Les1952

Lined wheels didn't do all that well on the prototype, needing constant attention from the cleaners and often being so dirty at the end of a single trip they looked unlined. Les

I've experimented with Dapol Easi-shunts- admittedly on Roco and Tillig stock as my Scotsman set hadn't arrived yet. The NEM pockets have bigger gaps than the N-gauge pockets, but the plastic is fairly rigid so squeezing them together with narrow pliers got the Easi-Shunt to sit in happily. O Hornby Radius 2 the couplings performed quite happily, no issues pulling or pushing the train round the layout. These are the nearest to Kadee couplings you will find. My Scotsman set has arrived so I might try them between a pair of the Pullmans- the loco has had to go back to Hornby as it was missing the wheelset from under the cab.

I have found the most effective way of getting power to Hornby rails is to solder wires to the undersides of a couple of fishplates, one colour for the inside rail and another for the outside rail- that allows you to have more than one power feed without getting confused as to which side is which. It also means that when the track is ballasted the power feeds become invisible. Hope this is useful to someone.

As I'm moving out of N Gauge I have a large number of Dapol's Easi-shunt couplers left over. I bought myself a Piko German Class 290 Bo-Bo diesel to play with and Easi-shunts fit nicely into the NEM pocket of TT gauge couplers. I've not yet tried them on train set curves (need the train set and track packs to do that. but will keep people posted as to how well they do. I'm hoping to use the Dapol track magnets for hands-free uncoupling that isn't too obtrusive on the layout- the Tillig/Hornby uncoupler track looks a bit difficult to disguise. Les

From Hornby's OO output L1 2-6-4T, K1 2-6-0 and Q6 0-8-0 and from Oxford's OO output J26/J27 0-6-0 plus 21 tonners (not that I've mentioned them before.........)

I suspect that Hornby's sound will be TTS- which is fine for diesels but totally unrealistic for steam as the exhaust beats don't match up to the wheel revolutions. An A4 should "chuff" SIX times for every revolution of the driving wheels. Can this be set up in TTS? No. Mine will have an extra £100 or so spent on it to get a sound chip that actually sounds like an A4.

21 ton hopper wagons please