Horsetan

Jaysus, realised that it's coming on to six years since I did anything "S"-related. Have unearthed the chassis parts, but now can't remember where I put the body.... Anyhow, the coupling rods were drilled 1.5mm, this being the nominal diameter of standard crankpins. They will be eased out a little further to allow a running fit.

Now we have all the right wheels in the right order.... ....so we can take a pair out and place either side of the Irish back-to-back gauge, then measure as close as we can across the wheel hubs: ....and 25.2mm is the axle measurement we can give to Ultrascale. The same measurement also applies to the axles for the bogie wheels. Now wait 8 months whilst the man there is making those. Incidentally, Ultrascale axles have a rounded shoulder which makes them a bit easier to press into wheel hub bores. AGW axles are strictly right-angled at their ends, so need to be "right first time" when being pressed into a wheel. I can't remember what the tender wheel diameter is, or how many spokes they have.....

Should be an easy respray into grey. Get the rattlecan out.

Some of the flange profiles are remarkably fine for their day.....

Just needs the driving wheel centres to be reversed and tyres reseated for 36.75mm gauge......

Anyone wanting an accurate Fell can build their own using the Judith Edge kit.

At least they didn't encounter any of those antisocial eejits who plague parts of the DART

Mostly to provide steam to either drive other machinery or provide heat

That's quite a mixed train - there are three railcar trailers forming the passenger section, and then another van and cattle wagon behind those. Note also the platform lattice signal post which has long been reused to carry telegraph/telephone cables.

I thought that went very well....

A quick visit to the Alan Gibson Workshop stand at Scaleforum yielded these driving wheels - as close as we're ever going to get to the GSR 800 pattern. Correct number of spokes plus crankpin in line with spoke. I came away with what I thought were three sets of the things. Only when I got home did I find that two sets were a completely different wheel which had been shoved into the trade stand tray where the correct wheels were supposed to be. Much cursing . They're going back to AGW by post and hopefully the right ones will come back. Next job is to get the Irish back to back gauge out and measure the desired axle length so an axle order can go to Ultrascale.

That's Obekkaer, a P87 layout by Geraint Hughes. P87 is visually superior in the same way that P4/S4 is, but without the kind of trade support that P4 can take for granted. It is virtually impossible to obtain steam loco wheels for P87, and you need to have lathe turning skills and the correct form tools (another very hard-to-find necessity) if you want to DIY.

Mmmm, many of the homicidal maniacs I see in the City of London are cyclists. Many think red lights don't apply to them and will brazenly ride through pedestrians who have the green man showing at crossings, whilst others insist on riding on the pavements rather than using the purpose-designed cycle lanes. You cannot design and build for those who want to be wilfully stupid. And that's before we factor in e-scooter riders, all of whom are accidents waiting to happen and all of whom I think should be shot. If you give people technological privilege, you can be sure it will be abused.

If you're only going to be messing with the chassis, I'd suggest selling the bodyshell untouched. Hornby China bodyshells are not available as spares, so eBay is pretty much the only way you can obtain any. You'd be getting some money back. A Radial body on a Martin Finney Radial chassis makes a decent model in EM or P4.

I'll be there Saturday afternoon after horse-related duties.....

Those are angles I'd not seen before

The Bredins looked very modern. I really must try the SSM kit one day.....

However, one common theme seems to be shared by a great many of these schemes: it was that those proposing them were hoping that the established railway companies would pay for construction and the subsequent operation of these lines. The great Irish tradition of trying to achieve something for nothing, by whatever means, continues to this day.

....there were quite a few attempts to replicate acceleration, coasting and braking via mechanical means. Some of us will be familiar with DynaDrive, an expensive system involving miniature centrifugal cutches, indecently-big flywheels, reduction gear cradles, driveshafts and some very efficient bevel-and-spur final drives to replicate the mass and inertia of the real thing. However, there was another ingeniously brave attempt that was produced by Rivarossi some time in the 1980s. They called it "S-Drive". I didn't even know it existed until earlier this year, when, during one of those distracted Google searches that I sometimes get trapped in, the attached advert came up. "S-Drive" seems to have been quite simple in the sense that a standard motor drove a worm and wormwheel. However, butted-up against that was a cradle carrying three spur gears. Running the motor and worm stage one way caused the cradle to flip in one direction and engage with a final drive gear, allowing the model to move. Whilst on the move, if you cut the power, the motor would stop and the cradle would disengage so that the model would coast to a halt. Applying power the other way caused the cradle to flip the other way, engaging the final drive and allowing the model to reverse. Again, cutting power to the motor would disengage the cradle and the model would coast in reverse. If you got your braking distances a bit wrong, you were free to apply power in either direction. Turns out the system was so successful that Rivarossi only fitted it to one model: their ex-Bavarian S3/6 Pacific. It doesn't look like they tried it on any other. The advert suggests it was built using plastic spur gears; this may have been more to do with cost than anything else. Anyhow, for those not entirely familiar with German, their advert is roughly translated as follows: "Haven't you always wanted to drive realistically? S-Drive offers automatic engagement and disengagement of the gearbox - Continuous acceleration - Traction-dependent sliding travel - Individual determination of the braking distance through additional traction current pulses - Realistic, mass-dependent coasting to a standstill - Full braking by counter-control on the driving console - Possibility of towing another locomotive with S-Drive in case of separate traction current supply (overhead contact line / outside contact line) or individual control with electronic multi-train systems The Br.18 will be the first locomotive to be equipped with S-Drive by Rivarossi. It is planned to equip further locomotives with this new drive concept in the course of the model update. Should one or the other brake sections of existing layouts not be sufficient for Rivarossi S-Drive - too bad! But then this modern drive concept can be switched over to the conventional type of drive at any time. S-Drive. Now you can!" Nowadays, there is DCC and almost everyone who gets used to that takes all the clever things it can do for granted. But for those of us who find DCC a bit beyond the pale, the mechanical methods are still out there and could still be messed with.

'Tis the same in Britain: people don't really care where things come from if they're out of sight, out of mind. Then again, importing half the country's food leaves it quite vulnerable when things go wrong. Transport for London thinks that an Ultra Low Emission Zone is an answer, but the leaded petrol emissions from my 34-year-old gets blown back into the Zone, so I'm not sure there's that much difference... Why should I buy a new electric car (which took a whole new set of resources) when there's nothing wrong with my decades-old one (no new resources required)? The data centres thing is a bit mad. All that componentry constantly at work probably generates quite a bit of heat, as well as being a significant drain on electricity.

Put in an order for the triple RPSI Mk.2 pack a while ago. They'll go with the three Bachmann RPSI Mk.2s.