I mentioned in my last post that 218 230-1 wasn't playing at all, in spite of having cleaned the wheels and pickups. I didn't want to be defeated that easily, so I dismantled her almost entirely, getting right at the backs of the wheels and also the commutator. She now runs freely if noisily, growling along. An interesting tendancy is that in spite of having momentum disabled, the mechanism is free enough that following a sudden change of direction on the controller, the loco still rolls on a bit before stopping and reversing. I guess I've got used to drive through worm gears, whereas a well engineered pancake motor can turn quite freely if the loco has enough physical (as opposed to DCC programmed) inertia. I also wired back in pickup on two axles that had been de-wired when the previous owner (you know who you are, and I hope you know I'm not complaining!) fitted a DCC decoder.

It's also a good excuse to illustrate the Kurswagen (through coaches) that I didn't in my last post. These InterRegio liveried coaches place the layout in the latter half of the 1980s or early 1990s, really somewhere between 1986 and 1994.

I've also done a bit more weathering of the track and ballast, firstly with a mucky wash and then with some drybrushing of dirty rust. A few oil patches of matt black with a bit of brown were added where locos and railcars might be expected to spend any time. Mostly I'm happy, although it would perhaps benefit from a litte more of the mucky rust. It's easy to overdo these things though.

Now, with the DB fleet running nicely, I can mess them up by attacking the items which are as yet unweathered. Once I've done some other cosmetic work on the layout I'll start servicing and testing the DBAG (ex-DR) set.