SRman

A little stall jump, followed by a slow roll back to its starting position.

You could also use them as the basis for conversions using brass side overlays (e.g. Comet sides), at least for the mark 1s. They have quite robust body shells which form a good strong base for the add-on bits, even after cutting to clear new window layouts. The thin brass sides allow much nearer-to flush-glazing.

Reviving this thread, I purchased a Metropolitan (preserved) liveried locomotive, No 12 Sarah Siddons from Hatton's at their current greatly reduced prices. On running in on the rolling road on DC, she seemed a little tight at first, but soon loosened up nicely. All lights were working on DC. I fitted a TCS EU621 decoder, as I had done to Sherlock Holmes previously. On testing the lighting, I found that the cab light/top marker light PCB at No 1 end was upside down, as originally found on Sherlock Holmes at both ends, so Heljan are still not checking things properly on assembly, although it is easy enough to fix. I had one other issue, not of Heljan's or TCS's making, though: when I tested the running after fitting the decoder, it ran perfectly on address 3, but when I assigned short address 12 and long address 112, I found it completely dead. Resetting the decoder to 3 worked fine. It took me several minutes and several resets to finally realise that, as far as the NCE Power Cab was concerned address 12 and 112 were both short addresses and were locking each other up. Once the light bulb lit up above my head, I put 112 as the short address, and 0112 as the long address, but only activated the short address. All was well, then. Just in case anyone is wondering, I chose 112 as the running address because my Industrial Sentinel diesel shunter is set as No 12, so I needed to avoid a clash of addresses.

My SECR 753 arrived yesterday. It had the customary running-in session on the rolling road ... half an hour in reverse and three hours forwards! Well, I forgot I had left it running, so it got a bit longer than usual. It was only very slightly warm when I took it off the rollers and fitted a Bachmann 36-568 decoder. Running, as with Bluebell before, is superb.

The internal lights are powered by vertical metal bars (copper or brass?) through the seating units, contacting the PCB in the roof. The vertical contacts are very easy to bend or dislodge (or both!), thus misaligning the contacts with the PCB. They also contact the bottom PCB attached to the chassis under the seats, and if dislodged slightly can miss there as well. That would be my starting point in investigating the lack of interior lights, for what it's worth.

I would go the Sharpie route, having successfully used a silver one to paint in the window frames on a Bratchell class 455 kit. Painting the Window Frames - 1 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

I don't own any of these, but I have examined some in detail, and none had raised panelling detail, all were only printed on. Fine if you get the livery you want, but not so good for repainting.

As an aside, I bought a Hornby Merchant Navy with TTS sound, and decided it really didn't sound much like a 3-cylinder beat, nor did it have the rather soft chuffing of a Bulleid in original form, leaving me unconvinced as to its realism, so I swapped the decoder and speaker into a Standard class 4MT. I think it sounds far more appropriate in there, although I do need to drill some holes in the tender to allow more of the sound out.

Put it in a horse-drawn tram, or, with turning in graves in mind, a horse-drawn hearse?

Can you read lips, RedgateModels? p.s. you may well be right about the class 50 sounds, as they, too, used the 16 cylinder EE Co engines.

The 37 sounds wouldn't be too far off the 'twins' ' sounds. They were English Electric, albeit with 16 cylinders rather than the 37's 12. The early Queensland Railways 1200 class had the 12 cylinder engines and dated from around 1953, so would have had similar sounds too - I know their control systems were fairly crude, with the engine revving up rapidly, generally overspeeding slightly before settling down a bit, then issuing another rush of sound, very much like Legomanbiffo's Scottish class 37 sounds. I would imagine that the LMS twins and the Bulleid locos would have sounded rather similar to that. I fitted Legomanbiffo's sounds into my Bulleid 10201, but didn't really like the sound file as supplied - it sounded to me like the internal engine room sounds with no exhaust roar (no criticism of 'bif intended - he was following the description given by an engineer who worked with the real things). I asked 'bif to reblow the sound decoder with class 40 engine sounds, but retaining the Southern compressor and whistle sounds, etc., which he very kindly did for me. I know the turbo whistle probably wouldn't have been as prominent on the Bulleids, bt overall, I much prefer the "incorrect" sounds, which better represent the English Electric external engine sounds, to my mind. I suppose that what I am saying in a very long-winded way is that whatever sounds are most pleasing to you, the purchaser, are the best sounds to have in your locos: it is your layout and your locomotive so it has to please you and no one else.

If you are prepared to do a little painting and decorating work, the old Hornby Dublo station building also fits the bill. They can be picked up fairly inexpensively at swap meets. Middlehurst 22-01-09 10 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr (from my old layout).

I am thinking in a similar vein to a few others here: my wife and I will be travelling from Copenhagen to either London or Manchester, probably in September. We have been offered a flight but would much prefer to take in some scenery, even if it means 13 hours or so on trains with at least a couple of changes of train. We could possibly do a stop over en route to break the journey up a bit. Maybe ... [thinking hard here] ... maybe we could stop in Hamburg and take in Miniatur Wunderland ... hmmmm.

Wow! Even an Australian one in there!! They are nice pics, and make me impatient to receive my full SECR P class - it could arrive in the post any day now.

Lovely videos, Peter. In particular, the 33 sweeping round the curve looks thoroughly convincing.

I agree with you when it applies to locomotive classes with distinctive names/nicknames - add 'Peaks' to the list - but for others, Brush type 2 doesn't convey the same instant recognition as class 30 or 31. I think we need some mental flexibility as well as chronological flexibility in our references.

In that early Provincial Railways Sector colour scheme, they added quite a splash of colour to the scene as well.

As mentioned above, last night I found some sheet brass and cut a rectangle approximately 31mm x 35mm, then proceeded to curve it using finger and thumb to the flatter profile of the cab, followed by carefully turning the edges over further using long-nosed pliers to follow the more sharply radiused outer edges. IMG_20180520_094718 cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr IMG_20180520_094741 cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

The buffers are Bachmann's oval sprung ones. The painting is very rough at present, while I experiment with the colours. I'll sand back a bit and do it properly once I finalise the scheme. The footplate top will be black, and I have to unclog some of the grille mesh. I have added a brass sheet roof now, but it is too dark to take photos right now (11:15pm at night with a failed light bulb where I am working!).

There was one other variation offered: a PD3 in full Southdown livery but with NBC fleetnames.

TS doesn't know what he's let himself into, inviting me to hijack his thread!! Anyway, here's some progress on mine, mostly told by the photos. Apologies that some were taken in poor lighting conditions. The photos do show some rough areas in my workmanship I need to correct, including one of the side doors on one side being taller than the rest. The photos also show some of my livery experiments. I'm not sure if I'll stick with the red trim along the footplate sides; I have already changed from red buffer beams to yellow, which brightens up the image considerably. The initial blue was BR express steam blue, which seemed a little dark for the effect I wanted, so I have gone for a lighter blue from the Humbrol standard colour range. For the cab roof, I am thinking in terms of a bit of sheet brass curved down at the edges. Buffers are Bachmann's oval sprung ones, but I am also considering swapping them for some larger diameter round ones. I have followed most of TS's recommendations for the motors and gears and bits and pieces. I already have handrails and whistles and other bits and bobs in my workbench stocks. One thing I have found, though, is the Scale Link axle gear with its shoulders is just a teensy bit too wide for the chassis to allow the Hornby axle bearings to sit in properly - we're talking probably 0.5 mm here. I will be removing the gear and grinding a little off each side of its shoulders, and that should fix the problem. Anyway, see what you think of my efforts so far. IMG_20180514_204352 cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr IMG_20180514_204405 cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr IMG_20180514_204451 cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr IMG_20180514_204534 cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr IMG_20180516_182214 cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr IMG_20180516_182230 cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr IMG_20180519_100554 cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr IMG_20180519_100609 cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr IMG_20180519_100623 cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

I don't think it "failed" at all. The couplings aren't immediately noticeable in the overall effect. By all means comment, but there are ways of offering constructive criticism rather than a purely negative put-down.

I take pictures of my stock partly for record keeping purposes or illustrative reasons to go with other articles. Sometimes (not very often) I think that a photo is worthy of entry here, but I always realise after posting that I haven't removed the couplings - a result of not taking the photos with this topic in mind. On a couple of occasions I have re-posed and re-taken the photo with the couplings removed, in a few others I have cheated and photoshopped the couplings out (I declare it when I do this). Whichever way I or others go, I don't think it is right to rain on others' parades; this is about encouraging people to post their efforts. If they don't meet one individual's standards, then that's just tough. That individual should move on and leave the rest of us to enjoy the variety.

There are many classes of freight locomotives used through NSW and Victoria on the standard gauge. Some are quite old, and would not meet modern emission requirements if they were marketed as new locomotives - they have the 'grandfather' rights as long as they remain on the tracks. Tunnels can be ventilated to suit diesel power, but that would cost extra. One other thing comes to mind against using the diesels in the tunnels, though, and that is the tendency here in Oz to use multiple diesels to haul very long, heavy trains, more like the American railroads do, rather than British railways which never use more than three locos in multiple. Add the emissions from four, five or six locomotives all under load in a tunnel, and it could become a very real problem. p.s. Check out some of the videos posted on DavidB-AU's modern thread to see what i mean.

I had this argument with my wife a while back: she wanted to hang a large, heavy, framed picture map on a wallpapered wall. She wanted to use those stick on hooks one can buy. I tried to explain to her very carefully that, in spite of the manufacturers' claims about the load the hooks and glue could take, the wallpaper was the thing that would be taking that load and, in short, would allow the picture to come crashing down while ripping bits of wallpaper off at the same time. I eventually hung it up using a wooden batten with screws into three wall studs.