SRman

I read both of my TTS decoders, one in a ViTrains class 37, removed from a factory-fitted Hornby 37, the other a Merchant Navy in a Standard 4MT. Class 37 CV7=120, CV8=048, CV159=147 Std 4MT (MN) CV7=050, CV8=025 (I can't explain this - repeated checks came up the same), CV159=050. These were read on the programming track with an NCE Power Cab. That reading for CV8 on the MN decoder is just weird!

I know I don't really need any new stock, but I have just bought another item. I was at the Caulfield exhibition all day on Saturday, and was actually commenting to the other guys on the BRMA stand that I hadn't spent any money, then went to visit my good friend, Mary de la Lande of Brunel Hobbies to say hello. She had a second-hand Hornby class 153 in Regional Railways livery going for $120 (roughly around £68 at current exchange rates), so I bought it on the spot. Mary assured me it ran sweetly, and it did indeed. A DCC Concepts direct plug-in decoder was fitted and it was again tested successfully. It had a few paint chips along the lower body edges, so I touched those in with some Humbrol #129 grey, a shade darker than Regional Railways' grey; I intend to eventually use the correct shade, when I can find where I have put it, but in the meantime, it looks like a little weathering along the lower sides. 153 377 has now joined sister 'skateboard' units 153 329, 153 355 and 153 382, posed here for the camera. The lower level tracks are being used as temporary storage for locomotives displaced while I work on the high level engine shed area. P_20180827_165025_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr P_20180827_165009_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr P_20180827_165000_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Apologies to anyone coming to this topic now: I closed my Photobucket account, so none of the photos are visible, or even available at present. I currently have a Flickr account, ut have not, as yet, reloaded the photos. Once I do that, I will edit the links in the first post so people will once again be able to see what I have been talking about. Edit: spurred on by the late revival of this topic, I have uploaded all the photos to Flickr, and hopefully put the links for the right photos in the right places in the original posting.

I'll try to give you the Merchant Navy details in the near future. I actually took it out of the MN and fitted it into a Standard class 4, because I didn't find it at all convincing in the Bulleid loco.

True 'Yes Minister' stuff: you have to watch your back when you are the leader. It's not the frontal assaults that are the danger, it's your own party from behind that are!

Hornby have, to date, produced Pecketts in two different shades of green, blue, and black, with two more to come with the same green as one of the earlier ones, plus another blue similar to the earlier one (Huntley & Palmers). I'm just surprised they haven't found a nice red or maroon one to produce to round it out a bit. That's not intended as any sort of complaint, more as an observation - I have the first three releases in my possession as it is.

I totally agree with you. Emphasising again for the OP, the two yellow wires are the track feed. They may require a DPDT switch to reverse the polarity for when the turntable is rotated 180 degrees, but otherwise should be connected to the same controller as the tracks leading up to the turntable. The triple wires in red grey and yellow are the ones that go from the turntable controller, and that should have a white and black pair that go to the AC power source to actually work the turntable. I have just replaced my Fleischmann turntable because it is showing a dead short-circuit when connected up to the power supply (not the track supply, but the AC supply for the controller itself). I have a mind to remove the motor and electrical equipment, with the exception of those two yellow wires, and try to sell it as a hand-operated turntable - the yellow wires will still be required to power the tracks, of course.

It was really good to see you there, John. Several of the operators of Chadderton and the Vale of the Whitehorse are BRMA members already - The next meeting is at the home of a VotWH owner/operator. We signed up at least two new members on Saturday; they filled in the forms and paid on the spot, and there were a couple more who were very keen and were going to fill in the forms from their homes. Overall, it was a good exhibition, I think.

I think that applies to a good many countries: it is illegal to modify, deface or destroy legal tender. It is certainly the case here in Australia, and in New Zealand too, and I believe all of the EU countries.

Yes, the latter! If you use them as intended, you are restricted only to the cranked couplings. Packing them increases the number of options considerably.

If it is of any help, I made curtains for a road coach from tissue paper, painted with thinned enamels. The paint preserves the paper, but allows the weave to show through.

I have just added a new level crossing to allow more realistic access to the stores and shed area. I envisage this as more of an occupation crossing rather than a full-blown regulated crossing, although, truth be told, I didn't really want to add any more level crossings at all, but I cannot see any alternatives at this location. I will have to build up the track centre fillers a little more, but overall it looks the part already, I think. P_20180824_151404_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr P_20180824_151414_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Were those North Western ones the ones with the specially low roof because of a particularly low bridge? They were replaced later by Bristol RELLs with ECW bodies also with flattened rooflines.

The Pirate Models (ex-Cotswold) Bedford VAL has a Plaxton Panorama Elite body, where the OOC version has the earlier style of Panorama body with flat side window glass. I am lucky in that I usually get my Little Bus Company kits delivered locally, and often by hand, when Tony Asquith comes to visit. Tony often did the design work while crossing to or from Australia by sea. His aim was to make them as accurate as possible while still allowing for easy assembly with the minimum number of separate parts - usually a body shell and a chassis complete with seats, plus wheels and axles and a steering wheel for single deckers, while double deckers had the upper deck floor and seats as a part of the lower deck shell, and often a separate moulding for half cab bonnets and front dash panels. Here's another variation on the Bedford VAL, seen on my old layout (quite an old photo too!). This one has a Duple Vega Major body and was built from the old Fanfare resin kit. This has memories for me of a trip from school in Pound Hill (Crawley) to Arundel Castle in a VAL belonging to Crawley Luxury Coaches. http:// Bedford VAL Duple cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

And as a break from politics and politicians: https://www.9news.com.au/national/2018/08/23/15/16/victorian-mum-accidently-snaps-moment-bushwalk-turned-sinister

Hi Chris. The C69 stock is from resin kits from Little Bus Company. I also have some far more complicated kits from a firm called something like Fleet Line or something similar - I'll have to dig the boxes out to check. The latter kits may never get built as they have etched brass sides, aluminium frames, white metal ends and castings, and plastic bits as well. The A Stock resin kits are ahead of the C Stock in the build queue, but now I have worked out an aluminium finish I am happy with, and have the Black Beetle motor bogies in hand, I have little excuse not to finish them. I hope you can overcome the illness and the treatment (which can be just as bad as the illness for symptoms). The modelling could act as a useful distraction by focussing your attention away from your woes a bit.

I was going to invite you to drop over to chez Lynn if you had the time. It sounds as if you may not, but the invitation is an open one.

Hi John. I will be on the BRMA stand at Caulfield on Saturday, together with DougN and Glenn (aussiebrfan) of this parish, among others. We'll look forward to seeing you there. How long are you coming down for?

Playing around further with the engine shed area, I have trimmed and pinned the tracks to the turntable and the coal and store siding beside it. P_20180823_191722_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr I restored the layout to the previous arrangement, but then tried another alternative, whereby the 3-way point into the DEMU/EMU shed and the RH point into the loco shed were swapped. Here's the first arrangement: P_20180823_191737_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr ... and here's the alternative one. This one allows longer leads into both the loco shed and the DEMU/EMU shed, but at the expense of a slightly more 'contrived' track arrangement: P_20180823_193642_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr P_20180823_193658_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr P_20180823_193723_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr As before, much of the track is only resting on the boards and is being held in place by the weight of the locos I have placed on them. Ignore the surplus length of bullhead track over to the right of the sheds - that's my reserve for when I cut track to the final lengths, although I should really cut all of the bullhead track into 60' lengths.

Another vote for the Parkside NEM fishtail adapters and Bachmann NEM couplings, but avoid the cranked ones. For some reason, Parkside intended the adapters to be used with the cranked couplings, but if you pack the adapters with some plastic card, you can use any straight couplings, including Bachmann or Hornby tension lock, Kadees, or close couplings from Hornby, Roco or other brands, whatever takes your fancy.

I have just been working on a couple of unrelated projects. Firstly, I bought some 3D printed London Transport Electrical Isolation Cabinets from Shapeways. Having painted them yellow (with yellow roofs on the newer-style fibreglass boxes, and dark grey roofs on the old-style wooden pair), I tried to copy the signs on the pair I had from Metro Models, but couldn't get them in focus, so I made up some new ones in Word, printed them out and stuck them on. They are barely readable, even under high magnification (I was down to 1.5 point text), so I am not too concerned if they aren't quite accurate. LT Electrical Section Cabinets by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr Next, I have decided the final position for the new Heljan turntable, so marked out the perimeter with a pencil, with the turntable well upside down. I had to shift an under-board support by a few inches to clear the hole I was about to cut. I then cut the main hole, staying about 5-8mm inside the pencil lines, then cut out the holes in the paper template and overlaid that onto the baseboards and marked where the plastic spigots had to go, and drilled them out. A few test fits followed, with minor adjustments to the holes between each test, until it sat snugly in the recess. The following pictures show the temporarily laid tracks back in approximate place with the turntable properly sunk into place. P_20180820_165306_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr P_20180820_165318_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr Experimentally, I rearranged the rear tracks with an extra point inserted to give one more storage line, and moved the engine shed over to be adjacent to the DEMU/EMU shed, but I don't think I'll retain this as it makes the sidings in the DEMU/EMU shed too short. It also makes the area look more cluttered. However, I am happy with the turntable position - anything else I do now won't interfere with that. It leaves a clearer view of the shed area without the buildings obstructing the view of operations. P_20180820_165901_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr This photo shows that even the largest of my steam locomotives will fit comfortably on the turntable. Merchant Navy 35023, Holland Afrika Line poses for the camera. P_20180820_171504_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

The blue one had a good finish - the blue looked correct and the yellow faces had good density. I couldn't see any blemishes in any of the paintwork. The roof well hada matt cream or off-white finish, which we all commented would very soon have weathered down to an overall gunge colour. I did forget to mention that the nameplates are printed on and actually looked quite convincing to me, but there were also etched plates in the detail pack. My friend did not have the Intercity version with him, so I cannot comment on that one apart from passing on what he said about the pantograph.

It is a very nice model. I forgot to say that earlier.

At a BRMA meeting today in Melbourne, I had the opportunity to handle and examine a friend's BR blue 87, 87 035 Robert Burns. Unfortunately we weren't able to actually run it today, but it looks very nice, has a good weight to it and lots of fine detail, especially on the bogies. There is an interior view through the side windows, and the cross-arm pantograph is also very finely executed, while showing some robustness. The front 'face' of the loco looks much better than the old Lima model, to me (I'm no expert on the AC electrics, though), and looks 'right'. The same friend has also bought the Intercity liveried version with the high speed pantograph, but he reported that that version's pantograph appears to be less robust - his popped out at the 'elbow' joint.

Yes it is an improvement, I think. The previous layout was dictated by the extra width of the Fleischmann turntable and its surrounds. The Heljan one is a good 4cm less in overall diameter, while having the same 'bridge' length - roughly equivalent to 90' in OO scale. There is one fly in the ointment with the positioning as shown: there is a board support under small part of the turntable to the right in the photos. It is not insurmountable, but will need a little extra cutting, or complete removal of that support and a new one put in a little further over.