MAP66

I still can't quite believe how many buildings you have constructed to create this magnificent scene and all in such fine detail. It would take me several lifetimes to achieve what you have. I can only marvel at your fantastic prolific modelling skills and the colouring you have on that taller section of relief arches looks incredible.

In between watching air brushing tutorials, I have been carefully removing all the unwanted plastic moulded detail from the body shell. Mainly hand grab rails but also some lamp brackets and 4 off lifting rings from the top of the water tanks. It’s all very delicate work and even more rivets have succumbed to the scalpel blade as a consequence. So, some making do will be required and then a coat of grey primer. All hand rails will be replaced with brass rod of the correct diameter and I have taken the liberty of fitting the cab side hand rails prior to priming the body work. This is because the body work is fee from damage around where the brass meets the body shell. The holes drilled for all the other grab handles will have a small length of wire inserted into them to prevent them from clogging up with paint from the priming process. The primer should highlight any defects which can then be rectified more easily before the grab handles are fitted. I put this image up as a reminder and comparison of how the body shell once looked. Much better with brass hand rails I think. This is 0.45mm diameter rod with handrail knobs from 247 Developments. I wanted to ensure that the holes drilled for the new grab rails were in the right place. To ensure this, I used a scalpel to create a flat for drilling on the handle junction where it enters the body shell as shown within the red circle above. After the holes are drilled for each grab rail, then the moulding can be removed. Looks pretty scruffy and battle scarred after removal of the two grab rails at the front of the tanks. You can also just make out on the tops of the tanks that the moulded lifting rings have been removed. The lugs are still there as I'm keeping them and will just make new rings from brass wire. Side view of the real thing, you can clearly see that the diameter of the grab rail at the front of the tank does not increase very much where it attaches to the body work. On the Airfix model this is represented by an overscale circular moulding. Lamp brackets removed and two grab rails.

The saga continues, does it end well? Read on and see… Dismayed and disheartened, but not yet beaten, I contacted Youchoos who advised sending the decoder back to them for investigation. A couple of days later they contacted me to advise that a replacement was on its way to me. Brilliant service by the way. The new decoder arrived and was inserted into the 21 pin socket. A few seconds later my heart sunk again as the replacement decoder was again, non responsive. I was too embarrassed to contact Youchoos again, so I sulked for a bit but not for long as I had tickets for me and the Mrs at the Bristol Model Railway Exhibition the next day and perhaps I could find some answers there. I must confess that I spent far too much money at the show, its hard to resist when you are faced with 4 halls packed with traders and exhibitors. My safety mechanism for the prevention of over spending was my better half who had me on a tight leash. However, I used my old decoy tactic and while she was admiring all the fine modelling on display, I could occasionally slip away and the debit card would get a good hammering. I did manage to see the Digitrains stand and came away with a decoder tester and a cheapo 21 pin standard decoder. I thought these would be useful for carrying on with my investigations as to why I was unable to get my sound decoder to work. Fast forward a bit and I’m back home at the work bench with the decoder tester and the test decoder. The tester was powered from the NCE command station and the cheap test decoder was inserted into the 21 pin socket. I pushed the socket in as far as I thought it should go, but it didn’t seem right. So, I pushed it a bit harder and it went in slightly further. Was that the reason, I thought, why the Zimo decdoder wasn’t working? Had I simply not pushed it in hard enough? With the thought of experiencing sound in the 7F possibly only moments away, I tentatively attempted to communicate with the test decoder. Amazing, I was able to communicate to the decoder via the handset. So, all is working OK from the NCE powercab side of things. Next test was to insert the Zimo sound decoder into the tester to see if it was actually working. I inserted it into the socket and it pushed home as before, then I took a brave breath and pushed it down even harder and like the test decoder it went in a bit further. Ha, Ha that felt promising and It looks like I might have been a numpty. Yes, I had been a complete numpty as the Zimo decoder, previously thought to be a dud, was working fine. So, finally I was able to insert the Zimo decoder back into the socket on the tender, using the technique of push it in until it stops and then push it a bit more. I was then able to go through the program sequence on the test track and give the 7F an address. Placing the 7F back on the main track, selecting the assigned address and then pressing 1 and the room came alive with the glorious sounds of escaping steam hissing from the loco. Roll the thumb wheel of the handset for some forward motion and more glorious sounds are heard and then the unmistakable sounds of the chuff, chuffs as the speed slowly increases. I ran the 7F light up the helix and noted that the max speed was equivalent to about 20mph, so it was back to the program track to set up a basic speed curve. First though, I needed to study the CV list to see which values needed to be changed. This will then be swiftly followed by, an embarrassing apology phone call to Youchoos. Just as an update, I spoke to John at Youchoos and he was completely understanding and basically said these things happen. I have no affiliation with Youchoos and if anyone out there is thinking about installing their first sound decoder, I would have no hesitation in recommending their products, advice and service as a very satisfied customer. I'll leave you with a couple of pics showing the decoder tester and something which should give hours of reading pleasure. I think this will be a very handy piece of kit if I'm going down the route of installing decoders. Its able to test a number of different decoder types and even has an on board motor and speaker. I'm looking forward to getting my head stuck into both volumes of this, essential research for the new layout.

Quite a bit to report on since we last visited, if you remember, I was about to embark on my first sound decoder install. We’ll pick up the story from there. I was armed with my back dated HM166 paged turned to the step by step installation guide. Those of a nervous disposition and have not yet ventured into the dark world of decoders and programming CV’s are encouraged to read on and stick with me. Those modellers who find this type of thing a doddle, are also invited to come on the journey as any tips and advice they can offer are most welcome. Let’s begin, the 7F was placed upside down in a foam service cradle to allow access to the u/s of the tender. At this stage it’s probably worth explaining, why the 7F? Well, I thought it was a great candidate for a first time install as everything happens in the tender. With no need to interfere in the workings of the loco itself. The plastic brake rigging of the tender was carefully removed and put to one side, as where the 3 screws holding the chassis to the upper body of the tender. Leave the draw bar attached, I didn’t and the retaining nut came off and I could hear it rattling about inside the tender. Some how I will need to get that nut back on – a problem to solve later. Loco and tender where then turned right side up and the tender body required some gentle to moderate wriggling to slowly separate it from it’s underframe and revealing that loose nut. Also, on view was the metal weight and the 21 pin decoder socket plug. I removed the plug to reveal the 21 pin socket board, this board had 2 tabs for soldering the 2 speaker wires to. The pads were tinned as where the ends of the speaker wires and then subsequently soldered to the pads. The ice cube speaker assembly was secured, plastic enclosure down to the metal weight, with black tac. Exposed speaker terminals where covered with electrical tape. The Zimo MS440C decoder was released from its packaging and orientated for the missing index hole to be lined up with its corresponding missing pin on the onboard socket board. I then pushed the decoder home, as I thought! The decoder comes with ‘stay alive’ capacitor attached, I snipped this off as I fitted a ‘life link’ circuit instead which is a beefed up version of the stay alive function. So that was it, with the tender cover still off, the 7F was placed on the program track and the NCE power cab was switched on. To cut an already long story short, no matter what I tried the decoder could not be detected and I was unable to undertake any programming. Darn it, to be continued… The Zimo decoder is shown upside down to how it should be installed. Note the small red circle (bottom r/h of board) for correct index alignment for installation into onboard socket. Speakers have been wired in and secured in place. The 'Life Link' tiny circuit board has been soldered to the + and - wires of the made up capacitor array. The blanking plug is still in place at this stage.

Sometimes things go well, sometimes they go even better than expected but then sometimes things don’t go quite so well. I’m entering the realms of new territory again and that is painting steam locos. Its good to post fails as well as successful endeavours to show that sometimes we have to learn from our mistakes in order to improve, so here’s one example. Basically, I am not impressed with my efforts on painting the boiler. I’ll talk you through it, I thought that after the grey primer stage which went on well via a rattle can, I had inspected the sanding down and it seemed OK, probably because of the duller finish. I then went ahead and sprayed it green using a Humbrol rattle can, oh dear! The finish is very poor as the paint delivery at the nozzle is quite heavy and I ended up with a kind of dimpling in the paint work, the resultant sheen also highlighted some previously missed sanding imperfections (see image below). So, there we go, back to the drawing board for attempt number 2. I will first sand down the offending section of boiler and then re-prime all over to knock out the green. The grey paint comes out in a much finer mist and goes on well. Now for the change, I do have an Iwata air brush (still in the box) as I have no confidence in using it, but that must now change and I need to start practicing with it. This all stems from buying a previous air brush years ago and using it for the first time. Afterwards, I dismantled it for cleaning and it never worked properly again. I obviously still have this dread that history will repeat itself. I intend looking at some online tutorials and basically start practicing until I have mastered a nice combo of air pressure and paint delivery. Only then, will the boiler and rest of the body shell be subjected to several fine coats of GWR green. I will then put up a before and after comparison, lets hope the difference is obvious, until then I leave you with this calamity… The Humbrol rattle can has resulted in an unsightly dimpled finish and the sheen highlights the areas of imperfection within the red circles.

Hi Keith, Well done for persevering over the past few years with your ideas and above all keeping your dreams alive and I’m glad that my thread has kept you entertained along the way. The very best of luck with your upcoming house move and hopefully once settled in, the creative thinking processes will kick in, swiftly followed by some modelling magnificence. Best regards, Mark

This last seven days has seen me full of inspiration and disappointment. There was some wonderful and exceptional modelling on display at SWAG 24 last Sunday and at the Bristol exhibition which the Mrs and I attended on Friday. The Pasties and cakes are far more superior at SWAG though 🧁. This was actually the sort of tonic I desperately needed as I was sulking due to not being able to get my sound decoder to work in the recently acquired second hand Bachmann 7F. Suffice to say, If I hadn’t gone to the Bristol show, the 7F would still be a no goer. It works fine now and the whole embarrassing story will be told on the layout thread when I get around to posting it. So, meanwhile back at the work bench, I managed to prep the boiler and smoke box for painting, replaced lost rivets and fitted the smoke box handle and draw off tap. Then the edge of the smoke box was taped off to protect the boiler and the smoke box was given a rattle can of chaos black followed by a wash of umber. The dart or handle still needs painting black. Next job will be to attempt spray painting the boiler GWR green and refit the hand rail and add a lamp bracket atop the smoke box. Door dart and tap fitted, just the centre pin needs trimming down a bit. The tap has been adapted from the stand pipe in the Ratio cattle dock kit.

I’m well into the stage now of improving the body work of the old Airfix shell, as opposed to hacking it about and making it look even worse. I thought it would be an idea to list out below the jobs completed thus far and some of those still required to complete the 48XX body shell. I’ve come a long way, but still a way to go. This is not the complete list, but if I add any more to it at this stage it will look too daunting. I will complete this lot and then see what’s next to do. A couple of images below to show how things are left this evening.

A lot of filing later resulted in a pleasing transformation, the top feed and moulded feed pipes are no more, along with the smoke box door. A little work is required on the white metal replacement door hinges before I glue it in place with araldite. On the prototype, the smoke box wrapper seems to have a bevel or chamfer to its front edge, unlike the model which has a dead square edge. So, I rounded the edge of with some fine emery paper. A couple of moulded rivets where also lost on the smoke box wrap, a result of some careless strokes of the file. These will be re-introduced courtesy of glue n’ glaze applied on the tip of a needle. A close up view of the real thing 'Tivvy Bumper' showing the chamfer detail to front edge of smoke box wrap. My interpretation of this was to slightly round off the square edge with fine emery paper. Note also the shadow imprint left from filing away the smoke box door and draw off tap. This will aid with re-alignment of the white metal replacement door. Side on, showing all the scarring and blemishes in reaching this stage. The raised hole on the smoke box wrapper still needs filing down and some more attention is needed to the overscale boiler band. Then an all over dusting of grey primer should reveal any further body work necessary for the boiler and smoke box.

Well that was a bit of a dry spell at the 48XX work bench! I have been instead, constructing the first helix on the main layout and am finally on the last circuit. But then, the announcement from Dapol yesterday that they will be producing under new tooling the GWR Class 517 0-4-2T as well as a new range of GWR Class 14xx/ 48xx/ 58xx 0-4-2T vehicles (How marvellous I thought, and with interior cab detail, how very dare they 😆) was the encouragement I was waiting for, to get my little project over the line. The Dapol models are not expected until Q4 2025. so even I, at my current speed, have a good chance of completing my version before Dapol release theirs into the shops. As a progress re-cap, the cab window bars are now all completed and I am just taking a break in-between furiously filing away some unwanted features of the old Airfix body shell, namely the smokebox door and the top feed. The smoke box door will be replaced with the Mainly Trains cast white metal one. A couple of before pics below, after ones to follow… First image, just to show how the window bars ended up, the enlarged holes will be concealed with filler. As it looks before being attacked with the file, top feed and smoke box door are soon to be history.

I suppose the questions to ask yourself are; Moving the baseboard: Do you want the fiddleyard to also serve as a place for extra staging and storage tracks which depends on how much stock you have. I would suggest using Anyrail to plan out the fiddle yards and sidings on the 8'6" x 30" board to see what's possible. It may also look odd to have a much wider baseboard below and a narrower curved profile scenic board above. If you opt for this choice you might need to consider a curved profile for the front of the lower board as well so think about that when planning the track work. Station baseboard built on a curve: How much do you like modelling scenery? As you will lose quite a bit of the area in front of the station itself. For me, a layout is how it fits into the surrounding scenery and it would be a shame to lose a lot of the area in front of the station. How much operating space do you comfortably need? In the railway room you could mark out on the floor (using masking tape or similar) the area you currently have as per your plan for operating space. Then ask yourself, is there enough room to comfortably move about, reach everywhere and access all that I need to. If not, would a narrower curved baseboard be required and solve the problem? If so, then the decision is made as there is little point in a model railway if there is not adequate space to operate it. Best of luck with the planning and decision making. and hopefully further advice from others will follow.

Superb work Neal, it's all about the fettling as I am beginning to find out. Can I ask where you source your coal from, is it real coal crushed up or do you use one of the so called realistic scatter types, as I have never found anything of the right size and realistic as yet.

That's the way to spend an evening. I do hope the 7F ends up a success, it will be my first sound decoder install. I will be following a step by step guide from a back issue of Hornby Magazine HM166.

50% success so far with the track cleaning wagon. One bogie assembly has set and has wheels fitted. I’ll try the other end tomorrow, however a massive distraction has occurred which is testing my urge to resist until the wagon is completed. What’s the distraction I hear you all ask? Well this arrived in the post today… The bits I need to give the 7F sound. There's a compromise to be had here me thinks. Tomorrow, when the other end of the track cleaner wagon is setting, I don't think it would be cheating if I take the tender of the 7F apart and take a peak inside. You know, just while the glue is setting.

You're quite right, if I sneeze in the near vicinity there is a danger that I will blow it off the tracks 😆 However, if my cunning plan works, the flatbed will accommodate the necessary weight required. The weight on the flatbed will oppose the spring trying to push the wagon upwards and If I get the balance right then there will be just enough force to keep the hardboard track pad in good contact with the tops of the rails but not too heavy that a loco struggles to get it up the helix. At the moment, the construction of the wagon is waiting on one bogie assembly curing with araldite. The stupid black plastic doesn't want to bond with anything. So far I've tried numerous superglues, deluxe materials plastic magic and a few other glues, all to no avail. Araldite is good but it takes ages to cure, so I can only do one bogie at a time for fear of dislodging it all at the other end.

Hi Travis, I’m not familiar with the Cumbrian coast line areas or St. Bees, but I’m impressed with your track plan. Very creative for such a small room and offers bags of operational interest using the 2 fiddle yards off scene. Now we seem to have solved the concerns around the helix through our recent exchanges, I will be following with interest and looking forward to watching your layout develop. Mark.

I thought it was time for a small side project diversion and that diversion would be track maintenance or track cleaning to be precise. I intend to keep my track work as clean as possible, lets face it, we all know that when I eventually embark on laying trackwork on all the upper level scenic sections, it will soon be subjected to all manner of unwelcome invasions. Glues, scatters, paint, coffee (mostly beer) are just some of the unwanted guests to find themselves stuck to the tops of the rails, despite my best efforts of prevention. So, I thought, let’s have something in the tool box to help keep that track clean and at the same time make it a bit fun, after all, who wants to clean all that track by hand within a twin track helix more than once in a lifetime, and I will have two of them. I purchased a Parkside wagon kit ‘PC562 GWR Bogie Bolster’ for the donor wagon. Early developments are shown below… On the work bench we have the Parkside kit. I intend using a piece of hardboard (rough side to track) for the track cleaning pad. This will be suspended beneath the wagon under a little tension to force it against the rail tops. Others have done this type of thing before and this is nothing new, just my version. I have made an attempt to start assembling the bogies which are made from some 'orrible black plastic which refuses to bond, no matter which glue you use. I will go old skool and bring out the araldite. While I'm having a moan, the black plastic parts had more flash on them than Lord Flashheart himself. Don't talk rot, no ones got more flash than me, Woof Woof. A side on close up of the hardboard track pad and my cunning Heath Robinson device for providing the tension. We have two 8BA brass bolts which are soldered together at their heads. The top bolt has a compression spring over it and passes through the deck of the wagon and is secured by a nut and washer. The lower bolt passes through the hardboard and a recessed nut is used to secure the hardboard in place. Underside, showing the recessed nut so no fouling on the track. How it all looks when fitted. It will be a fairly easy procedure to change the hardboard pad when it gets dirty. That's it for now, I will be attempting to get that black plastic to actually stick next and then I will be able to get the wheels on.

Well there I was, finger hesitantly hovering over the confirm purchase button. My shopping basket containing lovely items to make my recent Bachmann Fowler 7F purchase sing. My conscience wrestling with the idea of departing with £148 of cash, a moments relapse and boom the deed was done. If all goes to plan, within a week from now, my 7F will have full sound.

Nice work Neal, I will soon be tackling something not too dissimilar when I attempt to install a sound decoder, speaker and stay alive into the tender of a Bachmann Fowler 7F. Having never tackled anything like this before it was timely to see your efforts have paid off and it was good to hear the sound on the video.

I think we’re all a bit guilty of looking at models we worked on years before and thinking, I wish I had done that bit differently, I certainly do. Even stuff I’m working on now, I constantly ask myself “why on earth have you done it like that.” Thanks again for all the comments and for sharing that image of your Pannier which I think has definitely stood the test of time and those window bars look dam good to me. Fifty years ago, that would have been the envy of every modeller to own it and It still looks amazing now.

That’s a shame, I missed SWAG last year as the Mrs was in hospital. I do hope your able to attend the shows again soon.

I'm using Peco code 75 flexi track which is nickel silver.

Thanks are in order for the avalanche of likes just received on this thread and the layout one. I must be doing something right then! It would be nice to meet up at the SWAG event and put a face to a name. Best Regards Mark

The helix is still getting taller, but its progressing very slowly. Let’s face there’s nothing much exciting about building a helix and how many images can you post, it all looks the same just a bit taller each time. In other news, while trawling the interweb, I came across a second hand Bachmann Fowler 7F 2-8-0 which had already been weathered, re-numbered and re-liveried to LMS ‘13806’ and at £65.00, I thought that was a bargain. 13806 could be found at Bath in the late 1930’s, so it would not look out of place on my, at the moment, fictitious stretch of SDJR railway. I went ahead and purchased the model anyway and it arrived today. It was transported immediately to the railway room, where it received a thorough visual inspection. All looked in good order and so, to the test track. A sigh of relief was expelled when the motion and wheels all moved and turned as they should. 13806 ran nicely up and down the helix and across the diamond crossing without issue. The testing concluded with the loco hauling a maximum of 5 coaches up the helix without wheel slip. This loco, I thought, could potentially manage 8/9 coaches with say 2 magnets fitted. That will be tested at some point but my next venture will be to fit a sound decoder to 13806. I was trawling that interweb again and found a feature from the April 2021 edition of Hornby magazine where the very same loco was subjected to having a sound decoder inserted into its tender. I have never installed a decoder before and I thought following a step by step installation guide, would be the way to go. With that said, I ordered a back issue of the mag and am currently checking how deep my pockets will go for that sound decoder, speaker and probably stay alive. Watch this space for further developments… Well here it is, my latest purchase 13806 is about to ascend the helix in charge of a rake of 5 coaches. And only because you love these pictures so much, yet another view of the helix which is currently about two thirds through the second circuit.

The Traction Trials - Results are in I shall summarise; my findings have resulted in no less than 5 magnets to be fitted on the underframe of the 51XX to haul 7 coaches up the first 4th radius circuit and even then, some minor wheel slip was observed. A disappointing result and certainly not the expected 2 magnets to do the job. The full 12V was required from the controller and it will be interesting to see if running under DCC will make any difference. Unfortunately, that test will be some time in the future as I do not presently own any decoder installed locos. Maybe, some further minor tweaking is possible to enhance performance by way of securing the magnets under the loco, so that they are slightly closer to the track to increase their pull. Failing that, if I want to run 9 coach holiday specials then I guess there’s always double heading. So now I am embarking on building the second circuit and will soon need to order a load more powerbase. There was also a pleasant realisation and that is, you can never have too many clamps when constructing a helix. That impulse buy of a set of clamps from the middle of Lidl paid off 😄 A ridiculous amount of magnets was necessary for the tractive power required. These are all temporarily secured with blac-tac. It will be a real head scratcher to come up with a workable solution to fit the magnets permanently without covering any of the cover plate screws. Side view showing the magnets which are held within the blister bubble carriers which form part of the powerbase packaging. You are advised to secure the blister packs with the tiny screws supplied drilled into the locos cover plate. With 5 magnets the cover plate will end up looking like swiss cheese. Beginning of the second circuit, start collecting clamps if your taking one of these on.