ba14eagle

Saturday 26th March and you might have thought I'd be on the UK Railtours trip to Okehampton (being a pair of class 50's) - but no. MIOG were holding a 7mm scale exhibition at the Crewe Heritage Centre, so that's where I was. Here are a couple of films featuring what was on show. https://youtu.be/32p4r6Mop6Y https://youtu.be/iU_AdcaNP7I

If anyone is interested, I am looking to sell Baker Wood Bunker (- Ive finally had a fitted bedroom installed in order to tidy everything up - its only taken 6 years!). The layout will come with the power supply for the lights and an analogue controller to operate the OO9 track. You will need to find your own controller for the OO track. The OO points are wired up, but I think only 1 of these now works. There isnt any rolling stock included. Please send a PM if you are interested.

It is great to see you back Griff. I have, at times, been quite concerned when seeing news reports from the US, of weather and climate induced disasters in your neck of the woods. I look forward to seeing your next build mate.

I know - it was quite annoying when people were waxing lyrical about a "game changing" innovation 😂 I have actually bought a pack or 2 of Hunt couplings and, tbh, they arent very good - they break too easily, which for a commercial product sucks. At least when mine break, I only have my own shoddy handiwork to blame and am able to repair them - you cant do that to a Hunt coupling! I have to concede defeat though, when they have produced ones that dont have to be correctly arranged, pole to pole. I have also used the ones that fit the older Hornby mk3's.

Mick - are the bogies sprung at all or is there a spring between the top of the bogie and the chassis? I know its a different scale but the Dapol O gauge mark 1 coaches have a spring between the bogie and chassis, but it causes derailments (I am not the only person that this has happened too) so I have removed the springs and, now, they dont derail.

Friday afternoon in the packing department!

I had Roads and Rails fit sound into my Dapol class 68 - despite being at full volume, you can hardly hear it - quite disappointing - and as I'm not capable (or willing to destroy an expensive speaker or chip) of changing the speaker, I will just have to live with it.

The 4th HEA looks like its off the road or has a collapsed axle 😮

I cant think Ive ever seen these wagons in the flesh, but the light weathering really looks good on them. I currently have a beef with Revolution Trains, which is a pity, as I would quite like to pre-order a Cartic 4 🤔

For what its worth, I like the lighter colours, not so much the red - I think they would be better buried under the others (inside the pile would look darker obs)

I have put brass bearing caps in my Hornby PGA wagons, as most of the holes were badly worn. I changed the axles too iirc, to metal ones. Its worth the effort to get wagons that run freely and the axles dont fallout, when you pick them up!

Really enjoyed the intermodal wagons. I would really like to see the sound chip developers make some progress on slowing down acceleration rates. I want to hear more thrash, at lower speeds - particularly in type 5's and bigger.

Same here with the Accurascale Nova 3 sets

Id love a set of the red version to run behind my streamlined Coronation pacific, but this years budget is already spent on O gauge pre orders - but you are talking about LNER, I was thinking LMS 😂

I wonder if the driver of 60005 is attending to a potential hot axle box at the rear of the train?

Happy new year all. Re Moss - I wish I could get it to grow anywhere! Ive tried numerous times, using the mentioned theories, but just cant get it to grow. Even the parts of the garden which are shady and damp, dont attract it.

They need loading Mick - they will look fabulous with some really coarse grades of the black gold.

What! Aren't you fitting them all with instanters? 😂

They all look superb Mick

They look much better now Mick. Ive got to be honest - I find petroleum tank wagons a bit of a minefield - the rtr offerings never seem to be quite the right type of vehicle or the right livery for the train and time period I want to replicate (they are either 1950's & 60's or sub-sector liveries). Hence why I don't have any. I would dearly love some bitumen / heavy oil tanks (used to be very common in my area back in the 1970's and 1980's) but even the long awaited Bachmann model doesn't cover the different types seen.

Mick - When its just me in the garden, I tend not to use the loops, but just run one OO and one O gauge train out at once - with the O gauge, that was mainly because the outer loop had a reverse curve which nothing particularly liked going around. If I'm entertaining visitors, I get ahead and use the loops, so I can keep something running, whilst changing the other train over, for something else. Now that I have relaid the O gauge through the point and loops (at the house end of the garden) rolling stock runs much better on both lines - even the Dapol Mk1 coaches! There is still a bit of an ongoing saga though. I have 2 parcels vehicles - one, possibly, an Exley LMS 57ft full brake (a really nice model), that wouldnt go around the garden at all without falling off. Now Ive relaid some of the track, it will go around clockwise, but not anti clockwise (falls off on the left handside corner closest the house - again the curve needs lifting and packing.) The other, is a Heljan GUV, which will go around anti clockwise, but not clockwise! This derails at the far end of the loops, so next Spring, this will probably all need relaying. Its a difficult call though - I'm often reluctant to rip up trackwork that most of the stock runs ok over, incase it fixes it for one vehicle, but then causes problems to other stuff. And there was me thinking the larger scale would be more tolerant of lumps and bumps 🙄

Yes, it was Burton on Trent. 😂 I recall I enjoyed a couple of chats with her - a great conversationalist 🙂