Oxford Rail offer the J27 NER/LNER/BR 0-6-0

[Bigmet]

...This has given me the push to drag out of the loft 20 x 21 ton hoppers. Not seen light of day
for a few years. Can't justify having that many 13 tonners though, although my TOPS record
tells me I paid £7.20 each for them - Must have been mad to spend £144 on one type of wagon...

Ha ha, I'm barmier than you. When you have the space for a layout that demands a selection of 40 to 60 wagon trains to realistically represent freight operations - and now near 90'% of that stock is from RTR - you need a special relationship with money. The way this works is that my most excellent wife and I have an agreement about our joint disposable income, we can each spend half of it.

Now one of us largely disposed of this on holidays, clothes, shoes, garden items: near all of which is now 'used up', and most of the physical items discarded. The other one still has 800 RTR wagons, mostly obtained at the three to five quid each rate. My clothes hang off me in rags, but look at my train set.

[Dad-1]

Hi Bigmet,

Shame I live on the other side of a world - In Dorset.
Some of my 500+ could do a few miles on your layout.
If I need care they never take your railway stock as part
of your savings value, so I may as well spend it now.

The PC90 makes up to a nice model, a bit light (Understatement)
at 11.06 grams. The best I can reach with hidden shreds of lead
is 12.46. Need a careful driver, but not had one derail yet.
So pleased I have another 8 on back order for when next available.
Some will have a load. In typical railway modeller style I want to
have a few in the earliest markings, none of which are on the supplied
decal sheet
.
I ordered the J27 from an on-line trader, who as yet hasn't got the
early BR livery with sound in. Others have - frustration at saving
about £8 !!

Geoff T.

[Bufferstop]

frustration at saving about £8 !!
Geoff T.

That doesn't compute on my system, the least imaginable amount of frustration just isn't worth £8.
"..............I wan't it all, and I want it "Now"

[Bigmet]

...The PC90 makes up to a nice model, a bit light (Understatement) at 11.06 grams. The best I can reach with hidden shreds of lead
is 12.46...

Can you not hack out under the end platforms to make a flat base in the void to take lead sheet? That should enable around 15g of code 5 lead to go in. The old ABS whitemetal castings of brakegear and buffers were another good standby on this front.

[Dad-1]

Too impatient to do even a visual check before running.
Here we have a start from my garage layout station.

I have noticed a 'fault' that I'll have to look at carefully. The tender is held up
in the air by the draw-bar. Only the last pair of wheels are constantly turning
with the middle pair touching & turning spasmodically while the front pair never
touch the rails.
I noticed a slight sound drop as it passed over a insulated Set-Track point just
before this video ends. That could be from the loco being un-balanced due to
pressure from keeping the tender in the air !!
Then it could be dirty track as I can't remember when I last cleaned the back
section and this layout sits uncovered in a mostly open garage.

https://youtu.be/zRuLZ5ebhEo

Running in with a load - couldn't be bothered to strip stock off before trying out.

Geoff T.

[Bigmet]

... have noticed a 'fault' that I'll have to look at carefully. The tender is held up in the air by the draw-bar. Only the last pair of wheels are constantly turning with the middle pair touching & turning spasmodically while the front pair never touch the rails...

Several reports of this. The method of drawbar attachment to the tender looks like it was left to the office boy at the last minute, the slotted screwhead, very fine thread and weak little plastic post to screw into are all rather odd and decidedly awkward to use. While mine works fine for now, I anticipate eventual replacement of the plastic post with a cemented on plastic block, and a hole to take a regular crosshead self tapper.

(Mine is going on holiday tomorrow, visiting an old friend just relocated to the Cambridge area from long term work in far away locations with no time for railway modelling and happily anticipating seeing some current product.)

[Dad-1]

Hope you enjoyed Cambridgeshire and the J27 ran well.

My two identified problems are :-
The soft brass drawbar was deformed where it's very thin around the hole into which the
cable tidy snaps. I couldn't seem to undo the screw fully, but was able to move from the
close coupling to the long setting. with that it runs around the 1st radius of St Oval even
with the fall plate down (almost).
I just bent the draw bar while still between loco and tender. Even then the front tender
wheels are barely in contact with the track and will stop turning at times - more to do !

The other was that the pick-up wipers were not all touching in a satisfactory way. They are
soft and very malleable so easy to tweak out with fine point tweezers.

Learning how to use the sound - interesting trying to get from coast to full power !!

Geoff T.

[Dad-1]

As I'm learning what to do !!

https://youtu.be/3TMgVF5szUA

This MUST be the most economical way to try sound.
It's not easy to drive either, many switches to move
and I often hit the wrong one.

Geoff T.

[Bigmet]

...The soft brass drawbar was deformed where it's very thin around the hole into which the
cable tidy snaps. ...
The other was that the pick-up wipers were not all touching in a satisfactory way. They are
soft and very malleable...

You are not alone; this is variability in their metal supply then. The brass drawbar on mine is springy, and likewise the pick-up wipers. This is a classic of poor process control by the metal supplier(s) or after the stamping out and forming processes 'by whoever does that'. Sometimes a little work hardening is practical.

And the Cambridge visit went well, the small 0-6-0 types of Bachmann, Hornby and Oxford origin much liked. The punting was a laugh too, lovely weather today.

[D605Eagle]

My J27 seemed somewhat lacking in its ability to pull, but on taking the body off I could see there was room above the mechanism for some lead, plus there's a strange hole in front of the motor for no good reason that I filled with lead too. Now has significantly improved its haulage capacity to acceptable levels.

[Dad-1]

Hi D605Eagle,

How much were you planning to haul ?
I've tended towards longer trains, but wouldn't perhaps expect more than 50
without some additional weight.
Mine pulls 18 - 20 wagons without difficulty, which with my existing fixed layout
is more than enough.

Geoff T.

[D605Eagle]

I have about 25 wagons behind it plus there's a 1 in 80 incline with a bend at the top that sorts the men from the boys LOL. The only steam loco I have that will handle a 50 wagon length train up there is an LMS Beyer Garratt LOL

[Dad-1]

Ahh the incline ! With a curve, always a sticking point (to motion)
I may get away with higher numbers because of my hatred of over ballasting wagons.
A simple policy of not adding weight for the sake of it, but adding where needed.
I have quite a few wagons that weigh in at under 20 grams, although in truth would
like to see 25g minimum. However if a 13 gram wagon directly behind the loco stays
on the track with 25+ behind it why add ballast ?

Geoff T.

[Bigmet]

...I have quite a few wagons that weigh in at under 20 grams, although in truth would like to see 25g minimum. However if a 13 gram wagon directly behind the loco stays on the track with 25+ behind it why add ballast ?

This is the right type of question. If it is possible for one vehicle to be so much lighter and still perform reliably despite being in the high load position, it ought to be possible for all. The problem is first understanding all the critical factors for this performance, and then replicating them reliably on the other vehicles.

Top of the list is all couplers of one type positioned uniformly, because that is the source of the greatest interaction between the vehicles. (Current RTR OO pretty much takes care of all the other factors, once it has had enough running to be truly free rolling; which at least makes the fiddle-de-dee work of getting the coupling system set up uniformly the only necessary task.)

[Dad-1]

Hi Bigmet,

You can't rely on any wagon tracking with it's coupling on the centre-line !
In particular kit built wagons, discrepancies can easily occur. It's something
I'm always checking because if you use Kadees in NEM pockets small miss-alignments
cause havoc with the delicate balances of springs and magnets.

My stock is nowhere near 100% perfect, but attention to any misbehaving wagon pays
dividends. The one usual "Get you out of trouble" can be putting Hornby wheel sets in.
With their deeper flange they will absorb a certain amount of track distortion as we
once had on a display layout at MKMRS when housed at the Code Breakers Museum.

Never a moment when EVERYTHING is done !!

Geoff T.