Model Railways / Model Railroads

Older Tomix N gauge trains are infamous for their "spring worm" drive mechanism, whereby the motor is connected to the bogie gear tower via a long spring-like metal spiral. While presumably cheap to manufacturer, it does result in somewhat noisy operation, so from the late 1980s (IIRC) Tomix gradually phased this out in favour of a more conventional mechanism with cardan shafts connecting to a worm gear on top of the bogie gear tower. This second generation does however seem to have retained the older electrical pickup mechanism, with copper forms pressing down on the axles inside the wheels (similar to what Lima did, e.g. on the Class 31), which is more reliable than wiper-based pickups but not as elegant as current axle pinpoint pickups.

Anyway, while this second generation of Tomix mechanisms is basically robust and reliable, some can be surprisingly noisy. I'm not sure whether that was the case when they were new, or whether something's deteriorated with age, but certainly annoying on otherwise decent models.

After some investigation it seems a common issue is that the worm gear case is slightly loose and prone to vibrating against the chassis. This can be mitigated by applying strips of electrical tape to hold it in place, as seen here on an older Tomix 115-1000 series:

While it doesn't bring the mechanism up to contemporary standards, it does change the running qualities from "annoyingly rattly" to "decent runner".

The bi-monthly magazine "N" (エヌ) by Ikaros Publications has, for the past couple of years (from volume 77 onwards), been publishing a fairly regular feature detailing how to clean up/improve older Japanese N gauge models. This was originally called "ジャンク活用術" (janku katsuyou-jitsu, "Making use of older models") but in recent issues it's been titled "Re Model". (Note: "ジャンク"/junk generally refers to second hand models which are basically not in as-new tip-top condition, typically missing packaging, accessories etc., or have some minor repairable damage; it can refer to genuine spares-or-repairs candidates but 95% ot the time something labelled as "junk" will be perfectly usable).

This is an overview of the available articles for reference; articles from volume 100 and earlier are taken from a listing in that edition which contains an overview of articles in all 100 magazines to date.

(volumes denoted with an asterisk are in my personal possession)

Back in the increasingly dim and distant (well for me at least) 1980s, when diesels were blue and trains were still done properly (loco at one end hauling coaches or wagons), the Class 27s were very much a far and distant (from my Midlands perspective) Scottish class, rarely if ever sighted.

However as with many of the early "pilot scheme" classes, they started off life elsewhere, with quite a few being allocated to Cricklewood and Leicester during the 1960s. Though I've always been aware of that, they still seemed utterly unconnected with my main region of interest, the West Midlands, until I came across entirely by coinicidence a photograph of one topping the Lickey Bank at the head of a freight train.

Interest piqued, further research revealed more evidence of the class in the Birmingham area (though an awful lot of hits were false positives triggered by the the "B" in "BRCW", not the location of the photograph or sighting) - Quite a few seem to have made it west and south of the city. Following is a list of online references I've found, in rough chronological order.

• 1961/62? (picture undated): BRCW D5405 (27041) heading from Birmingham New Street on a semi-fast, possibly to Gloucester
• 1964: D5406 near Prestatyn with train excursion train 1T27 from Leicester (section "Past Times with John Hobbs - Diesel Days")
• 1966: D5382 at Worcester Shrub Hill on a parcels train (caption indicates D5389 was seen at Worcester in 1965 and D5396 in 1966)
• 1968: D5403 and D5395 at Saltley Depot
• 1969: unidentified Class 27 heading north through Barnt Green with a goods train (Facebook link, no login required to view)

Also of interest is this thread on RMweb: Leicester class 27's

One question which frequently comes up in various N scale forums and groups is "is there a list of all N gauge models ever made?"

To which the answer is "no", but there are a number of sites providing comprehensive lists of models for particular manufacturers, subject areas and other information such as scans of old catalogues. This is a (incomplete and work-in-progress) "meta" list of such sites.

Global/multinational lists

• N Scale Model Trains Database - international user-provided resource
• Short British and European N-Scale Wagons and Stuff
• N Scale Catalogs

British outline models

• Available N Gauge Models - website with an ad-hoc list of older British N gauge models
• British Diesel And Electric Stock in N Gauge - reasonably comprehensive list (up to ca. 2014) by Alan Cox
• British N Gauge Resource - Post-1948 British Diesel/Electric-Era Ready-to-Run models, including coaches and wagons
• Classic UK Minitrix Models
• "GRAHAM FARISH PRODUCTS BY ITEM NUMBER" - a PDF with this title is available from various sources on the internet, contains a list of Bachmann-era Graham Farish products (item number/SKU 37x-xxx)
• Model Rail Database - British resource covering OO and N
• N Gauge Catalogues - archive of British (Dapol, Farish, Lima, Minitrix) catalogues as PDFs
• Short British and European N-Scale Wagons and Stuff

German outline models

• MoBaDaten.Info - wiki-based database of mostly German models, multiple scales
• Modellbau-Wiki - wiki-based database of mostly German models, multiple scales
• Spurweite-N.de - mainly German models, includes user reviews
• spur-n-datenbank.de - mainly German models, some Spanish/Italian; seems not to be updated much

Japanese outline models

• Tomytec and Other N-Gauge Power Chassis Dimensions - information about Japanese generic power chassis units

North American outline models

• spookshow.net - North American N scale locomotive, passenger cars and wagons

By manufacturer

• Lima N Scale complete catalogue

I recently aqcuired a rake of Kato Taki 1000 oil tank wagons (set 10-1167) to go with my EH-200, and while they're perfectly decent wagons the default Arnold couples really do stand out and look clunkier than usual. Normally I'm not too bothered by Arnold couplings and can "unsee" them, but these had to go - replaced by the Kato coupler (part number 11-707). Mildly fiddly to assemble and put in place, but they make a huge difference:

I recently acquired this very fine Tomix E1 Shinkansen, albeit as a 3 car set as part of a trainset pack ("SD Max 90010").

Despite being around 20 years old, the set was in excellent condition - except one of the couplings on the power car was broken, and as it's an integral part of the bogie, not simple to repair.

Fortunately Tomix provide replacement bogies (part number 0494), so I hoped it would be a matter of removing the original bogie and installing the new one. Not being sure how the bogies were mounted I decided to strip it down as far as possible.

Step 1: remove body - it unclips fairly easily.

Step 2: remove grey undercarriage cover:

Step 3: remove interior/seating unit

This turned out not to be necessary, but we see the chassis is covered by a membrane strip (similar to MicroAce units) to protect the motor and electrically inslulate the monobloc chassis.

Having got this far, it became apparent that being a monobloc chassis, the bogies are designed to clip in place, and are held in position by the circular plastic "lip" at the top of the bogie tower. They can be removed with a bit of careful twiddling.

So far so good, but it turned out the the replacement bogie (lower left in the above picture) is of a subtly different design, presumably for a newer version of the tooling for the Tomix E1, and while it could be coerced into place, it didn't really fit and was clearly not suitable as an as-is replacement.

All was not lost, however - a bit of work with some nippers and a pin vise enabled me to bodge the new bogie's coupling attachment onto the old one, which looks ugly but isn't visible when the train is coupled.

Dan of The Farish Shed has, following a suggestion from my humble self, very kindly created a servicing guide for the Farish Poole-era class 25 (and class 33), an example of which I possess in a non-running state. I'm a bit stuck for time at the moment but I fully intend making use of it in the not too distant future. Meanwhile here's the locomotive in question:

Via the N Gauge Forum I was pleased to hear about a new website dedicated to "Poole-era" Graham Farish products,  Thefarishshed.com. It's still very much work-in-progress but contains some useful background history on the company, which was based in the Dorset town of Poole until its takeover by Bachmann around 2001. While many of the Poole-era models were not the most detailed or reliable, they did represent a major part of the British N gauge market for many years and have a certain appeal for many.

As I have an interest in "historical" N gauge models, I have acquired a couple from the Poole era and hope to restore them to working order, and this site should certainly be very useful. Of particular interest to owners of past and more recent Farish models is the section on split gears, which helpfully lists useful sources of parts.