Hroth

Going on that, publication of the GWRJ has always been more or less "occasional".... It'll be there when it's there!

What with the continuing Dean Goods debacle, I'd hold off on getting too excited by the N7. I'd certainly take the Nov/Dec 2017 delivery time that Hattons are quoting with a pinch of salt! It'd be nice to be wrong, but for 2017, probably read 2018 ...

Here's one I've toyed with for a while now; a "whatif" Dean had hung on longer and Churchward was forced to experiment with what he had, before his Standard scheme took root... Its got a certain something about it (ie, it probably wouldn't work!) but with bags of style! I'm slowly proceeding with a real-life version, cobbling together a couple of Dapol "City of Truro" kits...

Got some nice "modelling related" ads whilst not signed in earlier today! Its not my demographic, but hey........

Personally I'm be happier with the heat-sinked version for driving a DC locomotive. Also the screw terminals allow the board to be incorporated in a circuit without waving a soldering iron about. in addition, it makes it easier to swap it out if you DO fry the controller! As well as the Santa loco, it was quite happy hurling a variety of other Hornby locos about the layout!

I created a Christmas Tree layout using the Hornby Santa Special a couple of years ago, which was controlled using an Arduino Uno and a "Dual Bridge L298N Stepper Motor Driver Controller" ( http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dual-Bridge-L298N-Stepper-Motor-Driver-Controller-Board-Module-Arduino-x1-x3-x5-/181768536409?var=&hash=item2a523fc159:m:mOuIrlio6FObTFYtN6sxFPw ), together with some pushbutton switches for manual start and stop purposes and reed switches to stop the loco at a station and behind the back scene. It was all fairly straightfoward, including the programming..... Speed in this case was set using software, though it would be simple to have potentiometers wired to other input pins and used to set the PWM values manually.

Nice painting, the poor housemaids turned out well, though the one on the right with the bucket seems to have an unfortunate resemblance to Charlie Chaplin, while the one standing by the butt looks like one of Chaplins silent film colleagues and appears to be holding a Lyzard or Tenor Cornett... ( https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Three_cornetts.jpg - the one on the right! ) The other bucketeer seems to be wearing those little round sunglasses...... I'm sure its all a trick of the light! tiptoes off.....

May/June now? Perhaps Oxford are being as coy with them as they are with the end customers. So, we can put this thread to bed for another couple of months, to find that the release window has slid to July/August....

Finally found the snap - taken some time post-March 1984 as the poster advertises specials to Wembley for the Milk Cup final between Everton and Liverpool (0-0 aet...) Apologies for quality as it was taken using a cheap instamatic type 126 film camera.

Cattle wagons are, well, just cattle wagons, the wheelbase might be a few mm out and some details might not be accurate, but in a rake of miscellaneous vehicles, no one will really notice. Especially if they've been dirtied up a little. But a dodgy loco is in another order of Oops....

You can either sell a lot at a low price and make money, or you can sell a few at a high price and make money, PROVIDED that the overall cost to you of getting the product to the customer is lower than what you're charging the customer. Of course, if you crack the problem of selling a lot at a high price, then you're definitely quids in The main thing is that you have to have product that the customer wants in the first place. My concern at this point is that Oxford might have boxes of Dean Goods in their warehouse that they are embarrased to let onto the market because of the varied and well rehearsed concerns that have been raised with the various prototypes that have been on show since Jan/Feb last year, and thats whats holding things up. Of course, we may be due a wonderful surprise after Easter as excellent models are released that have taken account of all our worries. Fingers crossed, eh?

Having seen some of the young ladies making their way to Aintree for "Ladies Day" this morning, there are far worse things that Excellence could do than thumbing a lift!

And at this point, I'm not even going to try to prognosticate about the arrival date of any version of the Deans Goods, as nomenclatured on 01/24/2016.... (http://www.oxfordrail.com/76/OR76DG%20%20Release%20Notes.htm) D'you think the Deans goods will arrive in a parcels train hauled by a Dean Goods?

Yup. Get with the program, bud! Two nations separated by a single language, etc. Gawd 'elp us!

Looks like it was a settings issue, the link ffrom the "holding page" loads straight into the emag with a download icon that gives you the pdf and doesn't want to drag you into issuu! As for the banner, I'd rather they sorted out the new website and ensured that there was less possibility of it collapsing as dramatically as the old one did. Once the new website goes live, the old banner (and all the temporary text on the page) will be swept into oblivion as we move into the broad, sunlit uplands of the New World! Ahem!

According to Hattons, they've been "On Board Ship" since the beginning of the year. Must be one of those Slow Boats FROM China! Hattons currently list Oxford Rail OR76DG001 Class 2301 Dean Goods 0-6-0 2309 in Great Western green with garter crest as being "Due into stock between March 2017 & April 2017". As there's currently 28 days left in April, I expect there'll be a further procrastinating announcement in three or four weeks time...

Personally I don't like "magazines" that you have to read using the hosting server "magazine app". With the previous two issues, it has been possible to easily download a pdf of the mag for reading off-line at a later, more convenient date. Now issuu (effin silly name too) requires the potential downloader to create an account or sign in using a social media username/password. As one might say, fat chance! If this is how its going to be from now, and its not just that someone hasn't set some options correctly when uploading the mag, then thats where it all comes to a grinding halt, as far as I'm concerned, MREMag has finally hit the buffers.

Don't go there, you'll have the Men In Malachite on top of you like a ton of red rectangular building blocks, they're not very friendly when upset....

Oops...... I'd forgotten that Thompson was wedged between Gresley and Peppercorn! My abject apologies to Sir Nigel for associating his name with the monstrosities.

But you couldn't include a MN with the current "most unpopular" coaches, the new alleged Gresley LNER Teak* abominations..... * Think 70s MFI sapele finish, and an edit to unblacken Sir Nigel...

I use both. I've many "legacy" DC locos that are uneconomical/too much of a faff to put a decoder in and more "modern" locos are either socketed and can have a decoder dropped in after purchase, or are already DCC fitted. The layount itself is DC/DCC The controllers plug into a socket (well, a multiway connector strip) so there's no hair-raising switching between controllers and when DCC is attached, all the isolator switches on the control panel are switched to ON and its good to go. DCC sound is a non-issue, I don't buy because of sound, but even if its available it doesn't have to be used.

Yep - now make it interesting.....

Like the interior, but surely in 1947, wouldn't the futuristic tilting trains took even more Flash Gordony? Sorry to report that the pic of the building being demolished is being difficult to find. I think it KNOWS its wanted.....

The pre-formed extrusion solution sounds an expensive thing to set up just for a TV commission, and it still doesn't make an ideal running surface unless the locos have ... traction tyres. The plastic roadbed pieces for conventional track sound a good idea, 6ft lengths with prelaid Peco track and some sort of positive alignment widget could be put down and taken up quite quickly. It also just occured to me that "plastic track" might have merely been a reference to "plastic sleepered track", ie just ordinary Peco flexitrack...

As I read the first line, I thought it was going to turn into a limerick..... Oh well. But propulsion by "steam or battery" makes sense, reducing the reliance on long metal conductors. However, O gauge plastic track? That sounds like a disaster in waiting, what with flexing of the track in all axes (loads of scope for derailment) coupled with the possibility of wheelslip on even a moderate gradient. (And horror of horrors, don't say that they've found a huge cache of Big Big Train track!) @ Nearholmer: Its probably because its bigger than OO, easy to see, not so toylike but not as "expensive" as laying at least a thousand feet or so of G track. Personally I thnk they should have been brave and invited the model engineering community to provide some suitable locos - I'd have loved to hear the genuine gas turbine model of the GT3 bashing through the Great Glen... ie: You can't help but love a model loco that requires a bloke standing by with a fire extinguisher when starting the loco. Of course, one problem (of many), would be the cost of laying a decent trackbed and track for such majestic machines!