John ks

This is an educated guess , I haven't opened my APT-E but using some logic and guess work I think the following might be close to correct If you put TC1 or TC2 on the track by themselves i.e. with one articulated bogie on the track and the other end on a block then the interior lights do work, I've done this In tc1 & 2 there are circuit boards, at each end of this circuit board are ten pin plugs to connect to the next vehicle ​So there should be 10 PCB(printed circuit board) tracks on the circuit board running the full length of the board Logic/ guesswork tells me that they are for Rail left Rail right PC2 motor + PC2 motor - PC2 cablight PC2 headlight PC2 taillight Function common Speaker + Speaker - some where on these boards will be coach lights (LEDS with Resistors) Worst case is as shown below, each circle represent a light Each light will have to be isolated from the rail power by cutting the PCB track on both sides of each light This is not a job for the faint hearted The easy way is if rapido made provision for the coach lights to be isolated by cutting/removing bridges, the next drawing is how this could work Of coarse I could be completely wrong Best of luck John

I finnaly got my APT-E I thought you might be interested in where its been It Started life in China And then to England Where UPS picked it up Next Stop Germany Then to USA And a Second stop in USA A quick stop in Honolulu Then to New South Wales And finally to Queensland A little trip of about 29,343Km And now its at its new home where it may do only a few more Kilometers I think some of the meets were arranged by a man with a blue box Thanks to Sandra Locomotion Rapido And all the rest involved in this project John

What Suzie says is correct but you may need only two dropper wires connected to the switch rails and extending the existing bare wire connected to the frog. The two wires connected to the stock rails are the same as the track feed wires and wont be necessary if there is a track feed already feeding that block. If your not sure then put them (The two wires connected to the stock rails) in and connect them to the track feed See the top RHS of the diagram. i.e. Add feeds here and extend this wire. Join these three wires together (imagine that the point switch & the thin black wires aren't there) In this configuration the point will work the same as if it weren't modified If you decide you need a frog switch then separate the 3 wires and reconnect the switch rail droppers to the track feed as shown by the dotted wires & connect the frog dropper to the point motor switch as shown with the narrow black wires I agree with Brians diagram, this is the way I wire my points The diagram on the Left may give a clearer indication of where the insulated joiners go John

To Sandra At Locomotion I am a bit concerned as to the whereabouts of my Sound APT-E . I just tried to send you a email but got a reply that your inbox is full There is also an unread PM to you on this site. Hoping to here from you soon John

Some where on a previous post I am certain I read rapido were doing the locos and matching coaches. I'm not sure if it was rapido or some one relaying a message from rapido and I,m not going to spend hours looking for that post. I'm not that young any more. I suspect that means the Mk3 coaches will be done. As for the Mk3 food service coaches your guess is as good as mine. As for the Mk1 food service coach it may not be economic for rapido to produce if rapido don't do the Mk1 coach may be locomotion could commission another manufacturer to do a special repaint on a suitable coach. Jayson or Locomotion if you are listening you are the ones to give us the correct information John

​While slightly off topic this is what can be done with slightly modified Sommerfeldt OHE and a bit of kit-bashing. the next 2 use Brass I & H beams with Sommerfeldt wire and insulators this one is based on what is at stations around Brisbane Qld this span is typical of what QR ( Queensland Rail ) use to span multiple tracks QR OHE is based on BR OHE I wanted a OH system that loosely followed BR and at the time Sommerfeldt with slight modification worked for me John

Mr Tilt You mentioned X2000 in your last post. Here is a picture of it in Brisbane during its world tour You probably know Queensland Rail also runs 25Kv Electric and Diesel Tilt Trains Max Speed is 160Km, Max tilt is 5 deg on 3'6" Gauge John

With reference to the to the last paragraph , I suspect that extra load draw by the lighting in both of the trailer coaches may affect the programing. Call this an educated guess As for the trailer coaches getting warm, I would think it is the control circuit for the coach lighting, whether that is resistors or electronic current limiting & then there's Josons blinking blinking lights. My apt-e (deposit in Jan & final payment April last year) hasn't arrived yet but it has got to travel an extra 16,355Km to get to me. John PS the one I ordered tomorrow got here yesterday , How's that for service

I model mostly US protoytype and I use an NMRA gauge to check that my wheels are in gauge, this gives an indirect BTB measurement . I have found older peco points were made to a coarser scale standard (probably so that old Triang wheels would run through the points) These points can cause derailments on NMRA standard rolling stock Many moons ago I read that this could be fixed by shimming the catch rail.(I would credit the author if I could remember who it was) Unmodified points can work OK most of the time but when they cause derailments I shim them with thin plastic strip (5 or 10 thou usually works) You should be able to see the shim glued to catch rail on the running rail side In this exaggerated drawing of what happens with the red catch rail to far from the running rail, the flange goes to the wrong side of the pointy part of the frog an a derailment is inevitable The wheels on the right hand side are held away from the frog by the green shim and the flange misses the frog and stays on track If the BTB is correct an it still derails then it may be the points. John

I now know what number to use for DCC 666 he made me do it.​ John

Dave Apologies accepted , your answers put a big smile on my face. About 80% of my collection is US prototype and almost all of them have the drive,chassis specification I described. Each loco can usually pull 20+ box cars. I believe this is the best type or chassis. One more possibly stupid question that I should have asked earlier, what is the acronym EP as in EP1 (tooling) . Don't get me started on how much I dislike TLA's As for TLA's I thought it was good practice to spell out the TLA the first time it was used Opps sorry I'll start again As for TLA's (three letter acronym) I thought it was good practice to spell out the TLA the first time it was used John

Just shows what little I know. Just to clarify when I said repaint I meant in virgin colours or would that be sacrilege. ​ John

If Branson sees the image of the P-Train maybe he could buy it, refurbish it, repaint it and put it into revenue service As for my E-Train, could still be in Shildon, or on a plane or with a delivery service some where in Oz Please don't let it be on a slow boat to China . John

Kit And now for something completely ​different​ ​ off topic. If it is anything like this I don't know either , I only use it for 2 things making & receiving calls. For photos I have a real camera if you consider a DSLR a real camera. John PS its magenta not pink

Maybe a little of topic but here's an update on my turbo train . The last email from Thomas at Rapido said "Thanks for clarifying John, we'll try to post them this week." If this is the kind of service we get from Rapido we should all end up happy. This turbo train was purchased in 2008 Thanks to Thomas and the Rapido team Now where's my E Train? John

About the time the Flying Scotsman was in Australia I saw a magazine article showing it in Melbourne Victoria Australia. The thing to remember that Victoria's railways are 5 ft 3 in Gauge As I recall the article went on to describe how the Flying Scotsman was converted to 5ft 3in gauge I think today is the appropriate day to recall this article. John

January last year when I put a deposit on mine I thought £325.00 or AU$600 less vat was a rally good price considering I paid AU$915 for a 3 car Rapido turbo train which has a similar arrangement as the E train, i.e. 2 power cars and articulated coaches, It doesn't tilt. Oh no it doesn't! The turbo train is having troubles with the drive wheel gears. I wonder if they might be the interchangeable with the same parts on the E train. Rapido are currently trying to help me. john

If I was asked where this photo was taken I would have said it was at Dutton Park Brisbane Australia The grey building looks like the substation the building in the background looks like the goods shed that used to be there The track in the foreground is the line to Cleveland The track behind it is to Park Rd station QR (Queensland Railways) is a 3' 6" gauge railway with 25Kv OH on almost all of its suburban lines, some of it main lines heading north from Brisbane There are also electrified lines from Gladstone & Hay Point to the coal fields The loco is a 25Kv AC Electric destined to pull coal. It was taken during a commissioning run in the late 80's The OH equipment for QR was based on one of the BR system's, possibly MK1 or 2

Its already reached 4 figures AUD $1104.00 john

Is it just me or does this look like K9 Might explain why Jason was so keen to build it The image was borrowed from the YouTube Video on Brian Grey's post

Is this turning into a P-Train thread? If so i would like one too As for my E-Train I guess it will arrive when it gets here. Feels better that I'm back on thread

I did this about a week ago the chassis has to be shortened by about 15mm a lot of plastic has to be removed from inside the body first I milled a flat surface about 6mm wide down both sides on the top of the chassis. This was done to ensure a straight flat surface so that all 3 parts of the chassis would line up I then cut the chassis between the motor and the bogie at both ends milled the cut ends to reduce the chassis length by about 15 mm joined all 3 chassis parts together with 2 pieces of 3/16 sq. brass bar along the flat surfaces that were first milled along the top of the chassis This image also shows one of the joins The almost complete model the plastic sub chassis was screwed to the Bachmann Chassis The body now clips over the Bachmann chassis an is held in place with the buffers & the foof clips onto the body the finished model looks almost like a standard EM2 & it runs like a Bachmann LMS 10000 The decoder is a NCE DA-SR It was very time consuming ,Requires a milling machine, drilling & tapping lots of screw holes the first try at assembling the chassis was too long, Second try I think I got it about right The drive shafts had to be shortened and re-joined by pushing the shortened shafts into brass tube I don't know if a class 47 chassis would work​ as I have never seen one but if the 47 chassis has the correct bogie spacing an the bogie mounting is the same I expect that would be easier path John

I am honoured to have a post acknowledged by Mr Tilt Kit I took the images of APT-E at York Museum on my only ever trip to the UK in March 1993. Below is the only other picture I have of APT-E also taken in March 1993

I first saw e-train outside York museum in 1993 and it was rather sad looking. Now 20+ years later I will soon have my own & I am getting a bit excited. Do you think it might be out of place running next to a Santa-Fe super chief , a UP Big Boy , an EM2 or a P-Train? Yes but it's my railway and I only model from the 50's to the 60's. That's 1850 to 2060 I just got to hold out a week or two longer than most of you as it travel half way around the world to OZ John

A while ago I saw Hornby were going to do a class 71, I kinda like electric locos so I thought I might get one when they were available. Recently I discovered DJ Models. They are also doing a class 71 Thought about it for a week, went to Kernow Model Rail Centre & paid for one. From what I’ve seen so far I think I made the right choice A couple questions for Dave. When do you estimate it will be ready? Any chance of seeing a naked Class 71, I am interested in the type of drive. I am hoping it will be all wheel drive (motor with fly wheels in the centre of the body & drive shafts to each bogie) & all wheel pick up & no traction tyres. John