Midnight on the Great Western
Time flies! Back in August, I wrote about the 'DCC Concepts' oil lamps that I had installed on the platform at North Leigh. Various events have conspired to limit my modelling activities of late, but I have finally got around to wiring up these lamps.
The enamelled copper wires attached to the lamps are extremely fine, so I mounted small printed circuit boards carrying block connectors, onto which I soldered these wires. This proved a rather cruel test of my eyesight since, although I have an illuminated magnifier on my workbench, I couldn't use this underneath the baseboard - I need an Optivisor, or similar! The difficulty I had in seeing these wires can, perhaps, be appreciated from the following photo of one of the boards in place. I left sufficient 'free' wire to allow the lamps to be lifted out of their sockets and laid flat on the platform, for layout cleaning or whenever they might be vulnerable to other modelling activities.
'DCC Concepts' include a controller with the set of three lamps, and I mounted this circuit board in a small plastic box from 'Maplin', with more block connectors on the outside, to connect to the lamps and power supply. The circuit has outputs for both filament and LED types of lamp, so my next phase will be to provide some lighting inside the station buildings, using the additional outputs.
Very fine adjustment of the brightness of the lamps can be made with the multi-turn potentiometer on the circuit board. The 'oil lamp glow' is more realistic on the layout than it may appear on the following photograph, showing an overview of North Leigh Platform, with the surrounding scenery bathed in bright moonlight.
Because of all the distractions that have occupied my time recently, I have made little further progress on modelling No.184. I did, however, mock up the appearance of my planned model and, in the following photo, show my existing 'Stella' model meeting a 'ghost', through the magic of 'Photoshop'. The difference in the proportions of these two types of locomotive is very apparent, with No.184 showing her rather ancient provenance, in the small, low-slung boiler.
Through a post in the Forums , Geelong1857 drew my attention to the 'E.B.Wilson-style' safety-valve covers, available in 4mm scale from 'RT Models'. I have bought some of these brass castings and am strongly tempted to model the engine in its earlier form, just to make use of these components!
Finally, a closer shot of North Leigh station, with a late-night branch passenger train just arriving. (The lamp on the locomotive is, alas, simulated using 'Photoshop' ..... for now!)
Mike
Edited by MikeOxon
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