stations. Plenty of Yorkshire pubs serving good food and ales. Look out for the filled Yorkshires, tasty. York has many sights such as the Minster, Shambles (short walk to Monk Bar Models), Jorvik Viking museum, castle museum to name but a few. Nice walk on the walls.

As this is a newspaper they can often bend the truth. Without knowing what the NRM are thinking I bet that they are looking to have a few few exhibits together for a themed display. If this is the scenario then they may have asked to move it to Shildon for a certain period of time. Many of are involved with museums housing loaned exhibits and can expect a recall at some time. However there seems to be a 25 year rule of thumb where ownership of items get transferred to the location where they are residing.

A few chips from USA have a place for the JST 9 pin plug to go - this gives you the same colour outputs as you would normally expect for an 8 pin along with the extra function wire.

See the video from MRH

I have seen a video of a guy in USA who has used one of these to control 4 LEDs in a rotary beacon on a loco cab roof from a single DCC output. Just wondering what other lighting folks have done in using one of these One possible idea that might work would be to control lights on early diesels or some steam locos. eg pressing a FN button would give you the next "class" of head lights Psudo code If input = high counter ++ if counter > max then counter = 0 turn on outputs based on counter value

Many moons ago EFE did the Alexander Atlantean and Fleetlines with various headlight combinations at the front. A quick look on ebay shows quite a long list for the Atlantean and Fleetlines Also see http://www.modelbuszone.co.uk/tmb/lists/Models_EFE.htm

Many books indicate that there were border checks but there seems to be little mention of what happened during the war. I suspect that the GNR it was business as usual provided that they were not trying to transport items that could be construed as assisting a waring nation from a neutral one. I have heard about folks from the republic going to Belfast to sign up for the military.

The 13 has thicker buffer beams than the 08 which with careful use of parts would be easy for modern model manufacturing techniques. Similarly the "cab" unit of the slave could be swapped out

Has anyone fitted a Soundtraxx Tsunami2 chip into any of these? Looks like the prime mover is one of those preloaded on the EMD flavour of chip.

The 06 or baby AB 01 might be more feasible as they could be done as industrial liveries as well as the various BR ones

There are plenty of MkI coach variants that have not been done so this fills in a gap.

Updated 20 as per above not a surprise. Looks like they are doing like Athearn are doing with the 2.0 upgrades to locos in adding details

Not in my Manor but watching the video and the specs it will be interesting to see which items that might be in future issues in my neck of the woods. Looking damn fine.

Flash has too many security implications maybe the FBI will hack them in a reverse to Chinese hacking the west!

For Belerophon Looking at the website I presume that it's early days before the design work and think that rather than a 21 pin might be better putting a space for the Next18 as these chips are by design made to maximum sizes thus making the space needed in the loco optimum. Sound might be feasible as there are quite a lot of videos on https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bellerophon+locomotive Big Hunslet, yes please

With mine I can run loco if it was a 47/7 with just tail light on if it was pushing. As above and in my vid F4 gives me all of the desired tail light modes now. All off, all on, rear on

Some time ago I modified the Bachmann 47 so that the tail lights are on Aux 1 & 2 Having fitted a ESU Loksound 4 into it a few years ago I never got around to sorting out the tail lights. I decided to revisit it the other day as one of the lock down projects. I have made the control for this simple to use. My logic settings are F4 off tail lights off F1 off (prime mover off) F4 on turns on markers at both ends F1 on (prime more on), F4 on turns on marker at rear of loco. This was a serious tweak of 9 CV's.

The lighting kits for these from Hornby with a magnet to turn on and off reminds me of Rapido's US models but instead of them using track power I'm not so keen on the idea of battery power. Taking vehicles apart each time a battery fails could result in damage to the vehicle.

Interesting idea, I have seen the spec on the website and think that there is one thing that some might want to add. Add Express models tail lamps for DC these could be wired so that the one at the rear illuminates. With DCC if the rake has an address the light could be controlled using the normal direction.

I'd be rather surprised if that took to the rails as Bachmann has done the 85. When you look at the dimensions of classes 81-85 they could probably be modelled using the same mechanicals as the 85 with a new body bogie side frames

Looking a little bit ahead, I think that in 2023 there will be Flying Scotsman featuring heavily in the catalogue as it will be 100 years old.