SRman

My rendition in this diorama was a bit crude, but the road warning sign was from Tiny Signs, if that's of any help for modelling purposes. This was a very old photo I scanned in, so not the best resolution.

I love that. What a great setting. p.s. Your Eurostar seems to have lost a few coaches! 😉

Low numbers reserved for London Transport stock and Industrials. 🙂

For Deltic (DP1) and DP2, I came up with the numeric positions of the letters in the alphabet, so D = 4, P = 16, thus DP1 is 4161 and DP2 is 4162. Falcon, Lion and Kestrel are easier as they all bear numbers anyway, D0280, D0260, and HS4000, thus they become DCC addresses 280, 260 and 4000, respectively.

... or EMUs and DMUs as well.

Once I get brave enough, that's the sort of effect I want to achieve on 37 026 when I eventually receive it. Very nice. 👍

... But you know you want one! 😉

Just a small improvement to the Accurascale DB Schenker class 92, 92 009 'Marco Polo': I fitted a driver in the leading cab (no coupling fitted at that end and the extra detail added there), plus a pair of sun blinds. As an aside, also on my workbench at present are five bus kits (the other half of my hobby!): two white metal RTC Kits for Marshall Capital bodied Dennis Darts (two different lengths), two Nigel Roberts resin Daimler Fleetline/Northern Counties kits, one Southdown single door, and one longer dual door version as run by Brighton, Hove & District, and lastly, and MBF resin kit for an Alexander Enviro 300 M.A.N. but going into Stagecoach livery.

I have two of these saloons on the way, one blue and grey, one NSE (they won't both be in use at the same time, it will depend on what era I am running), and several spare Zimo MX638C/D decoders, plus an MX634C/D, so I'll be trying those out first. The ability to switch between the logic and full outputs with the Zimo 21-pin decoders is useful, sometimes. I'll report back when I have tried them out.

What I would like to see is an LSWR/SR H15 4-6-0. I also acknowledge that it is rather unlikely that anyone will do this fairly small class of mixed traffic locomotives, not least because it is a small class and has at least three or four major variations within the class ... in fact, some members weren't even built as H15s to start with (E14 and F13 'paddleboxes', anyone? 🤣 ). There were some attractive liveries applied to members of the class, and they were used on all sorts of trains, including express passenger on occasions.

Addressing with four digits can produce some anomalies, especially if you mix eras, as I do. With TOPS numbering on diesel and electric locomotives, I usually use the first digits (class number) and the last two digits, but that's not foolproof either. Consider two locomotives I have: 66 022 and 66 522, where both would end up as 6622. Seeing as both are from the same era, that's untenable, so one is 6622 and the other is 522, although 66 022 may get renumbered to get past the problem altogether. With steam I use the last four digits, but there again I ended up with three locomotives from the same era clashing: Merchant Navy 35012, class 71 electric E5012, and class 24 diesel D5012 all end up as 5012 - the easiest option there was to renumber the 71 and the 24, seeing as the MN is a named locomotive. Don't get me started on the DMU and EMU numbering! 🤣 *** Now, back on topic, I have succumbed and ordered another Accurascale class 37, this time the Railfreight Distribution 37 026, 'Shapfell'. I found that Trains4U had some, but I could not get past the checkout as they couldn't provide any courier or mail options, so I gave up on them and found another on AJM's site. I know AJM had problems for a while but she seems to be back on deck properly now, so fingers crossed, that will turn up soon and I'll order a sound decoder to go with it. I already have a few Accurathrash speakers stored up here.

Does that apply to all the different species found in Australia?

"All mushrooms are edible: some only once." I think that was from Sir Terry Pratchett, but it may date from even earlier.

Modellers Licence: we run shortened formations to suit limited space on our layouts, so why not accept a CEP + BEP + MLV as a compromise representing a longer formation? My own memories go back to green formations of CEP/BEP/CEP + one or two MLVs, so up to 14 cars long, but my layout can fit a maximum of 3 x CEPs + only one MLV (I can substitute a BEP for a CEP now!), and that's only really in one of the storage loops.

I just did a quick conversion using the blue and grey body received today from Bachmann Spares, plus a buffet interior I bought with a previous order from them. I used the standard TSK from the CEP unit, so had to adapt the buffet seat unit to match the lighting pcb to the direction of the underframe pcb, which mainly involved cutting and filing new notches for the clips on the underframe and extending three of the screw holes (and ignoring the fourth as being too hard!). This means that the copper (?) bars connecting the two don't line up correctly, so I may have to hard-wire connections using a couple of 2-pin connectors, or maybe one 4-pin connector. That's for later. I checked carefully that what I had done wasn't causing any problems when coupled up to the DMBS and the TCK - all good, just no interior lights in the buffet, which was to be expected, of course. I have some suitable bogies to swap over later. Then I'll have to see about adding some of the extra underframe details. Edit: At present, this means the buffet actually faces the wrong way in the set. I may have to reverse both pcbs, but then I'll have to be careful with the connections. Still, it's a good start.

I have just loaded the ESU class 31 sounds onto a LokSound 5 DCC decoder, and they aren't bad. As Albie the Plumber said, we sometimes want different variations of sound on locomotives of the same class. I already have two class 31s with legomanbiffo sound, and one as a class 30 with Howes' Mirrlees sound (on an older v3.5 LokSound), so the latest one (a Hornby loco) has the ESU sounds, which are technically wrong for the locomotive I chose as it should be a Mirrlees-fitted engine. As I have a LokProgrammer, I can always change my mind later and do something else with that decoder. I also bought a 21-pin LokSound 5 DCC decoder with a Bachmann C class 0-6-0 in mind. I thought I might adapt the ESU (non-hi-fi) sound project as that is a 2-cylinder jobbie to start with, but the steam chuffs on that one are electronically generated and, quite frankly, dreadful! OK, so I knew from a previous trial that the Merchant Navy sounds were not too bad, and might make a good starting point, notwithstanding the fact that the MN is a 3-cylinder type. What Charlie said about these being unlocked and editable is true, so I set about modifying the file after listening carefully to some video footage of the Bluebell's 592. I found that the German E94 whistle was not far off the right toe and pitch, so slotted that in, got rid of the turbine and air pump sounds, then set about tuning the chuffs to match the wheel revolutions of a 2-cylinder locomotive. That involved adjusting CVs 57 and 58, after using a stopwatch to measure how long it took for one revolution on speed step 1 (16 seconds in this case). Current settings for those are: CV57 = 255 Cv58 = 39 The end result is not perfect (I may do some more tweaks to the sounds later) but it isn't bad either, especially as it's a freebie. I did a very short and shaky video of it, but it's too big to load directly here. I'll upload it to YouTube shortly and add a link here. (edit: see below).

That's quite a trip. Wonderful stuff, and great photos.

4 EPB, continued: the 2nd car still has bogie with shoebeams and no kinematic couplings yet, 3rd car has lights disabled because I had to make room for the kinematic coupling mechanism. The mismatched coupling arrangements are why the gap between 2nd and 3rd coaches is too big at present. I haven't renumbered either driving end yet, so both ends still bear the old 2 EPB numbers (5745 and 5764), plus the now redundant black triangles. For all of that, it is almost there and looks quite passable even now.

Having ordered the 4-car LSWR liveried set, I realised I only have two LSWR liveried M7 tanks that could haul them. Not ideal, although they'll look "in place" with the coaches, but at that time the M7s were really suburban locomotives rather than cross-country locos. They were used a lot on Southern branches later in their lives, but I got to thinking, what other locomotive types from LSWR days would suit the coaches? Possibly the most flexible one I came up with was the H15 4-6-0. These were a bit of a minefield for any manufacturer to produce, but would suit both passenger and goods work and express speeds where required. Any takers? 🙂

I can't disagree with any of the suggestions above. My own first thought was the USA 0-6-0T dock tank, but I have so many others that are equally good slow runners. Some are more sensitive to dirty track or imperfections if their wheelbases are too rigid, so Hornby's 08/09 and Bachmann's equivalents are all great slow speed shunters but all will hesitate if they don't like the track. MattR's comment regarding the original Dapol Terrier also rang a bell with me. Mine have reasonably good decoders fitted and will inch along if asked to (no steam loco would probably run quite that slow in real life), aided by the sprung centre axle that, in a demo I once did at an exhibition, allowed them to negotiate a track joint with the second piece of track angled upwards to around 20 degrees from the horizontal and keep going! The down side? The yare very noisy at anything over a slow/medium speed, sounding like an angry hornet. 🤣 Put the ear muffs on and they are dead smooth.

Part two of the 4 EPB conversion from two Bachmann 2 EPBs. I have been putting off doing this for a while, having successfully converted one of the centre coaches before, but I finally got out the spare EPB body and marked the cutting guides with masking tape, before using the razor saw. I removed just one pair of glazing units per side, and the roof, filing off all the unnecessary detail but leaving the vents in place on the latter. For these two centre cars, I have kept the roof as one piece for extra strength, filing the cab end square and removing (and saving!) the horns. The inside leading edges of the roof were filed into a tapered profile to match the non-driving end. The underframe was squared off too, and buffers, buffing plate and dummy buckeye coupling all removed and saved for future use. The ex-buffer beam was filed flat and smooth. The interior mouldings were also cut back slightly but at this stage I have left the cab in place, minus its control desks and handbrake stand - this makes it easier to keep the interior lighting working, although it may all have to go when I cut in the kinematic coupling arrangement like I did with the previous conversion. We shall see! So, where I am right now is with a 4 EPB centre coach that has not actually had any glue or filler applied yet: I think I have achieved a fairly good fit of parts. The trailing bogie with shoe beams needs to be swapped out (easy enough as it only involves one screw!), but I will wait to do that after I modify the coupling arrangement at that end. The last photo shows the leftover bits of EPB bodies with a driving cab at each end held together by the roof.

It's possible, but not likely other than as very short-term arrangements (say, if one coach needed repairs or maintenance). However, one can always use modeller's licence: if we can run short formations representing main line trains because longer formations don't fit our layouts, why not also shortened branch or secondary line formations?

I know you have already been corrected on this, but I can show models of 1920 F stock and the 1923 Q23 type here (no problems with copyright on my own photos!!). F Stock: G/Q23 Stock (sorry, it's slightly blurred, but it shows well enough the shape) - followed by a Q38 flare-sided car:

Interestingly, I refused to buy the previous 3-car sets because of the price (a shade under £200 with VAT), whereas for an extra £37-odd (edit: nearer £42), one can get a whole extra coach for the 4-car sets. Needless to say, I have already jumped in and ordered an LSWR-liveried set from Kernow Models. In my case, less VAT but add £30 for postage. They are too nice to resist.

On the subject of pantographs, my layout is based on a third rail system (Southern Railway, BR Southern Region, etc.) so by default, I want my 92s to start in DC mode, whereas the base setup assumes AC mode, and requires the user to press F8 to lower the pantographs and assume DC mode. I experimented today with 92 020, reading the settings into the LokProgrammer software, and changing the F8 setting under 'Function Mapping' from 'On' to 'Off'. It now reads 'Not F8' and works 'Shift Mode 1'. The results of this change could possibly have unpredictable effects on some other functions, so I tested 92 020 and found there don't seem to be any undesirable side effects, that it starts in third rail mode as required, and the pantograph overrides on F26 and F27 both work as before. F8 now raises a pantograph for operation as per AC mode. I was sufficiently convinced that this has worked exactly as I had hoped, so changed the other two sound-fitted 92s to the same settings. Only the non-sound one hasn't been done yet, and that was because it's at the back of the sheds at present and I wasn't fussed driving everything else out of the way first. 🤣 I have passed this on the the very helpful guys at Accurascale, and hope it helps anyone else who would prefer to start in DC mode by default.