johnb

Excellent service from our friends in Cornwall or should it be Kernow???????? Order placed for Bachmann Scenecraft low relief Underground station via their webpage at lunchtime on Friday, email confirming ready to go within two hours, package arrived in Saturday's post. That's brilliant!!!!!!! John

What a great selection of liveries, love the bright green ended 'bis' one!! John

See that every time I walk to the shops. John

I am just an occasional internet/mail order buyer from Kernow and must agree that their service is first class John

You are into 'computer speak' here. Real people see 3, 03, 003, 0003 as the same thing, a simple 'three'. Computers, (which is essentially what DCC is) unless programmed to ignore leading zeros, don't. They see the leading zeros as a 'something', hence why 'simple systems' see 0003 as different from a plain 3. Just part of life's rich texture, which does pong a bit at times regards John

If I am disposing of a DCC item I always set the address to the SHORT address 3 which is easily done with the NCE Powercab. See the instructions on page 2 of the manual. Or if I have the instructions for the chip being used I reset the chip to the factory default which is usually (but not always!) done by entering 2 into CV8. That will always set the address to short 3 as well as sorting out any other changes that you may have made. Short address 3 can be read by any DCC system. I use both short and long addressed locos on my system at the same time and just work as normal. A short addressed loco I enter the number only. If I use a four digit addressedloco with number under 99 then I have to enter the number with a leading 0 The Powercab also has a facility to reset the chip directly to it's factory settings, see the Recovery Mode paragraph, it's on page 54 of my manual. Some controllers can only read 1 -20 and have NO WAY of reading or reprogramming a 4 digit address. The only way your buyers can get things sorted is to find some one with a 4 digit capable system and get them to reset the number to short address 3 Also the NCE system automatically sorts out CV29 for you if you follow the programming section instructions. Hope that helps John

Looking at all that chainage holding the loco to the flat car, someone was making sure that it didn't move !!!!

I once had a lady friend navigating who would always say things like "In a little while you need to turn left down the little yellow road."

Because when I got restarted in modeling, the trains running past the kitchen window of my new flat were all blue. I started with a blue Airfix 31 and a blue Mainline peak because that was all that was available at the time. John

Looking very promising Steve! John

Now that looks very good, I'd want a grey one and the later LT maroon. Better start saving then

Brilliant service from L& B. Ordered their Ltd Ed 416 EMU via ebay BIN yesterday morning. Dispatch was confirmed in a couple of hours, goods received this morning by Royal Mail Special Delivery. That is excellent by anyones standards. First time I've used them and am well pleased. John

That's huge progress CK. Bearing in mind that you must be restricted in hours of work due to tides and storms. Also in getting concrete to 'set' between the various soakings of salt water. Many thanks for your efforts in taking time to show us all this and the Somerset Levels too. Much appreeciated. John

I find that home storage and the needs of exhibition do call for differing methods. For home use I've used ordinary file boxes which take six coaches (BR Mk1 size) separated with card or thin foam, they can then be stored in threes in the 'Simply' cardboard storage boxes from Staples. Makes moving them around easy. I have used these for exhibition transport but they do suffer and need replacing after some 6 to 8 trips. They don't take heavy knocks very well, I've been lucky with a couple that did get bashed in that no damage was done to the contents. That exerience was what made me go to the Really Useful Box range which can take knocks much better. John

I'm using the 10litre boxes and i find they are good, enough height to comfortably take a single layer of OO stock standing upright. I've used the JB Modelword pre-cut foam inserts in them, not perhaps the cheapest option but excellent for the latest EMUs where the powercar is rather weighty. Bearing in mind that I do exhibit my layout and the cost of new EMUs I consider it a worthwhile investment to miimise damage.

I have some and they are fine for my purposes. Like sdw above they have not had much use so far, but no problems. Mine are also labelled DCC Concepts

I must be a long distance mind reader or something, I've got a City of London based 3rd rail 1970 (ish) layout under build at present, pretty small with about 8ft of scenics, designed for 4 car EMUs and some limited parcels working. I've some ideas about the supposed location, which involve some fictional bending ... er..... modifications, to both the history and geography to the City. When I'm a bit further advanced I'll start to post some more info. John

Been B5 fan since first series on TV. Your models look really great!!

The diameter is measured across the tread and is nominally the 'as new' dimension. Over time this will wear down, I believe that in steam days it could be as much as two inches (50mm) before the wheel was retyred. I am not sure about diesels but is a significant amount, probably an inch (25mm) or more. No doubt one of our more knowledgeable memebrs will be along very soon with the precise amounts.

We've all done that sort of thing at one time or another. It's one of those "Oh twit!" (or a rough equivalent) moments regards John

I think that you will find that the "white dot" is in fact the white of the upper half disc showing through the hole for the light in the lower half disc. If you look at this site http://www.d8233.org.uk/gallery_others.htm on the Class 15s I think that it will become clear. Hope that helps John

It's very wet there now!! Just connected in time to see a passenger train arrive and depart

The deliberate mistake is the fact that the upper disc of the left hand set technically should not have been blacked out as it was the one that read to the continuation of the platform line, the lower disc orginally read to the crossover road. The rule is that the top disc of a 'stacked' set read to the leftmost route and the bottom to the righthand. So, originally on the left hand pair the TOP was STRAIGHT ON and the lower was over the crossover. For the right hand pair on the other hand the TOP disc was a route over the crossover and the LOWER was STRAIGHT ON. regards John

Interesting conversion, particularly at £49.95 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tri-ang-Railways-R157-158-EMU-set-Pantograph-Boxed-/251036998626?pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item3a72f89be2