SRman

64', with 12mm wheels.

The third rail shoes appear to be retracted on the ED there, Budgie, but I think the class 73s should count as honorary EMUs, seeing as they worked Gatwick Expresses and also substituted for 4 REP DM cars when the class 442s were being constructed with electrical equipment recycled from the REP motor coaches.

It is certainly possible to reblow the v3.5 decoders with a LokProgrammer. Finding suitable sound projects for the v3.5 decoders may be a little more difficult. Legomanbiffo has some suitable projects still available. You could ask Howes and/or SouthWest Digital if they have any suitable projects still available. In legomanbiffo's case, I can order and pay for the sound project to be emailed to me, after reading the decoder and supplying him with the serial number. The sound file can then be locked to that decoder only, so it prevents piracy of his sounds. As I am in Australia, this saves two lots of postage and the danger of damaging or losing a valuable decoder in the mail. It is also a lot quicker! Some Class 66 sounds are available free from ESU's own libraries, but may have different horns from UK versions; also, I'm not sure if they would suit a 66/9.

After just over a year since I did the first two coaches of my Bratchell class 455/9, I have now added the Electra Railway Graphics South West Trains vinyls to the third car, the remaining Driving Trailer. I still have the last one to do to complete the four-car unit. There are some livery touch-ups and corrections to do yet, so this is still very much a work in progress. P_20191003_124418_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

P_20191001_100504_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

A quick update on the recently purchased Heljan class 58. I have now removed the original style cab door handrails and added the supplied newer style combined barrier and handrail mouldings (compare this with the earlier photo in post above). Here 58 050, Toton Traction Depot, is seen posed with 58 004 in slightly earlier Mainline three-tone grey (ex-Railfreight livery), also with the later handrail style fitted. I must do this to the EWS liveried version as well, once I find where I have squirrelled its extra parts pack away! P_20190930_213319_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Earlier, I bought a green Heljan Western, D1002, and started reshaping the cab roofs as I had done before with a maroon example (D1007). My initial efforts left it a little too domed, although the overhanging peaks over the windscreens were pretty close to the final profile. I have now hit it with the file again and flattened the profile back towards the hatch, and I think this is much closer to how it should look. Aside from this error in the Heljan Westerns, I do rather like them. They are less delicate than the Dapol ones (a little less detailed too), but they run more quietly and seem a lot more robust. P_20190928_182554_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

No problems with my two either: both have Bachmann 36-568 decoders, which are really rebadged Zimo products.

If it isn't that on the controller, you may have to check the value in CV29 on the decoder, and add 2 to that value - see https://ncedcc.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/200537669-CV29-Explained.

Pete, make sure you have 28/128 speed steps selected on the Power Cab (button on the lower right, from memory). The flashing lights usually indicate you have got it on 14 speed steps.

Just back from our local swap meet: I picked up this Heljan class 58 in Mainline blue for $AUS120. Tested perfectly on DC, so now has a Lenz decoder fitted. It joins three other Heljan 58s in my fleet: one in original Railfreight red stripe grey, one in Mainline greys, and one in EWS maroon. I wasn't really looking for another 58, but a bargain is a bargain! P_20190926_221243_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Some items that have been languishing on my workbench for some time: I have been doing a little more work on two resin LSWR brake vans from Smallbrook Studios. I have fitted the roofs, although one needed a complete replacement as I wasn't happy with the job I did on the earlier example. The D.1541 road van still has a little too much overhang on the new roof, but that is easily fixed. Aside from fixing up the paintwork, most of what's left to do is fitting handrails and adding transfers. Both vans are quite capable of running on the layout as they stand now. P_20190926_110437_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr P_20190926_110510_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr An even longer term project has been the detailing and upgrading of an old Triang L1 4-4-0 locomotive. I added separate handrails and pipework many years ago, and put full-sized scale diameter (27mm) wheels on it. However, as Triang locos already tended to sit rather high, this put the buffers a full 2mm too high compared to "normal" stock. So, discouraged by this, I have left it sitting in a corner of the workbench for some time. Anyway, inspired by a couple of other BRMA modellers' efforts using 24mm diameter wheels, I ordered the replacement driving wheels a week or two ago from Scale Link's website, and they turned up today. The appearance suffers a bit from the too-small driving wheels, but it seems a bit more practical as a usable model. Work still needed includes adding numbers, crests and BR mixed traffic lining, a 5-pole motor and DCC decoder once all that works properly. P_20190926_110616_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Yes, I was lucky in that all of mine had the earlier arrangement with bogie pickups as well, so had the nice, convenient strips to attach the wires. It would be easy enough to add some tags of copper or phosphor-bronze at one of the chassis screw locations. The principle is the same, just that the tag would be home-made instead of factory-fitted.

I have some very old Triang clerestories, one of which has a completely different type of bogie, made of cast metal, with the early open axleboxes that Triang used to use. I'm not sure what the bogie actually represents, but it occurs to me that just maybe it was part of the Australian/NZ productions with the Transcontinental style bogies instead of BR1 types.

The Sellotape method has also worked well for me in the past, with the same model types as crompton33 described, and a 37 as well.

There are plenty of photos available of Q1s on passenger work. often on secondary lines, but also on ECS workings at major stations such as Waterloo,

34071 onwards all had the wider (9') cabs. Tender and smoke deflector differences are a modeller's nightmare. 34102 entered service in March 1950, and seems to have kept the one tender throughout. though (tender 3362). She was withdrawn 09/07/1967 and cut up in 1968. The tender was modified somewhere between May and July 1961.

I seem to recall that when Hornby first announced the BoB/WC models they had one version in the catalogue that had the original square 2-window cab (was it Sidmouth?), saying they had the ability to produce all of these variants. However, they changed that early on and removed or replaced that one with a different model with the V-cab. Nothing more has ever been heard of this variant coming from Hornby.

Added advantages of using the more premium decoders such as ESU, Lenz, and Zimo is that they have overload protection built in, even on their budget decoders. It is still possible to destroy them, but much, much more difficult (I haven't lost any decoders from these three brands).

Thanks Arran: order placed successfully.

Sorry to bother you again, Arran, but could you fix the website shop, please. I tried to order one of each of the old-style containers above, but the Tiphook one defaults to 100 items and produces this error message of that is changed to '1' : "Minimum order amount for OO Tiphook 40ft x 8'6" Old style is 100!" I was going to add a couple of kits and transfers as well, but will wait until I can order just one of the Tiphook version to keep postage to a minimum. Thanks.

Or, being tall myself, hair-trapping!

Thanks, Arran.

I'm no expert here, but the long wheelbase and short overhangs tend to make it look more "continental", but if I were to change anything, it would b the front grille and the cab roof shape. To my mind, looking at those nice photos others have posted, a more curved cab roof and a mesh grille would go a long way to making it look more British, and perhaps a modified exhaust stack cut off nearly flush with whatever roof level you end up with, or even as suggested earlier, cutting off that exhaust and adding a stovepipe exhaust at the front of the bonnet. It's still a nice model and quite a bargain, whichever way you look at it.

I like those Tiphook and Kien Hung containers, Arran. You say they are old-style containers, but would you mind giving me some approximate dates they would cover, please?