Tidworth - NSE circa 1990.

[Temeraire]

Morning all,

 

Just a quick thank you to the team behind the Basingstoke exhibition for their hospitality over the weekend and my operating team Chris, Rhys, Andy, Scott & Stu for their help keeping things moving for two days, I hope you all enjoyed yourselves. Also there was a 'guest' appearance by Steve (Gearjammer) who 'had a go' on Saturday afternoon.

 

Tidworth was back home and put away by 6pm last night and probably won't see the light of day until we do it all again at Brockenhurst at the end of May.

 

[Temeraire]

Evening all

 

Its been a week since the exhibition at Basingstoke and tonight I remembered that I took a couple of pics.

 

 

Last week was the first time the MoD shunter was able to play its part. After fitting a third motor/gearbox solution and a new chip and stay alive I think Paul was glad to finally see the back of it! Thanks Paul! Seen here arranging a few vans for collection by the mainline loco 270 looks at home inside the fence.

 

 

A closer view of 270 from the other direction.

 

Having given the shunter a good 'run-in' on the shed layout it performed well all weekend and only hesitated when the wheels had got dirty by Sunday lunchtime. Once they were cleaned it carried on doing what it was built for.

[PaulRhB]

3 hours ago, Temeraire said:

After fitting a third motor/gearbox solution and a new chip and stay alive I think Paul was glad to finally see the back of it!

Ha! Yeah, ironic that when I finally succumbed to building the chassis myself, which I try to avoid these days as it’s so damn fiddly, it works 🤪

Fingers crossed it beds in more and quietens down further. 

[Temeraire]

Evening all

 

So two months on from the Basingstoke Ex I started a project I've been thinking about for a while that should be ready for the New Forest Ex in Brockenhurst in a couple of weeks. The Bachmann 117 unit hadn't been weathered up until now as I was contemplating respraying the blue to the earlier lighter colour as I did previously with my Mk2 coaches. So with some time off last week and the weather more suited to paint spraying I jumped in with both feet and also included the Dapol 121 that was a different colour entirely!

 

 

Once the bodies were stripped down and the windows removed they were carefully masked and lightly blown over with Halfords grey primer to seal the edges and give the blue a key to stick to.

 

 

An hour or so later the bodies were sprayed with Halfords 'Ford Electric Monza Blue' in several light coats until happy with the colour density.

 

 

Having left the paint to go off for a couple of hours the masking was removed, which had worked perfectly, to reveal matching 3 car unit and bubblecar.

 

These pics were taken last week and since then the roof of all four have been painted with Railmatch roof dirt which makes a big difference, especially to the very light original roof of Dapol's bubble! Also I have removed the headlight and filled the holes on the 117 as they didn't have them when in the earlier blue. Over the weekend they were all matt varnished and I am waiting a few days for this to cure before weathering them and reassembling in time for the Exhibition, and I'll post some more up to date pics later this week.

 

 

[NickL2008]

1 hour ago, Temeraire said:

Evening all

 

So two months on from the Basingstoke Ex I started a project I've been thinking about for a while that should be ready for the New Forest Ex in Brockenhurst in a couple of weeks. The Bachmann 117 unit hadn't been weathered up until now as I was contemplating respraying the blue to the earlier lighter colour as I did previously with my Mk2 coaches. So with some time off last week and the weather more suited to paint spraying I jumped in with both feet and also included the Dapol 121 that was a different colour entirely!

 

 

Once the bodies were stripped down and the windows removed they were carefully masked and lightly blown over with Halfords grey primer to seal the edges and give the blue a key to stick to.

 

 

An hour or so later the bodies were sprayed with Halfords 'Ford Electric Monza Blue' in several light coats until happy with the colour density.

 

 

Having left the paint to go off for a couple of hours the masking was removed, which had worked perfectly, to reveal matching 3 car unit and bubblecar.

 

These pics were taken last week and since then the roof of all four have been painted with Railmatch roof dirt which makes a big difference, especially to the very light original roof of Dapol's bubble! Also I have removed the headlight and filled the holes on the 117 as they didn't have them when in the earlier blue. Over the weekend they were all matt varnished and I am waiting a few days for this to cure before weathering them and reassembling in time for the Exhibition, and I'll post some more up to date pics later this week.

 

 

 

Good work with the 117 and Bubblecar, recently did my model of 55022, Dapols NSE blue just is too dark, and less said about the roof the better! 

NL

[Temeraire]

Evening all

 

No pics of the finished DMU yet I’m afraid as things haven’t gone so well this week! 🙄

 

Over the last week I’ve had the layout out to repaint the outside of it to tidy it up again and partly because I was never 100% happy with the light grey colour. On the home straight in the garden I knocked one of the lamp posts off the platform and the head ‘disappeared’ into the lawn. After mowing and a rake it reappeared thankfully.

 

Last night I was going to check the running over the points on the extension as there were a few issues at the last show, but I managed to blow the decoder outputs controlling them!

 

Early this morning as I was fitting a decoder to the extension board this time for the points, a can of varnish toppled off the shelf in the garage landing on the railings on the fuel tank walkway! So today I was ready to burn it!

 

However this evening I’ve got the points working again with just a bit of reprogramming left to do, and then I can get the Superglue out and start mending things!

 

if I’m lucky and suffer no more disasters I might get the DMUs weathered and reassembled in time for Saturday.

[RAY NORWOOD]

Sorry about the bad luck, hope you got it back on track (sorry for the pun). It always happens in threes. 

[Temeraire]

Evening all

 

Well things have progressed well since my last posting when I had the matches at the ready!

 

A replacement decoder has been added to the extension board, so hopefully the mistake I made can't happen again, and all the points are working and the route setting sorted including a couple of improvements. The platform lamp is back in place and the fuel point railings have been repaired/patched up.

 

So this evening I got back on track with the DMU projects and all four vehicles were weathered and my plan is to replace the windows whilst away tomorrow night in a hotel, all being well they will be ready to go on Saturday morning!

 

 

Posed in Tidworth yard.

 

 

One end of the 117.

 

 

Looking back at the other end.

 

 

Finally a view of the 'bubble' on the fuel point.

 

Despite all the problems this week (self inflicted!) all seems to be well for the show in Brockenhurst this weekend, but overall I'm much happier with the look of the DMUs in the new (old) blue shade.

Edited May 23, 2023 by Temeraire

[Rich Papper]

Those DMUs do look a lot better that colour. Not that I think Bachmanns darker blue on them is far off (not like their first run of NSE mk2s), but this is better. Looking at mine now and wondering…

Best of luck with the glazing.

Rich

[shanks522]

Nice work on the units Ian 👌. 
 

Graham. 

[Temeraire]

39 minutes ago, Rich Papper said:

Those DMUs do look a lot better that colour. Not that I think Bachmanns darker blue on them is far off (not like their first run of NSE mk2s), but this is better. Looking at mine now and wondering…

Best of luck with the glazing.

Rich

 

Thanks Rich

 

All the time I’ve had the 117 I’ve been thinking about respraying it lighter blue, as you said the early Mk2s were way off and I did them. In the period I’m modelling they would have been the earlier blue and no headlight so I jumped in!

 

When you did the destinations in your units how did you do it? I’d like Tidworth one end and Reading the other on them.

[Rich Papper]

Hi Ian

You may well have twisted my arm there. Of course I could always get a second one and paint that ... (and re-mortgage the cat).

 

The destination blinds I did were for a variety of older conversions like the Limby 121, 115 and 119 I bashed about and were made from two rectangular LEDs with a tiny styrene box built around them and then a printed blind on the front.

 

Could use the same sheet to stick over the Bachmann light if you could get their printed one off. I've attached the Word doc I made mine on below if of any help as a starting point - easily editable. I did a variety of sizes and boldnesses (?) to see what came out the printer best and printed on glossy photo paper. Didn't need to be glossy, but my printer seems to be finer on this. I will do mine when I have it apart.

 

For a top neat job I'd have a look at Will's (@dj_crisp) changing of those on his (and plenty of DMU conversion inspiration) - his post here.

 

Looking forward to seeing it.

Rich

 

DMU Destination Blinds.docx

[Temeraire]

Hi Rich

 

Thats brilliant thanks for the file (I kinda hoped you’d offer!😉). I’ll have a bash tomorrow night when I’m back home.

 

Cheers!

[chriscleveland]

23 hours ago, Rich Papper said:

Those DMUs do look a lot better that colour. Not that I think Bachmanns darker blue on them is far off (not like their first run of NSE mk2s), but this is better. Looking at mine now and wondering…

Best of luck with the glazing.

Rich

The windows aren’t to bad to pop out I only found a few places were tricky when I repainted my one 

[chriscleveland]

On 23/05/2023 at 21:45, Temeraire said:

Evening all

 

Well things have progressed well since my last posting when I had the matches at the ready!

 

A replacement decoder has been added to the extension board, so hopefully the mistake I made can't happen again, and all the points are working and the route setting sorted including a couple of improvements. The platform lamp is back in place and the fuel point railings have been repaired/patched up.

 

So this evening I got back on track with the DMU projects and all four vehicles were weathered and my plan is to replace the windows whilst away tomorrow night in a hotel, all being well they will be ready to go on Saturday morning!

 

 

Posed in Tidworth yard.

 

 

One end of the 117.

 

 

Looking back at the other end.

 

 

Finally a view of the 'bubble' on the fuel point.

 

Despite all the problems this week (self inflicted!) all seems to be well for the show in Brockenhurst this weekend, but overall I'm much happier with the look of the DMUs in the new (old) blue shade.

Looking forward to getting to see them this weekend they look amazing and such a difference to before. 

[Andrew P]

Looking good Ian and that overall shot with the Unit is superb mate.

[Temeraire]

9 hours ago, Andrew P said:

Looking good Ian and that overall shot with the Unit is superb mate.

 

I’ll take another later with windows and it coupled together. 😉

[Temeraire]

Morning all

 

As there doesn’t seem to be an exhibition thread here for this weekends show, I’ll do a shameless plug here!

 

 

if you visit be sure to say hello.

[Andrew P]

9 minutes ago, Temeraire said:

Morning all

 

As there doesn’t seem to be an exhibition thread here for this weekends show, I’ll do a shameless plug here!

 

 

if you visit be sure to say hello.

Sorry Ian, I won't be there this year, as our Band The Silvertones have a late night Gig on Saturday @ The Vine Inn, Hambledon, (plug, plug). 🤣. Hope you have a Goodun mate.👍

[Temeraire]

Afternoon all

 

So the last part in the DMU saga!

 

 

The now fully reassembled 117 unit departs Exford Park on its way back to Tidworth for the weekend.

 

 

Accelerating into the curve towards the junction.

 

 

Meanwhile the 121 heads the opposite way on the curve.

 

 

Rear view as it slows for the station.

 

There we go then project over for now and all packed up ready for the Exhibition this weekend.

[Temeraire]

Evening all

 

Tidworth back in its storage position in the garage and take away curry consumed after an enjoyable weekend in Brockenhurst! Thanks to the New Forest club team for their hospitality and to Chris, Mike and Steve who gave the MoD shunter a hammering all weekend in a shunting world of his own! 😉

 

I’ll post some pics later this week.

[P.C.M]

Great to catch up with you and the guys Ian. Glad you had a good time.

The layout looks great and seemed to be running very well when i was watching.

A couple of pics taken on saturday.

[chriscleveland]

Great weekend out helping operate Tidworth. Layout preformed amazingly as always and looked good in its fresh coat of paint. It was good to catch up with everyone. The 117 and bubble car looked the part in the new livery too. Such a difference from the original blue. Here’s a couple of photos I managed to get when I wasn’t operating. 

[Temeraire]

12 hours ago, P.C.M said:

Great to catch up with you and the guys Ian. Glad you had a good time.

The layout looks great and seemed to be running very well when i was watching.

Thanks Pete good to see you again and safe trip home on Wednesday, same time next year eh?? 😉 The layout was on good form in general which was good after my trials earlier in the week!

[Temeraire]

Evening all

 

As promised a pictorial record of this weekend's show from me for a change as I actually took some pics this time!

 

 

As it was its first appearance in its new guise a few pics of the 117 unit, here sat in the platform. It's only now that I notice the 'Reading' end is the wrong end!

 

 

Close up from the other angle.

 

 

The London end awaits the driver as the red tail lights are still showing.

 

 

Meanwhile over in the stabling road 'Eastleigh' has been fired up and is ready to head off to the MoD sidings to pick up a train.

 

 

Later 73108 arrived with an Engineers train and will probably be glad of a rest and a cool down having been on diesel power from  Eastleigh yard.

 

 

A pair of Vacs now occupy the stabling road after Illustrious joins Ramilies in basking in the afternoon sun.

 

I've got another 6 pics but I'll make a separate post rather than have too many here!