John Isherwood

Of course it would - but if that were readily obtainable I doubt that this thread would have been initiated! The colour was also called Blood - which was probably the most accurately descriptive - but Crimson and Carmine have been widely used as long as I've shown an interest in railways. The problem word is Maroon - which was commonly used during the tenure (and since) of the Blood and Custard livery to describe Blood / Crimson / Carmine. CJI.

The answer is common logic - why would BR continue to specify and buy carmine paint just for road vehicles when they were specifying and buying huge quantities of crimson lake for coaching stock? I agree that overall crimson lake for road vehicles might seem the obvious spec., but, without the lining applied to coaching stock, it would have appeared excessively drab. Cream was being used elsewhere with crimson lake - on buildings, etc. - so its use on road vehicles was not unique. I'm sorry - no-one will ever convince me that carmine was used with cream until yellow replaced it. CJI.

Can't argue with personal recollections- but, on this one, I am as certain as I can be that maroon and cream preceded yellow, NOT red (carmine) and cream. CJI.

Yes - body-mounted. CJI.

Not at all sure about that - my clear recollection of BR road vehicles is of the carmine (blood) being changed to crimson lake (maroon) at around the time that the coaching stock livery changed. This is bourne out by photos - later ones clearly show maroon rather than blood. John Isherwood.

It's not quite as easy as that, I'm afraid. The smallest sheet that I can print for general release is A6 (210 x 148.5mm.); I couldn't fill a sheet with PILCHARD transfers! The only way forward would be to produce a sheet covering the Oxford wagon range - in the same way that I cover the Parkside / Peco and Cambrian ranges. That said, I am very busy with my own modelling, so I can't see me making any major additions to my range in the short-term. Sorry, John Isherwood, Cambridge Custom Transfers.

I have not been following this thread closely - I long ago accepted that RMweb requires considerable patience to use. It was simply a genuine observation to the effect that Warners may well be reluctant to fix what, from their perspective, is not broken. No controversy intended. CJI.

If Warners are content with the current revenue - or would like more - I see no incentive to introduce a 'no ads' membership. What level of membership fee would be required to compensate from the loss of revenue generated by members going 'no ads'? CJI.

The overwhelming majority of my locos have a rigid wheelbase - no equalisation whatsoever. Many of them have been in storage for up to fifty years, having had nothing but a run up and down my former 2.4m. test track since they were bought / built. As I have posted elsewhere, I recently built a 2.4 x 5.0m. layout, using extra- substantial baseboard construction which is hinged to the wall - ten inter- baseboard gaps, across multiple tracks, with no physical rail joints / means of alignment. The track is Peco Code 75 flat-bottomed on cork sheet underlay, and turnouts are a mixture of medium and large radius live frog. I had not previously laid track for sixty years - Hornby Dublo 3-rail - apart from the afore-mentioned test track. Despite this, my current marathon of testing long-stored locos and rolling stock consists of the application of a touch of oil, followed by a running session. I have been amazed that, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, trains have moved off and run, for extended periods, without a hitch. I ascribe this to the fact that the locos were checked and tweaked on acquisition / build before storage and, most importantly, that EVERY SINGLE LENGTH OF RAIL HAS AN INDIVIDUAL DROPPER CONNECTION TO THE BUS WIRING. I have no exceptional skills, but what I do, I do properly - there are no shortcuts to good running. If I can achieve this, so can anyone who can be bothered to try. CJI.

I can't detect anything excessive in the video; is what you perceive not a function of over-generous sideplay in the driving axles? If there is more sideplay than you need, you can reduce it with Peco insulated washers, with a V cut out of them, pressed onto the outer driving axles between the wheels and the chassis; (in the same way that circlips are applied). CJI.

It seems that your modelling strategy differs from mine - I try and do everything meticulously. Surely, it is unreasonable to expect perfect running if you consciously cut corners? It would seem that you are now experiencing the consequences of NOT laying track meticulously. Each to their own - but writing to Bachmann will not result in better running if your track is 'suspect'. CJI.

You can ask Bachmann all the questions you wish - but it won't make your loco run any better! RTR locos are designed to run on track that is laid to reasonable standards - if you can't be bothered to do that, perhaps you are in the wrong hobby. I have to say that, if this latest loco is the first to have given trouble you have been lucky, it would seem. CJI.

This is how I visualise the true appearance of a PILCHARD after a few weeks / months in service; dirty, unpainted wood; grey painted body ironwork; rusting steel floor plates and black painted chassis / ends. John Isherwood.

Exactly !! I don't recall the FR resorting to rebuilding RODs, with lengthened frames and A1 (of any variety) boilers, for heavy freight trains! CJI.

Stay-alives - the 21st Century, DCC equivalent of sprung centre axles with DC!! If you lay track properly, and feed EVERY length of rail with a dropper, neither is necessary, even with dead frogs. Time and care when laying track will avoid endless wasted time and money, trying to achieve flawless running! CJI.

Heavy freight ????????? Just how big is Sodor? Under the Rev. Awdry, Sodor fitted nicely into the Irish Sea, along with the IoM; the loco fleet, comprising Thomas et al., was quite able to handle the traffic on Sodor. Then along came son Christopher, and all the subsequent marketing execs., etc., etc., and we now have a fleet capable of running something approaching the size of BR !!!! ...... and that's before the Imaginary Locomotives crowd wander off into cloud cuckoo land !!!! It would seem that the Irish Sea never really existed, and that the NWR actually operated a network of lines resembling a spider's web, occupying virtually all available land surface, on a land bridge filling the entire space between England, Wales and Ireland. Presumably, the IoM formed a tiny autonomous enclave somewhere in the middle of Sodor. Let's not let things get out of hand - the railways of Sodor were a cosy little network, easily overseen by the Fat Controller, who knew each engine by name and was appraised of their individual nuances / achievements / misdemeanors. CJI.

Not in my case nowadays, but insulfrogs are NOT a problem for locos with six working pick-ups when the track is laid to a reasonable standard. CJI.

See above - it would appear not. CJI.

LNER diagram ? . CJI.

Am I not right in that CATFISH were mainly confined to the LMR, at least when first introduced? CJI.

You seem convinced that the fault is the lack of a sprung centre axle. I have in excess of a hundred locos and I doubt if any of them have sprung centre axles - certainly none of those that I have built have such a facility. For a loco with six working pickups, it is difficult to understand how a dead frog, even on Set-track turnouts, could cause a loco to stall unless the turnout is distorted or improperly wired. Stalled indicates that NONE of the wheels on one side of the loco are on a live rail; this means that the only wheel touching the track on that side is the one on the dead frog - which in turn means that the turnout is distorted vertically. ..... of course, stalled can also indicate a short-circuit - which could in turn indicate that the back-to-back wheel settings are incorrect. Sprung centre axles are not the cure-all for bad track or incorrect wheel settings - contrary to popular belief in some circles. CJI.

.... if it makes you feel better! They'll probably tell you that you should have sent it back to the retailer. CJI.

Just a thought - perhaps the absence of criticism of the Fairlie indicates that there isn't much / anything wrong with it? No? Silly of me ....... CJI.

My experience of scrapyards - George Cohen's at Cransley, Kettering - was that the last thing that you'd find there would be a brush !! Any 'tidying-up' would be done by a clapped-out front loader. John Isherwood.

I suspect it was seen as cheaper to use an existing box design than develop a new one. CJI.