SRman

HI Brian, I will certainly consider that for the future, but at present I have been using what is available to hand. Due to Mrs SRman's propensity for buying fabrics, and especially bargain bin fabrics, I have several rolls of felt, and a decent sized roll of the cardboard as well. 😅

After testing with more stock, I have been able to clear quite bit of space on the shelves. Next job is to line the base with felt. I did try a solution with the felt folded to form ridges between items, but that was far too fiddly and time consuming, so I think the [practical solution will be to use some corrugated cardboard between stock items. a few streaks of Gorilla glue were used to hold the felt in place. First tests with the cardboard strips in place. I have used them with the corrugations running longitudinally, but wonder if they might be better going across the carriage roofs.

I dunno, Peter: people like a good scare once in a while. 😉 😜

This can cause a little friction in the SRman household, when Australian-born Mrs SRman offers (English-born) me chips, and I think "Oh goody, I like chips!" and she then presents me with some crisps. 😅

I had a brilliant idea for a more compact and space-efficient storage solution, particularly with my Continental stock in mind, although it will work for almost any stock that isn't too delicate. I had a spare plastic box file, released after switching most of the transfers to photo storage boxes, and looking at some coaches on the bench next to the box, I realised they would stack quite neatly inside. The photo shows the idea in its raw form; I will need to create some spacers between the coach roofs and the bogies/wheels of the one above to reduce scratching, and I'll add some felt at the back and ends to cushion them from internal movement, but the idea seems sound. With labels on the ends, these will stand vertically end-on on my shelves, making much better use of the space available. They'll hold five full length vehicles, but possibly 10 short types like 4-wheel wagons.

Just got my Hornby Magazine this morning. It is a nice article accompanied by great photos of Llanbourne. No pics of the owner though! 😉

Yes, my wife's sister lives in Vancouver and informs us that many people there prefer to shop in Portland because there's no sales tax there. The reduced tax paid by Washington State residents in Vancouver may account for the atrocious public transport there, while Portland seems to fare rather better on that score - they are getting all the Vancouver people's money! As an aside, I used to have a T-shirt with "Someone Loves Me in Vancouver USA", and I'd be very rich now if I had a dollar for every time someone has tried to correct it by telling me Vancouver is in Canada! 🤣

Yes: I think Victoria is the only state that allows U-turns at traffic lights as a matter of routine. I forgot this once when driving in Queensland, with a mate on board. I did a U-turn at some lights, and there was a strangled gasp from said mate. 😁 As Gwiwer said, we are a nation of separate little nations with different rules for each. Rather annoying, really!

I have seen a photo with a green Bulleid coach in Scotland, but I cannot report its number. I'll have to see if I can locate the book concerned, but don't hold your breath.

My second 92 arrived from Accurascale today. The box lid really didn't want to come off, having vacuum sealed itself to the box, but I eventually got it off to open and unpack everything. What I found was that the front coupling was still in place but dropped off after I put 92 020 down on the bench! No matter, I decided to fit the front dam instead. Also, one of the grilles was missing right from the get-go. OK, reopen the box (same vacuum seal formed again!), pulled everything out, and I mean everything, but no sign of the grille. Put it all back, then the lid on, then decided to have another check. Swear at box lid for the third time. This time, when pulling the outer sleeve off the inner ice cube, I saw the grille clinging to the side by static attraction. Relief! That meant I didn't have to bother the boys at Accurascale. One thing I have been doing to make sure that I put the bodies back on the correct way around is to use a Sharpie pen to draw a small arrow on the inside "ceiling" of the body and a corresponding arrow on one of the light coloured chassis components. I know that the side clips won't align if I get it wrong anyway, but it saves a bit of faffing around when putting the body back on. 92 020 has a temporary Zimo MX638 decoder, but it isn't set up correctly for all the lighting and panto functions. I tried switching between MX638C and MX638D (a simple CV trick Zimo has), but it made no difference. I'm not worrying about it as I have some ESU decoders, both LokPilot and LokSound on the way, intended for this and another 92 coming from Kernow Model Centre. I can say that with the Zimo decoder, the running is silent and very, very smooth, on the initial tests.

A tip DougN suggested to me was to use some tongue and groove planking along the back of the joint. When pressed together the two halves will align perfectly, yet can easily be separated when required.

Further to my post from 2nd November 2022, while trawling through some old files on my train room computer after upgrading it, I found a photo of my previous Holden Commodore wagon, a 1994 model that I only kept for 8 years. It was versatile for load carrying, as all the wagons and utes were built on a longer wheelbase. The coach was actually our very comfortable accommodation at End of the Line, a little outside of Daylesford, here in Victoria.

Sorry, latecomer to this thread: I was in Denmark in August and September, and found a rather nice model shop, Togcenter, in the municipality of Gentofte. They had quite a decent second-hand section, and, much to my surprise, some British OO stuff in there. I actually bought some second-hand Danish stock, as I have more local sources available here in Australia for British OO stock. I thought I took a photo with the British items in, but can't find it: they were in a cabinet just around to the left of the case on the extreme right of the photo. Another completely surprising item I saw in there was a Bec white metal tram kit.

I sent John a PM suggesting Puffing Billy, and also giving him my contact details as I am half way to that attraction. There are also the normal service trams all around and through Melbourne, with lots of street running. Within the free travel zone in the city, there are the city circle trams which are all W class trams, so historic in their own right.

Just a thought, but does the Lenz Silver have enough function outputs to work all of the Hymek's lights separately? My quick Googling suggests it has four functions, whereas I count a minimum of six required for the separate lighting you have. That's two for the directional headcode lights, two for the tail lights, and two more for the cab lights, assuming they are separate for each end.

I just spent a week away from home in Echuca. On my return home, the etched brass name and number plates I ordered from Narrow Planet had arrived. These are for current and future models in my fictitious industrial fleet. This batch starts a new number sequence from 70 to 80 and names starting with 'B' (the previous series was 1 to 20 but without 3 and 8, with names starting with 'A'). The first loco to receive one of the new ones is a Manning Wardle with 3D printed body from Hardy's Models, becoming No. 71, "Bella". No. 70 is already allocated to an unfinished Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0T, also with a 3D printed body from the same source as "Bella". Edit: the original sequence was 4 to 20, but not 8 as that clashed with the London Transport Bo-Bo electric "Sherlock Holmes". I left the earlier numbers clear for testing and unprogrammed decoders which default to 3.

Continuing the original quaestion: I have one class 73 (Lima body on Hornby chassis) with Howes sounds on an older LokSound v3.5. That has a couple of white LEDs wired in as well to represent the third rail flashes. The sounds are quite good, within the limits of the 100 ohm speakers available (I have two in parallel), but the electric to diesel engine changeover cannot be done on the move. I also have a legomanbiffo LokSound v4 in a Dapol loco, and that also is very good. I haven't wired any LEDs in (yet), but that is on the cards. I haven't had too much issue with the pickups, but I do keep in mind that I may have to do something about them in the future. The range of speakers available for the v4 and v5 ESU decoders is much wider than the old v3.5. The diesel to electric or electric to diesel can be done convincingly while on the move with this one.

That's interesting, because I found it works on my NCE systems, with lights and sound remaining on when I transfer the loco from the programming track to the main lines, but when I ran it on DougN's layout, with a Digitrax system, the stay-alive didn't appear to be working at all.

Using my Heljan models as evidence, I have 33/1 D6520 in service propelling a blue TC set. That suggests that at least some of the 33/1s received the D prefix. Of course, there was the prototype 33/1, D6580 as well, but that was still in green. I'd have to go through some of my books to add to the list, but not right now. p.s. D6535 is preserved with the D prefix.

My Accurascale sound-fitted class 92, 92 043 'Debussy', has arrived. I have given it a run and it is everything that others have said in the class 92 topic. Even so, I have already got to work on it! The photos show it as it was when it originally arrived, and after a few mods and improvements. I have glued the etched depot plaques on, and added the sun visors inside the windscreens. It was a bit of a faff to get the cab interiors out to allow access to the insides, but I got there eventually, without damaging anything. I have also modified the pantographs very slightly as per a post in earlier in RMweb in the Accurascale class 92 thread, where someone showed how to reduce the cast 'pips' on the arms to allow the heads to sit more level when the pantos are parked. Due to mine being used to represent third rail running, this is a position mine will spend most of their lives in, unless I'm showing off the operating feature. One of the photos shows a pantograph raised to its new lower height limit, together with the cab lighting and headlights in the night running condition.

Belay that (below). I found it on f8 after re-reading the function list. Can anyone point me to the entry where someone posted how to run the sound-fitted 92 in 750V DC (third rail) mode with both pantographs down, please? I'm sure I saw it in here somewhere, but with 82 pages to troll through, I would be grateful if someone can narrow it down for me. Thanks in anticipation.

I think it is one of the newer releases. Thanks for that video link. I can't say I liked that sound though. Based on that as evidence, I think I'd avoid the Dapol sound, assuming it was a factory-fitted one.

My Europort 92 043 arrived today from DHL. Nice that they delivered a day earlier than they advised, so I'm happy. It took me quite a while to work out how to get both pantographs to stay down for DC mode, but I got there in the end. I used the tweaks posted earlier to lower the height of the raised pantos, so they won't foul anything on my layout if they are raised by accident. It was funny transferring it from the programming track to the main lines, with the sound still going as I handled it, thanks to the keep-alives. Like a few others have reported, one of the couplings was unclipped and loose in the plastic packaging. I used a small blob of black-tack to hold it more firmly back in place without resorting to glues.

Ditto here. I already have two 73s with sound - one a Lima Hornby hybrid with Howes' sounds on an older ESU LokSound v3.5, and the other a Dapol one with legomanbiffo sounds on a LokSound v4. I have no idea whose sound files Dapol are using in their factory-fitted examples. If I am going to fork out for a sound-fitted version, I need to know beforehand whether it is any good. It is much too difficult to return things if not satisfied from here in Australia.

No takers for this? I'd be interested in what the sounds are like too, and how they have dealt with the electric to diesel (and vice versa) changeover.