ESNG meeting – 3 November 2016

Posted on November 6, 2016 by snitchthebudgie

After the rush of members last meeting, it was quieter again this Thursday.  However, there were plenty of trains on the move, and it was also a chance to check a few details about Stuttgart plans.

I spotted this Model Power ‘almost a Birney’ on Ebay and got it for £25.  ‘Poor runner’ it said, but it at least moved itself around the layout.  A new – perhaps Kato – chassis is needed, then details and repainting Pacific Electric red or Sacramento Northern green.  Or why not one of each?

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Honest John was testing this fine ‘Crocodile’.

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Paul was having a European night, but still running long goods trains…..

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Derek was running a BR Standard 4-6-0 and Bullied coaches…..

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ESNG members – remember PlayDay on Sunday 13 November, and then no meeting on Wednesday 16 November – a significant proportion of the members will be in Stuttgart.

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Jon’s modules – should I make some changes?

Posted on November 4, 2016 by snitchthebudgie

Over the past three years or so, my N-club modules have made slow progress.  Totalling 3.6m in length, along the loft wall, they represent Rochelle Park on the Lehigh Valley.  The layout has got to the point when it is ready for ballast and then scenery.

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The trouble is, I’m just finding it too big to enjoy.  Over the last three years, I realise that I actually LIKE small layouts.  So the 800mm module on the right has been dropped off, and is being developed as a stand-alone N-club scenic module.  And I’ve really enjoyed working on a single, small, board, with a clear idea of what I am trying to portray.  (All will be revealed in a week or so, as I am taking the board to Stuttgart.)

So do I scrap three years work and does it matter?  In one sense no, as I have had a lot of fun building and learning as I have built the modules.  And it wouldn’t be a total scrap job.  I was wondering whether to keep the left hand end board, drop the second left one out, and then relay the sidings on the 1200mm board.  This would then make a 2m long switching layout – perhaps something like this, that I recently posted about….

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The double track N-club main line would still run along the front of the layout and not need rewiring.

If I do this, what could I improve in my modelling?  I think the key thing would be better trackwork.  PECO is not bad, but doesn’t look that good and the clearances are very coarse.  Also, code 40 rather than code 55 rail will improve things.  If it were a UK layout, FineTrax would be a good option, but I might have to think about making my own track on copper clad sleepers.  I’ve done it before (when I was at school….) and no doubt I could relearn these skills.  Add a limited amount of weathered rolling stock, with the new Microtrains Scale Couplers, and a couple of locomotives, and I’ll have just about the right length of operating session.

And maybe DCC and sound???????

I’ll let you know what I’m going to do, gentle reader, when I have some idea myself!

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The Patch

Posted on November 2, 2016 by snitchthebudgie

An interesting part of the Los Angeles railway system was ‘The Patch’, an industrial area near downtown Los Angeles, served by the Santa Fe.  The area contains many old buildings and industries, served by a patchwork of tracks down streets and alleys.

For prototype photos, see here.  This is perhaps the signature scene, with buildings built with curved walls to match the track……

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Keith Jordan has recreated this interesting area as a small switching layout.  His excellent work is described on this website.  He writes…..

No one knows for sure where the name originated, but here are four possible theories: One, it refers to the “patchwork quilt” nature of the myriad of tracks in the area. Two, it could have been a reference that to work the area would be akin to being “thrown into the briar patch.” Three, it refers to the switchlamps on switches, glowing red and green in the night, reminiscent of a “patch” of strawberries or green vegetables. Four, the area was industrialized in the 1880s, so it’s also possible the name refers to the garden patches that existed prior to industrialization. The earliest reference found to the name is in a 1918 report on railroads in Los Angeles.

The trackplan is interesting and would happily compress into two 4′ boards in ‘N’ gauge, and still offer hours on interesting switching.

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The greatest train journey on earth

Posted on October 31, 2016 by snitchthebudgie

Excellent article from the Daily Telegraph on the Trans-Siberian Railway.

The Trans-Siberian is more than just a railway. It’s a journey into the psyche of modern Russia; a triumph of engineering; a movable feast through the largest – and, perhaps, most mysterious – nation on Earth

Crossing seven time zones, between Moscow and Vladivostok, the 5,772-mile train track blazes a trail through some of the bleakest and most beautiful landscapes on Earth.

In an epoch of low-cost air fares, the world’s longest railway continues to exert a hold over travellers; it still tops bucket lists, still pulls in the tourists. It also remains a lifeline for millions of Russians.

Completed in October 1916 – exactly 100 years ago – the Trans-Siberian Railway helped shape the Russia we know today, though its influence can be felt much further afield, not least in Japan, China and Europe.

Winston Churchill famously described Russia as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” – words that still, perhaps, ring true today. A journey aboard the Trans-Siberian won’t necessarily solve that riddle, but it will certainly help make sense of this furtive nation.

Welcome aboard.

I’d love to do this trip, but prices start at £10,295.  That’s a couple of holidays plus a lot of N-gauge stock, even at today’s prices!

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That was the week, that was…..

Posted on October 29, 2016 by snitchthebudgie

Well, it’s been quite some week……

The new budgie has been named ‘Busta’, as he spends his whole time trying to break out of his cage…..

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And sit on the lampshade…..

Chantelle, my youngest, completed her music course at the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford, having deferred it for over a year due to illness.  All delivered with half an hour to spare at 2:30pm, having picked the dissertation up from the bookbinders.  I think she only had 2 hours sleep last night, and finished an essay in the car to upload at ACM…. Still, she got there, and it should be good enough to get her degree. I am now less stressed!

She did a final set at ACM for her exams, and this was excellent.  Forgive the proud father who has attached the YouTube video (20 minutes), taken on my phone…..

And on the principle – if you want something done, give it to a busy man – I’ve made a lot of progress on my N-club module.  More photos to follow, and it should be seen in the flesh (without the snow scene) at the Stuttgart meet….

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Impact of BREXIT – increasing prices

Posted on October 27, 2016 by snitchthebudgie

I commented a while back:

The immediate result of a weak pound will put the cost of USA, European and Japanese models up.  And of course, where are British models made – China – so we’ll see yet another price hike for Farish and Dapol!

Dapol have just announced price rises.  It’s even reached the BBC:

Model train prices are rising because of pound’s devaluation

The pound’s recent devaluation after June’s Brexit vote has already led to some price rises, and model railways are one business feeling the effects.  Early in October, the leading manufacturer Hornby told retailers that wholesale prices for many of its trains would rise by an average of 10%….

Similarly, the small Welsh model train manufacturer Dapol has warned that the fall in the pound has affected the company “severely” and that the costs of all its imported products have risen between 10% and 20% since 23 June.

“We were hoping that the situation would stabilise and that the pound would regain some of its fallen value,” said Dapol managing director Joel Bright.  “It is now clear that this is not going to be the case and perhaps a weaker pound is here for the longer term. As a consequence, we now need to recoup these increased costs from imported goods.”

Another big model train manufacturer is Bachmann, now owned by a Chinese firm which makes the models in that country, and though it has not revealed its hand it will find it hard to resist the effect of the pound’s devaluation

I liked one of the pictures in the piece: “The way model trains used to be”.  Not that bad, really – you can see what it’s a model of.

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Maybe it’s time to buy those bargains you were wondering about NOW.

 

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Could it be real?

Posted on October 25, 2016 by snitchthebudgie

From the Suffolk Gazette, via N Gauge Forum:

Hornby celebrates Greater Anglia franchise with Rail Replacement Bus Set

Could it be an inspired release by the ailing Hornby company?  Maybe the article’s author’s name gives a clue…..

EXCLUSIVE
By Casey Jones, Railways Correspondent

And the illustration of the box is pure genius.  Perhaps the spelling is a giveaway that this is not quite for real…..

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However, it still has potential.

Model railway giant Hornby has celebrated Greater Anglia’s franchise win with a special Rail Replacement Bus Set.  The limited edition double-decker bus can be placed next to any Greater Anglia station – providing hours of playtime fun as you imagine frustrated travellers cramming on board for a trip to London.

Each set comes with two buses, a hate mob of passengers, harassed staff, a section of broken track – and even a tannoy so the mob can be controlled.

A Hornby insider told the Suffolk Gazette: “Ever since Frank Hornby started the company in 1901 we have sought to produce the most lifelike rail models in the world. Greater Anglia is quite a challenge, however, because it does not have many trains that actually work properly.  We tried recreating antiquated units that broke down all the time, but couldn’t do it. Then our product team came up with the idea of a Rail Replacement Bus Set, given that Greater Anglia seems to use so many of them – especially at weekends.”

Mind you, I’m not sure what they’d include in a Southern Railways themed set….

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Epic railway FAIL

Posted on October 23, 2016 by snitchthebudgie

From the Daily Telegraph.

Noel Gallagher snubbed Trainspotting soundtrack ‘as he thought film was about railway enthusiasts’

Noel Gallagher missed out on featuring on the soundtrack for Trainspotting because he thought the film was about railway enthusiasts, it has emerged.

Director Danny Boyle was said to be desperate for Gallagher and his band Oasis to do a song for the 1996 movie starring Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle and Ewen Bremner.  The soundtrack of the film became a huge hit and featured fellow Britpop bands Blur and Pulp as well as US music stars Iggy Pop and Lou Reed.

However, the singer-songwriter turned down the chance to feature in the film about Edinburgh heroin addicts as he did not want to be associated with a film he thought was about train spotters…..

Fleming then said: “I met Noel at a thing the other week and he said to me: ‘I would have done something, but honestly I thought it was about train spotters. I didn’t know.’ That’s what he actually said.”

It’s sad when we have stars such as Rod Stuart, Neil Young and Phil Collins well established in the hobby, and Pete Waterman running a company producing superb ‘O’ gauge kits…..  But Oasis are not up to scratch….

Depress yourself and read the whole article.

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ESNG meeting – 19 October 2016

Posted on October 21, 2016 by snitchthebudgie

The treasurer was beside himself this evening – 14 or was it 15 members present and all that money to collect.  Good numbers made for a very pleasant evening, with plenty of trains running, and time to talk to people – including planning for Stuttgart – and just watch the trains go by.

I ran my two Dapol Class 33’s in for a while (one with a yellow warning panel and one without.)  I seem to have a couple of good ones as they both moved very smoothly and quietly out of the box.

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Apart from my running we had a good variety of European and American models on the tracks.

Planning for next year’s exhibition is now going well.  I’ve put together a hopefully final layout for the halls, and have managed to link together the N-mod, N-club and Alpenbahn systems into a cohesive system.  I hope it will all fit…. show1 show2

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Another N-gauge coupler development – this time from Europe

Posted on October 19, 2016 by snitchthebudgie

I  came across this blog , UK based but describing a French fine scale ‘N’ layout.  And it had a very interesting post on ‘N’ gauge couplers.

N-tram are the doyen of European brass models, in N-m and N.  They are often horribly expensive, but the models are exquisite.  The most interesting part of the range is perhaps the N-gauge track and even more interesting, their tram track.  This is laser cut with all the setts between the track.  Their web-site is in German, but easy to understand or translate.

Back to the couplers…..

Essentially, they are a minimal version of the traditional hook and bar type coupling, but done so finely that they are very unobtrusive in this scale. They seem to couple and hold very well, and what’s more, compared with some of the alternatives, they are very easy to assemble.

They consist of moulded bar and an etched hook, which simply has to be engaged with a pin on the shank of the coupling and then inserted into a standard NEM coupling pocket. I did manage to break a couple before I realised that the hook does not clip-engage with the pin and is simply held in place when the coupling is inserted into its housing.

Uncoupling is either by magnet above or ramp beneath.

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They do look much better than the traditional Rapido coupler, and almost as unobtrusive as the DG / B&B coupler, with less work to install them.  Perhaps the only issue may be that they look as if they will work best on larger radius curves.

I may just get a set to see what they are like…..

Read more in the blog, and on the N-Tram site.

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