GWR/LMS OO Gauge DCC RR&Co

[user=1814]Longchap[/user] wrote:

I know what you mean John, with those big tender locos! My Hornby Castle arrived last week and I cannot imagine bringing myself to cover up too much of its glory, but as it's in 1920s mainline passenger livery, I guess the company kept them rather better turned out than the heavy freights.

However, I'm enrolled at one of Pendon's weathering with an airbrush courses early next year, so that sharp intake of breath should be much easier to take with an expensive 4-6-0 in the spray booth!

A question for you: how can you tell if a (Hornby?) County 4-4-0 is a tender or loco drive version? All seem to have the same huge coal load.

Cool runnings,

Bill

That course sounds interesting…….I have an air brush…..never had the courage to use it :oops:


Regarding the 4-4-0 County…….are you thinking of buying one?  Do you know the model#

This may help

Hornby Railways Collector Guide - Model - County Class Locomotive - County Of Bedford

My guess is that all are tender drive except for the ones issued after 2000

HTH

Cheers

John

 

Hi John the newer one's are loco driven, the main short coming is the cylinders, slide bars and crossheads I will be replacing them in due course from bits from the box and/or it might end up as a County tank. :cheers seasonal greetings Bob

[user=2126]81C[/user] wrote:

Hi John the newer one's are loco driven, the main short coming is the cylinders, slide bars and crossheads I will be replacing them in due course from bits from the box and/or it might end up as a County tank. :cheers seasonal greetings Bob

Hi Bob

Thank you and compliments of the season to you!:cheers

I was just answering Bills query and guessed only the later issues would be loco drive.

Counties are a bit early for me…..I bought mine before I knew any better :oops: Its a tender drive and goes nowhere…just gathers dust in the display case along with other assorted lemons.

Best wishes

John

Hi John,

Yes, a great help thanks and sorry for the slight delay in my response, as I've been away collecting the bride and needed my laptop to fully respond. I've always admired the lines of the early 4-4-0s and bought my tender drive County very many years ago, but really need reliability, hence my question.

My proposed replacement is Hornby R3277, available new from Hatton's, although they have not responded to my question, so thank you for the confirmation, Bob too. We have great people here!

The updated model is DCC ready from the Railroad range, so needs added detail, but no big issue. 

Sunny here, but still just below freezing, so a cosy day indoors to progress the new layout plan.

Keep warm, best wishes,

Bill

Granby's shed renovation is finally complete. :Happy


Last week the blue bin bag was removed and I repositioned 52 passengers and station staff …..I had forgotten quite how many I had there. The roof was repaired, the buildings replaced and I was finally able to run trains through the station again.

This project has taken almost eight months to complete and I must confess there have been moments of self doubt. The jar of ballast emptied into a brand new turntable being the ultimate low point :oops: :roll:

 Thank you all for your support and encouragement as you followed me on this winding journey.

 
To wrap it all up, I thought I would re-post some photos taken during the demolition in May followed by shots taken from the equivalent position last week










 







 






 






 




 






 





 





 



Lastly…… four of the finalists rehearsing for the Loco line up video that I hope to shoot between Christmas and New Year





The somewhat ambitious plan is for me to press one button on the computor switchboard following which four different sized locos (facing in both directions) will progress through the shed entry roads….each stopping for coal with the tender positioned under the coal chute before finally finishing up ….all facing the same direction…… in their designated shed road.

Nothing like a challenge to start the New Year!

Seasons Greetings from Vancouver

John

Thanks, John for a pleasant Monday morning.   :cheers

Granby is a beautiful layout; but most importantly to me - it all makes sense.

Maybe that is the result of it being driven by the requirements of RR&Co.

What ever it is, I have enjoyed the journey of its development.

Happy Christmas to you and your family.

"The somewhat ambitious plan is for me to press one button on the  computor switchboard following which four different sized locos (facing  in both directions) will progress through the shed entry roads….each  stopping for coal with the tender positioned under the coal chute before  finally finishing up ….all facing the same direction…… in their  designated shed road.

 Nothing like a challenge to start the New Year!"


That John, will certainly keep the grey cells very active, working and testing that out !!
 Looking forward to  the video.

Does that mean the layout is finished, John?  Just programming running the trains? (Just?!)

If  it is finished, I am absolutely delighted for you…. But the selfish me hopes we might see a few developments and cameo scenes because I love them so much!!  

Truly, modelling of the very highest standard and you have been so kind to share the journey with us….. I just hope there is more!

Michael

[user=269]MaxSouthOz[/user] wrote:

Thanks, John for a pleasant Monday morning.   :cheers

Granby is a beautiful layout; but most importantly to me - it all makes sense.

Maybe that is the result of it being driven by the requirements of RR&Co.

What ever it is, I have enjoyed the journey of its development.

Happy Christmas to you and your family.

Hi Max

Thank you for that kind message. Its so good to know that, after all these years, you continue to enjoy Granby. :thumbs

Your comment about RR&Co is interesting…….I had never thought of it like that before……primarily I wanted to create a believable North Country operation in the immediate Post War years. For the first years for sure the problem was making RR&Co work within the constraints of this design concept. However, now I think about it, many of my most recent changes have been driven by RR&Co rather than design!

I hope you and your family enjoy your first Christmas in your new home with many to come……..I would guess though that a white Christmas is unlikely?

Best Wishes

John

[user=606]Sol[/user] wrote:

"The somewhat ambitious plan is for me to press one button on the  computor switchboard following which four different sized locos (facing  in both directions) will progress through the shed entry roads….each  stopping for coal with the tender positioned under the coal chute before  finally finishing up ….all facing the same direction…… in their  designated shed road.

 Nothing like a challenge to start the New Year!"


That John, will certainly keep the grey cells very active, working and testing that out !!
Looking forward to  the video.

Thanks Ron

I have been testing the individual schedules, loco by loco as a change from all the detailing. The tricky bit is getting them all to work together in tune so to speak :roll: . One speck of dust, the loco hesitates, recovers but stops short…….fortunately the coal chute isnt mechanised otherwise the coal would be dumped on the track :twisted:

It will be interesting getting there.

Wishing you all the best for Christmas

John

[user=1512]Headmaster[/user] wrote:

Does that mean the layout is finished, John?  Just programming running the trains? (Just?!)

If  it is finished, I am absolutely delighted for you…. But the selfish me hopes we might see a few developments and cameo scenes because I love them so much!!  

Truly, modelling of the very highest standard and you have been so kind to share the journey with us….. I just hope there is more!

Michael

Thank you for that charming Post Michael

I think CJ Freezer said a layout is never actually finished and that is certainly the case with Granby

They say a picture is worth a thousand words





The taxis have been parked rather optimistically outside the site of the Station Hotel for at least three years. Similarly the Royal Mail van is waiting for the General Post Office to be built…….the bus is supposed to be going around a war memorial.

I have a half built brewery at the other end of the room that got put on hold when I ripped out the turntable.

Dont worry there is still lots to build but I an looking forward to running some trains as well.

Wishing you and your family a very Happy Christmas

John

As with all your posts, it is really inspiring to see what can be achieved with a healthy dose of skill and patience. As others have said I think we will all look forward to the next installment once some time has been allocated to "running trains". Are you planning to operate the four trains by interlinked schedules or by using the timetable feature within TrainController?

Have a great Christmas and New Year.

[user=1886]DaveH_Murcia[/user] wrote:

As with all your posts, it is really inspiring to see what can be achieved with a healthy dose of skill and patience. As others have said I think we will all look forward to the next installment once some time has been allocated to "running trains". Are you planning to operate the four trains by interlinked schedules or by using the timetable feature within TrainController?

Have a great Christmas and New Year.

Thanks Dave……thats very kind of you.


I have posted a screenshot of the shed switchboard that reflects this shot



The four locos are in the blocks coloured yellow immediately below the coal ramp.



There is a sequence of 7 linked schedules that each loco travels on to get from the Shed Reception, via the Turntable, to its designated siding in the shed.

Its fairly straightforward for one loco to progress round….the only real problem is stopping with the tender under the coal chute and the longer locos not over running the bridge.

It gets more complicated with 4 locos running at the same time. As an example …. there are clearance issues with following locos when the lead loco leaves either the east or west spur…….hence the signals to prevent the following schedule from starting until the lead loco is clear.   

Let me know if you have any queries

All the best for Christmas to you and your family

John

PS Edited to add……Sorry the screenshot is so small I had hoped that clicking it would expand it………any advice on how I can enlarge it? :hmm

Once it's been cropped or resized, enlarging again will degrade the image, John.

Can you enlarge the original on your screen before you snip it?

Thanks Max
No it was full size on the screen…….I will look for some other way….I tried photographing but I got screen glare

Cheers

John.

It's not an issue for viewing on a tablet John, as I pinch it out to fill the screen, which retains good resolution and I can see what's going on. Well, I could if I could understand these deeper workings of the dark side!

 Merry Christmas to you and yours,

Bill

[user=1814] :cheers Longchap[/user] wrote:

It's not an issue for viewing on a tablet John, as I pinch it out to fill the screen, which retains good resolution and I can see what's going on. Well, I could if I could understand these deeper workings of the dark side!

Merry Christmas to you and yours,

Bill

 

 :cheers

Thanks Bill…..Merry Christmas to you

Hi John. Ok I understand how you are doing it, the pic is OK to read. The finer points are probably a little lost on me without actually seeing it in the flesh but I get the idea. Look forward to the video once you have it cracked. Got a series of 6 trains combining schedules and timetables providing an hourly service on my layout and allowing for the different lengths is proving challenging on that too.

[user=1886]DaveH_Murcia[/user] wrote:

Hi John. Ok I understand how you are doing it, the pic is OK to read. The finer points are probably a little lost on me without actually seeing it in the flesh but I get the idea. Look forward to the video once you have it cracked. Got a series of 6 trains combining schedules and timetables providing an hourly service on my layout and allowing for the different lengths is proving challenging on that too.

Is the length problem related to stopping or route/block release?

John

Hi John. I think on mine it might be due to the variable performance of some of the older hornby locos. I am not too worried at the moment. Once I get on a bit further with construction and give all the track a really good clean I will check again. Maybe worth having a look inside the locos too as they have been stored for quite a few years prior to running. I have noticied that Accurascale have just announced they are going to produce Deltics for delivery back end of next year - maybe some older locos might have to be "retired" if a few of these could be aquired.