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Its not just the weight you will need to think about if running old locos but the wheel profile. My Wrenn wagons and the only wrenn loco I've converted to DCC (the LMS 0-6-2T no 2385) runs perfectly well through code 100 points. I think wrenns wheel profiles were finer than Triang Hornby of the same time of manufacture

All the best and good luck for the future

A second hand Titfield thunderbolt 60th anniversary pack with 1401. Just need the Rapido Lion version. Indeed I am considering replacing the over complicated end of my colliery branch with a basic model of Monkton Coomb (it was only a loop and siding I think and I'm almost ready for filming!

I actually bought a LIMA HO scale class 33 to pull my jouef HO CIWL sleeping cars since my 00 locos looked so odd. However did anyone ever make a MK1 BSK in HO in BR blue/grey?

I believe the LNER had a massive renumbering programme in 1946 when Flying scotsman became number 103. That is why the loco became 60103 under BR because they simply added 60000 to the value of possibly all the LNER Locos. Not sure about their ex W^D 2-8-0s though

@ Atom, Never been able to get a close look at the loco in the Shakespeare set but thanks for the link. It is indeed a 3500g tender. All we need now is Hornby to put a Hawkesworth tender behind one of their Halls and we have a full set of duplicates! Other duplicates were the Hornby and Lima Western Hydraulics, Class 37, Class 47 and Class 31, the latter also being made by Airfix.

Looking at the locos produced, there isn't a lot left that hasn't been modelled to a reasonable degree of accuracy so I think there will be more duplicates. The one that annoyed me the most was when Hornby announced their Hall a few years back. At the time I think I muttered something about not getting one as I already had two Bachmann ones unless the Hornby version had a 3500g tender. By chance or design Hornby's version did have the small tender so I eventually bought a couple because it added variety so I wasn't too miffed in the end. Oddly Bachmann haven't made a 3500g tender version themselves despite producing that particular tender for other locos.

On the other hand For something so minor as a NEM pocket, returning a loco can be a real pain especially if you have to fund the return and your local post office closed down. There is also a danger the loco may get lost in the post. Although this sort of thing should not happen with a new loco consider the cost of how much the spare would cost to get with that of returning the loco and getting to the post office. Also bear in mind it doesn't hurt to have a few spare pockets, I've lost around six that have just dropped out and gone missing after a while.

I must admit I've not heard many L&Y model railways but RTR they are very poorly supplied, just 1 pug made by Dapol in L&Y livery which I do have. Hornby will be bringing out some 4 wheelers so after many years it might get a train to pull somer day!

A LIMA class 47 "ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL" in GWR 150 green.

@Yelrow Standard Gauge is used on most of the continent except Spain/Portugal and the former USSR. I think it more probable that having been taken over on the train ferry BR didn't want the wagons to get "lost" in Europe. PS Ireland is also a different gauge)

Back on topic there was a train ferry that ran between Harwich and Zebrugger so these wagons probably ran on it

I have been collecting some CIWL sleeping cars for my layout to run a night ferry, and as said above they are all HO scale so I bought an HO LIMA class 33 to pull them. Interestingly there are two Jouef versions one with a high roof and the other with a low roof. I'm guessing that the low roofed ones are right for the night ferry as they also have Paris-London on their sides.

The brass and bronze prints i have ordered from Shapeways are made using the lost wax method of casting with the wax being 3d printed see Shapeways: Wax Casting and with more info here Although I was worried about shrinkage, I've never had a real problem with it, although some of the fine detail plastic parts of mt Ruston were a tight fit and a little trial and error was needed with some parts. I also produced a GWR 517 class loco body in fine detail plastic with brass smoke-box door tank fillers and tool boxes. All seem to fit OK without any signs of differential shrinkage although I do tend to make holes that parts plug into very slightly larger than the item that fits into them (usuall around 0.1 to 0.2mm). Hope this helps As an aside, have you seen the Bachmann 'John Bull'. It looks a little Planet-like but I think the prototype original was designed as an 0-4-0. This is tender driven although the huge "garden shed" of a tender means there is plenty of room for a motor. However,their 4-2-0 Lafeyette is loco driven see

It is possible to remove the bases from the Dapol figures. The method I have used was to snip around the edge of the feet to remove most of the plastic so they look as if they are wearing some sort of 1970s platform shoes, then trim/file these down to a more reasonable thicknes

This is very useful as I have some 3 rail stock I would like to run, UI also have a Duette from my original layout somewhere. However I have lost the nuts that secure the wires on the terminals - Can anyone tell me what thread these are?

@Bee, My profile image shows a tiny 009 Ruston Hornby loco which Shapeways 3d printed for me. My initial test print used a fine detailed plastic which looks like the one used in your post of the tender. This proved much too light. I therefore got Shapeways to print it in natural brass (or bronze) to add weight. You might want to consider this option. The only draw backs was that I needed to slightly thicken up some of the finer detail and the cost was significantly higher but running quality was much better. The only real downside was that it looks so nice in Brass it was a shame to paint it!

I had been running a grange very successfully for about ten laps when one of the crank pin bolts worked loose and fell off. The con-rods bound and the motor was not free to turn. Had I not been there to turn the power off the motor would have burned out. My point is therefore never be complacent you never know when something will go wrong

Just to add even the GWR coaches ran on Mk 1 bogies originally, However the GWR and SR bodies had different integrally molded roofs. However, at the time I remember being grateful that there was something that was not a re-liveried BR Mk1! Getting back to the seats, don't the arm rests fold up in the real coaches - I know some do?

Thanks for the product number. Looking at the images on the internet, I think this was the chassis used on the GWR, LMS and SR closed vans that I remember building. It is rather fragile due to it being to a finer scale that most RTR chassis and therefore more breakable - Hence the reason why I lost a few in storage. Also it could be difficult to get all the moulding pips off the top of the solebar to get it not to wobble. Regarding the wheels, these generally all went straight into the bin and were replaced with metal wheels with brass top hat bearings. On a scale of easy to hard to build I used to place these about fourth in line with Slatters Kits being the best followed by Cooper Craft, and Airfix with the original Parkiside, Cambrian and Keyser being ones that required more work. The Airfix kits (now Dapol) were much more robust but had some over scale parts but the moulds are gprobably over 50 years old now and the resulting components now need a lot more work compared to the originals, but thats only my opinion.

@Top cat, I agree. I think we were starting to talk at cross purposes. But any difference in frog angle may be significant even when a wide range of points are produced since TT120 appears to have settled on 15 degrees while 00 uses 12. I just recall having a lot of disappointments when trying to scale plans meant for different gauges. I suppose the best of advice is to scale both a plan of the 00 layout and plans of the TT120 points available (from all manufacturers) and see how it all fits together, either on a computer or on paper before investing in any track.

@ Topcat, yes the geometry of a 3-4-5 triangle is the same as a 19-12-15, since the angles are all the same. However, this analogy only works if the frog angle of the points used in the two track systems are the same. Sadly in 00 and TT120 thus doesn't seem to be the case. Just compare a PECO Setrack or standard Hornby point (with a frog angle of 22.5 degrees) with a PECO streamline point whose frog angle is 12 degrees, which is different to TT120's 15 degrees. To illustrate, when creating a cross over in 00 using by joining points of the same hand by their diverging rails, the parallel lines of the Hornby system is much further apart than the Streamline. The total length of the crossover is also different. Also if you mix the twp systems you do not get any parallel tracks!

Sadly I have just spent about an hour working out why point geometry (which I think is the main issue here rather than geometry in general). Sadly this demonstrated that simply scaling a 00 plan to TT120 won't work. However, the computer glitched and lost it all of it so I am not going to go through all that maths again! However, in a nutshell to proove the point (excuse the punn!) I would advise scaling the key dimensions of 00 points to TT120 and looking at the frog angles (which will remain the same) and comparing them with the TT120 points available. Basically when scaling the standard Hornby point to TT120, I foundthat the genuine TT120 point is roughly 50% longer and the tracks diverge at a much shallower angle. So the TT120 points will simply not fit into any track plan. The closes point I could find in 00 to a TT120 point scaled up to 1:76th scale was the PECO large point and even that was slightly shorter and I do not know how the radii compare so a 00 plan using only PECO large radius points would have some issues. I should also add that I had exactly the same problem when planning part of my current layout when trying to scale an 016.5 (7mm narrow gauge) plan of Glyn Cieriog to 009 (4mm narrow gauge) because of the differences in point geometry between the trackage systems offered in the two scales. Hope this helps

Saw Sleeping car to Trieste, so bought a couple of Wagon Lits sleeping cars (Jouef) to go with my ancient 231C pacific

What is the product number of the kit as I believe PECO might make two (the ex Ration one and the ex Parkside version). In my youth I built well over 2100 kits from the different manufacturers including Ratio and Parkside (sadly most were damaged beyond repair while in storage). I found that the Parkside ones needed a lot of work to get running well but it was possible with a lot of care. However the brake rigging was very brittle and easily broken. The Ratio ones were much better, but again care was needed with the fine detail and getting things level (I used a mirror tile). I dispensed with the plastic wheels early on, fitting 2mm 'top hat' bearings. The one thing I will say is that having built them in my youth, this was well over 30 years ago and I have found that (judging by the Ratio GWR four wheeled coach kits) the moulds are getting very tired so the kits now have a lot more flash that need clearing off which is when I find most breakages occur - I would suggest very gentle cuts with a very sharp scalpel blade