SRman

I put the vid on full-screen on YouTube, and froze it at that point. I agree, it does very much look like an SR-style EPB in the middle.

That has come on well, Darius. You have reminded me that I must try to finish off my Thameslink 319. I got it to the running stage then stopped building, so all the underframe details are still in the bag.

When I fiddled with my one and only example (yes I know they usually went around in pairs! ), I ground/filed the corners of the chassis away so that when the buffers were reassembled, they could stay that way and the chassis could slide off past them.

Going back many years, I noted that the slope-sided tenders on Bachmann's SR N class 2-6-0s tended to crab under load, but this didn't seem to occur with the straight-sided tenders (which had other problems initially). The drawbar design was unique to the N class, and itself would not allow for stretching of the gap or crabbing due to any sideways movement of the drawbar, so the problem there was in the tender itself. I noted that these tenders had a lot of side-play in the leading and trailing axles. although we need to retain that in the centre axle. My solution for that was to add small pieces of plastic into the axleboxes at each end to eliminate the side-play completely. Not having seen the new V2 in the flesh, I can't say this will work for the tender on that, but it may be worth a look.

And here's the Bachmann stock running.

I have been working on London Underground trains in recent times, following the purchase of further models, including a complete 4-car unpowered EFE 1959 tube train in modern white/blue/red livery, a pair of kit-built Harrow Model Shop Q38 flare-sided cars (now rejigged as CO/CP stock), and today the Bachmann EFE 1938 tube train arrived. I have been buying components ready for the conversion of the 1959 train, including two coreless SPUD motor bogies from Scale Link, and six pin-point bogies from Metromodels. Meanwhile, one of the flare-sided cars was already fitted with an older-style SPUD motor bogie, which actually ran very nicely on DC power, so I decided it was worth retaining and fitting for DCC. This would also require extra pickups in the unpowered bogie. I chose to hard-wire a Zimo MX600 decoder. Conversion notes from Metromodels suggest dismantling the SPUD to reach the metal tags that go inside from the pickups to the brushes: I decided I would use a milling tool in the Dremel and grind away the metal where it folds over the inside frame on each side, thus not disturbing the works completely. This left the tags sticking out at the top for the brush feeds, and the outside pickups ready to have the red or black wires soldered directly to them. I also decided to fit a plastic sheet motor bogie mount, for three reasons: 1. to reduce the chances of a short-circuit from the metal contacts on the SPUD touching the original white metal mounting plate; 2. to increase the available free swing of the motor bogie, where the shaped metal mounting had to be ground away to allow for the extra wires; and 3. to lower the ride height by about 1mm. The new pair of cars had arrived nicely built, but without the characteristic glass vents at the tops of the side windows, and painted in a brighter red than the train red on my previous units, with gold London Transport names. I used my previous method of glazing the vents with thin clear plastic mounted on the outside of the wedge-shaped mouldings, then carefully painted around the edges to blend them in. As they were in bus red rather than train red, a scheme that was applied from November 1973 onwards, I removed the gold fleet names and Q Stock numbering and added white "bullseyes" with CO or CP Stock numbering instead. They should also have white numbering, but I couldn't find any suitable numbers in my collection. That will be fixed later. The running in formation with my existing 5-car set is good, although I need to speed match them to complete the tasks to date (the existing models have two Black Beetle motor bogies wired to one decoder in one car). All of these cars need seats added - that's for the future too. I took some short video clips of this stock running on Newton Broadway, posted on YouTube. Another clip with the new Bachmann/EFE train running will follow shortly.

I have a couple of Jouef Mk 3 coaches I repainted into Executive livery, and they look similar to your repaint in close-up. I wouldn't worry too much, as the usual rule is if it looks good at normal viewing distance, there is no need to change anything. As for the yellowing transfers, it is annoying, and would mostly be unnoticeable if it wasn't for the fact that the background they are on is a stark white. The best solution is to find some transfers which don't have any carrier film, such as the HMRS pressfix or methfix types, or possibly the ones from the likes of ModelMaster which have a removable carrier.

We don't tend to 'do' Valentines Day. My wife is not very romantic, so flowers or chocolates or jewellery are lost on her. However, she is very understanding and encouraging about my hobbies. I collect and model buses as well as railways, and she often wants to buy me something (frequently not really appropriate for my modelling needs or wants ). For my birthday (not long before Valentines Day), she bought me some model buses of my own choosing. They arrived here, coincidentally, on the 14th.

If fitting a new motor, check also the bearings at the tops of the gear towers. Another modeller here in Melbourne found the real problem was the bearings weren't inserted correctly, and thus were causing unnecessary friction, binding the whole drive from the motor, and consequently causing the overheating and failure. His early class 17 models are still running with their original motors.

If it was one of the French locos, coffee would be better!

I'm guessing it's to check the consistency of the moulding/casting processes.

The only times I watched were, ironically, when I was staying with my Mum in Leeds! She liked to watch it there. It was rather funny for me, because so many of the locations are local, and instantly recognisable. One episode took place in Forest Hill Chase shopping centre, which is our usual haunt, just 1 km away from home. Pin Oak Court is only a few kilometres away from where I live. The Nunawading Aquatic Centre also featured in an episode that I saw (in Leeds!). No, I won't miss it either.

The silicon gel is a great idea. I never thought of that.

I had to clean the windscreen when I filled up with petrol, before we set off, because of accumulated insect splatters even just driving around Echuca, with the other excursions we did. After the dirt road running, the back end of the car was coated, though. I put it through the car wash when we got back to Melbourne.

I am about to experiment with wiring a bicoloured red/white LED into each end of a 33/1 I use for push-pull work with Kernow's 4TC units. I bought some common cathode versions for this purpose, and also some suitable resistors, so it is a matter of working out the connections and keeping it all from shorting out on the metal chassis block. For best effect, I will probably have to change the blinds to double white blanks. I'll post the results in my layout topic when I get around to doing this. If it is successful, I'll repeat the procedure on all of the 33/1s I own, but I can't see any point in doing it to the 33/0 or 33/2 variants as they usually have trains behind their trailing cabs.

From my recent trip to Echuca (pics posted earlier), we had decided to go home via Kyabram, Rushworth and Nagambie, i.e. not the most direct way. Rushworth is a small country town with a National Trust listed historic area. Here is a video I have cobbled together from my dash cam footage. There is a slight break where we stopped at the bakery for lunch, and SWMBO took over the driving. She is a bit more hesitant than I am, and also doesn't follow map directions at all well, hence we headed out of town in the wrong direction initially, before going around the block to go the right way. We had chosen the most direct route to follow to Nagambie - while being the shortest route, it includes some gravel roads so is slower for travel speeds, ending up taking about the same time as the longer but more "civilised" route. I like a bit of country driving though.

I, for one, would be happy to accept the model as is from Hornby in LT livery, accepting the compromises. I would be prepared to modify the buffer beams to match photos of the real ones, bearing in mind that the tension lock couplings I would retain will negate some of the middle detail anyway. A set of spare buffers in my spares boxes won't go astray, while a few bits of plastic sheet can easily be cut to represent the wooden blocks.

That's good news, because I sent off an email to Hornby Marketing Dept./Simon Kohler almost immediately after their announcements, to suggest they could look at doing an LT version of the Sentinel. I got a response signed by Simon that said, "There are several liveries we can add to this locomotive one of which could be that of London Transport. Certainly one to consider.", and thanking me for the suggestion.

Continuing the road trip to Echuca, a few random road shots follow. The scenery is subtly different to that we usually see from the Northern Highway we usually follow - we are travelling on a roughly parallel route around 10km to the east of that. Lots of pastoral land to to the east, which was very flat (last two photos), and some hilly country to the west - the car is pointing roughly north. p.s. The wife was driving at this point!

Continuing from the last post, this was that same stretch of road, directly ahead of us. Temperature was a rather uncomfortable 32 deg. C. Last week, my wife and I travelled up to Echuca, on the Victoria/New South Wales border, to stay with friends and celebrate the daughter's birthday (we are honorary grandparents). We detoured through Colbinabbin, where there is some great artwork on some silos there. More to come.

Yesterday (Saturday) we went to the first Victorian British Railway Modellers of Australia (BRMA) meeting at Gheringhap for two years. Our hosts have traditionally held this meeting, combined with a barbecue and lovely desserts, for many years on the Australia Day weekend, or the weekend closest to Australia Day (26th January). We usually combine with other members to car pool, and our friend Roger offered to drive SWMBO and me there, choosing to take a scenic route, rather than the busy and congested Melbourne - Geelong road, so we went through Bacchus Marsh, then cut across country on lovely quiet rural roads, travelling behind the You-Yang range, which is also visible from the more usual Geelong Road route. I only took a few photos for this, but these will show how peaceful this route was. I will have to split the photos over a few posts as there is more to come.

Some parts of 6 PUL and 6 PAN units were combined and hung around a little longer on the Eastern Section as 6 COR units. They were covering shortages but proved unpopular, to say the least. I saw and rode on 6 PUL units as a child, but as that was before I ever had a camera, I have no photos to offer. I saw 6 PANs as well, but never actually rode in one. I also saw the 5 BEL units on most days, but never rode in those either.

The camera was actually wielded by the spider's much larger mother. She's behind you!!!

The laid back Australian approach to revenge.

The derailments were more due to incorrect balancing (the weights were all towards the rear of the tender) on the earlier ones plus a centre axle that couldn't float up and down a little. Having fixed those things, my three have soldiered on with absolutely no problems using the existing tender coupling arrangements for the best part of two decades or more. They were criticised, but mostly for the wrong reasons.