D9020 Nimbus

I think it would be more helpful if they could tell us the stage is that, for example in the case of the 08: in production, on the boat, …

Continental Modeller reckons that these are models of wagons that operate in the U.K., as also are the "cereal" (grain) hoppers also announced in TT by Arnold this year.

I'd have expected there to be DCC sound fitted versions of both the class 50 and 66 — they have at least as much room inside as an HST power car. And I'm not sure why Hornby isn't doing DCC fitted versions of the 08 even without sound — they do this with many models in OO. Possibly component shortages are a factor?

How are the couplings fitted? Is there any provision for them to pivot in the way the Hornby ones do, and if not, have you tried it round curves or pointwork? The Hornby coupling is a close coupling, and these are normally designed to lock rigidly together — which can cause derailments on curves if a wagon is not fitted with the "kinematic" mechanism.

Strictly speaking, the YouTuber referred to is correct—it isn't a representation of the Flying Scotsman train. So why is it called "The Scotsman"? Simply, because Hornby think it will sell more sets than calling it something different. The Flying Scotsman train would have had up-to-date coaches, being a prestige train. During most of the LNER period they would have been Gresley coaches in teak livery—Hornby is planning some of these in a later phase, though there would probably be some which won't be available RTR—the LNER was a great lover of articulated coaches and there would probably have been pairs and even a triplet for the restaurant car section. There were Pullman trains on the LNER, the main one being the Queen of Scots. It took the route through Leeds, Harrogate and Ripon to Northallerton which closed in the 1960s. There was a book written by Clive Carter years ago detailing LNER train formations.

Unless they've changed, there's always a separate box for each type of item for pre-orders.

Flying Scotsman was named after the train; its two immediate predecessors were named Great Northern (after the railway) and Sir Frederick Banbury (the GNR chairman). The racehorse names came later, although some of them seem a lot weirder than Flying Scotsman. There was an article in Railway World Annual many years ago looking at the origin of the racehorse names. Some were very obscure. By contrast, the racehorses whose names were used for "Deltics" were all famous.

Judging by the situation in British N gauge (where the gauge anomaly is less than any of the other scales, apart from TT:120 of course) the locomotives most likely to give trouble are the 08 and 9F—the current Farish 08 and Dapol 9F are notorious for their ability to collide with platforms. Trimming back platforms to cope with certain locos is prototypical — the old Midland Railway was notorious for some tight clearances, leading to the LMS "Crab" 2-6-0s having sharply inclined cylinders. When Stanier was appointed LMS CME, he asked for a list of the offending locations. There turned out to be very few—they were modified, and the Stanier Moguls and Black 5s didn't need inclined cylinders.

Revolution Trains are doing the "Electrostar" in N gauge. There's no OO version planned as yet.

The access to the sidings area at the front is by a facing point. You need to have the access at the left hand side of the layout as drawn — and swap the other points too as ntpntpntp suggested.

In WW2 all private owner wagons were pooled. They remained so until nationalisation, wherein they became BR property. Weather them very heavily, and paint occasional planks to suggest replacement — most were never repainted. Railway company wagons did move off their parent systems. The LMS had by far the most wagons so they should appear in considerable numbers on other systems. The LNER was next, the GWR some way behind, and the SR had least. The main wagons that would always belong to the home system would be local coal and road wagons (station trucks in GWR parlance) used for sundries traffic.

Arnold have listed a coupling and NEM socket, with the coupling already inserted into the socket, so you don’t need to assemble the coupling first. I'd guess these will be the same as Hornby use. However they're not currently listed on the website. Probably best to try Hornby spares. AFAIK, the NEM doesn't standardise the exterior of the pocket, just the bit where the shaft goes and the position of the front of the socket relative to the buffer beam.

The "Glenafod" wagon is very probably a fictitious livery. If the decoration shown in the catalogue is correct, then the grey wagon is not era 4 as it has TOPS lettering—it must therefore be era 6. These wagons were generally used for power station coal deliveries (other than in former NER territory where 21 ton (and older) hoppers were used). All were later replaced by MGR hoppers (HAA etc) from the mid 1960s. Vacuum-fitted 22-ton minerals were used on scrap metal traffic towards the end of their careers.

Perhaps worth mentioning that Arnold—part of Hornby—list a TT coupling and pocket set. This will provide the NEM pocket if it is damaged and save you having to assemble the coupling too.

Well I haven't managed to get it fitted yet. One time I thought I had, but when I actually used it the top piece popped out. If anybody has any useful tips it would be helpful to know. I've tried well over 20 times. How Hornby can make this so difficult is hard to fathom. Lots of continental manufacturers, in various scales, produce uncoupling tracks that can just be used as-is.

If you had two separate sections of track connected by points, e.g. a double track oval with crossover, you wouldn't necessarily need isolating sections. You'd just have to have one controller set to "off" and use the other when moving a loco between the tracks. With DCC it wouldn't matter which way round the wires were, as long as each connection was the SAME way round.

On express freight services, certainly, although even then the V2 2-6-2s would have been preferred. Most ordinary freights would have been behind the various regional 0-6-0s and eight-coupled engines, or the O1, O2 and O4 2–8-0s. K3 2-6-0s were also widely used. Towards the end of the steam era A4s would have been used on anything. The various A2 classes, given their smaller wheels—the same size as the V2s—would be the most likely to appear on freight trains (“goods trains” at the time!) There would be a lot of B1s available post-war.

Hornby's N gauge RTP buildings were called "Lyddle End". Their OO ones are "Skaledale". The S&C style station building has been issued several times and under different names. I notice the Metcalfe dimensions have a ground plan similar to the Hornby TT:120 but their height is significantly less. Bear in mind there were three sizes of S&C building — Dent is the "small" size. It's also possible that Hornby "selectively compressed" theirs so they would take up a smaller area.

Generally a "top-of-the-range" Android tablet will cost round about the same as an iPad with similar specification. There are however a lot of cheaper Android tablets around. The main thing you need to be aware of with Android is that is the device manufacturer who determines when, or whether, you can upgrade to a newer version of Android. Generally updates are only made available for a limited period. There are a large number of often fairly recent Android devices that cannot be upgraded, so Android apps are generally written for relatively old OS versions. Android devices can also have custom versions of Android unique to the device's manufacturer — especially with tablets as Android’s support for their larger screens is limited. Android tablets may have either ARM or Intel processors. If you are interested in a tablet generally, not just as a control device, then there is much more tablet-oriented software available for iPads. With an iPad you need to be aware that the amount of storage is fixed and cannot be expanded later. You will probably need more than you expect!

Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement effectively is diluted PVA + wetting agent. It works very well for sticking layers of scatter down although I haven't used it for static grass (I usually use Hobbycraft Tacky PVA for that). I've also used it for ballasting—since this was N gauge and I was using Fleischmann pre-ballasted track, this was for the area between tracks, but it worked well for that.

There's also a general shortage of electronic components which has been affecting chip manufacture—which appears to be mostly done in China, whoever’s name is on the decoder. Several sound-fitted versions of N gauge models have been delayed a couple of months compared to non-sound-fitted versions; for a time there was a particular shortage of Next 18 decoders. Hornby decoders are also (presumably) a relatively new design which appears to be unique to them.

Which 4MT is that — 2-6-0, 4-6-0 or 2-6-4T?

Something to think about is "how do you want to control a locomotive"? With most DC systems, it's a knob — either centre-off or with a direction switch. With most DCC systems, the available control methods depend on the system — some have knobs, some thumbwheels, some push-button… With the HM7000 you will have to use an on-screen slider on a phone. If this method of control does not appeal then you will have to change system. Also, this system is proprietary to Hornby, unlike DCC. At the moment, that doesn't matter. But if another manufacturer comes along who makes something you want, it is unlikely to use this system. Also, at least for the present, the decoders are larger than standard DCC decoders. Will it be possible even to install one in, say, a "Terrier"? We see already that it isn't possible to fit a TXS sound decoder in the class 08, whereas a sound decoder can be fitted in the Farish N gauge class 08…

There will probably be an earlier-period 08 since most of the samples had ladders fitted which are inappropriate for any of the periods announced so far. Why such an 08 hasn't yet been announced/produced, SK alone knows.

But in their catalogues Hornby have listed a sizeable number of items, and those in phases 3 and 4 don't appear on the website. But SK has hinted that "two 0-6-0s" — presumably the J94 and 57xx — are now in tooling and set to appear in early 2024, ahead of the phase 1 or 2 Duchess. It would help if Hornby could do what Bachmann used to, before they changed their announcement policy, and give a clear indication, perhaps in the club magazine, of the status of each of the announced models, I.e. research/in tooling/first e.p./livery samples/in production. It does seem apparent that the order is shifting, and it would help to clarify things. As it is, a long list of the type Hornby have provided, serves only to frustrate modellers and deter competition — perhaps the latter is the objective.