The next project on my workbench is to bring my Lima Class 60, 60016 'RAIL Magazine', to modern standards.

This is similar to what I have done to my Hornby Class 56 which has featured in this blog previously.  I have found it cheaper than replacing the loco with the newer versions which are available - as with the 56, if I didn't already have this model, I would probably buy the newer version rather than buying this especially for upgrades; particularly because of the internal detailing which has already been completed on this model.

As it stands, the model has had transparent grills fitted with internal detailing and has crude weathering applied.  I have etched nameplates but they have not yet been fitted which I will do before weathering.  I am undecided if I will put DB transfers on the cab sides - you'll find out later if I decided to in the end.

Aims

• Lighting - Individually controlled running lights and cab lights.
• DCC Fitting - Fit a Plux22 socket and speaker ready for a LokSound decoder.
• Motor - Fit a new motor (if required after testing with a quality decoder)

60016 in 1999, before being named.  Photograph: Steve Jones, licensed under CC Attribution 2.0

Lighting

For the lighting, I have an unused Class 67 lighting kit from Express Models which I will adapt by removing the top marker lights which will come in useful when I repair my Bachmann 57 which will be done at a later date.  Express Models do have a DCC lighting kit for the Lima 60 but it is not prototypical, there are other suitable kits though, the 67 kit is just what I had to hand.

The lighting kit is easy to fit to the 60, the light clusters are glazed and are almost the correct size so no drilling needed.  The head and tail light glazing is attached to the cab-end glazing and can easily be snapped off after scoring with a scalpel.  The marker lights have a separate piece of glazing which can be pushed out from the inside with a needle or the blade of a scalpel, the hole for the marker lights is tapered so needs widening on the inside - I used the scalpel blade.  The only other adjustments needed are:

• To cut away the chassis edge around the front to accommodate the black LED surrounds, I did scrape away a little of the paint while doing this but it is an easy touch-up.
• To mount the internal cab mouldings into the body rather than in the chassis so the lighting units don't foul it at the body is placed back on.  The glazing holds the main clips for the body so careful placement is needed to ensure a secure fitting.
   

Then, the Express Models LED's from the lighting kit slid right in and hold with friction alone.  When testing from a bench PSU at 12v they are a little bright (not obvious in the photos) but I can dim them by adjusting the decoder settings and there's always the option to add an additional resistor at a later date if they are still to bright at the minimum setting.

For cab light I will simply use small white LED boards which include a resistor, I bought these on eBay.  I chose these due to the compactness, it can get a little messy inside the locomotive with lots of wiring and through-hole components so the fact that the board accepts 12-18v directly from a decoder is ideal - as with the running lights, I can adjust the brightness via the decoder if necessary.

DCC Fitting

I have purchased some Plux22 socket board from Illuminated models, using Plux22 gives me enough function for individually controlled lights without soldering to the decoder or adding a second decoder to the loco which can make it difficult when programming.  Each end of the loco will use five functions (cab light, marker lights, tail lights, left headlight, right headlight) totalling 10 and the Plux22 socket gives access to 9 functions meaning that I will require one more function, the ESU LokPilot and LokSound 5 series decoders offer an Aux8 via a solder pad which is a full power function.  They also offer a further four logic level outputs if desired - two via solder pads and two via the socket - although these by default are not enabled as the pins/pads are for different features by default.

The intention is to add Legomanbiffo sound with a suitably sized speaker given the space in the body.  The use of an ESU chip gives me an easy way to program complex rules which dictate what each function does depending on multiple 'states' of the loco.

Motor

If - after testing - the motor does need replacing, I intend to use a Hornby Class 66 motor bogie as I did on my old Hornby 56 - this time, I will need to create a mounting as I do not have a donor chassis.  Basic testing with a bench power supply shows the motor has a starting voltage of 5.2-5.8 volts and the current draw looks good but doesn't run very slowly so will need further testing.