Railtwister

Hello Fazy: Thanks, that answers my question. Was it also the same for some of the privately owned freight wagons too, or were they more likely to stay on a particular rail line? Some of the privately owned wagons can have such unique and colorful paint and lettering schemes. I have been buying and running whatever I find appealing, but I do try to stay within the pre-British Rail era from the 1920’s to the 1940’s because I rather fancy the Great Western primarily (but not exclusively). Good prototype information about UK railways can be rather scarce here in the USA. Thanks for the info, Bill in Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Here in the USA, one can see any freight cars with any road name show up on any rail line. Is it the same way in the UK, or were the freight wagons pretty much only seen on their home roads? I guessing that this isn’t much of an issue after the advent of British Rail, but I don’t know for sure… Bill Nielsen in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA

Hi John, You are absolutely correct about how too many different manufacturers spoil the interchangeability of what should be a standardized design. That problem was there in the USA with the original hook & loop couplings of which the Mantuas were only one of several brands used on early equipment. The National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) came up with the NMRA X2f coupling design specification (which it made available free to all manufacturers at no royalty cost) to try and address the problem in the mid fifties, and that didn’t work either, for the same reasons. Each manufacturer’s design team made small tweaks and changes to the original X2f design which soon prevented the couplings from different manufacturers from working properly together, while almost any one of them worked pretty well if you didn’t try to mix brands. Then along came Kadee, with their patented “Magne-matic” design and things went pretty well until their patents timed out, allowing any manufacturer to make clones, and the whole tweaking cycle began anew. I have noticed that the same thing seems to be happening with the NEM standard on your side of the Atlantic, where the standards for height, shank & dovetail size, and even material type seem to be different, preventing proper interchange. Seems like a decent manual magnetic hook-lifting wand could be made for the tension locks could be made if only ALL the coupling hooks were made of steel, instead of some steel and some plastic. If Kadee had stuck to their original stainless steel centering wire on their NEM couplings, I probably would just use them as a standard, but their new design with plastic centering springs just ars not as reliable (a fact ironically proven by all the Kadee clones out there that tried unsuccessfully to use little plastic molded-in springs for centering and on the knuckles). thanks for your input, Bill in FtL

When I was a kid in the mid to late fifties, my trains came with Mantua brand hook and loop style couplings (called “tension-locks“ in the UK). Fortunately, Kadee magne-magic knuckle types were being introduced at about the same time, so I quickly switched to using them instead, since they looked very much like the couplings I saw on the real trains where I lived. Fast forward about 45 years, and I bought my first “Thomas” loco from Bachmann, and quickly became fascinated with British outline model trains, which recently has lead to a few purchases of OO scale models. With my first Thomas item, I was reminded of my “old days” with the Mantua couplings, and so, I tried to replicate the uncoupling ramps I had used way back when, which were just a simple piece of clear plastic perhaps a half mm thick and about 10-11 mm wide by 75 mm long, which was tacked between the rails so as to have a slight ”bow” upwards just slightly above the rail head. As the trains ran over the clear plastic, their coupling hooks were lifted up, and if slack was introduced, the hooks disengaged the loops and the cars were uncoupled. I made a test sample using some model airplane canopy material on a couple pieces of snap track. I was so surprised that it worked (sort of), that I took it to the local shop and showed them. They were impressed, but since by this time the Kadee knuckle type couplings were widely being used in the US, and already came installed on most ready to run HO rolling stock, they wondered aloud ”why bother?” When I suggested that I might like to use these uncouplers for shunting some of the “Thomas” trains, they kind of smiled and shook their heads. I converted some “Thomas” wagons to Kadee using a combination of their NEM couplings, plus some Kadee couplings with their own draft gear boxes glued onto the floors of cars that didn’t have NEM couplings. since I wasn’t inclined to cut up any locos at the time, just in order to fit Kadees, a few cars were converted with Kadee knuckles on one end and tension locks on the other, to be used as adapter cars. Besides, somehow the knuckles just didn’t look quite right (not that the tension-locks look any better, really). Sadly, my little “Thomas” layout never got built, and my snap track uncoupling tracks have since been lost to time. Almost two years ago I tried using some Kato HO UniTrack for a display at local train show set up for the holidays, and was so impressed, especially by the switches, that I’m again thinking about a small, portable Thomas/British outline layout, this time built using UniTrack. I would also like to be able to run my smaller pieces of On30 (Oe), Sn42, and some of my HO pieces as well, since the rails are the same. Buildings could be swapped out to match the scale of the trains running at that moment. All of this just to ask: are there any more simple or reliable uncoupling ramps for tension-lock couplings that might be compatible with UniTrack? Should I try to accommodate the two coupling types on my little layout, or should I just convert everything to the Kadee knuckle types and be done with it? I really like the smaller locos and cars of the British Proflie models, but I don’t have space, funds, energy, or time to build a lot of separate layouts. thanks, Bill in FtL

Thanks LC&DR for verifying what I had suspected. Does this mean that trains in the UK tended not to run at night, or did they just “fly blind” without any illumination to see where they were going? Here in the US, trains use classification lights, which don’t tell as much about the type of train as the various lamp positions in the UK do, and their brightness is about like the signal and tail lights on your automobile. The headlamps are usually on, even during the daylight, and at night actually can light up the countryside pretty well, especially on more modern locomotives. On our models, however, headlamps are really not so bright, and really are unable to light the way ahead. I do have one model which uses a super bright 5mm led however, which actually casts a beam in front of the loco which lights the tracks ahead and projects a spot on the wall ahead for a couple of feet. It is one of my favorite loco to run because the light is so satisfyingly bright, even in daylight. Lighting effects can be especially effective when used with DCC, since they can be controlled and are of constant brightness. Bill in FtL

When traveling at night, were the headlamps on steam locos actually bright enough to be useful to the loco crews for seeing where they were going, or were they just used to communicate the class and type of train by their position on the front of the loco? They appear to be too small to be able to light up the way ahead. Also, since so many variations of placement are possible, is this why most OO scale locos do not have working lights unless their prototypes are modern diesels? Bill in FtL

So what is the preferred pronunciation, “day-pole”, or dap-ole (like tadpole)?

In most of the models I have seen the buffers never touch, mostly I suspect, because they are mounted solid, and touching would mean they likely would cause derailments. With models that do have actual sprung buffers, is the springing just for a novel effect, and they still never touch, or are they intended to be working, just as in the prototype?

Thanks for the detailed response and all the pictures, but I’m still a bit unsure as to whether the buffers are in constant contact and under pressure from the moment the wagon is coupled to the train, or if they are touching, but not under any pressure until the train enters a curve or decellerates. Also, how much travel do they actually have from a relaxed state to the point of full compression?

Never having seen them in person myself, I’m hoping folks on the forum can explain to me how buffers actually work. When the train is coupled together do the buffers make constant contact and apply pressure to the couplings at all times, or only in curves, or when braking? It seems likely that they would apply pressure at all times to mitigate bumping that could occur between times of tension and times when there is slack between the cars, but I really don’t know. Are they needed to provide tension on the coupling chains to prevent those chains from loosening?

A friend tried extruded Polystyrene foam insulation as the baseboard under the new section of his layout, and it amplified the noise considerably, leading to the conclusion that a hard foam board is going to be naturally louder than a base made from wood. However, I would expect an extruded board to be noisier than a beaded foam board since it is essentially one solid piece and should transmit vibration better than compressed beads.

Xuron tools are warranted for life provided they have not been abused. In the case of track cutters, cutting anything that would leave knicks in the blades (like steel wire) would be considered abuse. Contact Xuron and see what they say, they replaced mine which had the same problem as yours, all I had to do was email them a good photo showing the jaws had no knicks or dings. Great folks to work with!

I currently use an NCE PowerCab (v1.65) and I really like it. I have had several brands of DCC systems, starting with Digitrax Challenger in 1993, as well as Lenz, Atlas, Arnold, Digitrax Big Boy and Chief, and SPROG 3. Due to being an operator on at least three different club layouts, all with different preferred DCC systems (Digitrax, Lenz, and NCE), I manage to stay pretty digitally confused no matter which system I‘m using. All systems have their own advantages and disadvantages, but most importantly, it’s what you get used to that counts. As far as power upgrades to the PowerCab, NCE has that covered, check with them for your best options. Out of the box, the PowerCab is very well configured for most small to medium sized home layouts. Bill in FtL

Thanks for the replies and suggestions, gents. I ordered a copy of the Rowlands book from Amazon, and an older (3rd) edition of the Ramsey’s catalog just to see what it was like, since it was fairly low priced. I saw that Hattons is sold out of the 9th edition, but RofS still has it in stock, but the two volume set is pretty expensive. I’ll gauge if the 3rd edition catalog is useful for my purposes and if so, I can order the latest edition in the future. In the meantime, thanks again. Bill in FtL

I just obtained the above wagon set (second-hand) and it has prompted me to ask these questions. First, does anyone know when Hornby released this set, it has 3 open wagons, a GWR container wagon with furniture container, and a LowMac depressed flat car? My second question is what are the eras of all these cars, would they possibly have ever been found together in the same train on the prototype? I know the LowMac is a fairly recent prototype, and the container car being lettered for GWR probably predates the BR eras but I’m not completely sure on that. These two cars look to have been originally made by Airfix, is that a correct assumption? Also, how does one determine the era of a particular car if it is not stated on the package or the seller’s website? Are there books that show photos of the various liveries of different cars and when they were used? I am an American who has recently become fascinated by the British Railroads, which seem particularly well-suited for modeling and operating on home layout-sized curves. Bill in FtL