irishthump

I'll hang on to my one SF A Class. Mainly because I went through hell and high water to get the chassis running well and the lights working! But it will probably become a display model. I'll happily strip out the good motor and drive shafts, the pcb and the Loksound decoder to use in other projects!

Lads, Early days but just a couple of questions regarding the DCC end of things for the A Class (meant to ask in person yesterday but I forgot in all the excitement!) I'm assuming the loco will require a 21PIN decoder judging by the sheer amount of lighting functions. Would that be correct? Also you mention a specific sound project and decoder being in the works can you give any more info on that? Will it be an ESU product as with the MM 071/201 or a bespoke product from one of the UK sound producers (Legomanbiffo or MrSoundguy for example).

Words fail me..... Hooefully my bank card will have no such problems!

Tension Lock Couplings? I think...

These are sounding better by the second!

Oh they are tempting! Will you have samples at Raheny?

Where exactly do they derail? On curves? Points?

Well if I remember correctly the Hornby class 40 just has 1 powered bogie, similar to the Railroad class 55. So it won't have a hell of a lot of pulling power to begin with. It would probably slip its wheels long before it could burn itself out but it still wouldn't do the motor any favours.

I have to agree with Garfield here, 5 ounces per wagon is WAY too much weight. As he said the wheels may well be the issue here. Can I ask, are they metal wheels? A lot of the cheaper Hornby tank wagons come with plastic wheelsets. These can often be out of gauge or just distorted and they cant be fixed. If you switch them out for metal sets they will run much better straight away and probably won't need any extra weight.

Prefer hand painting myself. A mixture of Humbrol matt leather and black looks really good. on my layout I painted all the track and points by hand before I layed it. Just need to be sure to leave unpainted spots on the rails for soldering on the track feeders, it’s a pain to remove when it’s stuck down!

Yes, Hornby DCC is hit and miss AT BEST! Get yourself either the Powercab or the Gaugemaster Prodigy 2.

Bummer! But not IRM's fault for sure, and thanks for the update!

@Dave Yeah I get that, but to be honest I find that to be a lot of messing around. The Kadee magnet is plug and play and I can deal with how it looks. Also easily removed if needs be.

It's also dependent on which couplers you use. The neodymium magnets work fine with the NEM couplers as the sideways movement is more limited, but draft box Kadees get pushed apart too far to reengage for delayed uncoupling. Also, NEM and draft box couplers don't like to be mixed and matched.

But again they tend to be too strong for the couplers and push them too far to the side. Also, when you increase the area you start to get problems with the magnets attracting the metal axles of the rolling stock. All methods have their drawbacks but the Kadee uncoupler's problems are purely cosmetic, they work well.

The neodymium magnets are a cheap alternative but they create their own problems. Like Noel said the uncoupling area can be way to small making uncoupling difficult. it get's even more messy when you're driving a sound equipped loco with lots of momentum as it makes it very hard to stop in the right place! Also the magnets can be way to strong which forces the coupler knuckles too far apart. This means the couplers won't reengage correctly when pushing the stock which causes buffer lock and derailments! The electromagnet uncouplers are a good alternative but again but are near impossible to retrofit to an existing layout. The between track magnets not be visually appealing but they simply work best.

Everything can be restored after a reset and the sound file is not affected in any way. He should not lose any settings as these are usually locked in as the default setting if the sound is factory installed.

Dave, 1 set of 141 handrails and 3 sets of horns. Will the full detail pack for the 141 be available?

They're nice! Found similar ones here: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/20ft-Oil-Tank-Containers-Shipping-Container-Freight-Cars-HO-Scale-LOT/371677769041?hash=item5689b8ad51:m:mr6Ve-OWtLxUl1Ad44AMFhg They'll come on the "slow boat" but they're a bit cheaper.

Certainly seems a viable alternative. I'm about to start ballasting my own layout and I'm dreading it! The toothpaste is a clever idea! I've been experimenting with various techniques including mixing talcum powder and pva or varnish to simulate cement dust. I've been doing this with old Hornby tank wagons, I want to have the method right before I touch my lovely new bubbles...

Looks fantastic! Very hard to tell it's not regular ballast. The weathering job on those cement bubbles is great too. What techniques did you use on them?

The main cause of that "bounce effect" is that the wheelsets on UK stock are being attracted to the uncoupling magnet. It's the axles that are at fault, Bachmann and Hornby use a magnetically attractive metal in their axles. US manufacturers make a point of manufacturing non magnetic wheelsets. It really only happens with the large undertrack magnet as it's long enough that the couplers are still pulled to the side just as the wheelsets roll over the magnet and you get a small jerk which separates the stock. Bloody nightmare! I'm actually in the process of switching out the undertrack magnets for the ones that slot between the rails. If you use small neodymium magnets you won't have this problem either as the "magnetic footprint" is tiny. I've done something similar with this brass strip but the drag really builds up over a rake of 6 or 7 coaches!

Again, great info.Thanks for clearing that up.

Thanks Raider, great info. So were all 141’s fitted to run on trains with air brakes or was it just locos that had the A suffix after their loco number? For instance 161sa. I believe the S was to indicate it could work with suburban signaling and the A demoted it was fitted for air brakes.

Ah right. So these are air lines? Are these for loco control or air brakes? So more will need to be added, you only get 6 per loco!