Today I rewheeled and chipped my Heljan Railbus which was given to me at Christmas. It was a bit of a fiddle, why manufacturers make it so difficult to dismantle their stock to put chips in I'll never know. Having to remove the horns to get at the bolts and then prise the top off with a scalpel isn't my idea of fun. At least I'd purchased a 21-pin chip that just slotted in (once I got it the right way up). Rewheeling was fun too. The masak casting that forms the chassis (actually it is so heavy I think it might be depleted uranium) had slots in to take the wheels. However these were extremely tight once you had P4 wheels to fit and they needed a bit of widening with a burr in a mini-drill. The gear comes off the original OO axle with relative ease and slid back over the 2mm axle of the P4 profile 'black beetle' wheels I'd purchased from DC Kits. After a fair bit of fiddling and the addition of some teflon grease it runs quite smoothly.

Still left to do is to re-attach the handrails and put on the additional footsteps. Unfortunately I'll probably also want to take the top off again to add some crew and passengers.

David