Having got to the happy situation that I could actually run stock without something falling off the rails all the time, I can turn my attention to building or rebuilding items of stock to run, knowing if they stay on the rails with the current set up, they should (!) run nicely on any successor set of baseboards (!!)

So I turned my attention to my trusty (very) old Triang-Hornby Hymek, subject of a much earlier blog entry. The prototype I remember with much affection having travelled many miles behind them when student at Oxford on Worcester line trains in the early 70s, then replaced by seriously underpowered class 31s .... The model has a great emotional attachment for me as it was bought originally when I was a youngster, almost 60 years ago, miraculously surviving my growing up, moving away from home, then surviving my parents care for a while and then sitting round my home not doing much until a few years back when I rebuilt the underworks with a Lima mechanism re-wheeled for P4 and super detailed the body (see previous entry).  Well a few months back I fancied trying to replace the motor with one of the various CD replacements offered on eBay, but then sat on it not really wanting to squirt lots of hot glue into the motor housing to fix it.  Then I saw an item for sale by the guy at 'Strathpeffer Junction', a 3D printed cage to hold a CD motor within the Lima motor housing  and an order was dispatched immediately -no glue! 

However, when I dismantled the Hymek to fit the replacement motor, disaster struck when the chassis frame cracked and fell apart where it has been cut to fit the Lima chassis section that the motor bogie sits in, see where the arrow points in this photo:

so much supergluing and reinforcement later, the photo shows the bogie after fitting the CD motor (really easy) before securing with the bogie frame (right) with extra pickups. I also soldered up a little pcb with voltage dropping diodes as the motor is rated 4-9V.  The pickup wires were fed into a chocolate block in case I needed to reverse motor polarity but in the end it does move in the right direction!  Here is the chassis assembly with pcb:

I also took the opportunity to fix new buffers, sold by Peters spares as Class 31 buffers (see top photo for the packet view) as my modified GWR loco buffers just did not work, the stuck on elliptical heads kept rotating despite a Heath Robinson mechanism to stop that happening (!). so reassembled, here it is:

Still needs the numbers sticking on, I have a Shawplan etch at the ready

and for fun, hauling a short Taunton to Bristol semi-fast, due to an accident at the sidings only two ex GWR coaches available (!!) 

nice to be able to run something I must say.  

Thank you for reading and stay safe everybody!