MOH

Hi, I have just taken delivery of a second batch of Train Tech coach lighting kits and am about to fit those to some Lima coaches, however the snag is I cannot see any obvious way to separate the coach body from the frame, these are 00 gauge and I would reckon they could be from the 90's. Has any kind soul any experience or tips on how to get inside these coaches, I did successfully install these kits on Bachmann stock without any bother but these Lima coaches have me flummoxed.

Many thanks folks, I eventually sourced lamps from China which happily have a much reduced brightness so no need to add to their opaqueness, however they are probably not really close to any form of prototype but I should confess this layout is purely for recreational and fun purposes with as much emphasis on having stock moving on rails as accuracy of time scale etc., plus it amuses the grandchildren who think it's marvelous to have it lit up. In total I have fitted something like 400 hundred individual bulbs (in buildings) and lamp fittings using approx. 200 metres of cable all on 3 volt supply, so it's been a bit of a slog with many, many hours of lying underneath baseboards and retro fitting to buildings to get the job done, of course had I planned things even half properly there would have been far less hardship but like a lot of people I very much got the horse before the cart and have paid handsomely in time and money for not having the knowledge to do planning, the learning curve has been steep and costly but hey nothing worthwhile comes easy. My standard of modelling won't win any awards and I have to rely on buy and position for an awful lot of stuff but during this infernal lock down the layout has been a great source of enjoyment and a lot of work has been completed.

Thanks everyone, for once in my modelling efforts I may have stumbled across something in advance of my committing time and money on an exercise, definitely interested in the magnetic couplers, the only caveat for me is identifying the correct type/s to buy, as said before I had no idea just how important the coupling systems are.

Hi, Anyone got recommendations on where to source station platform lamps to be used on 00 scale which would chime with he late 50's early 60's era, open confession, I did purchase a bundle from China but those were useless and also purchased a bunch through Amazon, again presumably originated from China, and those were way over sized and wrongly described, these lamps are for lighting up and need to be 3volt leds.

Interesting range of experience and views in that thread thanks, I am still amazed just how crucial good couplings are to smooth operating of model railways, I am unlikely to reach exhibition level but anything that virtually guarantees no uncoupling in operation earns my interest.

Great stuff and thanks to all respondents, I should have stated in my OP that I am using mainly flexi track with set track 2nd and 3rd radius curves, I never realised that couplings had such a wide variation in size and types to be honest, another steep learning curve coming on with this. Just as a curve ball, I have seen on YouTube where a new(?) product called Hunts Couplings are being showcased, anyone had experience of these?

Many thanks, I have checked around and gotten some info but as they say you can never have enough info, the range of Kadee's is large and naively I did at first think a one size fits all would be available, so looks like a fair amount of work involved here.

Hi, Hope this is in the right area, I have gotten a lot of tedious work done on my 00 layout, ballasting included, during the lock down and now need to get serious and try to get my trains running as smoothly as possible. With that in mind I am considering changing over to Kadee couplers but have no experience at all of their appropriateness, use or cost, also are they okay to use on the ubiquitous late 50's early 60's era, my loco's are all Bachmann, Hornby, and Heljan, while the coaches and wagons are Bachmann and Hornby. What do I need to establish before I go buying heaps of these couplers, are they worth the time, money and trouble to install, will they give me trouble free coupling of rolling stock, how difficult are they to install? Apologies if all this is basic stuff but I am afraid that is the level of my knowledge and skills set on these, all suggestions and help greatly appreciated.

Hi, Just thought I would share my involvement in what at the time was a new venture for Irish Rail and ts commuter/suburban rail services following the success of the Dart service. It was planned to launch a commuter service linking initially Dublin with Kildare and later onwards to Portlaoise which would alleviate the pressure on the existing mainline routes south from Dublin and making use of dedicated new double tracking along the existing track way. I worked as a coachbuilder in Irish Rail and its original parent company of CIE from 1967 firstly as an apprentice and ended up in Inchicore Works after many postings around Dublin in both train and bus maintenance depots which included the 1980's when the kit built rail coaches were produced in Inchicore from BREL design as a response to a number of horrific accidents in which old style rolling stock had played a major part in the number of injuries and fatalities. In the early 1990's I was asked to take on a new project which was meant to allow train drivers an insight and input to the proposed new Arrow trains so, hopefully, ironing out as many hitches as possible in advance of their production in Japan. The idea was to build a full size prototype of a driving car which would include the cab and a section taking in the first doorways back from there and a couple of passenger windows etc. All that was provided were a set of detailed drawings and some space in which to work along with the assistance on an apprentice, there was the freedom to have materials machined and processed as it was felt needed, the initial materials were lots of 8x4 sheets of 3/4 plywood and plenty of 2 inch angle iron, there was no proper bogie so the sub frame was made from the angle iron and of course was static and had to be positioned from time to time by forklifts. The structural pillars and roof cross members were struck out, based on the drawings, on multiple sheets of plywood as a single unit and machined and separated so to be able to assemble pillars and cross members on the sub frame which represented the height and width of the coach body. It proved to be a very satisfying effort and a great sense of achievement but obviously there was a lot of head scratching which was eased by great back up from the drawing office staff, the drivers cab had the basic components fitted out so as to allow teams of drivers to come and inspect how the cabs would be laid out and suggest where improvements could be made before the orders to build were finalised. In all the task took approximately six months and the completed prototype was entered and took part in the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Dublin, as a promotional exercise, before being broken up and scrapped when the "real" stock was delivered and up and running which was 1994 I believe.

Thanks Richard.

Thank you, I quoted a 3v transformer as the leds were advertised as only to be used with 3v, I have test wired three leds to a mobile phone charger and those are working with no resistors added and no blow outs so far. Really no idea what voltage that mobile charger is rated as it's quite old and the details are blurred on the casing. I will plough on so and order that speaker cable and see how that goes.

Thanks again, I think I have the grasp of the different wiring methods and will most likely opt to use a bus wire, any thoughts on the strength of cable to use as the bus wire, I hope to source some from Screwfix but the choice is bewildering (to me at least!). I copped some reasonably priced drums of 2 core speaker cable and was hoping that might do the job, the wires coming from the leds themselves seem very fine so presumably a stronger cable is required for the bus wire, any minimum sizes I should be looking at?

Apologies for the delay but I have been busy building a timber shed from scratch for my son nd it took rather longer than anticipated so no railway work done for a while, Can anyone please explain the difference between wiring the leds in parallel as against wiring them in series,and what exactly each term means for a complete electrics dunce like me. Also can I use the likes of speaker cable to run a bus wire round the layout for the leds, I have used a bus wire for point motor wiring, a lot stronger than speaker cable let me add, so I at least have some knowledge there!

Again many thanks to all respondents, lots of clear advice in those and previous replies, I can feel my confidence growing already, time to get ordering in those resistors and search the house, or more likely the kids houses, for suitable transformers.

Many thanks to all respondents, looks like I need to swot up a bit more than expected, my knowledge and grasp of electrics is really poor and unfortunately much of the terminology leaves me blank, sad thing is that the likes of Maplins going out of business cuts out a reliable source of direct conversation with knowledgeable staff and a ready made source of supplies. As I am not UK resident and ordering of parts will have to b done by phone/email would the likes of Eileen's Emporium be a good alternative from which to glean one on one info and advice as well supplying whatever is needed by way of parts?

Hi, Just took possession of lots of single leds plus street lamps and platform lamps to try and illuminate areas of my layout, for which i believe I can use nothing higher than 3 volt transformer/s. Question is which type of transformer and how many do I need? Is there a ratio or limit to how many leds one transformer will power, will using more than the prescribed amount of leds per transformer result in their being dimmed somewhat, which may not be a bad thing for house lighting for example. As you can see electrics is very far from my strong point so any info in a dumbed down mode would be really appreciated, thanks.

Thanks, Initially I want to try the shim method so if anyone can let me know just how and where to place the shim (and its size/thickness) that would be great.

Apologies as I know this has been done to death but maybe some kind soul/s might condescend to help me out, what are the basics of the plastic shim remedy for the vee gap in set track points? If I am running short wheel-based wagons say or some steam tenders there is what appears to be a tendency for wheels to drop into the gap in that area causing derailments, I recall people fixing that with the shim method but I need the size/type/thickness of plastic and exactly where to place it, also advice on the type of adhesive to use please if possible.

Sorry about the delay in responding, I also had some domestic advice regarding trying the pestle and mortar idea and might give it a go, nothing to lose on it anyway, thanks.

Great stuff, I obviously did not recall the mixed gauge sizes correctly, hard to know what people consider a large layout but it looks like an awful lot of ballast will be needed hence the interest in bulk supplies of the material. The sieve I have used so far is giving me roughly the same size as the Hattons 00 size ballast which will include some finer stuff given how small the flour sieve holes are, am I being too greedy in trying to extract more material from the IKEA bags as I am getting about only 25% of usable material from those.

I have never done any ballasting before and I ordered some 00 ballast from Hattons but haven't used any yet, however I came across a thing called pumice stone in IKEA (used for propagating plants apparently) and saw it could be used as ballast. The difficulty is a lot of the product is too large to be realistic as 00 gauge ballast so therefore needs to be sieved. I have already used the kitchen flour sieve but am wondering if there is any other type of sieve that might allow for a slightly larger (but realistic) fall through as the amount of stuff getting through the flour sieve is not great but it measures up well against the Hattons product for 00 scale. Is it the case that some people have used a mixture of 0 and 00 ballast on 00 gauge layouts and if so in what proportions?

Thanks Rab, Funny enough that's the first tie I have been aware of that typo, your poster gag is very good.

Again many thanks for all your interest and responses.

Thanks again to all respondents, some good ideas there.

Thanks to all for your very prompt replies, the photo of the Presbyterian church is especially evocative but perhaps not quite what is needed, the KINGSWAY Bethnal Green model is probably too grand but their St Judes model looks appealing both in size and aesthetics. I have never used card models other then superquick or Metcalfe (which I have a preference for), can you only get KINGSWAY from the manufacturer and in general how would they rate in terms of construction difficulty compared to Metcalfe?