Garden Railway Forum

I have had over 3000 transactions on eBay. Most have been absolutely fine. I've had a couple that never arrived, but were resolved with the seller. But then I always check transaction histories My only real issues were with buyers, one who claimed never to have received an item so I gave a refund, a...

I agree entirely about the use of Schottky diodes. I have used this circuit many times for other motor control purposes (including mechanical, Baird type TV). I've personally never had a problem, but certainly your suggestion is preferable.

Our railway's are all my wife's fault! You'll never get her on the forum though. OK so we aren't running yet, but she's done a lot of the creative side, leaving me to the engineering and construction (she does get some mad ideas though). She's also arranging all the shipping out to Portugal. She's a...

Well our planned railway is now two! Both will be in a garden, but totally different. The original plan is a narrow gauge style on 45mm, for which I have all the main components (track, points, 4 locos and assorted rolling stock). The second will be a ride-on 5" gauge, at the request of the fin...

Didn't get very far this time round. The site matches that drawn up by the surveyor, so plenty of room. I've checked the levels, and the maximum gradient at the moment is 1:36 and is along the shortest side. The soil is going to be a bit of a problem as it has a lot of stones in it - actually I've j...

Certainly something along those lines. What a superb model and picture. Sadly I can't start on construction for another 12 months, as we have to wait until the house is ready for habitation. Meanwhile I'm looking at a lot of other layouts, and doing some of the smaller bits of modelling, like rollin...

At some point in the next three weeks, the Director of Finance of the Llareggyb Light Railway has said that I can get on with the site survey. The plot is about 25 x 15 metres, although not all of it will be railway! It is to be based on a fictional 2ft gauge Welsh line, using 45mm track, of which w...

Difficult to get hold of in Portugal a lot of places you would expect to find it don't because the insurance is so high. I did find some in a DIY place that did camping stuff, and bought up a dozen!

The inclusion of the methyl violet dye is no longer mandatory in the HMRC Completely Denatured Alcohol prescribed formulation. My current 5 litres container of CDA is clear (not purple). Chris Cairns Absolutely correct, under the new European regs there is virtually a different approved formulation...

True story. I used to commute from Kingston on Thames, the service was not great at times. My favourite morning the following sequence of announcements were heard: "Passengers awaiting the 8.05 to London Waterloo, this train is running approximately five minutes late." "Passengers awa...

Not sure how they get round the regulations in the UK. You need a licence to make, store or sell pure ethanol or any ethanol/water mixture of more than 2% by volume, that hasn't been denatured (guess who has a licence). Otherwise it has to be denatured by the addition of methanol (which is what will...

I wouldn't rely on ebay sellers following the rules. I've had numerous substances sent through the post that have been absolutely prohibited for many years. I don't do it now, of course, because some of the packaging used was highly questionable, and I should have known better. Examples include flam...

Love the idea of an oscillator. When I get my new workshop up and running I could well look into it. A couple of years ago I came across a big box under a table at an antiques fair, full of Mamod bits. I didn't haggle over the £20 asking price. Result was that I was able to rebuild a traction engine...

My bioethanol says Vinho Verde on the label, although I understand there are other varieties , I do know that the Dom Perignon version is a bit pricey tho'.

What a great idea. Hoping to get a small lathe at Christmas, looks like an ideal first job, 'cos I hate bending tube.

You are absolutely correct about sockets, some of their break contacts don't break before connecting the charger into circuit, which is highly risky. If you use switches that are "break-before-make" then its a lot safer.

Depends on the socket type. I know I'm a newbie here but I'm also a radio ham and electronics enthusiast. A method I use for rechargeables, is to make the on/off switch a changeover, so that in the "off" position it connects the battery to the charger socket, and disconnects the battery fr...

I hope this might be useful to someone. I may be new to garden railways, but I've been doing electronics for over 50 years. I built myself an HGLW loco using their body & 4WD chassis. Even using their 2 cell suggestion the loco was just too fast! So I thought lets try RC, there just didn't seem ...