SRman's Current Layout - Newton Broadway

[SRman]

A minor update for Newton Broadway layout: with assistance from Mrs SRman, I have now levelled the backscene properly along the western end. I had accidentally introduced a slight slope downwards towards the left in my hurry to get it all up for the BRMA meeting.

 

 

 

 

As a small distraction, I decided to de-brand the two Dapol JHA wagons I had in the earlier Yeoman livery. The first side I did was not entirely successful: I used some Fox transfers straight over the previous Yeoman banner. Unfortunately the transfers were slightly translucent. I then tried to disguise this with some graffiti transfers. The other side of the same wagon, and the two sides of the second wagon were cleared using T-cut and a little elbow grease. I have left the bottom blue "skirts" at this stage because they have all the wagon data panels. If I can replace those, I can complete the job with the T-cut method.

 

The first pic shows the 'before'.

 

 

Second pic: the first side done, with the second wagon still in original form.

 

 

 

The remaining two photos show the wagons from their opposite sides.

 

 

 

[SRman]

Work has been proceeding on the Wills stone viaduct, with the various gaps filled: Wills coarse stone for the bigger ones, and plasticard for the decking, plus filler for smaller gaps, and some Plastruct girders to reinforce some of the joints and to act as spacers in the rejigged piers.

I still have two small remaining bits to fill in the parapet walls, plus a few small bits of wall capping, and the whole lot has to be painted again to blend everything together.

Some of the progress photos follow. I slotted it into place to test the fit and to see if I had covered all the gaps between bridges.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's not perfect, but once it has been completed to my satisfaction, I can glue it into place and build up a little scenery around the bottoms of the piers. Stay tuned to this channel ...

 

 

Edited May 5 by SRman
Additional text.

[SRman]

I've been busy modelling-wise over the last two days.

 

The EFE Bulleid Booster loco, 20002 was fitted with a sound decoder yesterday and Legomanbiffo sound installed late last night, then fine-tuned and tweaked today. I have left the original speaker in it for now, but it definitely needs a better one (or two!).

The work on the Wills viaduct has continued, with the final gaps filled (but I missed one small gap in the floor/parapet join that won't normally be seen anyway), then painted yesterday and given grey and brown washes today. Any remaining paintwork can be fixed or improved in situ. I reinstalled it, reinstated the track, and tested the running and clearances. It all worked perfectly, thankfully. I can probably glue it down now to stop it being accidentally knocked.
 

 

 

The two half-price Dapol EDs I ordered arrived from Rails this morning, before I'd even got out of bed! Both have now been fitted with Zimo MX634D decoders. For some reason, even these newest batch of 73s have the default forward direction at the non-radiator end, so both have had '1' added to the CV29 values. I had to change the dip switch for the cab lights to get them to work independently on DCC, but apart from that, everything works as it should. The BR blue on 73 136 (correction: 73 126) is much better than their previous efforts. I will have to repaint the off-white on 73 126 (correction: 73 136), though, because it really should be more of a beige colour. At least there are no markings or insignia to get in the way of a straight brush-over.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 7 by SRman
Number reference corrections

[John Tomlinson]

I was looking at the lower stripe on the Inter City liveried 73 (I think you may have mixed the numbers in the post).

 

I'm not sure it is too pale, although it's always difficult to be sure from a photo. I've a feeling that some locos had a lighter shade of beige than the coaching stock, see here (click on pic for details),

 

 

It isn't something I've ever really noticed before, and will see if I can find evidence of the same effect on 73's. As ever, happy to be proved wrong!

 

John.

Edited May 7 by John Tomlinson
typos

[John Tomlinson]

Although I've found this effect on 47's, I can't do so on 73's, this is a February 1998 shot at Redhill of 73206 on the Gatwick Express,

 

 

 

I've looked at some other 73 pics as well, all with the locos matching the coaches in the deeper beige. By contrast other 47's are consistently lighter than the coaches. So sadly, it looks, on this basis, as if you may need to do a bit of painting.

 

I'd be very interested to know if anyone else can cast light on this.

 

John.

Edited May 7 by John Tomlinson
typos

[SRman]

2 hours ago, John Tomlinson said:

I was looking at the lower stripe on the Inter City liveried 73 (I think you may have mixed the numbers in the post).

 

I'm not sure it is too pale, although it's always difficult to be sure from a photo. I've a feeling that some locos had a lighter shade of beige than the coaching stock, see here (click on pic for details),

 

 

It isn't something I've ever really noticed before, and will see if I can find evidence of the same effect on 73's. As ever, happy to be proved wrong!

 

John.

 

Hi John. As far as I know, the 73s in Intercity livery always matched the coach colours. Some 47s and 37s later got the lighter lower colour, as did class 90 and 91 electrics, but I have not found any evidence of the lighter shade on 73s until the modified Gatwick Express livery came along.

p.s. I think I did mix up the numbers! 😂

[simon b]

The shade of white or beige used for the intercity livery is a bit of a red herring on a 73. 

 

In the original intercity livery with the large double arrow logo it was beige, and did match the coaches. However once the Gatwick express started to be treated as a separate brand in the late 80's the livery was changed to a white lower band, but still with intercity branding. Later after it was privatized the red stripe became thinner, and the intercity branding was removed. For a time there was unbranded versions of both running about together, what became the EWS locos kept the beige lower band. 

[SRman]

1 minute ago, simon b said:

The shade of white or beige used for the intercity livery is a bit of a red herring on a 73. 

 

In the original intercity livery with the large double arrow logo it was beige, and did match the coaches. However once the Gatwick express started to be treated as a separate brand in the late 80's the livery was changed to a white lower band, but still with intercity branding. Later after it was privatized the red stripe became thinner, and the intercity branding was removed. For a time there was unbranded versions of both running about together, what became the EWS locos kept the beige lower band. 

 

The thinner stripe on the Gatwick Express livery was also a darker shade of red - some referred to it as a plum colour, although I think of plum as being darker still. Somewhere in my own photos from a trip in the 1990s i have a photo of that newer privatised livery.

[John Tomlinson]

Thanks to you both for clearing this up.

 

Every day is a school day, as they say!

 

John.

[SRman]

This morning I fired up the soldering iron and took off the rather tinny supplied speaker from the Booster electric, and fitted two 8 ohm speakers from Roads & Rails in parallel. The 20mm square one is just black-tacked into place where the old one was and doesn't interfere with the body fitting back on (I tested that before soldering the wires!).

 

The other speaker is a rather flat profiled iPhone speaker, which just fits in under the pcb. I used double-sided tape to attach it, and had to juggle its position a little to keep it clear of the universal joint going into the bogie tower. By setting it back towards the centre of the chassis, and off-setting it to one side slightly, everything cleared, including when the bogie was turned.

I haven't done a video sound recording yet, but I can say it sounds a lot better now, with a much fuller sound quality. I'm not after outright volume, but even so, I found that a setting of 110 in CV63 seems to give a good volume for my ears.

The photos show the installation, with only the last one showing the final position of the iPhone speaker. I added the electrical tape to guard against the wire on that side accidentally contacting the chassis, as the pcb can flex rather a lot.

Note the silver arrow on the top of the motor: I put that there and a similar one inside the roof using a Sharpie, to ensure I always put the body back on the right way round.

 

 

 

 

 

[St Enodoc]

16 minutes ago, SRman said:

Note the silver arrow on the top of the motor: I put that there and a similar one inside the roof using a Sharpie, to ensure I always put the body back on the right way round.

I wonder why that failure mode wasn't designed out.

[SRman]

While Mrs SRman was out at her quilting/knitting/crochet group, I had some quiet time this morning to video a couple of different projects.

First up is the Bulleid 'booster' loco with legomanbiffo sound. This was a lower quality video I posted to keep the size down a bit (original high def. one is 1.05GB worth!).
 

 

 

 

The other project this morning was to fit a Digikeijs lighting kit to a Bachmann Mk 2A coach. I had already fitted the other two Bachmann Mark 2As with simpler Train Tech battery-operated motion-detecting lights, which are brighter than the Digikeijs ones, but leave a couple of darker spots inside. That was particularly noticeable on the compartment BFK, so that one is the one I put the Digikeijs strip in, swapping the Train Tech lighting strip into a second TSO coach. 

The video is here: 

 

 

I have included the photos of the Digikeijs lighting installation in the video, but I am posting them here as well. The pickups were modified to adapt to the Bachmann double insulated wheels - the axles are electrically dead. Also, to try to get the best from the lights, I added some strips of chrome tape along either side of the lighting strips. 

 

 

 

The Digikeijs kits (I bought two of them) also included quite a few passengers, but before I think of fitting them, I need to paint the Bachmann interiors.

 

 

Edited Monday at 02:12 by SRman
Additional info. plus spelling

[SRman]

I have just uploaded another video to YouTube, this time demonstrating some of the functions on a Bachmann LT ex-GWR pannier tank with YouChoos sounds. I had a much shorter vid up showing it trundling back and forth just after the installation was done, but before I had relocated the speaker into the boiler.

The sound is on a Zimo MS480 decoder which came from Buckambool Models in New South Wales pre-loaded with the YouChoos sounds.

 

 

 

Edited Sunday at 04:08 by SRman
Getting the embedded video link to work

[SRman]

Continuing with the Bachmann Mark 2A light fitting, I decided to tack glue the lighting strip to the top of the seating unit. The tops of all the partitions had to have a chunk snipped out of them to allow the lighting strip to sit properly and not prevent the body from clipping back on. I did that rather crudely with some sprue cutters!

Next, to bring it nearer to the Accurascale standards for the rake it is a part of, I cut and removed the section of wall along the luggage area and replaced it with some brass mesh, folded to give a crude representation of the doors into the cage. I know the mesh is way to large but I couldn't find the finer mesh I needed for this - I'm sure I have some squirrelled away somewhere.

Next I painted the interior, with orange seats (gloss but matt varnished later), and some leather brown for the tables and to give a rough representation of wood grain along the corridor walls. It's all very crudely done but even with lighting, one doesn't really see the roughness once the body is back on. I may have to do second coats of orange and grey (for the luggage area grilles and walls), but even now, trundling around the layout it seems to match the Accurascale Mark 2Bs pleasingly well.

 

I know my hand got into the last photo as it was an awkward angle taking the train in situ from the "wrong" side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SRman]

Yesterday's and today's project, which still requires a little more work, is a Lima class 31, 31 327. I always liked this one, and the Lima motor seems to have been one of the better ones, but I decided that I would upgrade the model with a new Hornby RailRoad 5-pole motor bogie and some lighting from Stickswipe (Jason Edmunds) - these come with resistors built in, making it very easy to wire them straight in. I also took the opportunity to fit a Lais 8-pin DCC socket and breakout board. 

To make it easier to separate the body and chassis, I wired a 5-pin plug, but the colours of the wires don't correspond exactly to what they should be ... for a start, the wire loom with the plug and socket set has no white wire bit has a black one. I wired the blue positive to the centre of the plug to ensure that any reversing of the connection, or erroneous wiring would not kill anything. I did test it carefully to get everything working the way I wanted. I may add cab lights later, but at present there's no cab interior so there's no point in having it illuminated inside! After having to swap a couple of my connections, I have the top headcode marker lights working directionally on F0, and the tail lights independently operated on F1 and F2, using a Zimo MX600 decoder.

I have been tidying the wires up a bit, but there are still rather a lot of them, but thankfully the Lima chassis has plenty of empty space to deal with that.

The Lima unpowered bogie was a late one with extra pickups, but still with the horrible brass wheels, so I have substituted some Hornby or Bachmann 14mm disc wheels with the pin point ends cut off. The bare power bogie (no side frames) only arrived yesterday from the New Modellers Shop, and is actually labelled as being for a class 37, but seeing as the wheelbase is exactly the same as the Liam 31, it is a reasonable substitute. The hardest job has been adapting the Lima side frames to the new drive unit with its centrally placed gears. I'm not sure my solution is as robust as I would like, but it works for now. At a later stage I may swap out the unpowered centre axles from both bogies and put in some smaller diameter wheel sets. It means they won't line up with the axleboxes properly, but will be a tad more accurate.

I fashioned a bogie mounting frame based on those Hornby use in their RailRoad locomotives, using some 1mm thick plastic sheet for the sides and 2mm thick for the top. I got clever on this and cut the sides slightly over the required height and cut 2mm wide slots at either end, and similarly, I cut the top over-width and filed the centres of the sides to leave two tabs at the ends of each side to slot into the side piece slots, giving some extra weight-bearing strength, and not relying purely on a glued joint. The glues are still curing at present, but once the superglue on the side to chassis joints has cured properly, I'll drill some #75 holes and put some brass handrail wire in to reinforce them, again to act as additional insurance for load-bearing.

For the time being I am still stuck with the massively oversized tension lock couplings, but I'll worry about engineering a better solution once I have all the other work completed satisfactorily.

I'm not doing anything more on it tonight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited yesterday at 11:49 by SRman
Additional line added

[SRman]

First thing this morning I reinforced all of the joints on the motor mounting for the Lima class 31, using a #75 drill bit and some short lengths of brass handrail wire superglued in and snipped off flush with the outside of the chassis for the lower ones, and shaped into square 'U' shaped "staples" for the upper joints (which didn't need to be flush as there is plenty of clearance for the body to go back on.

I then connected the plug, clipped body back on, and tested again on the programming track. Without any running in for the new motor or the unused pickups (for some time), it was slightly spluttery initially but soon settled to run smoothly right down to  crawl. It also went up to a 300 mph top speed, which I quickly tamed with CV5 (top speed/maximum voltage) set to 90 and CV6 (mid-speed) set to 35. I also added my usual inertia momentum settings - CV3 = 25 and CV4 = 18, but with this motor I found they weren't sufficient, so bumped them up to CV3 = 40 and CV4 = 25, which was better.

I will have to set it going on the rolling road to run it all in, later.

I forgot to mention that I had upgraded the front end handrails to wire ones some years ago on this and another ex-Lima body. The latter has a Hornby RailRoad class 30/31 chassis under it, complete, but the times of being able to buy those cheaply seems to have passed. Additionally, I haven't found anywhere with spares for the 31, but that class 37 motor bogie was all but identical for my needs. I looked for the chassis and bogie frames but no luck, and Peter's Spares is no longer an option with his blatant profiteering on the postage to Australia. The other 31 will get a Stickswipe lighting upgrade as well, but with the difference being it is a disc headcode version.

As it is now, here are a few shots of the lighting, which may yet need a little dimming.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 7 hours ago by SRman
Fixed typo.

[DougN]

Just changing the couplings over to the new small tension locks will make the fronts look better. Is the stretcher on the same line as the coupling or is it above or below. - A solution may be to cut (saw probably) a fish tail shape into the stretcher and glue plasticard top and bottom to reinforce the joint for a new style coupling to be secured in. 

 

Its nice to see that older rollingstock can be improved to nearer the new detail levels as this is personal modelling. 

 

 

[SRman]

31 minutes ago, DougN said:

Just changing the couplings over to the new small tension locks will make the fronts look better. Is the stretcher on the same line as the coupling or is it above or below. - A solution may be to cut (saw probably) a fish tail shape into the stretcher and glue plasticard top and bottom to reinforce the joint for a new style coupling to be secured in. 

 

Its nice to see that older rollingstock can be improved to nearer the new detail levels as this is personal modelling. 

 

 

 

 

Thanks Doug. 

The couplings are in line with the stretchers, but I do like your idea of cutting/filing a fishtail in. I was thinking along the lines of cutting a rectangle out and sticking a pocket into the recess, but the fishtail idea is much better, and the finished result would be less chunky. That could also allow me to detail the buffer beams a bit.

There is one other bit of detailing I haven't done yet, and that is to add the little windscreen washer shields on each side of the centre door hump. Some small squares of plasticard will do the job, but I may have to cut a few extras to allow for them to go pinging off into the carpet.

One of the reasons I have been reinforcing the joints with wire is because the Lima plastics tend to be a bit immune to glues, so I have been using the belt and braces approach .. or the glue and wire approach! 😉🤣

 

Edited 10 hours ago by SRman

[SRman]

Another post on the Lima class 31 upgrade:

I found a couple of Lima class 73 cab interiors, which are direct fits into the class 31. Even the holes in the chassis sides line up. They are fairly crude and simplistic mouldings, but are still better than no cab at all.

I made an effort to tidy up the wires from the lights inside the body shell, with a thought to how the tail light units would clear the new cab interiors. I had to cut the control desks off to give sufficient clearance to get the body on past the light units and wires. Got it all together and it had problems. 🙄

Something was shorting intermittently. All lights were working but the motor would run in one direction only. Off came the body, lights were unplugged and the chassis was tested. It would still only run in one direction. The decoder was able to be read, but there was still an intermittent short circuit. I removed the decoder and put a blanking plug in, and it ran perfectly both ways.

I went over all the connections with a fine-tooth comb ... and my Optivisor. Eventually I spotted that the lower brush terminal was bent down slightly, just enough to occasionally contact the pickup strip just below it. A quick bend upwards left it well clear of the pickup strip. Tested again on DC and still fine, as it should be. Before putting the decoder back in, I tested that on the decoder tester and found that it would not drive the test motor forwards, so that looks like it is partly fried. Reverse worked, and all lighting circuits were still fine, so that may become another function only decoder for the future.

I put anther Zimo MX600 in (my last one of those), and tested it and all was well again. The body is back on, the wires are not trailing across the cab windows or stopping the body from going back on, and the new decoder was tuned to the same settings as the old one, and the locomotive runs sweetly again.

The photos show the tidied wiring in the body, and the new cab interiors in the chassis (before cutting the desks off). You can also see the wire reinforcements in the new motor mount. I may paint that black later, but it really doesn't show much with the body on.

 

 

 

[St Enodoc]

7 hours ago, SRman said:

Peter's Spares is no longer an option with his blatant profiteering on the postage to Australia.

My "agree" referred to this statement.