Jack's Present Day Workbench - Coaches of Many Colours

[Jack374]

Thanks for the support Jack and Jo 🙂

 

The last couple of weeks I’ve managed a bit more on the support coach for Duchess of Sutherland. Cosmetically, both ends have had details removed (such as steps and roof boards) with a sharp craft knife, and both ends have been painted black.

 

 

Underneath, I’ve added steps and the LPG cupboard. The battery box on the LPG side was cut off and repositioned, working from prototype pics. New components were painted matt black, and step edges and tyres painted white, again working from images of the real thing.

 

 

Electrically, I added 2 pickup wires in the tender, simply soldered to the tender pickups atop the chassis and fed through two holes, terminated at a 2-pin plug. The socket on the coach chassis can be seen in the above pic, bottom left.

 

 

Inside the coach, I mounted a 25mm square 'megabass' speaker from Roads and Rails as close to the tender as possible. The edges had to be filed to a chamfer to allow the body to seat properly. This is fed from a Hornby TTS Princess Coronation decoder. I removed the class 150 circuitry and added an 8-pin socket, with connections for the motor, pickups and tender pickups/2-pin plug. The switch visible is simply to cut sound to the speaker, should I ever want to push anything other the the Duchess!

 

 

The weights strapped to the chassis are visible above. I’m not sure it needs it, but this now brings the weight up to 576g - heavier than an old tooling Bachmann 37 and certainly the heaviest item of coaching stock I know of! This should be more than enough to shift 11 coaches and push the free-rolling kettle!

 

 

This is as far as I can take the support coach now, until I receive the transfers from Railtec.

 

The Network Rail RTOV has had cab windows added, cut from 1mm clear styrene sheet.

 

 

And Stenson Models disc brake etches have been added to all the wheels:

 

 

Next for this coach is fitting the light board, then I need to sort out a coupling. I’m currently experimenting with magnets…and I've decided the RTOV needs pickup power from the TSO as well…I’ll hopefully have a solution in the next post.

 

Thanks,

Jack.

[Jack374]

Over the last few weeks, modelling has provided a nice distraction from train driver rules, as well as cycling in the nice weather.

 

I’ve now finished the NR coaches. This included fitting light boards made from copperclad and 0603 LEDs, simply wired up to the front/rear light outputs on a Train O Matic function only decoder.

 

 

The lights are powered from the pickups on both coaches, with a homemade coupling between the two. This is a 4mm round magnet encased in plastic strip, with two strips of adhesive copper tape over the magnet - insulated from shorting on the magnet face with insulation tape. Wires soldered to this are routed into each coach.

 

 

Once I’d reassembled the coaches, I decided I’d try and sort the gap between the coach corridor connectors. I used the tried and tested method of black card folded and cut to form a concertina assembly, which looks a lot better than the originals.

 

 

To round off, here is the train so far. I’ve got a generator coach to finish as well which will complete the set.

 

 

Onto something completely different (but another colour of coach), I’ve also signed off my 2x DRS MK2a escort coaches. These are the original Model Rail Bachmann releases, which I’d already weathered, and added a tail lamp to one. However, a few years back I decided to update them to post-2014 condition, with black roofs and no curtains in the windows. The roof was an easy mod, but I thought I could use white spirit on the printed window curtains. That went badly, but not as badly as trying to remove the ridiculously strong glazing glue, which broke most of the windows.

 

Thanks to @newbryford's kind donation of some replacement glazing, all I had to do was paint the window frames blue:

 

 

Also while I was at it, I replaced the battery-operated tail lamp with a track-powered arrangement, powered from DCC Concepts wheels. These I first painted up, then mounted with a switch to turn off the lamp if required. Each bogie only picks up one rail on both axles, thus requiring one wire per bogie.

 

The track power was fed to a bridge rectifier (4x diodes) and smoothing capacitor, with a suitable resistor (660 Ohm) added. The cap has the dual effect of smoothing the supply from the bridge rectifier, but being 330uF it has enough power to act as a stay alive.

 

 

The setup fits well in the guard's compartment:

 

 

To finish, I’ve attempted to represent to mirrored window film added to the coach windows, done with aluminium tape on card and glued in place. This final touch adds to the mystery surrounding these coaches and those who travel on them!

 

 

Next projects to be finished will be the large logo 37s and Duchess' support coach I hope, depending how much time and mojo I can find!

 

Thanks,

Jack.

[JackB95]

That's a smart bit of work! Awesome. 

[Jack374]

Cheers Jack!

 

Over the last week I’ve been on leave so have done a spurt of modelling before I go away for 4 weeks minimum. I decided to get the airbrush out as I had a nice queue of projects waiting to be finished.

 

My RHTT set has been waiting for weathering for a while. I showed how I faded the blue using washes of white applied with a brush, and to finish off it received a coating of frame dirt. I did this with the location of the spray in mind, as looking at the real thing a few days into the season shows some cleaner areas which are out of the spray direction. I’ve tried to replicate this and think the result is good for the very start of the RHTT season.

 

 

I also lightly coated my NR coaches, PFA and support coach underframe.

 

 

And to complete the airbrushing, 37407 and 37424 have been weathered. This started with brushing a dirty wash in the grilles and roof, and all over on 424 (which I’m portraying as dirtier than 407), then frame dirt sprayed on the underframe and roof. I made sure to mask off the side windows and windscreen-wiped areas first! Differing amounts of black were sprayed around the exhaust too.

 

 

Aside from covering stuff in grime, this week I received a lovely package from Revolution, containing a pair of FNA-Ds. Naturally, I set to work modifying them 😁 thankfully I only wanted to add a couple of individual touches - otherwise they’re stunning models. I replaced the tension locks with my homemade magnetic couplings, which allow the buffers to touch on the straight while still negotiating pointwork.

 

 

To run the models as empty, I cut some pieces of Tamiya masking tape to cover the warning placards, then coloured them black with Sharpie. This is only temporary before I weather them, to run a delivery trip with someone else’s wagons at Wakefield exhibition…. 👀

 

 

As I say, I doubt much will get done in the next few weeks so the next post might be of some stock on Fordley and/or Deadmans Lane.

 

Thanks,

Jack.

[WCML100]

Some seriously good work their mate!

 

RHTT and support coaches look especially on the money! Look forward to seeing the stock on deadmans lane 😃