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Iain's occasional drivel, moans & groans


ba14eagle
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Like you l went to Woking yesterday. Its about a 40 minute drive for me from home so not to bad.Thought going early on a Saturday my mean parking may be easier ( normally go Sunday) no chance, its a very busy liesure centre and car park wedged.

Yes £8 was a bit steep, and l dont think it had as much there as before, but l usally equate that against the postage l would pay for the items if l bought on line. Normally l stock up on the little things like rail joiners that you always forget to buy. I check out the traders first just to see if theres any bargins, new or pre owned. At present dont need much, and to be honest everyone was charging about the same anyway.

Then the layouts, now l have to be carefull not to offend people here. I have a personal dislike for little diorama style layouts. Dont get me wrong, they are bueatifully built to a standard l can only dream off but most only hold my attension for a short while, nice but not my cup Of tea.

Now onto the bigger layouts. Rule one keep somthing running to keep the public interested. At least on of the largest layouts there did not do this. Lots of fafing around and little action. I do realise that setting up a layout in a show is berefit with problems, but an hour in l would have thought they should be up and running even if you have to abandon the carefully worked out timetable and just run something round and round to entertain the paying public. On the flip side there was another that had problems but they kept going the operators didnt stress about the odd " hand of god" and had time to chat with people, very enjoyable.

Still l apprciate the time and effort put into getting a layout of whatever size ready to go to a show, so thank you all.

Did l buy anything? That between me and my bank card.

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I'd agree 100% with your beliefs on show layouts, it's exactly my experience on the last few shows I've been to.

I also demonstrate my clubs layouts, one is an 8ft harbour shunting puzzle ( with 4ft fiddle yard), the other is a 12ft by 12ft coastal roundy roundy, with just 2 points on display and no station. I've also demonstrated and watched layouts of a very high standard. But spending 8 hours, coupling and uncoupling 3 links is a huge nightmare and I found real turn off watching with the hand of God reaching over all the time.

The running of the shunting puzzle is a real strain if you try to keep something moving all the time, which I feel is necessary. But just running trains past while good for the small children has less interest for the adults.

I'm currently planning an exhibition layout, this will use at least one section of my shed layout with,( which will normally lead out to the garden). So with your and my observations in mind, my layout will be an 8 by 12 roundy roundy, if children are around or I'm having a cup of tea, I'll run the through trains. at other times I'll bring in the local passenger stopper or local freight into a station and use the automatic couplers.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I visited the Fareham Model Railway Exhibition at the weekend. I have to say (after my last rants) that the show was blessed with a large selection of interesting layouts, finished to a high standard and that worked and were being operated proficiently!

Well done to the organisers for putting on a great show, with a reasonable entrance fee - the only thing I didn't agree with, was the choice of best in show layout, but you cant win them all :lol::lol:

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  • 10 months later...

Rather than start a new thread, I thought I would throw this in here.

Over the Summer, I've acquired a number of steam locos and appropriate stock. The problem is, that steam locos really don't like my gradients.

The Hornby "Coronation" will manage load 7 on the easier of the 2 gradients, but the rebuilt version wont do more than load 3. The Hornby A3 struggles with 5 of the new Hornby Gresley coaches, but the "P2" will happily lift them (the extra driving axle helps and its a fair bit heavier too).

Question is, short of a major rebuild of the whole layout, how do I get over the problem? I'm looking at 2 alternatives at present - either Bullfrog Snot on the wheels or using DCC Concepts Powerbase.

The Bullfrog Snot option looks easiest, but can I put a thin enough coat on, so as to still get good running? The Powerbase option looks good, but will involve a lot of track relaying and how will the stainless steel plates fare outside? I'm not confident they will and the manufacturer doesn't advocate pinning track down, but glueing it - which I'm not sure about either...

Decisions, decisions :?       

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Re gradients, friend of mine cut a load of small groves in the track and then filled them with bulldog snot so the loco got power from the track grip from the snot. That was indoors though.

Replica Railways now do a powered carrridge underframe DCC or DC, which may solve the problem of underpowered steamers.

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Regarding steam loco's and gradients I would suggest the easiest way would probably be additional weight. I had the same problems on my old layout and it's surprising how little additional weight is usually necessary in order to improve haulage capabilities. If one of your loco's struggles just lightly press down on the loco body and see what a difference even a small amount of pressure makes.

I found that 5p pieces are a good fit in steam loco smokeboxes, held in where required with a bit of blutack or similar. 50p worth makes a world of difference! Best added above the driving wheels but anywhere else as a last resort.

If you can add some additional weight to your loco's it will save all the hassle of rebuilding or changing the layout itself. Car wheel balance weights are an alternative if there's room but you can also purchase bottles of liquid lead intended for the purpose of adding weight to various models. You'll no doubt be able to think of other items suitable for using.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Firstly. I have added weight to my rebuilt "Coronation" pacific, to try and improve its haulage capabilities. This worked - but only to the point of allowing it to lift 5 coaches instead of 4, up my gradients. I will have a go at plan B - fitting one of the lines with dcc concepts Power Base, and see where that takes us.

Earlier this week, we returned from a short break to North Yorkshire. The original plan had been to go to the planned class 20 festival at the Wensleydale Railway, but this was cancelled during the Summer, so a revised schedule was planned. We started with a couple of nights in Pickering, allowing a ride over the North Yorkshire Moors Railway to Whitby and back. This was my first visit to this railway, but I must say, it easily became one of my favourites - the scenery, big locos, gradients and general ambience really set it apart from most. We moved onto Redmire from Pickering, from where we explored some of the remote outposts of the National Park - including Ribblehead viaduct and Blea Moor Signalbox. From there, we moved back South, to spend a couple of nights at The Sidings hotel, just north of York.

A couple of videos taken our travels

 

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  • 5 months later...

Hi Iain, a big congratulations on your special day, wow  a fire engine, what is your connections with  them do you belong to a museum, my day was a fireman for 43 years, drove fire engines as well, got his brass fireman helmet, don't clean as mush as I should, takes hours.

Tony from sunny down under keeping on moving ahead.

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Thanks Tony.

Ive been into fire engines for a while - always had a bit of a fascination for them as a child, although they used to scare me :$. When my Son was little, a friend took us to a fire engine gathering / rally and that rekindled my interest. Ive been a member of various fire brigade related groups and have owned a couple of old trucks myself. If i had the financial resources I would like another one, but storage is always a problem. I still go to shows and open days when I can and always visit the fire station in any town I visit - even if its just to take a photo of it. Despite there being lots of new build fire stations, there are still a lot of old ones in the UK, with some interesting architectural features.

Even my model railways always feature something fire brigade / firefighting related!

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Dry, sunny weather prompted me to clean off the Summer Hampton mainlines this morning and bring out my purchases from the last 4 or 5 months.

As always, defective bonding wires made smooth operation difficult - and they werent easily remedied without some decent wire and some flux  - a shopping list!

As usual at this time of year, thoughts of changing up to the "senior" scale come to mind again :/ - especially when you there are deals like this to be had:

https://railsofsheffield.com/products/28753/heljan-4205-o-gauge-class-42-warship-829-magpie-in-blue-with-full-yellow-ends-and-centrally-placed-double-arrow-symbols

 

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Somehow although I think O or G1 has more Gravitas to it, they probably still have problems with power supplies, unless they Go Radio Controlled but you can do that in OO these days anyway..

I like the Series 3 landrover, mine generally were green with a coventry climax mounted in the back.

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I know exactly what you mean Iain. I thought long and hard about an O gauge garden railway instead of OO. What swayed me for now is the lack of RTR stuff available in O gauge. The price of coach kits is still a bit steep as well. For sure its improving and I may well end taking up my OO track in the future and laying a single line O gauge. But for now OO it is.

cheers

mark

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On 29/03/2018 at 13:38, TheQ said:

Somehow although I think O or G1 has more Gravitas to it, they probably still have problems with power supplies, unless they Go Radio Controlled but you can do that in OO these days anyway..

I like the Series 3 landrover, mine generally were green with a coventry climax mounted in the back.

It might be easier for me to see what im soldering :grin:

  • Haha 1
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  • 1 month later...

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