SouthernMafia's Projects & Portland - a 'what might have been' NSE layout in Dorset

[Rhysb]

12 hours ago, SouthernMafia said:

 

Thanks, I feel lucky to have been able to build it up over the years. The problem with having an interest in early 90s NSE, mid-90s privatisation, and the 2000s is there's always something to add to the shopping list !

 

Never a truer word!

 

Rhys

[SouthernMafia]

16 hours ago, Craig1989 said:

Did you have to mill any of the chassis out to get the EM2 in? 

 

In the 73? No. The EM2 is in a free running Lima chassis, there's loads of room and all I did was remove the big weight. I think you might be able to get one in a Dapol 73 chassis relatively easily though, there's lots of space as I discovered when I put a custom speaker and enclosure in the gap.

 

 

This does however have a Lima body on it (NSE 73129) so it might not work as well with the Dapol version. I'll have to try it as I've got a spare EM2 now!

[Craig1989]

Ok thanks I’ve got 2 gbrf ones with legoman biffo and bass reflex speakers in but would like to know if you can get an em2 in a Dapol one 

[SouthernMafia]

Bachmann 2-HAP arrived today, excellent model and very 

pleased with it. However there's a fair bit of light bleed into the cab from the headcode LED, added some black plasticard strips to prevent this. Also yellowed the LEDs, and changed the headcode to something more suitable for me! Oh and taken the Kent Coast logos off too. Just need some juice rail on Portland now!

 

 

 

 

I've also made a start on a BEP/CEP conversion (haven't decided which yet), doing it the hard way without brass sides for now. The end coaches are pretty easy to be fair, the brake coach will be slightly more difficult, I may have to cut n shut something from another MK1.

 

 

 

[SouthernMafia]

Things have been progressing well with various projects due to having to self-isolate, luckily I'm negative!  Lots of sound decoder and speaker installs/upgrades in various locos, and I've now bought a Lokprogrammer for sound installs at home. Downloaded some of the free ESU files (including a Class 66) and quite impressed with them!

 

One thing I've always wanted to get right was decent photographs of models using Focus Stacking techniques. Having acquired a new smart phone this week I wondered whether we were there yet with this years almost top spec Samsung, but alas not! The phone/camera is capable of taking differently focused shots in quick succession, but I cannot find any phone app that will process them on the phone. Previously I used Photoshop, but it's a bit time consuming, so took a look at Helicon who had a Black Friday deal on. Very impressed with the ease of use and processing time, so much quicker. I've got a mini tripod arriving this week for the phone, but in the meantime here's the first test shot which has come out ok. I haven't focused the front very well (original included for comparison), but the capability of the program is clear to see, so looking forward to getting to grips with doing this more. Now I just need a decently scenic-ed layout to take nice photos of my stock ! 

 

One of the original images:

 

Combination of 3 images:

[SouthernMafia]

Been fettling with sound installs this week, including the new Biffo 58, and a different speaker in the Hattons 66. Couple of videos for you:

 

 

 

There's also been some sand added to the Wool sand train, about time!

[SouthernMafia]

Happy New Year to all. Another lockdown, excellent more modelling time then! Here's what I've been getting up to recently. 

 

Finally started on some reballasting of the new track in the Yard. 

 

 

 

As the ballast stock pile was out I set about adding some loads to my Wool sand rake and NR IOAs, using foam bases:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also been fiddling with my sound 37s, in particular 37057 which is quite an early Bachmann model and has always been a noisy runner. This received a new chassis and now runs very smoothly. As part of the process I've been tweaking the wiring and lighting set up, and now have independently controlled tail lights, and can also keep headlights on regardless of direction for shunting,  as per video below:

 

 

Aux 1 and Aux 2 are wired to tabs 2 and 3 to control the tailights, and underframe switches removed. Logic is then tweaked on the LokProgrammer to get them to do what I want.

 

 

 

This very nice Cardiff Rod Mill SEA wagon was acquired, looks the part for my Hamworthy steel train:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 8, 2021 by SouthernMafia

[SouthernMafia]

I think most agree that the factory fitted speakers in the 158/159 are pretty useless for any decent sound quality. So I set about upgrading them.

 

The internals of the 158/9 are very impressive, some real thought has gone into it. Why couldn't they give the same thought to the speaker set up!? Best way to get the body off is remove the coupling and front skirt, then leverage that end up first with a screwdriver.

 

Two 8ohm speakers have been fitted in the underframe, Bachmann have helpfully wired their circuit boards for two speakers in parallel so this gives the 4ohms.

 

In the coach without the decoder, it's easy enough to slot the speaker into the space where the decoder would be:

 

 

 

The piece of false floor with some engine bits on it will be modified and refitted. The speaker is wired to the S1 and S2 pins on the circuit board end, where the main coupling connector is wired to.

 

The coach with the decoder in it required a bit more work. The small weights were removed, and a hole cut in the floor. Again, underframe bits modified and refitted:

 

 

 

The speaker here is wired direct to the decoder, as it's closer. Because of the circuit boards sitting on top, you can't build a sound chamber onto the speaker. However, whilst not sealed completely, the body does a good job of providing a sound chamber, and it's a vast improvement. I haven't got much operational track at the moment to test, but here's a short video. The sound file is Biffo:

 

 

I hope to get up on the club layout soon to do a proper comparison with my other 159. I'm optimistic at getting an EM1 in the second 159.

 

 

[SouthernMafia]

After doing a fair bit of research into Hamworthy steel trains I decided it was about time the BDA wagons got brought up to some sort of standard. The first task is to weather the decks and wooden supports using various acrylic paints. I then add brass square rod stanchions, and then the loads which will either be steel rod for the Cardiff to Northam portion, or flat aluminium billet for the imported loads from Holland which came through Hamworthy back to Cardiff, often heavily rusted! 

An air brush weathering of the underframe will finish them off, but as the airbrush is packed away for the Winter at the moment this won't happen for a while.

 

So here's the clean rake of 7 behind a standard Bachmann factory "weathered" one, and an eBay procured weathered example:

 

 

 

 

Factory weathered one with new stanchions:

 

 

One nicely weathered off eBay, although I'll need to change the load:

 

 

And just because I can, 37905 on the empties back to Cardiff:

 

 

I've also weathered the deck on an Oxford Rail carflat, which is for a fictional Royal Navy transport train to Portland, conveying Land Rovers. I had one in blue already and fancied a second, as I had also bought too many Landies!

 

 

The above is also a focus stacked image taken on the phone, using Open Camera, and then processed with Helicon Focus on the PC. Here's one of the originals to show how good this software is:

 

 

 

[SouthernMafia]

Bit more progress on the BDAs which are coming along. Stanchions to add when my load materials arrive:

 

 

 

Also been working on converting a Hornby MK3 buffet to the correct TRSB style used in CrossCountry formations. Painted it up crudely to see how it looked. Further sanding required to hide the filler, and then fit some frames on the new and modified windows. The whole executive dark grey and top band will be airbrushed when complete, retaining the original Hornby colours elsewhere.

 

 

 

 

 

[SouthernMafia]

 

Got round to a decent filming session of my 159 speaker upgrade. Here's the result.

[SouthernMafia]

Following a house move I've managed to get Portland up in its entirety in the new garage!

 

 

As it's a new build I was able to check in on construction of the house and was nervously watching the garage go up wondering how wide it was. The support pillars worried me but luckily with a bit of an angle of the layout the whole thing fits! This is the first time I've achieved this at home as never really had space in its first room, and lived in various flats since then.

 

Lots going on with the house as only been in 10 days, so won't be much modelling just yet and I've got lots more model railway clutter to move up first, but hopefully I'll get Portland up and running again soon.