GWR LNER fan 4472

Just seen this and I am seriously tempted by the second pack. It's a loco, two coaches and two trucks all for just £2 more than the RRP for the loco itself! The J15s are widely regarded as some of Hornby's best models, and that BR livery with the red side rods is very nice indeed. It's been one of those 'if I saw one going super cheap I'd get one' locos for me, but as I've been meaning to get some more Mk1s too, this is too good to miss. Plus I collect trucks with Welsh town names, so the Philips George & Co fits with that!

I've been looking forward to seeing decorated samples of the 2MT and fair to say I am not disappointed! Absolutely love them, shall be getting my hands on one sometime next year hopefully, yet to decide which though. Quite a lot of diecast on these, which is good, but understandably knocks up the price a bit.

Without point clips the rails are only electrified along the direction the points are set (due to the plastic 'dead zone' on the points), so you really need two power points, one on the top track and one on the bottom.

Thanks all for your responses, I shall pass this information on. If anyone else has any further tips on inclines and landscape carving, we'd greatly appreciate it.

Hello, a friend of mine who's building a new layout would like to incorporate an incline. The obvious answer these days is 'don't', but I believe he has sufficient space to build one. He likes the idea of some Woodland Scenics polystyrene supports, but would like to create his own from polystyrene blocks. His question is what is the recommended gradient for modern locos? His setting (heritage line) means he's only going to run perhaps three or four bogie coach trains, so nothing too heavy. Also any other tips on constructing a garient from blocks of polystyrene would be appreciated, thank you :-)

Yes, the TfW 153s are seen in the white and red livery with a T in a circle. Just a quick image search for 'TfW class 153' should do the trick. However, and this may be useful to you, TfW are currently borrowing a whole load of 153s from other Train Operating Companies as well as having bought some from GWR, so the liveries they currently carry are: TfW white and red, Arriva turquoise, First Great Western purple and pink (with TfW branding), East Midlands Trains purpley-blue, yellow and red. At least, those are the ones I've seen, I've lost track of how many units they have now!

Not forgetting Transport for Wales (ex Arriva Trains Wales) also operate in Birmingham. I don't think anyone's doing the new TfW livery yet, as they only took over from Arriva in October 2018. Mind you Hornby have got the ScotRail HST livery and that's a recent thing too. Anyway, class 150s and 158s are available in ATW livery, which is accurate up to the TfW takeover, but if you want even more present than 2018, then removing the Arriva logos, but keeping the turquoise colours makes it a TfW unit.

Here's the service sheet, scroll down to 205C HST 125 https://www.hornby.com/uk-en/downloads/view/index/cat/21/

If it's an older HST like mine (not sure of R number) then it's likely the bogies are held in place with plastic hooks on the bogie that also act as the swiveling function. The bogie at the back of the power car holds the motor. One of the hooks is longer than the other and can bend slightly when pushed horizontally (in direction of vehicle travel?), allowing the shorter hook to come loose and enable the whole bogie to drop out. Difficult to explain without a diagram. The motor will still be attached by two wires to the front of the power car, however the wires can easily be slid off the connectors, and back on again, without soldering. That's how to remove the bogie, but if you're looking to remove the whole body from the chassis, then that's a finer art, one which Instill have trouble with! It's held in place with clips; one at the back above the coupling and one or two nearer the front, that hook from the black chassis into the coloured body and are visible frombthe outside. Without knowing the specific model (and not having mine to hand), this information may be different. I believe service sheets are available on this website somewhere? I'm sure one of the more knowledgeable members could offer further info.

Hi Wilsp73, Hornby do some container wagons (R6926, R6927, R6957, R6425 etc (search 'container' in the Hornby website shop and look for the R number ones)), loaded and unloaded, which are typically seen being hauled by a class 66. I see they're out of stock on the Hornby website, but I'm sure some are available from the retailers (and possibly at a lower price too). Other than these, I can't see much 'era 10/11' freight rolling stock currently on the Hornby website, but other manufacturers do some large bogie mineral wagons (HKA? HAA? Not sure of the name), which are also seen hauled by class 66s. I'm not sure what work the real 66 731 is usually seen doing, so my suggestion is any modern day freight wagons you can find, but don't run them in mixed trains if you're being accurate. Alternatively, you could couple it to some BR Mk2 coaches in blood and custard or chocolate and cream liveries and say it's on a Railtour? Hope this helps :-)

I'd agree with 81F on this one. When we first started out with OO gauge, we got the Clan Line Pullman DCC trainset with two full loops of track. We also had some of my Dad's trains from the '70s and '80s, most of which we have converted to DCC. Since then, our collection grew and now with a huge setup, it simply wouldn't be sensible to operate it on DC. I often run double headers or bankers just for the fun if it, but also the two mainline loops are just big enough to run two trains each, so with a watchful eye and Select + Walkabout it's possible to run four trains on two loops. However, as some have mentioned earlier, DCC does have its problems, such as cost and occasional unreliability. I haven't had much experience with DC, all things considered, but when I set up a simple loop of track for testing or a school fayre or something then even my most unreliable of locos work perfectly. I'm planning a simple round-the-ceiling layout with a station, which is going to be DC so I don't need to buy another digital controller and also because as it's essentially just a loop, I won't need any complicated loco workings. Generally speaking, it'll be for the smaller engines (0-4-0s, 0-6-0s etc), as most of the trouble I've had on the larger DCC layout are with these.

Just a quicky out of interest, nothing important, but can anyone help identify which Percy this is? He came as part of a pack with two troublesome trucks. We got the pack new around 2007-2008, but it may have been an earlier release. I've got him out for my new Thomas-themed layout, but his decoder seems to have caputted :-/ No worries, it's an analogue layout, but having a decoder in him will allow him to run on the other layout should we wish him to. /media/tinymce_upload/b2da5a40843a811f1d1283a677a5344f.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/5a06657011a9b931c7cdfb6b0f6ef9f5.jpg/media/tinymce_upload/7156e493f97b6433a03cc29b8c0e0953.jpg

Well I said it was going to take a while... Anyway, here are some updates: I've done a bit of scratch-building and kit-bashing to create a water tower and a footbridge. For the water tower, I've used a temporary cover from the sprinkler system in our new house, an offcut of copper pipe, an empty Humbrol paint tin and an offcut of live wire. I haven't done much scratch building before, but all in all I'm pretty pleased with the results. The Humbrol spray paint is really easy to use and gets good results, love it! It's based on the water towers you see on the Thomas and Friends TV series. Although a tad out of scale, it does the job. /media/tinymce_upload/5088b879808dbeec7e33c0d2c0fd905b.jpg For the footbridge, I used some Airfix kits from the '70s, two of which were built and had fallen apart over the years, and one was an unbuilt kit. I intended to base it on the bridge seen at Elsbridge station, which comes down from the high-level station building onto the platforms, seen here: https://ttte.fandom.com/wiki/Elsbridge/Gallery?file=TheFlyingKipper56.png In order to get the correct height, I had to chop and glue the supports to be three X panels high on one support. The differences with my version are that the steps on the near end go down in two stages, as per the original Airfix kits, and for extra detail, I've added some advertisments, including a Dalby-esque nod to the Railway Series itself. Unpainted model, showing the faded old kits and the unbuilt parts in light grey: /media/tinymce_upload/8d23be5e23f4b7ed97d97aad173046af.jpg Painted bridge: /media/tinymce_upload/d0d089d983c597c6def430b377972289.jpg With signs that I printed out and glued on: /media/tinymce_upload/4b5836c8eef9c81665cd8833f88d11ff.jpg /media/tinymce_upload/2a4a6cc76bda44c26e4f6877eeec4ba9.jpg

I've only recently added some lights to our layout. I'm using a set of battery-operated Christmas lights, the sort that you'd find on a table decoration, similar to morairamike's, only they're in series, not parallel. They're not incredibly bright, but the batteries have been in there a while. Fortunately, the buildings on our layout are in a town square setting, so the cable just sits on the baseboard with the buildings on top of it. It does mean that all of them are lit up at the same time, but that doesn't bother me at the moment. May get bits of black card to block out the odd window at a later date. The battery pack is hidden in a Superquik fire station, so when I want to turn the lights on, I simiply reach in and flick the switch. Of course, I'm not using it at the moment, not just because it's getting dark later, but also because I haven't been able to get to the layout with the current lockdown :-(

Generally speaking, station halts like the ones represented by R590 did not have canopies over the track, however if you wanted something bigger like a town station, may I suggest R7236, R8009 or R334, which both come as kits which when built are the correct distance appart for two straight tracks inbetween. R334 is probably the best for what you're planning as it's the cheapest and can be attatched into your R590s easily.

Brilliant, thanks for that howbiman.

I use 18mm board as it's stronger and doesn't bounce when you hammer track pins into it. In terms of similar real life stations, there are several on the outskirts of London where the Underground meets with c2c services etc. Have a look at Upminster or Wimbledon station, from memory they're similar to what you're planning. Might give some ideas as to station infrastructure and architecture.

Cool, thanks :-)

Project update: The room I'm planning to put this in is now fully painted. Looking forward to setting up the boards in coming months. Another part of the layout not shown on the track plan I posted earlier is the plan for a triangle off the top left hand corner. Ideally I'd like it to split just before the curved points and join up with the straight bit at the top off to the left of the diagram. Any suggestions for triangles using Hornby set track or would flexi track be easier? Preferably no tighter than 2nd rad, but only planning to run max 0-6-0s on this, so could be tighter if need be. We have a triangle on our existing layout, but every side to that is curved and on this one, one is straight. I've tried FreeTrackPlans, but can't see anything obvious to go off, anyone know of any plans that include a very small triangle? Thanks for any suggestions :-)

Would a similar sort of thing work for DCC layouts? Currently we have four loops and a branch, quite some distance of track in total.

Some excellent work there 81F and Chrissaf, very impressed. I tried a bit of renumbering for the first time a few weeks back on a class 37, will post some pictures if I can find them if you like. Unfortunatley, our railway isn't at my house, so I haven't been able to do much work on it or run anything given the current restrictions, including my lovely new 37, which I've only run twice I think, one of which was running it in! Keeping busy at home though, planning a layout in our new house, currently being painted. I also have a few locos I can be trying to fix - some old 0-6-0s and a stuttery Flying Scotsman - unfortunatley I don't have much in the way of test track, so may be difficult... Anyway, hope you're all well and enjoying your railways!

I'd say definitly no Mallard and from what it sounds like in this case I'd say less is more. However it is your layout and I'm a firm believer in Rule 1 - it's your layout so do what you like! In terms of couplings, I've personally never had troubles combining the wide and narrow hook and loop couplings. In fact, I only seem to have problems with my Hornby Pullman rake, all narrow couplings, a common problem I gather, but sometimes they behave!

Very pleased indeed with the new range, plenty of 'wow factors' like the APT, Rocket and Hush-Hush. For me, I'm very happy they're doing the Standard 2MT, though the price is high so that'll be my two years saving for Christmas 2021! Been on my list for a while that. Really do fancy a Rocket too though...

I will indeed. As I say, nothing's actually been started yet as we haven't moved in to our new house yet (it's still being built), but I have a lot of the baseboard, track and scenery etc ready to go.

The Railway Series has been worked into a timeline, which makes sense, except it does crush a few childhood perseptions. The TV series on the other hand is seemingly trapped in a time bubble - key indicatiors of quite when it's supposed to take place is in series 3, Oliver's story of excaping 'the Other Railway' is played out and Diesel tells Gordon that the diesels are taking over. However since then, there have been numerous steam engines that work on the Other Railway, such as Connor, Caitlyn, Samson etc. It is unclear if these locos work as preserved engines or genuine day-to-day trains. In 'Thomas and the Great Race' and 'Journey Beyond Sodor', there are many 08 diesel shunters around in a livery very much like that of EWS, albeit without the lettering. For a while, I assumed that the newer TV series took place in the 'present', as in when each series was first released. This falls down somewhat because of the era-ambiguous dress codes and lack of mobile telephones, or indeed anything other than the two-piece vintage stuff (help me out on the exact name, if there is one?) Anyway, here's a list of key events in Sodor's history. It appears the events of The Three Railway Engines (the first book) take place in 1922. https://ttte.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline