Gopher

Couple of examples of my attempts at weathering rolling stock - in this case Bachmann wagons

Final photo on track plan - shows goods yard behind gas holder. Layout is basically a horse shoe along three sides of a room - approx 11ft 6in by 7ft. Other photos - show some loco shed scenes

And there's more. First photo below shows canal bridge at end of loco yard, and start of Dewchurch station. Timber tracks signal box, Scenecraft water tank. Background industrial buildings are a mixture of scratch built, Skytrex, Townstreet. Second photo shows station and station road beyond. Buildings are a mixture of scratch built, Townstreet, Timber tracks, Ten Commandments, Metcalfe (only card kit on layout) Ratio station canopies. Wills platforms, Ratio cattle dock. Third photo shows gas works (Hornby buildings and Walthers H0 gas holder, plus some misc pipework added by me), Goods yard beyond with Timber tracks good shed. One more photo to follow

This photo shows rest of loco yard, Townstreet Models sand house and Harburn Hobbies building, coal stage

Thanks Robert, your layout looks like it is progressing well. I am afraid I do not have a track plan, (nor the requisite skills to draw one). The layout is based on a plan in David Jenkinson's - Historical Railway Modelling. It is a fictitious location based in the west midlands, Western Region 1950s/early 60s. Instead of a track plan I will post some photos which will hopefully put the scenes into context. The layout is DCC, about 12 years old (but subject to continuous improvement - mainly buildings, figures, scenery, rolling stock). Terminus to fiddle yard arrangement. 00 gauge - SMP track, and Marcway points. I built and wired the whole thing (apart from some baseboards). I particularly enjoy the scenic side of modelling. First photo below shows view from fiddle yard looking at Harewood Halt. Redundant goods shed on right. Second photo is beyond road bridge seen in first photo. Basically a bit of countryside with various kit buildings and one Scenecraft Dutch barn on right. End of this section is another bridge with a scenic break. Third photo - beyond scenic break entering Dewchurch. Street scene with Townstreet Models half relief buildings. Wills semi detached house, and engine shed and misc buildings (Townstreet). More to follow !

More Dewchurch scenes featuring Townstreet buildings in the High Street, and wash day at a Wills Craftsman semi detached house. Figures are mainly a mixture of Modelu, Langley, and Dart casting/Montys. I tend to weather everything that moves (or does not move), which makes static figures fair game.

Dewchurch - Few more scenes

Summer has arrived in Dewchurch

For any fans of George Heiron's wonderful photographs of the Western Region in the 1950s/60s, a new book has been published by The Transport Treasury. Hardback, contains 145 photos most of which have not been published before in previous books containing George Heiron's work. It is a wonderful read with interesting captions for every photo provided by Leslie Price. It costs £27.50 and can be obtained directly from Transport Treasury. I have no connection to the publisher or authors, other than a very satisfied customer.

I've got a similar problem (I have a Zimo sound decoder installed). Luckily the decoder sounds muffle the underlying noise, (but you can still hear the noise). I have not tried running the unit on DC. At first I thought the problem was the motor vibrating against the false floor which sits above the motor. I ran the unit without the body and flooring installed and this seemed to improve things (but not totally eradicate the problem) . I do not think it is a decoder problem (but am no expert), and wonder if it is something to do with the motor. I think the noise may be amplified when the flooring and body are fitted. I use a Digitrax DCC controller.

Thanks for the advice Holland Park. I was clearly tackling this in the wrong way. Gopher

Thanks for the tip Paul, and best of luck with your future sound projects. Kind Regards Gopher

I can only reiterate all the positive comments about this new loco. Mine arrived on Friday. The detail, and running qualities are excellent, and the sound project is the best I have heard on any DCC sound loco. I have locos with sound decoders from the majority of the main U.K suppliers, in my opinion Paul's sound project in the new class 24 is in a different league. One question. Has anyone taken the body off to install a driver figure, and if so how did you do this ? There are two screws under each of the bogies, I removed these - but this did not seem to loosen the body. I was loath to apply any pressure to remove the body, and possibly damage a beautiful model.

Thanks for the update Dave - funnily enough I had money on BT being the problem somewhere in the whole process of moving shop - Gopher

Thank you Dave - much appreciated

Does anyone know if their phone number has changed - or if there is a problem with their phones ? I've been calling them at different times for the past week (since their move). Phone just rings, no answer and no answer phone. Very unusual - always been able to get through before, or leave a message. Gopher.

I returned my green Class 31 (skinhead) to Hornby week before last - with both (cab ends) of the chassis broken due to metal fatigue. The model is several years old, and the chassis has always been weak, deteriorated over time, and despite my best efforts to preserve it finally broke. Anyway - Hornby returned the model with a new chassis within a week. Excellent customer service . Thank you Hornby

I thought it might be useful if I gave a quick summary of some of the challenges I faced fitting a Loksound 3.5 - 8 pin sound decoder to the STEAM special edition, and also adding a driver to the cab. I already had a class 52 sound decoder in one of my Heljan Westerns - so bought a 21 to 8 pin converter to fit this sound decoder in the Dapol Western. It looked like a simple job, with ample room for the speaker. Then when I tried to refit the body - it would not fit (gap between body and chassis). After playing around for an hour or so (and getting increasingly frustrated) I realised that the combined "height" of the 21 pin converter and the 8 pin decoder plug on the sound decoder - meant that one of the body fans was pressing down on the 8 pin decoder plug - and basically the body would not fit. So after a bit of filing of the solder joints on the 21 pin converter - I found I could fit the ensemble - by tilting the 21 pin converter - thus reducing the vertical height enough to get the body back on. By tilting - what I mean is the 21 pin converter is plugged into the 21 pin decoder socket on the chassis - but then tilted from the horizontal. I'll try and post a photo if anyone is interested in seeing what I've done. It all seems to work O.K - although I can't get the cab lights to work. Not sure if this is a decoder function problem or a problem with the Western. I also had to resolder the black wire to the 8 pin plug - which broke when I was trying to refit the body. The driver was a bit more straight forward, but I managed to break one of the fibre optics on the lighting unit - when takng out the cab interior. They are very delicate - luckily I had some spare fibre optic cable (same diameter) - which I simply inserted (from the outside) in the light socket on the body. All works O.K - even though the fibre optic for this one light is effectively now two pieces. Of course doing all this meant that I managed to displace and lose 4 of the lifting hooks on the cab roof, and also managed to "round" one of the screws used to secure the body. (easily fixed by carefully cutting a new slot into the screw head - so I can use a flat screw driver). Hopefully Dapol will have spares in due course A great model - now needs to be run in, and I now need to go and lie down.

Picked up my model from STEAM today. I think it is superb - so a big thank you to Dapol Dave and the Dapol team and of course members of this forum who contributed to the end result. I was interested in the thread about the Western names never used, and was thinking what names the great and the good would come up with if the class was being manufactured and named today. So here (tongue in cheek) is my list: Western Credit Crunch, Western Wills & Kate, Western Txt Spk OMG LOL, Western Bullock (recently renamed to Western Stallion), Western Equality & Diversity, Western Walkabout, Western Mo Farah, and of course Western Coalition. On reflection maybe the original names were better