Mike 84C

2nd'd Dunluce

Noel, the fine ballast does look very good. I bought cork flooring expansion strips for our club layout from Charles Cantrill,good website and do mail order, very fast!! 7mm thick but they offer a custom service. Might be worth checking out. Also they do offer model railway products. I did find your posts interesting.

Excellent layout Glover, I particularly like the fourth photo; that mistiness and the sunlight just cutting through it definitely atmospheric.

Archer also produce rivet transfers, I have found them more expensive than Micro Mark which I have used and they work very well.

Brilliant David, please keep posting.

Succinctly put, do you need a vast amount of immigration to make these things viable? If so my case is packed! If ferry fares were lower from the UK I expect more tourists would come to Ireland. Somewhere I have some photos of the Lady Edith I took in Alaire State Park NJ which I took in 1976. I must find them.

Brilliant! looking forward to seeing Fintonagh at an exhibition some place, some time:tumbsup :

That is looking very good David. Subtle, understated. Funny how deadlines bring progress!

Glover that is brilliant! Please keep posting.

I like the side rods flashing round on Railcar B looks rather good. I nearly bought an A like yours at Wakefield wish I had now! duhhh!

Agree totally David but I do like my paper copy!

David, if you plan forward enough, Eddie Stowbart transport could be an option. Might be better than a parcel carrier. And give the sort of publicity they like. Go for it you know it makes sense!. Mick

Looks good. have you built it since Warley? better get my finger out with the Bredins and the A class!

I feel a Han Solo moment coming on! that is a fantastic crazy model I love it! Admits to being a Star Wars fan.

Brilliant! well deserved, even if I am a bit biased.

Back from Warley and I think my feet have recovered now! It was good to meet new faces and put names to them. Spent an enjoyable hour with Leslie and Richard at the IRRS stand and it was good to meet Kieran Laggan of that famous junction. Bleach Green fulfilled all its promises and Andy Cundicks Castlederg and Victoria Bridge is excellent. Very high standard of layouts but some did not move very often but I did come home a bit trained out.

Cheers for that one Broithe

Hello Paul and welcome! Please pm me. I have got involved with the embryonic Sleaford club and we are busily building layouts for the next exhibition in 2017. Three months later four boards built, plan down and cork trackbed is being laid, it also looks a lot like Bantry . But we had a bombshell last night; got to find new premises. Mike

Exhibition Envy, Envy, Envy! looks like you had a good time David.

Hidden in full sight! a very nice piece of engineering. My Hornby chassis now looks a bit naff!

Top notch Nelson the paint jobs are first class. I also would like a work bench as tidy as yours. Keep posting!

That is very very wow! soooo cool looking controller. Could be so much more intuitive to use than almost anything I have seen.

I should have said the exhauster runs at a constant speed even when braking and to speed up the exhauster the brake handle has to be returned to the release/running position and then pressed down thus speeding up the exhauster. The loco brakes are applied by air via a proportional valve when using the vacuum brake. I can only offer advice on locos I had experience of Sulzer type 2&4 and English Electric type 1&4. But see no reason why a 141 should be any different in the way the foundation brake system works. be interesting to find out! So many ways to get the final result!

Garfield, that is true but for that you need a perfect world! Experience tells me that the driver will be making small adjustments of the brake valve. The ejector is normally set to maintain 21"of vac; using a minimum amount of steam. Ejectors are very good at what they do but will consume a lot of water if not properly adjusted by the driver. Please don't ask how much per hour! I have forgotten.

I have also driven vacuum and air over here in GB. Juctionmad if you are asking, I apply the brake and leave the handle at one position what will happen? with either system you will stop. The vacuum will continue to increasingly leak on and apply the brake harder on the train. The things to remember with vacuum are, the brakes on the front of the train apply first but release first so the rear will still be braking when the front is released. So a gentle initial application then quite heavy to get the train under control and then a gentle, apply release technique to slow to a stop. The plan is always to stop on a rising brake e.g. heading towards release and a 15" application at maybe just rolling to come to a stand. Hold the train on the air/steam brake and blow the train brakes to release ready to go. On BR 21" of vac was the norm and brakes really start to bite at 15" of vac. Slowness of release is mainly due to the vac; cylinder relies mainly on its own weight to fall and release but they are bloody heavy! and all the levers, fulcrums and rods used in the system. Of course all this depends on the quality of the braking on the carriage set you are pulling, no two will be the same so lots of variables for your driver to suss! When I was on BR steam I fired regularly to a driver who on stopping passenger trains had two brake positions when running into a station; full application and release with the large ejector wide open. Very rapid stops! I would have the blower on,a white hot fire and the injector going filling the boiler. The departure would be just as rapid. Western 6100 tanks could really take a lot of abuse! Hope that lot helps your questions and sorry for the wave of nostalgia.