Going Spare

The 73s did not have running lights until comparatively recently so authenticity will depend upon the era your locomotive depicts. The SR used the red route blind (as on EMUs) if the loco was at the rear of the train.

Agreed, standard points R8072/3 are 2nd radius but express points R8077/8 at 852mm are not 4th radius which is 572mm, and when used as a crossover, do not give the standard 67mm spacing between parallel track centres.

@corky - was that not replacing a Ringfield drive? The OP's HST is the set version with a can motor.

Key Publishing are offering the bundle at £12.99 post free.

Check out the posts in the DCC section: page 1 "Chip fitting Lion train pack" and page 4 "Hornby Lion DCC decoder" which is illustrated.

Are not the reversing loops across the office going to get in your way in using the room and how are you going to support them?

Looking at the Service Sheet, it appears the wire from the pick-ups passes up through the chassis block below the motor to connect to the decoder socket.

No sign of the new 0-4-0 tank featured in 'A Model World' a while back.

And building the layout on smaller boards will improve the chances of storing it under the bed as the legs the bed stands on and/or bedside units may stop a single 6' x 4' board sliding underneath. Don't forget to check the vertical clearance as well; some scenic items may have to be removed.

There is a thread on the RMweb entitled "Formation of GWR TPO trains" part of which may be of help to you (it does ramble on to interesting related topics). If my quick scan through it is correct, the answer appears to be that GWR mail trains to the West Country operated as complete trains comprised of mail vans with & without pick-up apparatus plus full brakes and Siphon G vans pulled by King class locos where permitted or Castles.

If this is the elongated U-shaped moulding that sits below the clip-in coupling to keep it in place, have a look at part L7843 on Peters Spares website.

There is a post dating back to November 2015 ("Class 60 Skiddaw") lamenting the absence of fitted 'snowploughs' and the accessory bag then containing just one of each type, so the basic problem is not new but it would seem that the contents of the accessory bag has changed over the years.

And/or set the rails in to the road surface?

EFE produced 1:76 scale models of Leeds Horsfield trams and Corgi chose the London Feltham tram as well as the Blackpool balloon tram for their OOC range, all double-deck. I do not know their heights but being to the smaller scale, they might just fit.

You may also find the 'Hornby Lion DCC Decoder' illustrated post on page 4 helpful.

It may also be worth checking the forum TT section page 3 post 'Poor performance of Scotsman set Pullman coaches'.

It is difficult to be sure from the photograph but the power clip does not look to be connecting with the rails correctly. While the outer (short) connectors appear to be sitting between the plastic track web and the bottom of the rail, the longer (centre) connector seems to be too long and not touching the other rail. If I remember correctly, the end of the connector is cranked upwards so that the tip also slides between plastic web and rail but, as shown, it cannot do so. Investigation is needed there, I think. Does the train run if the leads from the controller are connected directly to the rails, by-passing the power clip? In the bottom photograph, the item in the centre is an uncoupling ramp which is clipped between the rails on a straight length of track to uncouple rolling stock by lifting the hooks of the tension-lock couplings when the train is propelled (not pulled) over the uncoupler. The leads were probably used with an electrically-driven accessory such as a point motor. R618 is an isolating track with a cut in both rails.

Both the catalogue and website content for 2024 will have been set well before now so probably better to wait until after the 'reveal' with any comment upon what then appears to be wrong? Some 2023 sets may not be carried forward and there will undoubtedly be new ones added.

Only Hornby themselves can give you an authoritative answer and they do not routinely monitor forum posts. Contact Customer Services.

When your Mallard was released (you say 35-40 years ago), production was in Margate and to organise a re-run of a replacement part (if it was offered - even then, not all were), was a relatively simple matter as the production line was virtually under the same roof. But over time the model specification was improved and Hornby - not the big company many people believe it to be - can not be expected to maintain a stock holding for every part for every model that has ever been produced since the mid-1950s, probably now numbering well over 12,000 items or packs for 00 railways alone, and then there is Airfix, Scalextric, Corgi. The spares situation was exacerbated by the move of model production to China towards the end of the 1990s, the Chinese factories/sub-contractors apparently not being prepared to produce a further quantity of any given part at an acceptable price until it was again required to form part of a complete model, and with the constant revision to specifications, that need probably did not arise again. Having said that, it would appear that there is now a greater flexibility in obtaining re-runs of some parts in China but that by no means covers everything and certainly not components made to UK specifications. No doubt there are exceptions, but try getting a replacement part for a domestic appliance of anywhere near that vintage.......

Insulated fish vans would have been conveyed in fast block freight trains but I am not sure that Hornby has ever produced a suitable vehicle.

If they are indeed linked to Hess toy trucks, and those toy trucks come in a display box, that plastic moulding looks similar to the clips used by Corgi to keep their models in place within the display box by trapping the wheels in recesses cut in to the inner floor of the box. The plastic clip sits immediately below the box inner floor and the outer 'horns' locate in to the inside part of the model's wheels that protrude below the floor. They are released simply by the two sides of the moulding being squeezed together.

From the 2023 range, R1230M High Speed Train, R1255M Flying Scotsman, R1272M Freightmaster, R1281M Red Rover, R1282M Mallard Record Breaker and R1283M The Royal Scot sets are DCC-ready but the 2024 range is due to be revealed in a couple of weeks.

I suspect the fencing lengths and post positions were designed to suit the outside of 2nd radius curves as larger radii curves had not been created way back when the R537 fencing pack was introduced. With 3rd radius now the standard set curve, the positioning of clips and posts may no longer always coincide, as evidenced at the very beginning and towards the end of the video by the last post of the fencing being held in place manually rather than by the clip.

Purely a guess, but I imagine it was used for the movement of dead diesel or electric multiple units, or part units, when their more modern couplings did not match those on the (diesel) locomotive being used for the move. In some ways rather like the Tri-ang/Hornby-Dublo converter wagons - different couplings at each end.