EuroMST

Completed my upgrade today thanks to a speedy delivery from Coastal DCC. Everything seems OK so far. Train Controller seems happy talking to Yamorc and the Wi-Fi Maus is working.

The Z21 app on my iPhone has announced that I am now using a foreign control station and need to pay to unlock the features. Is this a new thing? It was happy to connect to the DR5000. 

1 hour ago, 61656 said:

My timetable is Summer 1986. 1D42 only ran until 27 September. Both have the code ⚫️ (aircon) and ➕(100mph). Both are booked for max load 455 tonnes (15 mk2s?), with 86/2 to Crewe and 47/4 onwards. Presumably there was a big boat leaving Holyhead shortly after arrival. 

I am lucky with my 1983 timetable, it looks like 1D43 didn't stipulate Aircon stock. It turned up then with a 40 and rake of Mk1s. I may be able to get away with one rake of Mk2f coaches, and my spare scratch rake of 4 Scotish Mk3, a spare Mk2f, Mk1 BG and Buffet in case I ever need two aircon rakes.  My Trans-Pennine rake is still a bit light, need a couple more SO when I can find them.

On 22/11/2022 at 15:06, 61656 said:

1D43 was hot on the heels of 1D42 all the way! It left Euston 9 minutes behind and left Crewe just 14 minutes behind, a margin it maintained all the way to Holyhead, despite an additional stop at Bangor (neither stopped at LJ). 

My apologies, I got the stops wrong. 1D42 was non-stop Chester to Holyhead 12.37 / 14.05. 1D43 stopped only at Bangor, 20 mins later out of Chester and 24 minutes later arriving into Holyhead. These are the Summer 1983 timings.

21 hours ago, 61656 said:

In the middle of the day there is a glut of Euston to Holyhead trains. Here we see 1D42 running just 9 minutes ahead of 1D43! I assume the first service ran as a relief, although both are booked for 100mph aircon stock. Willesden obviously had more coached than I do!

 

In platform 4 you can just make out that a class 31 has backed on to a 2 coach DMU replacement service, which was brought in by a 25. This is a Hooton turn, booked for a 142/150. 
 

 

Later in the afternoon, with on-going platform work in evidence, we see a class 108 in platform 2 having just arrived from Crewe. In platform 3 a DPU fills in on what should be a local service from Manchester Oxford Road. Potentially this could be a class 304…

 

1D42 on my timetable is non stop along the coast between Chester and Holyhead. 1D43 stops at Llandudno etc and is 20 minutes behind by the time it stops at Bangor. In late 70s and early 80s Mk1s and Class 40s still covered some of the Euston to Holyhead turns.

22 hours ago, woodenhead said:

July is such a long time gone, railway has sat there waiting and waiting.

 

The railway being an L shape has dominated the roomspace so much and the corner part felt like a vast wilderness for me to fill.  It also pretty much stopped me having a second layout to house the OO stock I have left which then led me to question why I even had some OO if it was not being used.

 

The answer to resolve both quandries was to remove the corner on the existing Chester and shorten the whole layout so it fits along one wall.  During the summer I took the frames apart, moved some cupboards and reset the layout to a more Minories type approach.  Taking out the layout from in front of the window has opened out the room again, created space for the small GWR branch station I wanted and importantly removed the fiddleyard from the glare of the sun that meant a lot of the time I had the blinds down in the room to protect the stock.

 

The new plan looks like this:

 

It has the essence of Northgate with the main platforms either side of the four top tracks with two storage sidings in between.  The extra platform face still exists and I have added a small goods facility because I have wagons to use!

 

The station throat is very much a Minories approach and gone is the junction now as that was on the second board which now leans up against the wall behind the railway looking for a purpose (not for the OO layout as too wide). 

 

Train length remains 5 coaches plus a loco and the services I imagine are as before, no change in stock or location.

 

I've a spare baseboard element that will allow a small extension to the main board, but I will need to turn them around so that all the joins are at the town end of the layout where I don't need to add wiring or points and the most open elements of the boards are at the country end where all the points are.   Cobalts have just been re-centred ready for lifting and once I have stripped the board and added the extension I will be painting the board a light brown to seal it.  Then it will be on with the track laying which once the throat is laid is quite straight forward.  The interesting element is the single slip, I thought they would be more complicated to lay than I imagined, but from what I have seen there are two general power feeds and then the frogs are wires to their opposing blade motor - fingers crossed that is all it is.

 

I think I am going to abandon the magnets I was testing for this layout, they felt too hit and miss.  Accepting this is in no way a finescale model railway, I am going to go with Dapol magnets, probably need 11 of them.  Getting the rare earth magnets to work I think is going to stress me too much and life's too short.

 

Anyway onwards and upwards, the board is ready to be stripped......

Good to see you back after your three month break. I had been waiting to see how you got on with the magnets. I am going to be fitting the Dapol magnets soon during the refurb of the layout I re-homed a few months ago. I do have a curve at one of the station platforms though, so need a different solution for magnets on a curve.

I like the new station plan, I look forward to seeing it come together, along with more of your adventures with fitting sound to your fleet. I have just put sound in the first of my DMU fleet, and am planning to try a 47 and a 25 next, but avoiding milling of the chassis like you.

Good to see you back! I have missed my fix of North Wales in the 80s. Good point about the platform clearances. I am planning to refurbish one platform on the layout I rehomed a few months back, best I wait for the Pendelino I have on pre-order! I think I have a name for it as well now. Crymlyn between Bangor and Aber is gaining a station! 😃

On 26/06/2022 at 08:38, acg5324 said:

Yesterday was a Yorkshire Area NGS meeting. I took various things to do with me….including ending the Zombie Apocalypse…….The layout now has people! I took the baseboard that has Charles House and Kensington High Street on it, plus all the buildings.

 

The previous night I’d fitted some Chooch Enterprises cobble stone sheets, these are self adhesive, but they didn’t stick so these were refitted with good ‘ole Evostick. Footprints for more more buildings are cut out as well.

 

Over 100 little people were glued down and they make a big improvement…….just need about 100 more on that one board!

Pictures to follow as I left my phone at home!

Will have to visit the NGS group in York now that I gave joined up with NGS. Will get over after the summer hols. Be good to meet up with another Southern softie who saw the light and moved to Yorkshire! 😃😂

Could do with opinions, advice and ideas too on the layout I re-homed recently, instead of letting it go for scrap! 😃

9 hours ago, woodenhead said:

Couple more bodies arrived from Bachmann this week, it is such a mulitplier having spare bodies allowing me to segue between periods.

 

Took a bit of time to get the lights working at one end on the 31, I've got some green cowling buffers to add at some point too.

 

My Dapol class 35s come with some stickers for headcodes I might look and see if they suit the other 47 and 40 I have with dominoes.

 

Whilst I've slimmed down my stock selling off Colletts, B Stock and Autocoachs, a few engines that are not Midland region I am still gathering the odd parcels vehicle when I see something I like.  The only motive power on order is one Co-Bo and a Parcels unit from Revolution.  The only thing I am waiting on really is a new Farish Peak which will have to arrive sometime and whether the next RevolutioN DMU will be of use to me.  It's quite nice having 'enough' stock.

 

Not much movement on the layout front, I've got replacement Cobalt IPs back for two duffs and I need to fit one of those, then there is the little matter of a scattering of rare earth magnets for easi-shunts and I might be ready to start playing trains again soon. 

 

Mojo took a bit of a bash recently, but there are stirrings that I want to get the boards all reconnected and trains running.

Looking forward to seeing how you get on with the rare earth magnets. I have some Dapol magnets, but they are no good on bends! I also only have ten Dapol ones and they are a bit pricey!

24 minutes ago, PaulCheffus said:

Hi

 

Those might have been my photos that I have just sent to Andy. They were originally posted on the N Gauge Forum.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

Hi Paul,

Yes it was you! I just checked. I saved the whole page in case it disappeared. You do may it look straightforward in your post, but still scared me! 😃

On 13/04/2022 at 21:37, PaulCheffus said:

Hi

 

Thats true they aren’t but I converted all mine quite easily. I can send you the details tomorrow when I have my laptop booted up if interested.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

I have two of the older metal chassis class 73. They both run well. I haven't felt brave enough to try converting them to DCC. I have got some photos someone posted showing how they did it, but it looks beyond my skills! I think it involved making brass contact straps.

8 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

@EuroMST Next month I will be starting on other locos - the 52 looks good for a similar fit, then I've a couple of 47s to deal with before I move on to the green locos - a 22, 35 and 42.

 

I've done all my DMUs already - there is a speaker space at the back of the motor coach to fit one and again it's just a 6 pin sound decoder. 

 

If I were you I'd have a chat with Digitrains for some advice, they are very helpful.

 

Also look at YouChoos - lots of helpful videos there on fitting sound to DMUs - but when it comes to locos he is milling bodies so you might want to look away on those.

I have had a good look around the YouChoos site. I think that is where I saw the bit about using 6 pin sound decoders in DMUs. I definitely don't fancy milling away half a chassis on a 47! I have a long dead Poole built 25 in works at the moment for a coreless motor and DCC conversion. I have had to do a bit of chassis milling on that one.

I will watch to see how you get on with your 47s. I have 9 of the DCC ready ones and another new tooling one sitting on a CJM Saturn chassis. I will only put sound in a few of them though. I probably won't bother with my Hymek and Warship, they will only get occasional runs. Have you got a Revolution DPU on order? One of them would be good with sound in.

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

@EuroMST No need to make any changes to anything on the locos except inserting a 6 pin MS500 that is wired to the speaker, don't have to do anything to the circuit boards.

 

The hardest part is soldering the wires from the decoder to the speakers.  I use a magnifying light to help and something to hold the speaker dead still leaving both hands free.  Note with an MS500 from Digitrains it has 4 wires - 2 for speakers and two for the capacitor they include, but there does not appear to be space to put it anywhere inside the body.  So I ensured the ends of the capacitor wires are insulated and left them inside the body in case I ever need them - though my experience with the 24/25 is that they are solid performers and don't really need any help from a capacitor.

That is just what I am after, a 6 pin chip that does sound. I thought they existed as I have seen them mentioned for adding sound to the 101 and 108 DMUs. I would like to get sound in the main North Wales Coast fleet of 24s, 25s, 40s and 47s, but didn't much fancy the chassis mods required, or paying someone else to fit sound to them all.

The Mrs has told me to pull my finger out and start building the layout planned for them all before I start making more of them noisy! I only have 40 141 with sound so far, only another 20 or so out of the 60 strong diesel fleet to go. Think I need to thin out the collection a bit more!

Thanks again for the heads up on how reasonably straighforward the 25's are now. I will start saving up the sound pennies! 

3 hours ago, woodenhead said:

 

@EuroMST

 

If you dont want to mill the chassis, then the solution I have chosen works and doesn't require any surgery to the loco beyond taking out the cab interior - all the lighting can stay.

 

MS500 chip, it is the same size as a normal mini non sound decoder so no need to remove any of the circuit board.  I made the mistake of getting an MX649N first and the body will not sit back down without removing the LED part of the circuit board, but the MS500 drops in nicely.  The MX649N was reblown for a class 24 sound as the interior has more space for the larger chip and that loco was in the video earlier - it too has the speaker below in the cab area with no loss of lighting function.

 

The speaker from Digitrains is an SP12x8x8 mini box, it slips into the space in front of the chassis block and the end of the cab space.

 

Also recently I plucked up the courage to chip my 08 and 04, I had been waiting for Farish to do the DCC chassis but then when they did I felt my money was better spent chipping what I had and having more money for other projects.  For both I used a MX615R nano chip with the plug and excess wires removed leaving just the 4 motor/power feed wires.

Thanks for all the info. I definitely don't fancy milling the chassis on my 24s and 25s. The little Zimo chips look like the way to go! I guess you still have to remove the existing circuit board to wire it in though? I will have to practice my soldering skills!

I will probably get sound in my other two Next18 40s first, folloed by the 31s and 50s as they are all relatively easy.

Like your DCC conversion on the 04 as well. I was going to sell the 03 I picked up last year and pick up a new DCC ready one, but I am re-thinking that now. I will pre-order the new sound fitted 08 though, as the 08 I have must be almost 40 years old!

4 hours ago, woodenhead said:

It's the Zimo Active Drive, it's really good.

 

I get all my stuff from Digitrains, excellent service and they are great for giving advice.

Sound fitted 24's and 25's, love them! I might have to be brave and do the same to mine sometime! I had a quick look at the Digitrains stand at Doncaster, but didn't buy anything. They are only a shortish journey over the Humber Bridge, so will have to visit them sometime and empty my wallet! 

On 12/02/2022 at 16:10, acg5324 said:

I only brought some more Hunt magnetic couplers, they didn’t have any of the buckeye versions which I really wanted but these will get some stock converted.

Same as what I bought at Doncaster. I have been wanting to try them out, so it was good to meet the guys and get some advice. I thought I got a pack of the buckeye type, I will have to check! Have fitted them to my old Farish Poole built class 40s so far. The only item bought was a Mk2a BSO :-)

31 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

Once headcodes had been ‘removed’, could there have been a safety aspect to changing from 0000 (or in some cases . . . .) to dominoes?  Gut feel is that they would have been a little more visible at night.

Paul.

Sometimes the dominos  didn't seem very bright either. Maybe some locos only had 40 watt bulbs in, or were just filthy! They probably did a survey some time in the 80s and found less people were getting run over by refurbished Class 50s with high intensity headlights, so they started fitting them to everything. 

4 hours ago, 61656 said:

The old black painted thing that looks like a domino rather than the glass panel that looks like and is also referred to as a domino?

 

I never understood why they didn’t plate them over in the first place…

From what I have read it was all down to cost savings. The indicator boxes were costing a lot to maintain. They started by ordering them all to be set to 0000, which led to the Western Region setting them to loco numbers on the Class 52 Westerns. Then depots were told to put black vinyl with 'dominos' over the glass, removing the route indicator boxes, but leaving the light there to illuminate the dots. Cost was a pound or two per loco, and a little bit of labour, a lot less than maintaining the boxes or plating over at the time.

1 hour ago, 61656 said:

520 is the only one I’ve found in blue with dominoes. A lot of LL with dominoes. If anyone can find one I’d be interested. 
 

That said, they seem overwhelming yellow and I like to model the everyday, rather than the exceptional. 

47 096 kept it's domino on at least one end until the end. It was withdrawn in 1996. Have a look on class47.co.uk, that is my first port of call to check out anything Duff related.

20 hours ago, 61656 said:

I let Mrs 61656 buy it me for Valentine’s Day, following a chance find at the Doncaster show. 
 

I figured a DPU was more romantic than a rake of BBAs. After-all, DPUs would certainly have delivered Valentine’s gifts in 1986…

It seems everyone went to the Doncaster show! I had to go on my own and choose my own gift! I was quite frugal and only came away with a Mk2a BSO new out from Farish, and three packs of West Hill Wagon works magnetic couplings to try out. It was a good show, although very busy!

11 hours ago, 61656 said:

I’d not heard of the pub - but it looks like a potential model and would fit nicely with my idea to somehow incorporate the canal into the west end of the layout. 
 

Of course, you can’t model a pub without a site visit…

The Chesire Cat is next to the canal. Just been looking on Google Maps, didn't realise the railway goes under the canal in a tunnel. That would be cool to model!

42 minutes ago, 61656 said:

It is a real place… amazing more people haven’t modelled it really!

It's a few miles down the road from my Dad's house. I have been for a meal at The Cheshire Cat. Great pub, must be quite close to the station. 

10 hours ago, 61656 said:

I keep meaning to draw the wider area out properly. Every now and then I refer to my Quail maps (Railway Track Maps); they are from circa 2010, so shouldn’t be too far out, but the routes are hard to follow being split across so many pages. I’m not sure if I cut the maps out if they’ll align correctly. 

I have the Quail British Rail Track Diagrams book, October 1990 edition. I just spotted Christleton Tunnel! 

9 hours ago, woodenhead said:

The actual route was Chester-Warrington BQ-Earlestown-Manchester Vic-Phillips Park Junc-Ashburys-Gorton-Fallowfield Loop-Trafford Park.  The Fallowfied Loop closed in 1988 after the second redevelopment at Piccadilly, the loop had a final hurrah for diverted services whilst the redevelopment was being finished.   Then, the Freightliners were all diverted through Piccadilly with Holyhead services going via Crewe, which fits with the Christleton alternative world.

I thought they went through Warrington BQ in the early 80's. I tried looking on Google Maps last night, but that didn't help much. I should have got the proper track diagrams book out!

24 minutes ago, 61656 said:

The Trafford Park liner is booked through to Crewe in the WTT. 

That makes sense. It would reverse there and head up the Styal line, through Manchester Piccadilly and into Trafford Park. Another route would be from Chester up through Northwich, Altrincham, Stockport and Manchester Piccadilly.

54 minutes ago, 61656 said:

There’s a couple of against the flow freightliners in the timetable, but otherwise it looks like 4 inland in the morning and 4 back to the coast in the evening. I can’t recall if any need to reverse at Christleton, but one or two will certainly change traction - which helps with a similar but not as pronounced offset of passenger movements. 

Back in '83 the Trafford Park freightliner reversed at Christleton, not sure if it was still running in '86. The Lawley Street one I have down as a Peak all the way through, and the Stratford / Willesden one changed to electric traction at Christleton. 

I haven't got notes for the Crewe Basford Hall Freightliner yet. I guess that stayed on diesel traction.