Model Railway Forum

Looks good - not something though I will be adding to my fleet. I know you probably have crew available, but I read Modelu had produced a crew specifically for this loco.

I had some figures in stock from their Patreon scheme that were suitable. Yes they do a few bespoke crews, some even come precoloured (not painted) produced by a 3D process called sintering - it uses powder rather than resin.

I temporarily evicted the family of penguins that found the temperature in the shed to their liking to have a fiddle with a troublesome loco.
I bought a secondhand Royal Scot earlier in the year but last week it wouldn't run more than a couple of inches before the valvegear started binding. I found that the crosshead kept slipping off the rails but as this part is no longer available I had to settle for a tweek with pliers to sort that out.
Then I found that the front and rear driving wheels had so much play that the backlash allowed the cranks to almost reach 90 degrees to each other!
I ordered a new set of coupling rods as I suspected the original were either worn or had the wrong screws.
Sure enough, the holes in the old rods were much larger - it seems the previous owner didn't put any oil on them. The holes were a good 1mm larger than the new allowing all that extra slop in the system.
Running nicely now with oiled bearings.
The lesson being to never scrimp on servicing and lubrication.

A good point Steve - I don't think I have had the "oiler" out for sometime.

An unintended purchase (damn you Hornby with your special offers!)
Thompson L1 in BR black.
It's been sitting on the bench for a few days due to a rather nasty bout of flu which seems to have triggered more than the usual level of aches and pains.
I've always liked the big tank engines and this one is no exception. Even managed to cram in a TXS sound decoder, speaker and stayalive - not an easy fit.

Looks powerful.

Walkingthedog wrote: ↑Sun Jan 19, 2025 5:00 pm Looks powerful.

So did I........once.

Perhaps you need to be converted to digital Steve.

Then he'll be all or nothing ...

Good point Stese.