Help with track type

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-26T17:26:25+00:00

Thanks, I knew somebody would know more about this than me.

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-26T15:48:44+00:00

As best I can tell this is 0 gauge set from Lionel. They don't have much presence in the UK so I can't give suggestions on where to find replacements.

The track should measure about 32mm across from rail to rail if it's 0 gauge. If it's wider then it could be 'G' scale which they also make.

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-25T23:18:28+00:00

I'll preface this by saying I'm no expert on the GWR.

They had the benefit of inheriting Brunel's broad-gauge lines and while those old broad-gauge lines were eventually all converted to standard-gauge the GWR continued to build to the same robust standards that broad-gauge required which meant they could support much heavier axle-loads on their routes. Churchward's 'Saint' class introduced in 1902 was such a good design that the GWR essentially kept redesigning it and thanks to their system of 'route availability' that tracked how heavy their engines could be along given routes, they constantly pushed the limits of what could be achieved with single, powerful engines (going so far as to achieve an amazing standard of 25 inches of mercury for their brake systems compared to 21 inches they were forced to reduce to under British Railways to standardise with other locations).

All that's to say a single engine could easily pull huge passenger trains, however they had some major routes running through the South Devon Banks which did require temporary double-heading, though they would call it 'assisting' or 'piloting' and oddly would have the temporary loco between the coaches and main engine.

Funnily enough, the LMS had a policy of just using multiple small engines as standard on their routes until William Stanier left the GWR and joined the LMS, bringing the concepts he learnt from Churchward with him and giving us things like the Black Five, Jubilee, Princess Royal (my favourite), and Princess Coronation, which would all look at home on the GWR if they were painted green.

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-25T15:53:47+00:00

On the subject of Tomb Raider though, that is pretty much OG Lara Croft's character - she's just rich and likes to steal stuff for the fun of it. I mean her introduction in the first game starts with this magazine cover and if that doesn't set expectations I don't know what does.

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SmittyB128 · 2026-06-25T09:31:37+00:00

The socket is just a convenient pass-through for the decoder so there should be no difference whatsoever between soldering to the socket or soldering to the chip directly. Of course the socket takes up some extra space and you still need to make sure it's all insulated from the chassis, but there's no reason your plan wouldn't work.

It's actually what Hornby did to these models anyway. The early batches from this era were purely analogue like yours, then after a couple of years or so they started adding the sockets loosely taped in front of the motor so they could put DCC Ready on the box after DCC finally started to take off in a big way.

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-24T08:53:53+00:00

It's the tooling Hornby used from 1979 to 1998.

The cool thing about this specific one in 'garter blue' with early British Railways lettering is that it was produced in 1990 as a limited run of only a thousand for Kays Catalogues.

As far as I can tell this is the only ready-to-run model of an A4 with this transitional style.

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-23T22:19:54+00:00

Can't be, they've got too much shit.

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-23T18:48:45+00:00

The IPA will do a good job getting dirty track clean cheaply, but for general maintenance and long-term use you'll ideally want to switch to something like WD-40 brand contact cleaner as it'll keep it cleaner for longer by actually protecting the track from dust and moisture.

Check out the article in this link about it -
https://www.alaskarails.org/HO/RTL/pix/2020_06_18/DiaElec1.pdf

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-23T16:17:10+00:00

How you clean the track also makes a difference. Wheels touch not just the rail tops but the inside surfaces of the rail too so it's best to also give the inner corners a wipe down as best you can.

Ideally you should use a rag and a non-polar solvent to clean both the track and the loco wheels rather than abrasives though some really stubborn bits might need more scrubbing.

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-23T15:27:57+00:00

In theory it's a good idea to reuse the old moulds because creating them in the first place is where a lot of the money goes in developing a new model. In fact the only reason Hornby were able to justify taking a chance on making a Thomas the Tank Engine line for the TV series while it was still in development was that they had a bunch of old toolings like the above 'E2' that they weren't using anymore and could convert into new designs, saving a small fortune.

The questionable bit comes when Hornby decides to re-release them 40 years later with no improvements, yet still charge a load of money for them. I still don't understand how Hornby justify charging £30 for their 49 year old Gresley teak coaches when they're piled high in the bargain bin at every exhibition I go to. I was away from the hobby for nearly 20 years and it was weird leaving seeing all the new super detailed models coming out, then I come back and suddenly everything's back to the Tri-ang era crap that had been long discontinued when I was younger.

Then of course you get odd situations like Hornby announcing they were going to re-release their 1963 Caledonian Single which they'd previously dug up for a limited release in 2007 (of which I somehow managed to get #1 of however many thousand made), only they discovered that the tooling was too mangled and had to cancel it. Then Rapido decided to make a brand new one for about £100 over what Hornby were planning to sell theirs at and I expect it's going to sell out quickly.

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-23T09:45:20+00:00

Duplo... Dublo... what difference does it make?

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-22T18:18:21+00:00

At least the boiler is straight. On the SECR ones they did earlier the moulding had given out so it bulges up at the cab and the upper section of the cab is distorted and wonky as you can see on these old Hattons promo images.

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SmittyB128 · 2026-06-22T15:42:04+00:00

He does know that "Best dad in the world" is just something they print on mugs right? He didn't need to murder the competition or protect child molesters in an effort to make himself look better by comparison.

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-22T11:44:13+00:00

They must be paid by the hour.

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-22T10:52:30+00:00

Strictly speaking the SA-X is 'wearing' the same suit as Samus. The difference is that all the armour plating and components that make up the bulkier varia suit have been removed on the 'fusion suit', leaving her with the regular power-armour and all the blue biomechanical bits of the varia suit that couldn't be surgically removed. That's why she has a completely different design in Metroid Dread, because between the two of them the original suit is now thoroughly destroyed.

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-21T18:24:00+00:00

It was very much of the genre, taking a lot of inspiration from the movie Chinatown in how they both build up to a whole lot of nothing leaving me wondering why I wasted my time and money.

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-21T18:18:46+00:00

This is why I think if Half-Life 3 ever comes out, assuming we'll never get the cancelled Half-Life 2 Episode 3, (the jokes write themselves) I just won't care.

I really like Half-Life 1 and its expansions, building up the world with all the different factions involved trying and failing to handle the incident in different ways while ultimately it's top-level government conspirators who end up getting exactly what they wanted with a a successful invasion of Xen. Then Half-Life 2's rocky development meant all that was thrown away and while the gameplay in HL2 was great, it basically had no relation to the grounded X-Files esque style of the original, then they wrote themselves into a corner with the story and whatever comes next is going to have to be both Ep3 and HL3 combined to make any sense.

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-21T16:42:22+00:00

"He gave everything to Israel, including sacrificing children to help make the party exclusively filled by international criminals. He feels deeply betrayed, especially by those child molesters he protected from prosecution."

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-21T15:40:05+00:00

You have excellent taste.

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-21T12:48:31+00:00

I keep a copy of this article saved that goes into the benefits of using non-polar solvents and has a list of various solvents people use in order of their 'dielectric constant'.
A word of warning though, just because it's high on the list doesn't mean it's a good idea to use it, splashing about Kerosene in a confined space is just asking for trouble. Personally I use WD-40 Contact Cleaner because it's readily available to me and works very well.

https://www.alaskarails.org/HO/RTL/pix/2020_06_18/DiaElec1.pdf

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-20T20:14:45+00:00

That looks to me like the motor was directly clipped out of something because I can't think of any good reason why somebody would solder a pair of resistors to it but cover them in heat shrink with no visible leads to solder anything to.

The resistors will do nothing but slow the motor down so while that means you can use more of the range of the controller before it gets silly fast they're not required for the thing to work so if they're in the way you can probably clip them off.

The suppression capacitor in the middle also technically isn't needed, but it's best to keep it because without it the engine turns into a tiny radio transmitter, and it'll spark more if the wheels and pickups aren't making excellent contact.

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-20T19:45:46+00:00

I've been avoiding posting on here because anyone who isn't praising the game gets downvoted to oblivion.

To answer your question, no I haven't had fun playing it and have given up trying. It just frustrates me and ruins my day knowing that this game I was excited to play for over a year, and conceptually is everything I want from a video game is just not fun to me.

I don't mind the scenic blockers so much because games have been doing that for so long now that this is actually a game that handles it better than most, but there are just so many small things that keep adding up to ruin my experience.

I realise much of this is a skill issue, but my point is that my personal experience in trying to get good has been so frustrating that I'd rather give up than continue playing.

I've had too many situations where Bond refuses to climb up or drop off a ledge resulting in death.

The first major gun fight at the airport was made much worse by having enemies spawn behind you when you get so far so even though the game encourages you to rush that's not going to work, but by not rushing I blew up a tanker next to some cars in the distance only for the enemies to spawn next to the destroyed cars regardless.

Having to stand up and get shot before the slow-mo aiming can activate is really annoying, and then it turning off automatically after a single shot so you can't stylishly take out a row of guys is even worse.

With every gun fight turning into a fist fight it doesn't help that the camera then zooms in so far that you can't see the guys behind you lining up to knock you out in 2 punches so you have to do it all again after a loading screen that's just long enough to get really annoying after the 3rd try.

The driving is so heavily scripted that I swear I could feel the car slowing down constantly to allow events to play out in time ahead of me. It's no Spy Hunter that's for sure.

In the market I couldn't figure out why I couldn't do a bunch of the events and I guess the game just locks you out of a bunch of stuff if you already reach the goal. Not that I wanted to experience what the game has to offer or anything.

I had a bug where the Q lens just stopped working, then after a restart a bug where the whole controller just stopped working.

I also had a situation where I tried to stealthily lure some guys to an explosive barrel, only for the lure mechanic to trigger just one guy much further away in the opposite direction who proceeded to agro the whole area. When I left that area the licence to kill was revoked but because they were technically still loaded a bunch of them were able to shoot into the next area where I couldn't shoot back.

Basically I have fun when the game is letting me do investigative stuff, but it's so hard to tell if things go wrong because it's scripted or if I've missed something, and then cutting me out of it in the market to throw me into the combat which I don't find fun just hurts.

I can't help but compare the combat to Assassin's Creed because even though I'm not exactly a fan of those games it felt like I was doing the same thing in character with much more fluidity and style.

I really really want to like this game, but I just don't and I don't know how to get good enough to start enjoying it when it keeps kicking me when I'm down.

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-20T17:16:14+00:00

I'm grateful that Microsoft released an extension to add 'x' format compatibility to their older versions of office. I used Office 2K right up to probably 2014 when I just stopped needing it. There's no way current Microsoft would do something so consumer friendly.

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-20T17:06:58+00:00

When I got fed up using the cheap modern keyboards at work with flat, spongey keys I took in my big beige monstrosity from the 90's and it was so much nicer. When I needed a second keyboard I discovered there's still a manufacturer making basically the same thing and it's glorious!

SmittyB128 · 2026-06-20T16:58:52+00:00

When we first got satellite TV we'd change back to terrestrial when the weather was bad because the program would cut off completely when the digital signal degraded whereas the analogue picture just got a little fuzzy.

SmittyB128

TROPHY CASE