New Railway Modellers Forums

Potentially 'can of worms' territory. Clearly it has to fit and work on Hornby's own track: that's the whole point of offering a track system. Any other brand's track products, well, you may get lucky. If we are definitely talking Hornby track, their code 100 has been in production since 1971 (inclu...

Just went for a casual look at Bachmann's list price for their RTR 4 CEP. Very odd indeed. When first released it cost much the same as 4 of their mk1's, so effectively the motor unit and lighting was thrown in free. Now it's listed at 11x the typical mk1 list price. Clearly there has been a change ...

Lifted from elsewhere: Slip coaches are interesting! Often thought DCC could be used to operate a slip. One would need heavy wheels such as Romfords and some nice bearings for free running. Would be interesting! Actually it's now easier yet than that. I have adapted a Heljan class 128 parcels car me...

I believe the driving units were based on BR mk1 SO, and the centre cars were a BR mk1 SK and BR mk1 CK. But note that 'based on'; I'll bet there were some differences, in addition to the visible electrical installations and powered bogies. But that should be reasonable for 'looks like a 4CEP'. I co...

Interestingly, someone has already built a 4-8-0 as a proposed Cathedral Class, Bigmet. https://share.icloud.com/photos/074jtjAjS0ArDgcu3V4xNUBBQ Not quite what M. Chapelon had in mind! His 4-8-0 developed the highest specific power output measured from a steam loco. Naturally it was a compound, wi...

Now you have regained your breath from building your 'Neverwazza', there is now a suitable RTR OO mechanism for M. Chapelon's favoured thought on where Swindon might go next in maximum power steam. Take a Hornby P2 mechanism, and adapt it for a 4-8-0...

My immediate reaction is 'you don't want to do that'. The essence of correct operation is first set the route for the train that is to be operated over it. Don't know your point motor, so cannot advise there, but since you have purchased them I would suggest asking the vendor for thoughts. Even befo...

Rails of Sheffield were offering a good price last week, possibly still are. All RTR OO should be made to this standard...

Ooh, they still are:
https://railsofsheffield.com/collection ... locomotive

I indulged last week (as mentioned in 'Other mfrs') in the Kerr Stuart 'Victory' 0-6-0T, while waiting for the many other items 'announced but yet to appear on sale': partly due to having read many good reports of this item since it went on sale, and then prompted recently by the chance to operate a...

And having seen that the price for Planet industrials' Kerr Stuart 'Victory' 0-6-0T is now very reasonable, I ventured a purchase last week and have been putting it thorugh its paces. Looks good, runs very sweetly, has adequate weight for traction, mechanism design and construction is sound. Assessm...

...Have to admit to loving the Mainliners, though. The company which woke Hornby up! Shame that their parent 'pulled the plug' before they could progress to a conventional wiper pick up mechanism for steam, and the centre motor drive for D+E traction. We could have had competent HO technique mechan...

The Stirling 0-4-2 mixed traffic type or 'luggage engines' were constructed in five groups, A, A2, A3 and A4. Aha I hear you say, but thats only four groups. Yes, but one of the groups was divided between Doncaster and outside contractors, and these latter constructed 'outside' were (very slightly) ...

...Was thinking of peening the housing, not the wheels. It'd raise the surface,narrowing the running gap... One potential problem to be aware of in the mechanism castings are voids in the casting. I have taken a saw to five different Bachmann mechanism castings for varied purposes, (altering the wh...

I wouldn't go anywhere near the driving wheel assemblies of these with a hammer. Degreasing the pieces and reassembling with an adhesive - my choice was 24hr curing Araldite - did the job on mine, until all the essential plating for conduction was worn through. The 'problem child' for my interest wa...

Looks neat overall. One aspect that you might want to think about, the outside axle box on the leading bogie wheel. The design problem that led to this arrangement had been solved pretty much as erection of the King class ended. The pacific would have had a regular inside axlebox bogie, based on wha...