PeteB

Thanks njee20. If Mike is still around and actively supplying and supporting his, and if he can do the 5 car 377, I'd tend to go with that as it has been around for a while, so presumably I'd be less of a guinea pig! 🙂 But if not, I'm definitely interested in what you are doing. Are there any threads anywhere with somebody describing the build of such a model, based on these or similar bodyshells? Thanks, Pete

I'm interested in the Electrostar, Mike. I see from Ebay it is still available although this thread is quite old. Is there a newer thread I have missed? Did you ever do the 5 car class 377 - DMOC, MOSL, PTSOL, MOS, DMOS? I'd also be interested if there is a thread anywhere covering the building of one, motorising, finishing etc. And can anyone tell me how I can view all the pictures in this thread? They just come up blank here

I've now done some more testing and fettling, and now I can run the 8 coach set without the train coming apart. First I tested to see what length would work. At 6 coaches all was well, when I added the 7th the train parted behind the first coach. So the limit seemed to be a trailing load of 5 coaches behind the magnetic coupling. This is consistent, because my TPE set of 5 coaches runs fine without dividing. Then I remembered an earlier post in this topic, about the moulded protrusions on the coupling faces causing a problem. Looking at them, the protrusions are so tiny, I wasn't convinced they would make any difference. Presumably they are part of the moulding process, rather than serving any practical function. I carefully filed the faces completely flat, removing the protrusions, on the pair of couplings behind the first coach. To my surprise, this did make a difference, now I could haul 7 coaches no problem, with a trailing load behind that coupling of 6 coaches. I added my 8th coach, my filed coupling held and now it came apart behind the 2nd coach. I applied the same treatment to the couplings between coaches 2 and 3, now I can haul all 8 coaches no problem. I will of course have to modify all the couplings, otherwise if I reform the carriages in the train, or run around it, then it will come apart again, but it's looking good. I don't know how many more coaches the modified couplings could haul, as I only have 8 sleepers. I suppose I could test by adding some of my TPE ones behind, but that may be for another day. It is certainly the extra drag on the curves that causes the couplings to part. With my 2' 6" radius curves, the unmodified couplings could manage a maximum of 5 trailing coaches behind the coupling. If your curves are sharper or more gentle than that, your limit might be less or more coaches. I wonder if the preproduction couplings Accurascale used for testing didn't have these moulding protrusions?

I've now got the rest of the coaches out of the boxes, and run the 8 coach set on the layout. So now I have the problem reported by many others. Even with just 8 coaches, the magnetic couplings are not strong enough to hold the train together. The layout is flat, no inclines, minimum radius about 2ft 6", so quite a lot less sharp curves than any of the trainset radii. Typically a coupling near the front of the train separates as it comes round a curve, so the extra drag of the rest of the coaches around the curve would seem to be too much. Has anyone tried the alternative magnetic coupling offerings from Hornby or the Hunt couplings from West Hill Wagon Works, and are they likely to be any better in this respect than the Accurascale ones?

I did think about that - perhaps a little magnet on the underside of a bridge or signal gantry. The problem is, as well as turning on the coach interior lighting , it would also turn on all the red lights between the coaches, which is not what is required. You'd have to put the magnet on a servo, which drops down for the middle of each coach, but pulls away at the ends of every coach, not very practical me thinks. ☹️

I finally got some! I got the notification email on Friday, spotted it about 15 mins after it arrived. By the time I got to the website a few minutes later, it was showing about 5 left of the two Inverness sets. I clicked through the process as fast as I could, from previous experience I know you need to get at least as far as the payment screen before the product is reserved - seems I just made it in time! Pretty quick despatch and delivery, they arrived today Monday. Great service! I've undone the packaging and extracted a few of them for a quick try on the layout this evening. They look great behind 92010 and run nicely too - so far no need to fiddle with back to back settings to get them to run as I had to with the TPE set, although I will check them and adjust if necessary. I definitely need to build some Harman function decoders for these coaches and the TPE ones, I hate all that faffing around with the magnetic wand. I'd like to be able to park them in the siding, which is out of convenient reach for human hand, and then turn the lights off, remotely turning them back on again when they come back into service. Very pleased to finally have some! Pete

Can you assure that is NOT the same company that is hosting the website? It is vital that all the eggs are not in one basket again.

Sorry if this has already been mentioned (I havn't trawled every message in this topic), but can the moderators now assure us that they are taking their own backups to offline storage and not relying on the hosting provider as the only backups being taken?

I'm really interested in your projects, particularly the Meridian. But most of the pictures are not showing, just a long filename, is that a problem at my end viewing the forum or is it an RMWeb problem? Thanks, Pete

On your layout, under rule 1, you could absolutely do that, a 10 coach TPE set with loco in the middle and DT at each outer end. I reckon it would look good and It would certainly be a talking point! On the real thing, I guess that would very much depend on whether the control systems allow for it. I suspect that would be unlikely, but who knows?

I turned the layout off the other day, came back 10 minutes later and the coach lights were still on! 😵 Maybe a touch overkill on the keep alive, but at least we know they won't be flickering.

I had the same problem using the magnetic couplings from loco to first coach - it was ok when hauling and ok propelling on the handmade pointwork, which has gentle radii, but on the Peco code 75 medium radius crossover it would buffer lock when propelling, rather as in your picture. I solved that problem with a tiny touch of superglue on the inner end of the buffer shanks on the coach, so the sprung buffers are now permanently in the fully retracted position on the coach, and hey presto, no more buffer lock.

I've put the box away in a safe place, now I want to fit a DCC decoder into the DT, so I thought best to check the manual first. Rather than dig the box out again, I thought I would just download the manual from the Accurascale website. I found the download link no problem, but when I click on it, I get an XML formatted "Access denied" message -- something for the Accurascale webmaster to fix, I think.

I used a back to back gauge so I could press the wheels in against the gauge to give the right setting

My set arrived yesterday, very impressive! I had the same problem with code 75. No derailments on the fine scale handmade track, but the fiddle yard is Peco code 75 including a double slip. When propelling, there is a tendency for the rearmost coaches, near the loco, to find their way along the wrong flangeway at the K crossing of the double slip, resulting in derailment. Also occasionally clipping the frog and derailing on the turnouts. The rearmost coaches have a heavier load ahead of them, and are effectively being squashed between the propelling loco and the load ahead, so there is that tendency for the wheels to try and escape sideways. The problem is exacerbated by the wheels being a lot smaller than most other coach types. The bogies that showed this problem had B2B about 14.7, by removing the bogies and carefully adjusting with a B2B gauge down to about 14.5 by pressing onto the wheel centres, the problem is mostly cured. The wheel no longer clips the frogs either, and it still runs ok on the finescale track. When closing up the B2B, I did have a couple of the axle covers pop off, presumably the axle pressing on the inside of the axle cover. Fortunately I was working over a tray, so they were not lost on the carpet and I'll refit them with a dab of superglue when testing complete. The other problem I had was that my Dapol class 68 has a very floppy droopy kinematic coupling, combined with the kinematic coupling on the end coach, means that when propelling, the loco coupling tends to slide under the coach coupling. This can cause buffer lock, in particular on the Peco medium radius crossover in the fiddle yard. Once the couplings have telescoped like this,, when the loco pulls away in the opposite direction, it generally is no longer coupled to the train and sets off on its own. It's a shame Accurascale didn't include an extra pair of magnetic couplings for the loco connection. I have some on order, hopefully arriving today or tomorrow, which I hope will solve that problem.