richard w

I outlined the area to be flatted with some masking tape and used a flat small file to gently remove material until the flattened area lined up with the masking tape edges. I then filled in the holes from the etch with Perfect Plastic Putty and sanded that smooth with 1500 grit paper. Glued the pod back on, masked off the body sides/exhaust and finally blew in some paint from the airbrush over the end of the roof. I used a very old tin of humbrol 11, decent match to the Dapol shade of silver. Edit - I scribed the two panel lines back on with a blunt scalpel blade before painting.

I've been filming as I go of course. The loco is still in progress (currently repainting the upper blue stripe) but I hope to have a video ready in a week or so.

Some alterations to the brightness and some Tamiya clear orange to improve the colour temperature.

If you have the 59/0 I have a fix for the lights. As others have pointed out, configuring the correct lighting via the decoder is not possible. The additional circuitry on the main board prohibits lighting features beyond Dapol's interpretation of class 59 lighting. Thanks legomanbiffo for your post regarding this as I was beginning to think I just didn't understand how to program decoders properly. All 4 lights on my example are now lit correctly for a 59/0. Simply solder yellow to white (jumps the markers) and blue to black (jumps the headlights) on both lighting boards. They are held with a small amount of glue and pop free easily with tweezers. Despite arriving at this conclusion some time ago I decided to pursue programming which ultimately reached a dead end. The rest of the functions continue to work properly (red lights, cab lights, on/off etc). Yard mode (markers only) should also work with this as the head and marker light circuits remain separated. I've also removed the NRM pod and adjusted the roof accordingly using a file for 59005. Humbrol 11 (from the 1980s) is a good match for the silver Dapol have used. Hope that helps.

Friend of mine just visited his local shop. Rather shocked/disappointed by the poor colour match between coaches and power cars. The transfers are bad enough but the gold difference is very noticeable.

They are easily painted black. One of the first jobs I did, well worth it as they do stand out considerably.

Yes, several times. I've tested it with other locos and it no longer outputs anything to the motor. I've reset it several times and reconfigured the cvs with no luck on two different controllers.

I'm still working on a light fix as and when I've got some free time. All the LEDs on the light boards have their own feed from a separate function wire. They take their power from a single red wire with the other wires working which LEDs illuminate. The red lights are wired together but all the white lights can be switched independently. This applies to the Yeoman model of 59005... Red - Power Feed Yellow - Left Marker White - Right Marker Green - Tail Blue - Left Headlamp Black - Right Headlamp I've verified with a bit of spare wire that you can jump the function wire connections and get the lights working properly. From the factory only 2 white leds will work with you being able to switch them from side to side (which Dapol call day/night mode). It looks like both headlights work but this is light blead. Only one headlight and one marker work at any one time. I've been experimenting with decoder pro and function mapping. So far I've been getting very strange behaviour. The imperium decoder I bought for the model has been getting worse and worse. It now doesn't apply power to the motor or work the red taillights correctly/at all. They flash on for about a second before going out when the model is powered up or changed direction. Various other decoders I have to hand lack the necessary functions to control the lights but even the basic stuff like F0 mapped correctly results in only partial lighting that doesn't have a sense of direction. I get the feeling there is additional circuitry between the decoder and the light boards interfering with the signals. Function mapping with decoder pro is quite simple yet setting a particular wire to F0 or F1 doesn't produce the result you'd expect. I've ordered an ESU decoder and will see what happens with that.

I've had a little play with the CVs to try and improve the lighting situation. Not had much luck. I ended up resetting the imperium decoder in my model after changing a few values (write 4 to CV8). Now it fails to run the motor in either direction and the tail lights only work for a split second. Switched for a lenz decoder and the model runs just fine. Tried the imperium decoder in another working model and confirmed it's no longer sending power to the motor. The lenz silver decoder now fitted to the 59 has no clue how to run the lights and they're all over the place. Same goes for a Bachmann branded ESU decoder. Setting the CVs on the lenz decoder to the ones specified in the Dapol instructions doesn't work either. Strikes me as complexity for the sake of it. The 59 is best used with an imperium decoder, just don't reset it!

Mine is okay, that's disappointing on your model.

See my post on page 49

Here it is from the factory before I started. Sits quite high, certainly noticeable if you're familiar with the class or looking at photos. It's secured with 4 pins that are part of the mounting lugs. Light pressure from behind the exhaust will allow it to pop free of the body. Using a very sharp knife and a razor saw I cut it into the following pieces. The silencer needs quite a bit taking off the bottom. I used 80 grit sandpaper and finished with 180 grit. The manifold is about right but I felt it was a bit too high working from photos. I sanded some material off it but not much. Glued it back together and touched up the paint. I'll be lightly weathering the loco in future so any further imperfections should disappear with that.

The lighting is complex with several CVs needing to be set. It's not accurate as far as I can tell having looked at real photos. All 4 lamps at the front should be lit but the best the model can manage is 3. The lower marker switches from one side to the other when toggling night mode. You can switch both markers on but this turns off the centre headlights. Some CV alterations might solve it but I wouldn't know where to begin. The imperium decoder doesn't seem to have a published CV list. The Dapol technical page on their website doesn't appear to work or have anything in it either.

Brilliant! Thanks for the info, saves me a job. Cheers