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Ok SRman... you seem to have lost your normal zeal for British railways and buses... what's with all the European stuff... can sort of understand the Sydney unit... any how must discuss the trip tomorrow to sandown! 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Nostalgia, Doug: I so enjoyed the trip to Copenhagen and on their rail system through to Hamburg that I had to get a few models to remind myself of that trip. I want to do it all again! I am limiting it to four main trains - three passenger, one freight -  and three German locos and two Danish ones, once I can get the A.C.M.E. DSB EA electric loco that's due out soon. Then it will be back to British. :)

Still in keeping with my Danish/European sub-theme, I managed to purchase a reasonably priced ESU LokSound v. 4 decoder brand new. I downloaded a sound file from ESU's online libraries of sound projects for a Danish DSB ME diesel-electric locomotive and fitted the decoder into my HobbyTrade example of this locomotive type.

 

I used two differently sized 'sugar cube' speakers to get a better tonal range - the bigger double with large sound chamber I wanted to put in was too big to fit. I wasn't thinking and instead of wiring them in parallel to achieve a 4 ohm total rating, I wired them in series, giving 16 ohm impedance, but it actually worked very well this way, with nice clear and loud sound: loud enough that I had to turn the volume down quite a lot with CV 63 now set to 80 instead of the default 192. I think the horn volumes may need to be increased a little though, which is possible but I'll have to look for the correct CV values for those two sound slots.

 


 

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A small improvement at the loco/goods yard entry: I have made up some gates using the Gaugemaster Fordhampton level crossing kit without the roadway parts. At this point they are unpainted, but I will be painting and weathering them in due course. I used the bracing wire differently from the instructions: I drilled the posts at either end of the gate itself and ran the wire as a diagonal brace above the top of the gate.

They are being used as an occupation crossing, so open outwards rather than across the tracks. I will have to post suitable signs up in the near future too. The design and build was obviously conceived by Bloody Stupid Johnson, because the gate on the inner side of the curve is hinged on the left, meaning it has to be swung open through nearly 270 degrees! Any sensible designer would have have hinged it on the right so it only had to open and park beside the turntable. :D

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P_20190330_132804_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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P_20190330_132746_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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  • 2 weeks later...

Small improvements that make a bigger impact visually: I have been planting some greenery along the alignment of the programming track, and above one of the tunnel entrances.

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P_20190408_161020_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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P_20190408_161046_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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P_20190408_161106_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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P_20190408_161157_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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... And three more of the burdock plants made up and positioned but not yet glued down. I have tried to make these a little less 'flat' than the previous ones. They join the existing couple previously made up and now permanently fixed. I have enough material left in the kit to make two or three more of these plants.

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P_20190409_213511_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

46847349484_87ed7100ef_b.jpgP_20190409_213530_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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I have now added a few more of these 'little' details: weeds and undergrowth items from Busch this time, plus some Langley metal bollards and a warning sign for the level crossing.

Lots more to do but it does make the scenes look a little more complete (if there is such a thing as completeness where model railways are concerned!).

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P_20190410_104426_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Is that possibly Lovejoy's borrowed Morris Minor there?


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P_20190410_104457_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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P_20190410_104546_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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P_20190410_104648_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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I'm still 'building' plants and placing them on the layout. The latest ones are from Busch and are plastic 'wild lupins'. They are fiddly to put together with each stem (with or without leaves), and each lupin head being a separate moulding, needing to be snipped off the sprues and glued together, then planted into a moulded base with holes.

I have placed the ones done so far around two locations on the layout, but none are in their final positions. I will be doing something about blending the bases into the scenery properly once I decide where they really belong.

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P_20190428_233823_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

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P_20190428_233754_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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I have been rearranging the undergrowth and flowers a little, today. I concentrated the undergrowth plants in smaller areas, and shifted all of the lupins I have done so far to the flower bed at the end of the church.

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P_20190504_095048_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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P_20190504_095103_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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P_20190504_095121_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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P_20190504_095308_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


I like the effect of the lupins, but I'm still not sure I have the other areas looking 'right' yet.

Edited by SRman
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Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore,
Riding through the night.
Soon every lupin in the land
Will be in his mighty hand
He steals them from the rich
And gives them to the poor
Mr Moore, Mr Moore, Mr Moore.

 

Better watch out.

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  • 2 weeks later...

An unusual visitor to Newton Broadway: a Model Rail Magazine LNER J70 locomotive, 7139.

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P_20190511_214111_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


The loco actually belongs to my good friend DougN, of this parish. I gave Doug a Bachmann 36-568 6-pin decoder to use with the loco. The decoder sat rather loosely in the socket, and absolutely refused to be read, either on Doug's Digitrax system or my NCE system. I tried trimming the pins and even bending them to force them to sit more firmly in the sockets, to no avail. I ended up bringing it home with me after the read failure on the Digitrax system, and swapped a rather anonymous blue shrink-wrapped decoder into it, and it worked first go. The decoder read as a Soundtraxx one, but further digging revealed it was the earlier, less sophisticated Bachmann 36-558 version (36-568 is a rather good Zimo product).

Anyway, Doug has a working locomotive on DCC, and I had a dud decoder. Or was it? I decided to test it in something else before writing it off. A Hatton's P class 0-6-0T was the perfect candidate, particularly as it already had a Bachmann 36-568 decoder in it, so I knew it was a workable combination. The swap was completed, the loco placed on the programming track, and it lived! I have no idea why it resisted all attempts when in the J70.

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IMG_20180607_204715 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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More gardening, and a little farming to report!

Further to completing more lupins, I have also been assembling some roses from the same manufacturer. I have experimentally placed them along the access roadway to the cemetery.

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P_20190520_221544_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

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P_20190520_221534_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

At the other end of that side of the layout, I have been trying out a few ideas for the farm corner at the very back of the layout. I decided it would be easier to work on it off the layout, so cut a slab of expanded polystyrene to suit. This will be landscaped further later. I also want to terrace the farm a little. The lane passing the farm, and providing access to it, occupies a small part of this scenic 'board' as well, and will gain a few slight undulations in due course. I have sculpted the side of the embankment and the ends into varying slopes since taking the photos. The lane will be just over one car, or tractor, wide.

The buildings are mostly from Hornby's Skaledale Holly Farm range, with roofs painted grey rather than their original black.

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P_20190519_143909_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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P_20190519_143919_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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Thanks SRman, the garden shed on wheels does run rather nicely now. I do however have to give it a serious run in on the layout. 

 

I rather like the farm. Good idea to make it separately from the layout as it is hard to get into that corner. Painting the roofs works nicely. Can I suggest you invest in the same Knauf board I am using as this is stiffer and stronger. it will make adding and removing easiler than the EPS. 

 

Chat soon

 

Doug

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My recently purchased experimental blue class 30 D5578 has found its way onto the workbench again.

I bought it knowing that one of the side windows was missing (it was accurately portrayed in the photos on eBay), and that the buffer beam cowlings were missing as well. I got it at a bargain price, considering it was sound-fitted, being a code 3 repaint of a factory-fitted Railfreight model. This is the super-detailed model with central can motor and flywheels driving all six axles (which is actually two more driven axles than the real locomotives have!).

The side window was reglazed with a suitable piece of clear plastic, but I will have to restore the handrail bars at some stage.

Initially it refused to run - something was sticking in the motor or transmission, but I got that cleared. Then there was a slight clicking as it ran, but it ran smoothly enough. Subsequently, it would stop occasionally with the driven wheels slipping but two of the axles not being driven. On investigation, I found that the two inner axles (one on each bogie) had so much side-play they were going out of engagement with the rest of the drive train gears. Removing the base plates of each bogie (each has six clips retaining it) showed that for some reason, Hornby have the axle gears near on the centreline, while all of the drive train gears are off-set to one side. When the axles were moving sideways, the gears were moving just enough out of line to lose engagement. The side frames of the bogies help to locate the axles and limit the side-play, but have a tendency to bow outwards slightly towards the ends. The sideframes have spigots that go into hollow posts projecting horizontally out from the inner bogie frame.

After some head scratching, I came up with the idea of trimming the ends off the hollow posts on one side only (the side opposite the sde the gears are on) of the main bogie frame, clipping off approximately 1mm or less from the outer ends to just close up the amount of side-play and forcing the axles over towards the gear train. I used a sprue cutter to do this.

Pushing the sideframes back into the spigots then clipping the base plates back on also locks the sideframes into place. The slight reduction in the width between sideframes has also limited the amount of side-play in the axles and means the loco now behaves properly with no loss of drive to any of the axles.

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P_20190522_200045_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

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FWIW someone in the UK has preserved a 31 in this livery, numbered as D5578 although I don't think it's the actual loco.

 

If we ever get the Search function back in Flickr, after their recent "improvements", it might be possible to see if it has the under-buffer valances, if not you've modelled the preserved example!

 

Really liked the pic of your DB 120.1 model, I remember the production series being delivered at the end of the '80's. As you may know, there was quite a time lapse between the building of the first five prototypes, and the main run. I've hopefully attached a shot at Wuerzburg in 1984 of one of the first five.

 

John.

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Thanks for that pic, John. Lots of detail in there, as well as the very smart loco.

As for the 31 cowlings, I should have pointed out that they were never fitted to this model in the first place, being based on the modern Railfreight example from Hornby. I will have to do the same as I did for my Lima body on Hornby RailRoad chassis, and fabricate some cowlings out of plastic card. the most difficult part of that will be matching the blue paint colour.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Two new additions to the goods stock on Newton Broadway are these Parkside kits I have been building as a quick and easy project. Both are BR 24.5 ton mineral wagons. I could not find many pics of the real ones so used some generic weathering ideas from the similar looking 21 ton wagons. I chose to do the white end door indicator stripes in different fashions as well, also based on photos, although not of the specific wagons I have chosen. The underframes could do with a small amount of extra detailing, such as the rod linkage for the brake gear, and also need a little further weathering, but overall I am quite pleased with the effects I have achieved.

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P_20190606_160548_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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Another 'new' loco has made its appearance on Newton Broadway. This Hornby Bulleid West Country started off as a Battle of Britain, 34067 Tangmere, before its previous owner repainted and renamed it into his fictional railway's no 53. He had also hard-wired a Hornby decoder in and added two front headlights. I got it for a pretty fair price off eBay, and when I received it, it worked well enough, although the Hornby decoder was a little jerky on starts but otherwise fine, but I am not a fan of Hornby basic decoders anyway. I rewired it with a Lenz Standard+ decoder, which made it a lot smoother on the starts and stops. 

I repainted her into BR green and added orange/black/orange lining, etched name plates and crests, etched smokebox number plate, an early BR crest on each side of the tender, and new cabside numbers, to produce West Country 34019, Bideford. There is a small amount of work still to do, a couple of minor touch-ups and fix a couple of slightly wonky bits of lining, but overall it has come up well.

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P_20190610_185202_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Edited by SRman
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5 hours ago, DougN said:

I think you should slow down at about 110!



Ah, but don't forget I can model some 60 of the same locos in rebuilt and original forms, plus in different liveries! ;)

Then there are the 30 'heavy' pacifics, the Merchant Navies: 60 (or more) of them to do in original and rebuilt forms.

Going back to 34019, I actually considered doing it as one of the Battle of Britain locos that received the experimental apple green livery (a sharper and less attractive shade than LNER greens), with BR mixed traffic lining. I have the right name and number plates for one of those.

p.s. Would you like to assist me in building a 50' extension on the house to give me a tad more storage space for all of the above? :jester:

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have been fixing up what has long been a minor annoyance: Hornby's otherwise superb model of the Maunsell S15 4-6-0 no. 30830 had the cabside number on one side on a slight downward slope. This was common to the whole production batch. I got out the cotton buds and T-cut and polished off the numbers on either side of the central '8' - a slightly harder job for me as I had weathered and varnished the loco previously. I chose to retain the '8' as a reference point for the rest.

I dug out the HMRS pressfix transfers, which were an exact match for the size of numerals. I carefully applied a strip of Tamiya masking tape below the remaining numeral and aligned it very carefully so it was parallel to the footplate. Then, to make sure there were no slight colour differences, started with the '8' from the HMRS sheet, then worked on the numbers on either side. 

I am aware that the spacing has gone slightly adrift, but I will fix that before varnishing the cabside again and blending the weathering back in.

The first pic shows the 'before' with the slightly sloping number, the next two show it as it is before I do further fixing up.

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S15 edited by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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P_20190628_210003_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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P_20190628_210019_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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I had a quiet and relaxing Sunday morning running session with some of my European trains again today. After a while I decided to take a few videos of the trains as they ran around the double-tracked high level main line.

The running trains include a mixed freight hauled by Piko Hobby (i.e. a basic model) DB BR 185 540, Kassel Huskies, with wagons from mainly Piko and Roco. In the other direction, sharing a track, are a Heljan DSB IC3 in Swedish State Railways (SJ) Y2 guise, and a Brawa DB double deck set propelled by Piko Expert (i.e. has all the 'bells and whistles', so to speak) DB Br 112 121. I discovered that F12/13/14 will dim the coach lighting in each individual coach of the double deck set - these Brawa models are really fully-featured, and included a PLuX22 decoder which works all three coaches, and even any further matching coaches added to the rake.

One thing I have not mastered yet with the Brawa set is the coupling arrangement. They provide a template piece that is supposed to guide the couplings together or allow easy uncoupling: I always end up giving up on this and inverting the set onto the adjacent track and doing it manually, so far! :D

 

 

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I have long intended to add a small rise or mound leading up to the bridge sides, to get away from the flat baseboard appearance along the front, while not blocking the view of trains. Work commenced yesterday with a block of foam, followed this morning with a coat of hurricane grey paint, and some scenic grasses this afternoon. The glue is still wet in these photos, and there is plenty of loose scatter material to vacuum up once it has dried, but this gives an impression of the final look. The bridge has been shifted slightly to one side to prevent it accidentally being glued down, as it has to remain removable.

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P_20190703_161022_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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P_20190703_161042_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

 

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