Wolseley

I was referring to LC&DR's post at the foot of page 1. I did try to quote it, but the quote function didn't work.

LC&DR, I could not have put it better. They are exactly the same reasons that, when I got back into railway modelling a few years ago, I did so by buying second-hand Hornby Dublo rather than something new or near new. I well remember seeing a schoolfriend's Barnstaple and A4 and then going back home to my Tri-ang L1...... Unless they have been grossly mistreated, Dublo locos will keep on going forever. And, when they do need some maintenance, all you need is a screwdriver and a pair of needle nosed pliers, and you can take them apart and reassemble them. Added to which, a few rarities aside, they are so much cheaper than modern productions. And, yes, there may be a few compromises in their proportions and detailing, but they have a presence about them (yes, even their dimensionally challenged Deltic) that is hard to beat.

I repainted one of my Dublo 2-6-4Ts in BR lined green and I think it rather suits it. I did make a mistake with the number though, and it ended up as 80153....

If the controller is working (and that's a big "if" with a 60+ year old controller) then it's probably a short somewhere in the track. If you have a few spare pieces of track, try replacing one piece at a time and, if you find it starts working, then the last piece you replaced was the culprit. Three possible faults come to mind. First is that the centre rail might be bent downwards at some point and is touching the metal track base which is the opposite polarity (solution: just bend it back upwards). Second is that the centre rail joining tag on one track piece may be bent upwards and has gone above the insulating material on the opposite track piece rather than below it (solution: bend slightly downwards and watch carefully when you join the two pieces again to make sure it goes in correctly). The third possibility is that the insulating sleeve around the centre rail feed on the terminal rail (the one you connect to the controller) is broken, missing or out of place (solution: fabricate a new one, repair the sleeve or push very gently back into place). I would echo the advise given above and say that you should not use a controller of this age unless it has been checked and rewired by a professional electrician. After all these years, the insulation on the wires has probably perished and, chances are, as soon as an exposed wire touches the case, you're going to be on the receiving end of 240 volts (or whatever the voltage is that they use in India). I have a fairly large collection of three rail, mostly Dublo, but I run everything using modern controllers. I have no intention of ever using vintage transformers or controllers no matter how authentic it may look. The potential hazards do not bear thinking about.

It struck me that the Great North of Scotland Railway's "Gordon Highlander" (F Class) might be a suitable candidate for production. The GNSR itself is not widely modelled, but the class was long-lived and, with a bit of ingenuity, could be made to represent more than one class of locomotive. Firstly, a model of the V Class could be made as a GNSR locomotive in lined black (as it was in pre-grouping days), LNER lined black, LNER plain black, British Railways lined black with either "British Railways" or the cycling lion on the tender, and GNSR lined green (as preserved). Secondly, and here's where it gets interesting, with a modification to shorten the smokebox (about the only difference between the two classes) it could represent the GNSR V Class which, in addition to the above liveries (although none were preserved, the V Class carried GNSR green in pre-grouping days), it could also be marketed in SECR and Southern guise (a nice tie-in with Hornby's H Class) as a batch of the GNSR V Class were sold to the SECR when the GNSR found itself unable to pay the builders for them. So what about it? Satisfy Scottish and South of England modellers at the same time.

A near mint Hornby Dublo City of London, which I plan to convert to 3 rail using a spare pickup assembly I have. Much cheaper than trying to get hold of a genuine 3 rail City of Liverpool.

A Hornby Dublo City body which, somewhat bizarrely, has been repainted in Brunswick green, with a GWR roundel on the cabside. Once it has been stripped and repainted, it will be fitted to a spare City 3 rail chassis that I have stored away.

I don't have a layout as such at the moment, but I do have tracks that get assembled on the dining room table from time to time. Here's how it looked a few weeks ago (everything is packed away right now) /media/tinymce_upload/be0eca1e703873037046cac6d023d9cb.jpg

And seeing as how I haven't contributed much to this thread so far, just to show what else I have been up to, here's a photo of the last locomotive that was on my workbench: /media/tinymce_upload/516caae807ce8aace50497a1b81b4f4d.jpg

I will but, as we're in the middle of a kitchen renovation and I have to paint the ceilings soon (it's a four bedroom house, so that's a lot of ceilings), it could be a while before I post an update. Aside from the gloss Montrose I am working on (it will probably end up as a Duchess of Sutherland though), I have, as stated earlier, a near (but not quite) mint Montrose, an Atholl (bought as a non-runner said to be only good for spares but, after fiddling about with it, I found that the reason it was a non-runner was that someone had tightened up the armature bearing too tightly - the bodywork was a bit battered but looks quite presentable now) and I have a Wrenn City of Glasgow body and tender and a Hornby (present day company) streamlined Duchess of Gloucester and tender that are both in need of a chassis. Then there is this one, which I converted from a very playworn Duchess of Montrose: /media/tinymce_upload/4c65496f8b78d8bc822c08c9c077f27e.jpg

I have several matters that I have to do at the moment, but the one presently "on my workbench" is the rescue of a Hornby Dublo 3 rail "Duchess of Montrose. A while ago I purchased, on eBay, a Duchess of Montrose (minus tender), with the intention of fitting the mechanism to a Hornby (as in present day Hornby) maroon streamlined Coronation body. From the photos and description, I was expecting the body to be of little use and probably destined for the bin. After I detached the chassis, I looked more closely at the body, to find it was in much better condition than I was expecting. Aside from a few scuffs on the raised edges (most of the orange lining on the footplate had gone), one otherwise undamaged smoke deflector that has lost a bit of paint and gained a bit of rust, and one short scratch on the boiler, it is rather good - most of what appeared to be deterioration and damage in the photographs turned out to be dirt. It is also one of the Montroses finished in gloss during the brief period Dublo applied gloss finishes to their locomotives. It's the first gloss Dublo locomotive in my collection, and I rather like the finish. The body is too good to consign to the dustbin, so I got myself a Duchess tender in good condition (and a gloss one at that!) and now the restoration commences. I will have to give it another name, as I already have a near mint Duchess of Montrose. /media/tinymce_upload/1dcc3cce02c67fbaf78acd3cd5829e04.jpg

A Hornby Dublo A4 tender. It began with the purchase of three locomotive bodies, a Ringfield Castle, an A4 (Golden Fleece) and a City (the nameplates were missing, but I'm pretty sure that it was a City of London rather than of Liverpool) for a fairly nominal amount. The Castle looked as if it might be beyond repair and, when I received it, it obviously was. The City was the one I wanted and I was planning to repaint it and fit a Duchess chassis (a three rail City chassis would have been too hard to find and too expensive and a Duchess chassis can, with a bit of work, be modified to suit). The City body, however, proved to be in poor shape. It had been repainted (no real problem there, just a bit more work) but looked as if it had been sandblasted prior to painting, with all the sharp details of the moulding rounded off or eroded to the point where they were indistinguishable. So it joined the Castle in the bin. I subsequently bought a Wrenn City of Glasgow body, but that's another story..... The A4 was the one I hadn't given much thought to - after all I already have two of them - but it turned out to be in the best condition of the lot, albeit with missing paint and a third of the transfers (including most of one nameplates) missing. It seemed too good to throw out, so I bought a spare A4 chassis, which arrived a couple of weeks ago, and a tender, which arrived today. I am planning to paint it in BR light blue, but when I will get around to it I'm not sure.

A Wrenn "City of Glasgow" body in BR blue. I plan to fit a Dublo chassis to it although, as the Dublo 3 rail City chassis is hard to find and expensive, I will be fitting a Duchess chassis to it. It doesn't fit as is, but can be made to fit - it needs a bit of careful filing to the front of the chassis, a new hole to be drilled to take the fixing screw and a short extension to be added to the rear of the chassis

Hornby Dublo/Dinky Toys set of six 00 scale railway passengers;Trix 3 rail Warship class “Vanguard” and;Trix 3 rail BR green ex-GWR 56XX 0-6-2T (both the Trix locomotives have convertible wheels so that they will run on Dublo track).