devondynosoar118

I would be happy to lend my copy of Railway Roundabout, there’s a good few hours of stuff on there with a nice chunk of BR western region footage. PM me your address, only cost is returning the DVD when you have enjoyed it! 

Engines were usually prohibited from passing through or entering goods sheds as well. In cases where there was no capstan system or similar a barrier wagon would be used to shunt loaded wagons into the shed.

A short siding with a wagon turntable to access a shed or end loading dock or both would fill a corner with the running line behind it if you were looking for a view blocker, in situations where space was tight a trailing connection to a wagon turntable was occasionally used. You wouldn’t need the turntable to be functional but it would add operational interest. 

When you adjust CV’s start by writing down the pre set value, then adjust in smaller increments. Messing with the speed curve or table cannot damage the loco, it just might not run as you want it. 

I like DM Glue n Glaze. Dries clear, can be put on thin, repositioning is possible and excess can be cleared with damp cotton bud.

Engineering plastic sheets are very much square, plus you will be cutting any sheet you use anyway, hopefully using a decent straight edge and a square.

Some of the tea turned sheets like Slaters are not always square, but one cut usually fixes that.

I have self printed buildings that are nearly 8 years old that kept their colour, I use fixative spray and a light coat of varnish before glazing to help and don’t leave them in direct sunlight, anything fades under too much sun! Another vote for Scalescenes, their stuff is superb.

The Didcot loco shed is a Loan Act shed, built with money from the govt in the 1920’s. Townstreet Models do a finished one. They do both OO and O size I believe.

https://www.townstreetuk.co.uk/7mm.html

Scale scenes also have a two road shed that can be printed as many times as you like for one purchase, their stuff is really good and easy to make bigger.

https://scalescenes.com/railscenes/

York Modelmaking do bespoke laser work. 

https://yorkmodelrail.com/bespoke-services/

@bmthtrains - David

I get that about 3d printing not being a magic bullet. Printed parts have limits, it can’t replace everything. I am forever reminding people that by the time they have drawn, tested and broken a 3d printed part I could often have made it by good old fashioned methods, without it subsequently breaking.

I think it is part of the solution in more “niche” or smaller markets or as a way of hooking people in to the wider hobby. Once they have found the limits of a 3D printed model, they might like to try building a more traditional kit. If nobody is offering the models, then a growing home printing market is being ignored. I see kids of 15-20 making amazing stuff on home machines, they could be getting hooked into railway modelling via their printing for not much outlay once CAD is done and they don’t mind paying for a one use licence.

With regards to 3D printing the initial cost of resin printers is now under £200 for a very capable machine, in other hobbies it is becoming more popular for people to sell files and finished product than just printed items.
This could be a great way for small manufacturers to recover some of the CAD costs and reach more people.

More Brio and mainstream trainset sales will help bring more people into the market for model railways later. I don’t care if Hornby stops making them, I don’t think most current buyers of trainsets associate them with that brand specifically.

Canopy is complete for the station building. Just got to finish painting it.

Another vote for play sand or washed builders sand. I use sieved grey builders sand and play sand on my N layout, parts of which are 10 years old now, no corrosion, lifting or shifting has occurred. If you use PVA etc like normal ballast it never gets loose or falls off. 
You can also dye the PVA mix with inks to weather and tint the finish. The picture below shows track ballasted with building sand and the cess laid with play sand. 

 

I dried both fully in a low temp oven, then sieved and bagged the stuff for later use.

As it grows more DCC dependant you could have one board or section that can be fully isolated from the rest to use those DC models on or re chassis the unconvertable ones.

I have bought 4 controllers second hand, 3 analogue, one digital, all worked fine. Hattons have good customer service and you hear very few complaints about their second hand stuff. 

Princess Royal lasted until 1962 as well. My father in law scavenged the tip for pit props to put in the Rayburn as a lad! 
You could see the pit head from their house.

I would echo the above- get hands on with your choices first, it makes a big difference being able to try before you buy and everyone has their personal favourite handset or functions.

Like anything technical it’s YOU that has to operate and work it out so unless the system and it’s supporting community makes sense to you, it doesn’t matter what potential is there.

Another satisfied NCE Powercab user here. It’s done everything I have ever needed to do with it including programming lots of accessories and locos.

Don’t forget second hand, it’s out there if you persist and can save you money. 
Good quality decoders are a good investment. 
 

D1059’s backscene was better, you have a couple of overscale trees......

Very nice. I imagine some cabs can be a bit more “weathered” and “authentic” than others, just like any shared workspace.

Attention to detail in any project always makes me happy, that loco is about 10x the size of the largest thing I have rebuilt and painted. Good to see that repaint went well beyond a quick external tart up.

Tidy trains are good for the public image of the railways and it’s good to see some freight operators really making an effort with their locomotives, even if they can’t usually control how grimy. the stock they pull is. From a modelling perspective the contrast between more careworn wagons and shiny locos is interesting. Obviously a few older, scruffy and characterful locos are fun to see too, your photos always provide a good range of both.

Looking forward to seeing the results from the new camera.

Looks like Hornby have made the finish a little glossy on the above release, surely they don’t look that clean in “real?”

On the plus side the trees against the back scene look very good.

All silliness aside the team in the works paint shop did a cracking job on that, almost a shame to get it grubby with work. Was the cab as shiny inside?

Why not just run on DC if you never intend to run more than one or two loco’s? You can wire points and use a bus type set up to be DCC compatible later and just include a couple of isolating sections if you want to park a second loco or have more than one controller. If you later want sound and DCC all you would need to do is turn the sections on.

Some very old stuff with cast chassis blocks and no isolation can be more difficult, but there are plenty of newer examples on eBay if you want a small engine which will take a chip more easily. The Dapol pannier is just a plug in. Some second hand ones may already be chipped, saving a chore.

As Nigel has pointed out there are very few locos in N you can’t fit a decoder to, it just requires more creativity in where they go and more eye straining to solder them in. You can get sound and a chip in an 04 shunter so using a wired decoder as opposed to a plug in one should be fine in 009. Be aware that white metal bodies will need extra care as the decoder can short itself to death on anything conductive!

Materials wise you would just need the correct thickness of clear acrylic sheet. Make a template and keep producing them.

The other option is to make the drawings yourself in a free CAD program (lots of suggestions in laser cutting forum I imagine) then get a hack space or RM web laser cutter or silhouette cutter to make you a bulk batch.

It’s a trade off, cheap will cost you time to do, or you buy from someone who has done all the hard work already. Depends on how much you value your time.

I never knew Hellifield had such a spectacular canopy and wealth of railway infrastructure. Somebody needs to get the strimmer and weed wand out on that platform and the bay looks like it’s more planter than platform.

Is anyone using the building at the moment? I know steam services have used it before.

For people unaware of local geography Newton Abbott is some distance from Buckfastleigh, a stroll between the two would take several hours.

You cannot easily use capacitors in that way on DC, since in one direction the output will be the wrong polarity. You can get around that but because the voltage into the loco varies on DC you will have to run at high speeds to charge the capacitor to a level where it will make any difference to a disruption of the track feed.

Perhaps radio control with a battery in the loco might be a better solution in this case?

I would avoid cheap track too, in my experience it causes more trouble than the money saving was worth. I would rather build sections more slowly using better components, either new or good second hand, than fast and using bargain basement track.

You will get much more reliable running that way, which is more time spent playing trains, less time cursing poor track, which to me is the aim of the game, running trains!

None of the areas need to be scenic to begin with, as long as the track has a decent base and is well laid you can come back to scenery at any time, that way you focus spending on getting moving models, with one skill set at a time to (re)learn as opposed to trying to do all of it at the same time.

AA was used to protect supply dumps, not always successfully, from air attack. Destroying facilities beyond the reach of artillery was a prime objective of both air forces, especially in 1917 when the British and Canadian narrow gauge lines were at their height. Most depots were kept large, to minimise transshipment.

The other option would be a forward dressing station, or maybe a rest area.

The Germans managed to bomb several major yards, including sidings full of ammunition, many of which were well behind the front line.

One raid in 1916 hit Audruicq, a major RE base near St Omer.

I have a dual lighting rig planned, with the Kerr Stuart and a Simplex doing afternoon turns, then lighting shifting to evening when the steam engines were starting to set up their supply drops after sunset, with a “moon” type lighting for the steam trains to run under.

My main aim right now is to get the track layout right, so it’s as close to operationally correct as I can get it, then I can alter details of the back drop. I think the levels will work with the river at the lowest point, rising to the embankment.