What About The Bee
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Posts posted by What About The Bee
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Norfolk Southern is one of the major rail companies in the US, to this very day. It is nice to see you represent it Alberto. I would like to draw your attention to an NS modeler who has a very nice layout indeed. But please remember, if this is a competition, the modeler who is having the most fun wins!
I will begin with the coal flood loader operations. Coal is loaded into hopper cars for transit to other operations. Note that an actual live load is placed into the hoppers.
After transiting to the other end of the layout, a long steep incline, the hopper cars are unloaded with a functional rotary dumper, here
Live product is unloaded. Note that this end of the layout is above the other, so coal dumped here runs down a shoot to the flood loader, to begin the cycle again.
Here is his video of a continuous welded rail maintenance of way train. Prepare yourself to wonder how it was done.
There are so many amazing details on this layout, it is astonishing to see. Poke around his playlist for other features. While you do, here is his layout tour from 2020
Bee
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Hi Andrew
Welcome Aboard.
The controller is going into thermal overload when you run two locomotives. You are drawing a pinch too much power and the controller doesn't like it. The controller that comes with the starter sets is suitable for one locomotive, but not two. So the circuit will shut itself off to prevent damage in the overload situation. If you wish to run two locomotives, you will need a controller that can service more amps (more grunt).
The arcing and controller shut down may be a short circuit. That's a bit more concerning, but not by much. If the controller experiences a short circuit, it results in large current draw. Similar to above, the controller prevents self damage.
You need not unplug and plug back in, the controller will reset on its own after a time. That's better practice anyway.
If you have a moment, sketch your track and how you have it wired. There are some very knowledgeable folks who can and will help you around here.
Bee
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I have just now received a Hornby Email.
9 AM GMT
9 January 2024
Confirmed.
With a live chat with Hornby Head of Brand streamed on YouTube to follow.
Bee
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Hello Lee
Shapeways is a 3D printing company. They accept your design, check it to make sure it can be printed and then print it in the materials of your choice. All for a price. You will find them on the web.
The benefit of Shapeways is that you only need concern yourself with the design, not the printer. No chemicals, no process, no failures due to the design being unsuitable for 3D printing. The drawback is that for printing lots of stuff, it is not economical. It is fine for the occasional print.
The genuine advantage you have right now is the broken part. It can be measured with a caliper and drawn into CAD directly. It is much harder starting with a blank screen with all the design and dimensions to be invented. This might be the time to learn CAD yourself, FreeCAD is available and, ahem, free! Just look on the web for FreeCAD.
In so far as the search results for the part, you may find them yourself by searching various combinations of "466" "networker" "x8209" with "Hornby". What I found was fairly thin. Just requests for the part without resolution. That really isn't much help. Olivia's Trains does seem to have two complete models, not just the part.
Long winded? Mate, you should see my post on Brunton's Horse to go by Steam, December's edition of Railway Oddities. Ha! I think Archimedes was listening when I started off on my quest to explain it!
Bee
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Wapples
If I may be so bold.
I understood the message to say: purchase the Minitrains models. Run them on N gauge track, which is narrow gauge in OO scale. Your other nominal OO models will run on the OO track, not the N gauge track.
There will be, of necessity, an interchange where your passengers walk across a platform, from the 16.5mm OO track to the 9mm narrow gauge track, where they board the narrow gauge train to the picnic area.
Your mileage may vary. I think it will be easier to add a special narrow gauge line to your layout than to recreate the narrow gauge cars and locomotives in standard OO gauge.
Bee
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Hello and Welcome Aboard Lee
Service Sheet 202, dated 1997, and Service Sheet 202C, dated 2003, show part X8209. So 27 and 21 years old, respectively.
As recently as May 2023, a request identical to yours was presented to RMWeb. They wanted to know if someone had a 3d print for X8209. Zero response.
You requested advice. Here is mine. You have the parts in front if you, albeit broken ones. Draw the part in CAD. Print it at Shapeways.
It does not appear overwhelming, the image I saw on RMWeb of one looked fairly straight forward. The devil is in the details, of course. Perhaps there is some feature not obvious or I have underestimated.
I cannot know if you can navigate a CAD program or not, so this may not be appropriate advice either. It is, however, what I would try to do. Draw the part myself. Have it printed.
Bee
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BOLSTERS
There is another approach to bolsters which I had initially discarded. Holes in the floor, which are sized to barely fit the posts. The posts are held upright.
The first benefit is obvious. The appearance is much more like the Ackermann prints. The posts appear to come right out of the floor.
The second benefit is more subtle: part reduction. It is always a good thing to reduce parts in an assembly, as this reduces cost and reduces build up of tolerance problems. From 35 parts to 5!
The drawback is insidious. The bases of the posts now protrude into the chassis, creating potential conflict with standard Hornby Era 1 chassis components. The wheels are critical, do not interfere with the motion.
To check, I added in the Hornby wheels and axles. I then thought of a way to add in the cattle artwork, scaling the cattle to the cattle wagon. It isn't perfect, just representative.
THE CONUNDRUM, EXPLAINED
At last I can see where the conundrum of the "small cattle problem" arises. When the slat sides of the Ackermann cattle wagon is made identical to the slat sides of my OO cattle wagon, I observe two things.
Firstly, the cattle are sized to the slat sides appropriately. Hurrah! The Rule of Three prevails.
Secondly, the Hornby wheels are entirely too large, raising the height of the chassis. If I am to keep to the overall height of the wagon, then both the cattle and slat sides must shrink! This is the nub of the conundrum, finally!!
Now to be careful, I do not blame Hornby for attention to the 1930s LMS reproductions of 1st class LMR carriages. I do not blame Hornby for re-using the 1st class chassis for all other wagons. Both make perfect business sense. Well done, actually.
This just forces me to use smaller cattle to fit the imagery, an acceptable OO compromise. The conundrum of small cattle is resolved
Bee
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Hello Aussie Fred
I assume you have seen this?
https://www.gordonstrams.net/MCTpage1a.htm
No idea if this works or not.
Bee
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This month's edition nearly slipped my mind. Whoops!
Dynamometer Cars have been used for quite some time on the railways, famously behind some record setting speed runs. Wonderful OO models have been made. Yet one of the first Dynamometer Cars was created by George Stephenson and Nicholas Wood to study retarding friction.
Assume a flat level track. In a frictionless environment, a small shove would set a car rolling and it would roll forever, until an opposing shove was made. But in the real world, the energy of a small shove is consumed by friction and the car comes to a stop.
Stephenson and Wood needed to reduce the retarding friction, so as to be able to haul more with the same power.
This device is extremely clever. In practice, it measures the acceleration provided to the device. If we give the dynamometer car a small shove, and watched it stop, the pendulum member would continue forward because it is not decelerated at the same rate as the car.
In practice, Stephenson and Wood kept the car moving at a steady pace by having a work crew push it along from behind the pendulum, the chaldron to the front. The amount of acceleration applied by the crew was measured by the pendulum on the semicircular scale.
The chaldron in front was loaded with different weights, the axle bearings made wide and narrow, lubricated with this, lubricated with that, the wheels evaluated, different materials & etc and the acceleration measured. Rails themselves could be compared as well. While not an absolute measurement, it was relative to the other measurements.
Altering the circumstances permitted them to see which configuration provided the least retarding friction, by measuring the acceleration input.
The significance of this cannot be overestimated. The ability to haul larger loads for the same unit if power facilitated the entire industry. All done in 1818.
This is an oddity because there was only ever one of these. Stephenson's Dynamometer.
Bee
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I seem to remember Simon Kohler said 2023 was a catch-up year.
That is my recollection as well, Gilbo. 100%, spot on.
Bee
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9 January 2024.
I have seen 0900 GMT expected time.
Bee
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Ptolemy
Before you run off and ballast your track, may I suggest you have a play with the new layout?
Find out what parts of the layout you like. Determine what parts you do not. Change the track to be more to your liking.
Of course, if you haven't laid the track, do that first. If you have the track laid, but it isn't wired, do that as well, even if only temporarily (wires exposed).
Ballasting your track will change the way the layout looks, but does not change the way the layout works. The layout should work to your preferences before you ballast.
Bee
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I must say, I do think Going Spare still has it right. That part has the appearance of a packaging clip.
'Tis a pity it is not a Hess clip, there is a very avid bunch of collectors who would pay you dearly for that part.
Hess Toy Trucks initially were the gift of Leon Hess to his customers. Mr. Hess owned an empire of gasoline service stations. He also owned a major sporting team, the NY Jets. Quite the wealthy individual. In 1964, his first "gift" to the community was a Hess branded gasoline delivery truck. My guess he was attempting to indoctrinate children to the Hess brand. Parents liked it, you could purchase it for a song.
The tradition carried forward and eventually took on a life of its own. The Hess Toy Truck continues, even though Mr. Hess is now gone, as is his empire, sold on to others.
A first year, 1964 Hess Toy Truck recently sold at auction for 2500 USD.
Bee
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Hi Simon
YouTube insists on making any video less than 60 seconds into a "Short". Shorts have different aspect ratios and controls as compared to standard videos.
To fulfill your request, I put both videos together, and then added a lot of dead space to the end of the video. Skip the dead space. You may now play with the controls to your hearts content!
Cheers
Bee
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A very short video of a triple headed LMR consist.
The very definition of a tail chaser. I still had more boxes of rolling stock, unused.
Spot the loaded sheep wagon. I must say, that does look good to me. Very happy with that.
Locomotives only in triple head
Bee
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The title changed.
Used to say "Hess parts", now says "These parts"
This makes the commentary below Rana's post somewhat cryptic and a non-sequitor.
Bee
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To amplify Going Spare's remarks, yes, Hess Toy Trucks sometimes did come in display boxes.
A nightmare to gift wrap but a delight to children.
Bee
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Happy New Year to all assorted Hornby Enthusiasts!!
Bee
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Hello Rana
"Hess Toy Trucks" have been part of American Christmas Tradition since 1964. Each year, there is a new model. While I cannot, of course, be confident that the Hess parts you have go to a Hess Toy Truck, I think the coincidence of the exactly spelled name worthy of pursuit
Bee
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As I understand it, Range Release is 9 Jan 2024, 0900 GMT.
Bee
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Hi Audit Data
If the listing says "DCC Ready", this means there is a blanking plug.
The blanking plug is used for DC.
To convert to DCC / HM7000, you remove the blanking plug and install the decoder.
Bee
Edit: ...which is easy to do. There are some exceptions. Tiny locomotives, like Rocket, may not have enough room for HM7000.
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It is not lost on me.
I assumed that cattle on the LMR would be similar to today's cattle.
From the previous exercise, I found that the height of the slat side is 13.15 mm in OO, 39.45 inches (1.002 meter) on the prototype.
Further, that the height of the cattle is 16 mm in OO, 48 inches (1.219 meter) on the prototype.
If we are to accept the consist aquatints by Ackermann, and I do, then the cattle depicted by Ackermann are fairly small.
So what could the cattle be? Farmers do not like horns. They can inflict painful injury, even accidental death. Horns are bred out, if possible.
In a survey of common breeds of cattle in the British Isles, there are only a very few common breeds with horns. Naturally, there are always obscure breeds, like "Glamorgan", but this leads to a rabbit hole of exceptionalism.
Common breeds with horns: "White Park" cows are, on average, 51 inches at the shoulder; bulls 57 inches. "English Longhorn" cows are 53 inches; bulls 59 inches. "Highland" cows 38 inches; bulls 44 inches. And that is exhaustive of common British cattle with horns.
The perspective of the wagon and cattle is odd. I note, with some amusement, that the bovine I selected in the foreground is among the shortest! The others are taller. Is that perspective? Or taller cattle? Your guess is as good as mine.
The cattle in the Ackermann aquatints are probably White Park, given the wide distribution of herds, now even as far as Australia. Langley F68A is advertised as Highland.
Hahahaha! Have I just successfully argued myself out of yet another conclusion? 🤪
Bee
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Webpage advises that the length is 32 inches ( 0.812 meters). I assume that is Mallard + Tender + Coach.
Yes sir, that is big!
Bee
Hornby points - Filing down the frog
in General Discussion
Posted
There is a problem with expecting your flanges to support the load in the frog, and it is inescapable. It assumes that 100% of all your wheel flanges have identical height above the drum. Why? Because as each wheel traverses the flangeway of the frog, the flange must just roll onto the flangeway, neither dropping down or riding up.
Now let me ask you what happens as the frog wears? Eventually, the wear stops, as the drum of the wheel rides only on the rail, preventing the flange from touching the bottom of the flangeway of the frog.
Why not skip to that step directly, the depth of the flangeway of the frog should be deeper than the height of your tallest flange relative to the drum.
But Bee, won't the wheel drop into the flange gap? On the prototype, the width of the drum is sufficient to span the lateral gap. That is, the wheel rides on multiple rail head at the frog. The check rails are in place to assure that the drum of the wheel is positioned laterally over the frog. It isn't fool proof, but is much more readily accomplished than insuring all your flange heights, on every piece of rolling stock, is precisely matched to the depth of the flangeway. Impossible.
Bee