MAP66

Well, here we are again and progress is good within the railway room. A lot of sorting has happened and items of interest and extreme usefulness have been recovered, identified, re-categorised and finally stuck somewhere where there is a chance that I will find it again. Out of the organised chaos, new carpet tiles have been put down and two separate work areas have been created and are ready for use. One will be for plastic and card construction, general modelling and painting. The other will be dedicated to doing train stuff. So, with all that out of the way, I can finally make a start on the ‘High Level Kits’ 14XX chassis build. Here are some before and after pics of the railway room… How it was, still with the old carpet. Ta dah, new carpet tiles down but still more sorting out to do. View from the other end of the room. That's Tyteford Halte sitting on the bottom of the 3 shelves. This is where the train stuff will happen. I cut an old internal hollow door in half and turned it into a tool rack by drilling hundreds of 5mm holes at 25mm centres and then brought a pack of cheap hooks to hang the tools from. Here's a close up of what's happening on the bench. We have the chassis kit laid out showing the main fret (side frames and axle springs already removed) and 3 bags of detailing parts with very, very comprehensive instructions. The motor and gearbox shown in the 2 bags on the right are not included but are available separately. You also need to get the wheels, more detail on that later.

I was thinking of ways to keep this thread less auto coach and more something else as it has been going on for a bit now. So, in an attempt to shake it up a bit, I have decided to intersperse it by making a start on the 14XX. The auto coach will need to connect up to it eventually anyway and as it’s now almost complete it would be good to set it aside for a bit and fire up the soldering iron instead. There is also an ulterior motive here, as for this to happen there first needs to be a workshop re-organisation, so that the layout build can continue and this in turn will provide a new separate work bench for loco building. Before and after pics to follow in due course.

As we enter the month of remembrance, a little something in 4mm scale conveying a full scale message.

They might have mistakenly put HO sheep in OO scale packaging. I guess this could happen?

Thanks Neal, I did think about incorporating Tyteford but decided it will remain on the shelf, this thread still has legs to run as the 14XX still has to be tackled. The new layout needs a new thread started as its too big to live here. Although the new layout is 00 gauge, I do intend to run a separate single track branch line, end to end in P4, so that the auto train and railcar have a place to run. Thanks also for the heads up on your helix experience, It might turn out the same for me (hope not) but I'm giving it every chance by using third and forth radius for the twin track helix with up trains entering on the outer fourth radius and down trains descending on the inner third radius. Time will tell if it's successful or not.

The coach is slowly filling up, we have from left to right Michael Bradshaw (railway traveller and enthusiast), George ‘Goodnight’ Shearing (ex-prize fighter turned toolmaker), Beatrice Bush (horticulturist and 1938 winner of Tyteford in Bloom, Arthur Bush (not as green fingered as his Mrs).

Thanks as always Keith. At some point, I will start a new thread for the new layout, but I really ought to get this auto coach finished first 🙂

Its nearly a month since my last post, so apologies for the lack of modelling activity on my part. I have been active in other areas with a spot of decorating and some gardening projects are thankfully now finally finished. Then there’s my secret project, more on that later. I did however, manage to paint a couple of HO scale seated passengers before I got distracted elsewhere. There will be roughly 10 to 12 passengers in total, so a way to go yet, occupying both the smoking and non-smoking compartments. Here’s how the first two look, a much better fit than their OO scale equivalents. That secret project I mentioned? Well, I am in the early stages of actually building a layout. Never thought I’d live to see the day. The house move last year has made this possible as our new place has an annexe which I have bagged for my work space and layout. I will eventually get around to starting a new thread for the layout but for now, here is a teaser… This is the first of what will be two Helix to enable a lower level for the through fiddle yard. The start of the lower level is seen to the left. The upper scenic level will be 3.5 circuits up from the base level and exit in front of the window about 300mm higher. And here's the business end where all the fun happens. It requires a bit of a sort out but you can see my bench on the left and the layout will run the entire length of the room along the right hand wall and the second helix will be located in front of the end window. Between the two helix there will be a scenic run of roughly 18'. So there's scope to perhaps run some prototypical length goods and passenger trains. 😁

I am also guilty of owning a copy of said book, I think a few of us will be thumbing through the pages again in a trip down memory lane. Which makes me think, this is not just Model Railways, this is 'Marks & Sparks' Model Railways 😄 tasty stuff.

The recent wet weather prompted me to inform the little people, waiting on the platform, to expect delays to services. “Don’t make us laugh”, they chortled, “the auto train is already running 6 months late and it’s not down to the weather”. Well, that’s me told then. Anyway, who are they to judge, I took a look down the other end of the platform and Fred and Arthur still haven’t finished those fence repairs! What a liberty.

I did a little bit more, not a lot, but every little helps when attempting to drag this coach over the finishing line. The latest work involved removing the moulded plastic cab door handles, passenger door handles and luggage door handles and replacing with 0.4mm brass wire. I then fitted the brass steps to the underframe from the detailing kit, 2 at the cab end and 2 at the loco end. Not sure if I have positioned them correctly, I just went with my interpretation from the dodgy drawing. I also fitted the brass grab handles to both sides of the cab. I also gently bent back the brake and steam hoses at the cab end and tethered them to the underframe. I think this was common practice when the hoses were disconnected and not in use to stop them flapping about in the breeze. I’ve attempted touching up the coach body work and parts of the gold lining by hand painting, it sort of looks passable (with the lights off and at a distance of 50 feet). The coach paintwork has now taken on an overall dullish tone. This has led me to the decision of giving it all a rattle can spray of satin varnish after decals have been applied. The aim is for the varnish to bring it all together in a mid-sheen finish and hopefully disguise some of the blemishes. If and when I get past that stage, it will be time to finally install the glazing, install the passengers and then screw the underframe to the body and pop the roof on. Some progress pics below... Loco end showing luggage handles and brass step which has been primed. The passenger door handle is just in view to the extreme right. The coach body is not seated correctly to underframe in the photo as it is resting on internal wiring. Cab steps and grab rails and a view of the hoses held back. Whoops, how did I miss that wonky buffer! Head on view of what's going on underneath.

As previously mentioned, the HO scale figures which I decided to go for arrived the other day and they are a much better fit (scale wise) within the coach interior than the OO figures. I trialled the driver in the cab first and no need to chop his legs down this time. He now looks directly through the cab windscreen at an acceptable height. As a reminder, below is a real human in the cab showing where head height should roughly be... And here is the original OO scale driver... And finally, a series of shots of the HO driver for comparison... Not forgetting the passengers, here we have both versions of the seated chap. The HO version fits in much better as you can see...

Thanks for pointing that out Nick, not pedantic at all 🙂 I never know which is which, so being lazy, I refer to them both as vacuum hoses. While we are on the subject of things being connected to other things, one thing that is so very obviously missing is this... Photo from Wikipedia. The actual coupling thingy mi jig is not in the detailing kit (only the universal joint). As my train will be coupled up permanently, it means that I have the opportunity to model one by fabricating it from a piece of square profile plas-strut. So that will be happening at some point but way off for now as this will be at the stage when the 14XX is complete and is offered up to the auto coach for final connections. For now though, I can have a go at the retaining bracket which holds it out of the way against the coach end when not in use.

To conclude the wiring for now, a couple more pics as the vacuum hoses are now both fitted and painted. I’ve also started to fiddle around on detailing the exterior of the driving cab by adding a destination board and cable for the gong. Might have a go at a windscreen wiper. Next, I want to have a go at touching up the brown paintwork and the gold lining at the cab end and attempt the cab glazing. The half open drop light to the cab door will be glue ‘n’ glazed. Finally did it. Both vacuum hoses now installed with 1 speaker wire in each. One hose also has a thin enamelled wire which will connect to the blue wire of the sound decoder (common positive for both loco lamps). The other hose has 2 enamelled wires which will connect to white and yellow wire of the sound decoder (negatives for forward and reverse functions of loco lamps). An overall shot of what it all looks like underneath. It certainly tried my patience routing all the wiring. At least we now know the destination of the auto coach.

Nice work on your figure painting Chris, they really complete the interior of your work shop scene. Looks like you got the height just right for your bench seating as well. Is it all ready to place into Warren Branch yet, looks like it could be?

Sorry if it’s a bit boring folks, this wiring is taking a little longer than anticipated. Progress, although minimal, is still heading in the right direction though. I’m now tackling the loco end of the coach and the two vacuum hoses which will carry the wiring. Having fashioned the flexible hoses from 5a fuse wire and the rigid pipe from brass tube, I eventually managed to feed a speaker wire through each hose and the thin enamelled copper wires for the two loco lamps which need to go back to the sound decoder. One hose has been fitted through the buffer beam and the other will soon be following, once I have devised a cunning plan to attach it as this one comes from under the buffer beam (going by the diagram in the detailing kit instructions). After this stage, not much more can be done to get the lighting to actually work. This can only happen when loco and auto coach are actually coupled together. So, I can leave the remainder of the electrics until then. My next step will be to have a good look at the paint finish on the auto coach body work and try and improve a few areas without a re-spray, then some paint re-touching in general on the coach interior. Then it’s transfers and name boards to fit and dare I say glazing. For now, here’s a couple of shots of the wiring. It's all going on with the wiring! We are at the loco - luggage compartment end and hopefully you can see a red and black wire coming up from under the underframe by the buffers which is the track feed for the LED decoder coach lighting. The brown wire next to the black wire is one of a pair for the speaker, the other brown wire is waiting to be installed . If you remember the speaker will be housed in the luggage compartment. The Other end of the brown wire is fed through the vacuum hose, you can see that one hose has been fitted to the buffer beam and the other is still waiting to be fitted. Close up of the vacuum hoses. I will need to make two more (can't wait) for the loco itself and these wires will then pass through the loco hoses and into the bottom of the bunker where the sound decoder will be housed.

Now you see me! Now you don't! As you can see, the lighting saga continues and the front lamp has now been fitted. It has been temporarily wired up to a 9V battery supply with a 30K resistor to test the dual lighting feature of these particular lamps. They will eventually be operated via the sound decoder and this was just a test before everything is stuck down. If your struggling like me with electrics, it doesn't help when the installation instructions state that there are 4 wires to each lamp, there are actually only 3. Connect your resistor value of choice to the longer of the 3 wires and this will then go to the blue wire of your decoder. For the two shorter wires connect one to the white wire of your decoder and the other to the yellow wire of the decoder.

There’s no shame in it at all Rob, pretty much all us modelling folk have many, many other things going on in our lives (motor bikes, cars, axe throwing, barn finds are just a few examples which fill our day) and our trains have to sometimes wait patiently until we either find the inclination to move a project on to the next step or find the actual time itself to dedicate a few hours to some uninterrupted modelling. This last week, was one of those rare occasions where the stars aligned allowing me hours of modelling fun. After all, this isn’t a race and your beautiful auto coach will gain momentum again when opportunity arises. But there’s still so many derelict barns out there to search, darn it. 🙂

Switching back to the coach lighting again, and having fitted wheel pick-ups without any incident of dislodging any rodding, it was time to (attempt) to program the lighting strip, which in this case was an educational experience for me. The lighting strip I opted for was an ‘ESU 5079 Digital Car Interior Lighting’ strip which has the yellow LEDS. This lighting strip was longer than the battery one, so the first task was to offer it up over the coach partitions to get the best fit for the leds to line up with the compartments. There are 11 leds in total and it was necessary to cut the strip at one of the pre-marked locations which left me 9 leds. That worked out as 1 in the luggage compartment, 2 in the smoking compartment, 1 in the passenger entrance and the remaining 5 in the smoking compartment. The second task involved cutting out slots from the tops of the partition to the luggage compartment and the passenger entrance vestibule to allow the coach roof to fit with the lighting strip attached. This lighting strip was a little wider and thicker than the battery one. It was then a case of re-positioning the magnets at the luggage end, this pulled the coach roof down much tighter which seemed to eliminate the light bleed at that end. Now, it was programming time! It took several attempts, but eventually I got it to work. By pressing F2 on my NCE Powercab handset, I have coach lighting on – yippee. Prior to this, I had not had any experience with decoders before, and this was a win for me. Pretty trivial though for those who dabble in this type of thing all the time – sorry about that. Anyway, here's some pics... Lighting strip laid over partitions. Point of scalpel blade indicates where I cut the strip, leaving 9 leds in total. F2 selected and all lights come on. There are numerous lighting effects possible but I'm just using the lights on and off and will be adding a separate led for the cab light which the decoder automatically turns on/off dependant on direction of travel. Note the 100 ohm resistor which is necessary to simulate a load, otherwise your handset won't recognise the decoder to allow programming. Took me a while to figure that one out. That's the sort of warm lighting effect I was hoping for. There is also a potentiometer to adjust brightness on the lighting strip or you can set with one of the many CV settings.

If you have one of these auto coaches and are thinking about adding some passengers then you might wish to consider the following; due to the model being compromised in available height within the coach interior, remember @MrWolf valid point made back on April 16th pg 21 “Because the model has two "floors" each about a scale 4" thick with the ballast weight of about a scale 3" thick and other compromises, it means that the top edge of the windscreens is the equivalent of 5 feet from the floor”. Now, if you remember, I overcome this dilemma by shortening the drivers legs and because he is standing in the cab, it sort of looks passable. However, it’s a different story for seated passengers, as the same height compromise applies to the passenger sections of the coach interior. Everything, inside is scaled slightly smaller than 1/76 scale and it shows when placing your passengers. For example, it is not possible to have two passengers sting directly opposite each other in the twin seat bays. At a struggle, some figures can sit off set to each other within the same bay (see images below) but there is not adequate width to sit side by side. As all seats are lower, it means that all passengers have fresh air beneath their buttocks and the top of the seat when their feet touch the floor. On some passengers this can be disguised somewhat by seating them against arm rests etc. to hide the gap. The size compromise is not as obvious on the bench seats, but I want passengers occupying the bay seats as well! So, what does all this mean, absolutely nothing if such things don’t bother you. But, I thought it worth mentioning all the same. It bothers me and on reflection, I think it was @chuffinghell who first mentioned dropping down a scale on the figures. HO 1/87 scale figures would be a better fit for the seated passengers. So, that’s it, I’m going to purchase some HO figures and this lot will be destined for platform seating where they will be far more comfortable 🙂 Below are a few images of squashed passengers who are not happy 😒 A case of knocking knees. A shot side on, as would be viewed normally. To me, their sitting a little too high. You can also see the loose lighting wires hanging from the undercarriage. As mentioned in previous post, these will be secured in place after the passenger steps are fitted. These two are 'on the bench' about the seating. "You know Albert, I think I must have grown in the night. I swear this seat is much lower than yesterday". The professionally painted preiser HO figure on the left (for those in doubt) stands at Approx 19.5mm (5' 7") and the Montys Models OO scale ticket inspector approx 22mm, which makes him about 5' 6". The scale height difference of 2.5mm should be about right for seated passengers. By comparison, I found that most male 3D printed figures work out at approx 24mm in height (6'). Here's the ticket inspector in the non-smoking compartment. I think that 2.5mm less in height will be about right.

Thank you @MrWolf and @Annie for the painting tips, it's somehow reassuring to know that others have encountered the same issues with acrylics drying too fast. I found the wet palette (spelt correctly this time) the best solution for me. Thinking about it, you would have thought that the manufacturers of these model paints would introduce some retarder into their paint to give a little more working time, especially the flesh colours. I expect there's a logical reason why they choose not to, just can't think of one 😕

Continuing with the wiring, I managed to successfully tuck the wiring out of sight under the coach, hard up against the inner edge of the sole bar, secured with blobs of superglue. I left the wiring loose at the luggage compartment end as I still need to fit the passenger steps which fit to the underside of the undercarriage. After the steps are fitted the wiring can be routed around them. I will be looking at fitting the new coach lighting strip next. It doesn’t line up with the compartment sections as well as the battery version and it’s also a bit longer and thicker in depth. Luckily though, it’s also designed to be cut at designated places. Which just means a bit more measuring, cutting and soldering link wires. Before all that, I fancied a change and started to paint the rest of the coach passengers. Results so far below… Albert, now has a Mrs. Her feet are a little off the ground so a little of the derriere please. I can say that but Albert might get a slapped face if he dared to mention it. These two are still in the paint shop. I use a wet palate to avoid the acrylics drying too quick. The flesh coloured paints are prone to drying too fast and clumping up the paint. After adding the flesh tones, I always paint the inner layers of clothing first as pin point precision is not required this way. Then cut in with the outer layers using my 'Optiviser' and a steady hand.

I was hoping to report that I had sussed the wiring and all is working as it should. However, after speaking to someone who knows more about this stuff than me, it was a case of a re-think. So, I have now gone for a decoder driven LED lighting strip for the auto coach which also has the capability of directionally controlling the cab light. This reduces wiring between the loco and coach but requires powering from the track through the coach wheels. That is something which I wanted to avoid at all costs, as I did not want to interfere with the coach bogies and remove wheels to fit pick up springs on the axles. To do this would involve removing the rodding and I didn’t want that!! I was recommended wheel pick ups which could be fitted without removing the wheels or bogies, that’s the answer I thought and the images below show them fitted to the auto coach. For the wiring route from each coach bogie to the lighting strip, I had planned to route it on the top side of the underframe sandwiched between the coach body but that wasn’t working out, so the route will now be on the underside of the underframe and then up through the floor of the luggage compartment. Hopefully, my next post will have it all wired up and working 🙂 Vorsprung Durch Technik! Luckily, there were only 4 pieces to identify and fit, as my German is 'nicht gut' First one fitted, a little tricky. Soldering the wire to the tag first helps to hold everything in line when inserting the screw. All 4 pick ups fitted, just the drivers end shown. The lighting wires will eventually be routed on the underside of the underframe.

Here’s the end of week round up; All the seat coverings are now complete at long last and I’m pretty chuffed at how they turned out. The interior of the auto coach is now pretty much completed. The only tasks remaining from the inside are glazing and routing the wires for the lighting and lamp. I’ll leave the glazing till last as I don’t want to scratch or damage it while installing the wiring. I also temporarily screwed the coach body back onto the underframe using just the two remaining screws, as I had removed the one from the drivers cab and the passenger entrance vestibule. The good news is that in my opinion, the two remaining screws do the job and its all quite secure. So, I’ve now bitten the bullet and have started to look at how to wire this thing up. I’ve never installed a decoder of any sort before so a little research was necessary and it soon became apparant that the best configuration for concealing wires from auto coach to loco would be to house the sound decoder in the bunker of the 14XX. Therefore, I will need to source one that can fit within the limited space available. The speaker and enclosure can then fit inside the luggage compartment of the auto coach. The next thing to get my head around was how all the lighting functions should be connected to the sound decoder!!?? I put together a wiring diagram and table to assist my limited brain power, some of it is guess work but I think it’s almost correct. With the sound decoder in the loco bunker it allows the normal 32 gauge decoder wires, red and black for the wheel pick ups and orange and grey for the motor to all stay contained within the loco body shell. Also, within the loco body shell will be 4 x enamelled copper 0.1mm wires from the dual function directional loco lamp and if there’s room to house flame flicker, another 2 x of the same type wire. The rest of the wiring will be for lighting of the coach and for the speaker, they will be contained in the brake and steam vacuum hoses. The twin brown speaker wires may need to be 32 gauge? Not sure on that, I’m hoping that I can get away with something much thinner? If you’re able to, please let me know if I’ve made any mistakes with the wiring and If you know how thin I can go with wiring to the speaker, I’m guessing it will be 8ohm impedance rating as that seems to be the standard. For those of you missing Tyteford Halte - Auto coach temporarily re-assembled, still without glazing fitted and coach lighting on. What I have to work with for accommodating the sound decoder, I will need to squeeze it into the bunker of the Airfix 14XX. Auto coach wiring diagram.docx How I think it should function - Waiting for those comments 🙂 .

Just posting another interior shot of the auto coach, as I’ve had a second wind and am progressing well. All the upholstery to the bench type seating is now completed and It’s just the twin seats in the larger smoking section which remain left to do, they are a little trickier. A number of posters of various holiday resorts within the GWR network have also been added. Once the interior is completed, it will be time for me to start looking at routing all that wiring.