CWJ

Sounds like a rule made up by a paranoid lawyer rather than someone who actually understands the technology. A bit like people who are convinced their brains are being microwaved by nearby power lines. While it's not impossible for a mobile phone to interfere with communications between pump and cashier, the latter would have to be using a very unusual serial protocol that isn't compliant with well-established international standards... so not impossible, but the same could be said for drinking your tea through a hosepipe. Not sensible, and highly unlikely. It had never occurred to me that distraction could be a safety hazard either. The worst you could do is put the wrong fuel in your car, or maybe dribble a bit of fuel on the ground (which happens anyway and will be dealt with by the drainage system), neither of which are safety issues. Could they perhaps be thinking of simultaneous hazards, e.g. motorist forgets to put his fag out because he's on the phone? Well, we've really enjoyed the hilarious side of this sign now, haven't we? 🤣 Cheers, Will

Fridge Over the River Kwai. Ah feck it, feckin breeeeeeeeeeek! (Sorry, am catching up after a couple of days).

The KWVR does very well for film and TV work, including some using visiting locos and stock. https://kwvr.co.uk/tv-film/ I do enjoy seeing what these creative showbiz types can do with a familiar location. The recent remake of Swallows and Amazons superimposed footage of the Worth Valley's 4F over the GNR's nearby, but long-closed, Queensbury branch. The loco crew were later heard to boast that they were the first to take a train over Hewenden Viaduct since 1963. Cheers, Will

Hi Captain, I fashioned my own replacement brass gears by cutting down a similar type from China via Ebay. Others have purchased replacements from Ultrascale. I can't answer your specific question, but there's a good discussion here (containing a link to another discussion too) so the answer might be in there somewhere: Cheers, Will

"Which was nice".

I've always thought these, and the Austrian version, were nice-looking trains, and would like to ride them one day. Don't blame you in the slightest for letting it run on your Welsh layout! Cheers, Will

Is someone going to say it, or are we all just going to think it?

Here's the assembled pan, with plastic insulators clamped between the pan base and the roof, so no need for glue. Strictly speaking the supplied insulators are probably a bit lavish for 600V DC, but they look neat and hold the pan at the right height. Also, from the complete lack of clear photos online, I assume hardly anyone really knows what the real insulators actually look like. By the way, this method insulates the pantograph from the metal bodyshell so it would be suitable for current collection; you'd just need to attach a wire to the screw head inside the tram. It looks much more like the real thing with a pantograph on it, so that was a satisfying job. Blackening the metal also means I don't have to worry about the moving parts getting clogged with paint. Cheers, Will

What follows could be useful to anyone fitting a Corgi Balloon tram with a Sommerfeldt pantograph. The tramcar roof comes with a hole which is larger than the fixing screw that comes with the pan. I decided to use the base of Corgi's plastic pantograph as a kind of spacer, but fitted from the inside. This is what it looks like: On the inside of the roof, I had to cut down the diecast boss below the pan. This and some other parts of the moulding were crudely attacked with a large drill bit, taking great care not to go through the roof! I couldn't get a file in to tidy these up, so they'll remain a mess for ever more, but out of view so I don't care. Poking the plastic pan base through from below, and trimming the round part a little, the screw is now in exactly the right place to fix the pan down.

All the blackened parts ready for reassembly... ...and after the three-dimensional puzzle of putting it back together. It needs weathering, but it looks better for not being bright red!

Just to finish off yesterday's update, the destination boxes are now glued together and the joints have been filled and sanded. This is important because on the real thing the box seems to be one pressing from sheet metal (or maybe a GRP moulding, but either way it's a one-piece item with no joins on the front). I'll come back to those when I've built up the motivation to solder some more surface-mount LEDs. For a more satisfying diversion, I decided to work on the pantograph. As supplied, this model is painted bright red, so I partly-disassembled it and gave it a bath in acetone (nail varnish remover): After bring stripped and cleaned, here are the bits alongside an untreated pan: I was then going to paint the parts a dirty black colour, but the blackened pan head gave me an idea. According to the internet, steel can be blackened by heating it until dark red and then quenching in motor oil, so that's what I did. No dramatic photos of me wielding the blowtorch, but hopefully you can see the difference: It's a bit blotchy but I wanted the pan to look weathered anyway so that's fine. One of the springs got damaged by the heat, I should really have been more careful or just left the springs unblackened. Then, almost inevitably, I lost the other spring. Thankfully I had a spare one from a different type of pantograph. To be continued...

These were really awkward to hold and the file went deep into my thumb on at least one occasion! A more intelligent modeller would have made some sort of jig to hold the piece still, or maybe glued it to the tram before filing. Unfortunately one box broke when I was drilling the starting-hole for filing. This die-casting metal is fairly flimsy, especially when a ham-fisted Yorkshireman is taking his cordless drill to it. But it will all be glued to the tramcar and covered in filler anyway, so it's not the end of the world. Viewed from behind, the hole in the box is slightly larger than the hole in the brass, which I hope will allow me to glaze it neatly. ...and from the front: Finally, I rubbed the parts down ready for glueing and filling: These bits have now been glued together with 2-part epoxy for maximum strength, but the glue is taking a long time to 'go off' so I hope I mixed it correctly. In the next thrilling update I'll be attaching the pantograph and illuminating the destination blinds. Cheers, Will

As I slowly work my way up the tram (excluding the bogies - they're in the too-difficult pile for now!), it's now the turn of the top deck. I started by cutting away some seat bases to make room for the rectifier and voltage regulator beneath. I then removed Corgi's incorrect bannister panels and replaced them with my own etches which actually allow the little folk to climb the stairs. These will also conveniently make the capacitor virtually invisible. It's the only physically large piece of electrickery that I couldn't hide anywhere but the stairwell. The etched panel is fitted with some 0.5mm brass wire handrails which will also conduct said electrickery up to the ceiling for the top deck's lighting. The upstairs interior being pretty much ready for painting, I moved on to the exterior. The destination blinds are a bit 2-dimensional, so I'd like to have a go at glazing and illuminating them. I started by marking out; the two existing holes are for positioning pegs on the destination box: Then a rectangular hole was drilled and filed. This is just to let the light through from the LEDs, it won't be visible later: This area will be covered by the destination boxes, and they will need a somewhat neater hole in the front, so I included them in my etch: To be continued...

I got this lamp/magnifier from Hobbycraft and am very happy with it. Seems well made, and the light is bright and well-dispersed. https://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/the-daylight-company-mag-lamp-s/6378721000.html For context, I have good eyesight and don't wear glasses, but returning to modelling at the age of 40 after a 10-year break I found myself struggling with really tiny details. Cheers, Will

I was about to be a clever clogs and assert that the brake pipes ARE duplicated on the power cars, but I must have been thinking of the trailers. The camera never lies; no bonus points for me. Cheers, Will

Over the last week or so I've been working on the lower deck's lighting circuit board. This is the underside, with seven surface-mount LEDs and their current-limiting resistors. The blue bits are pieces of insulation tape to keep the copper tracks electrically separate from the copper tape I had to run over the top. This technique is a bit experimental (AKA foolhardy!) but the board needs to be as thin as possible or the tram interior and body won't go together correctly. If I make another tram I'll have a go at a custom PCB to make this neater and more robust. The top looks a bit neater. Just a bridge rectifier, a 3.3V regulator and a capacitor. The regulator keeps the LEDs a constant brightness at track voltages above 5V. The capacitor is supposed to prevent flicker, but currently doesn't. At first I thought I must have chosen one without enough capacitance but after some tinkering I suspect there's just a dodgy solder joint somewhere. Into the high-tech test facility she goes, with the lighting board loosely plonked in position. As usual, the photos make the lights look a lot brighter than they are. With the room light turned on the tram's interior lights would be invisible from this angle. A couple of indulgent photos with the top deck on and some fake moonlight to replicate the romantic ambience of an evening on the Lancashire coast... Anyway that's enough of playing with electronics. Back to modelling next time. Cheers, Will

I've moved on from disliking either of them (although some drivers of both brands still have their moments, bless them). No, there's a new scourge on the roads. As the 'SUV'* has gained such great popularity over the last few years, today's problem is that when one of these is driving too close behind someone in a 'normal' car, their headlights are at exactly the same level as the normal car's rear view mirror. And as many motorists seem blissfully unaware that the bouncing, blue-white pool of light on the rear window of the car in front is coming from their own inadequately-dipped headlamps, who could blame Mr Normal for resorting to passive-aggressive brake applications in an attempt to demonstrate his wrath to Little Miss SUV? (Asking for a friend). Cheers, Will * PS. Am I the only one who thinks of Captain Scarlet's car when people talk about SUVs? Also, most SUVs seem to be smallish, 2WD hatchbacks but jacked up by a few inches and sold for £10k more. I don't get it. None of this has anything to do with signage, whacky or otherwise. Apologies.

Thank you for the encouraging comment, Nick. My motor bogies will be a bit experimental so there will be plenty of opportunities for me to go wrong! I'll give it a go, though, and if all else fails I can resort to a RTR or kit-built chassis. Cheers, Will

The trolleybus now seems quite at home on the layout: Cheers, Will

I have forgotten what this debate was originally about and don't want to prolong the argumentative aspect of it, so I'm not going to give my opinion on what is good or bad, right or wrong. I would just add that loco-hauled passenger trains probably work best when the operator is in a position to reap the benefits of LHCS compared with multiple units, e.g. ability to run the loco round if the DT fails, ability to swap the loco if that fails, and ability to marshall trains of different lengths or different combinations of vehicle types to suit traffic demands. Due to very few TOC people in the area having any experience of loco-hauled trains (remember 47s and Mk2s were 40 years ago, that's a whole career!), and critical infrastructure like run-round loops and Class 08s at stations all vanishing in the 1980s too, the Mk5As were effectively designed and operated like fixed-formation DMUs, giving most of the disadvantages of LHCS but few of the advantages. The best-case TOC for this fleet would be one where driver training can be easily accommodated, where managers are familiar with LHCS operation, and where drivers are open to the idea that uncoupling is about to get a lot more dirty and physical than pressing a button on a DMU! To really reap those benefits the coaches would be modified so that individual cars could be shunted in and out of sets just like HST trailers are (or were 😢), without needing a spanner or a laptop. Such a shame it didn't work out for TPE as these were lovely trains to travel on, and they would have been even better with an electric or bi-mode loco after Manchester-Leeds is all wired. Cheers, Will

I grew up on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales and the area is immediately recognisable from your model. I don't think I've ever seen something as mundane as a field modelled so convincingly before, and when combined with the fact that the railway is just a thin line in a huge landscape, it looks just like the real thing. Very well done! Cheers, Will

One more quick job to complete the downstairs interior: the staircases have been reinstated in their new positions closer to the side walls. I've also added handrails using 0.3mm brass wire and a back panel in black styrene as there was previously nothing under the stairs. Probably my last update of 2023, so Merry Christmas! Let's see if I can finish this tram before the distractions of spring and summer. Cheers, Will

67008 at Manchester Piccadilly today: Cheers, Will

Evening all, I'm not interested in modelling one of these sets myself, but happened to have time to take a few snaps at Manchester Piccadilly this afternoon. For anyone that doesn't know, these coaches were destined for Grand Central's proposed Blackpool-Euston service which sadly never went ahead because of the Covid pandemic. It makes a nice change to see a proper loco-hauled set with buffet car, first class and luggage van. 67008 propels the set off towards Cardiff. Note the additional multiple working connector on the front end; possibly already in place from Mk3 push-pull operation, or maybe newly added for the Mk4s. The DVT enhances what would otherwise just be a picture of a Pendolino. DVT roof details. Holding my phone at an angle to fit in the whole train seemed like a good idea at the time... Here's the MU jumper connected to what looks like a new wiring conduit on the 'buffer end' Mk4 coach. I don't remember that being there when the coaches were hauled by 91s. Plarform 9 would have been a good place to get some side-on shots of the coaches too, but they were full of people so it didn't feel right to point a camera at them. I was reliably informed by a railway colleague that these are lovely to travel on, and that the Mk4s ride beautifully as they don't get much above 80mph on this route. Cheers, Will

I was minding my own business at Manchester Piccadilly this afternoon when this pair caught me off-guard. They were running light through Platform 13, so probably going home after delivering an intermodal train to Trafford Park. Cheers, Will