Model Forum / General / Railroads / February 2006

Having wrestled with computers for most of my working life, the last
thing I want to do is introduce them into my hobbytime.  I'm sure that
it is fascinating to have everything work perfectly at the push of a
button, but how boring is that?  Personally, I love my rats' nest of

Right, a Fleishmann tachometer thing has come into my possession for
measuring scale speeds, average, max, trip time, trip distance etc etc.
I am really only interested in setting an accurate max scale speed for
different locos, i.e. 80 mph

Does anyone know where I can get hold of a PDF service sheet for a Hornby
Pacer showing all the parts.  Service sheets are meant to be downloadable
from the Hornby website, but I can't find a Pacer one on there.

I have a Hornby Tender Drive loco "Dutchess of Sutherland" that is
approximately 10 - 15  years old, does anyone have a method or any hints /
tips for converting it to DCC?
TIA

Anyone know what sort of prices Triang TT models are fetching? A friend of
mine has a couple of locos (Clan Line + 0-6-0 tank), a couple of Southern
coaches and some wagons. He wants to use the proceeds towards his G scale
garden railway.

I have been looking for a nice footbridge for my layout and bought the
Hornby kit, I have not made it yet, but after looking at the parts on the
sprue It does not look like it will look that great when finished. The main
panels are enclosed and do not look like they will give the ...

I am wanting to respray a 2-6-4 tank engine in the Caledonian Railways
livery. Are they gloss finish or are they matt finish? Can anybody help
please? Many thanks Roger.

Hi --
I am working on a smallish switching layout (11.5' x 6.5') set in
1963 where I plan to mainly be moving around cuts of up to seven or
eight 40/50 foot cars at at a time in a yard using a yard switcher.

I've bought some Gibson wheels to replace the plastic ones
on a couple of 4mm Airifx wagons but due to the slightly
different dimensions, the Gibson wheels don't run freely in
the bearings - the 'pins' on either end of the axle being

I'd be grateful if someone can advise on sleeper services on either the ECML
or WCML during the period 1957-63, which is the period I'm modelling.
What traction would be used on sleeper services between London and Scotland?
If anyone knows of typical steam and typical diesel, I'd be ...

Just a passing thought as we prepare to build a rail served brewery to go on
a board which links Nictun Borrud through to the rest of the world, what
sort of traffic could we reasonably expect to see there?
Immediate thoughts are:

testing
do not reply

Saw a bottle of Polyscale "Scale Black" paint today at the hobby shop.  It's
grayish black with I guess a real gentle touch of brown.  Decided it would
be useful for weathering undersides of RR cars and bought it, but I got to
wondering:  Does anyone know what the original intent ...

Can anyone suggest a good method to keep my track clean. I have some track
rubbers already which are ok but not great
Thanks
Andy

Hope you don't mind the crosspost. If it's a violation of any group policy then
let me know and I'll refrain from doing it again in the future.
I've made a small update to the website with the first details on my
trainwasher now online. I've also added a new "Latest News" page where ...