Tommyp81

I knew at some point I would need to bite the bullet and attempt to weather one of my locos, bit of a daunting challenge considering the cost of an O gauge loco. I have practised on a couple of OO gauge locos before which had mixed results but the last one I was fairly happy with. I chose my 37 as I had placed order on another which was being professionally weathered by Lee's Locos so I would have a comparison on my efforts. I first added the logos and numbers from Railtech, again not something I have had much experience with but found this to be fairly simple following pictures I found online. The wheel sets were stripped out of the bogies and I painted these by hand with Railmatch frame dirt and allowed to dry. I used a black grey wash on the side of the body concentrating on areas where dirt would build up, this was carefully removed using cotton buds. in the vents I used a mixture of black and earth brown weathering powder to get the desired effect, I also used this for areas where dirt would streak off the roof and down the side of the body. The powders are easy to use and if you are not getting the desired effect they are easy to remove so make weathering less stressful. I didn't want a heavy weathered effect on the body so I decided to remove this before painting the bogies and fuel tanks, with an air brush I sprayed these with a really thin mixture of paint so I could slowly build up to the level of weathering I wanted, I used a weathered black as the first layer then added areas of frame dirt on the front of the bogies following pictures of a real loco. The one area where I struggle to get the desired effect is the roof and around the exhaust ports, I decided to put a small amount of weathering powder on here and revisit as I get more confident with this area. With the level of weathering I was please with I coated the body with a layer of matt varnish to protect my efforts from handling, this also had an added effect of toning down the yellow nose areas making them look slightly faded. Thankfully depot plaques turned up which were put into place, I am happy on my first effort and will revisit the roof at some point.

I built the refuelling point from plasticard and strut, I bult the frame for the canopy and placed into position to see that the sizing was correct and had enough clearance over the locos. With the frame built I installed LED 12v strip's onto the plasticard and wired between, I planned to put corrugated aluminium over these and cut around the struts with apertures cut in to hide the wires and most of the strip. Installed two O gauge refuelling points purchased from eBay which were painted yellow, these will be further detailed and weathered and flexible pipework installed.

I tested a couple of ideas for detailing around the buffer stops, fuelling point and walling to see what worked and gave me the look I was after. I am after a dated look for the depot so wanted the look of grass and plants growing from the ballast. Once I was happy I continued placing clumps of small static grass randomly around the layout especially the buffer stops and fuelling point. I purchased some Railway Laser Lines yard tower lights to give some height to the scenery, these don't come with any lights but planned to make some on the 3D printer. I started the construction of the refuelling point canopy, made from plasticard and strut with corrugated aluminium sheet for the roof.

I purchased some trees and bushes from Primo Models after seeing their stand at Warley, really impressed with the quality and look of these. Started adding these in to see some progress on the scenery and also adding some additional details, it was time for some H&S so installed some safety railing around the depot. I started on weathering the ballast and rails to make the depot look more dated, I used weathering powders with a mixture of brown and black to give the desired effect around the points and depot. I really like the view between the pup room and the trees to the depot. Shockingly to get to this point it has taken me a year of building, I don't get to work on the layout that often due to work commitments and family but still doesn't look like much has been done and have a lot still to do.

I wanted a retaining wall with a back scene, I had chosen the Slaters O Gauge Dressed stone for the walling. This was fixed to the rear sheet and sprayed with Halfords primer grey, I painted individual stones on the sheet multiple tones of grey which was then given a wash of Ammo Mig dark grime. This gave a nice finish to the stone wall so I continued using this method, I built some retaining wall buttress which were added to the wall and were painted in the same way, these were then added to the wall in the required locations. I added a back scene from Model Railway Scenes which was cut around the retaining wall and other scenic items. I wanted to add some height to the scene so I built a stanchion to hold some three aspect lights and also some yard tower lights again from Railway Laser Lines.

With the ballasting in place I started building up the scenery locations, these were initially PU foam blocks cut and shaped to the contours I wanted. These were glued into place and covered with two layers of plaster cloth to give it strength and then a layer of sculptamold. These were then painted brown ready for static grass to be placed on top. A few additional depot buildings were purchased from Railway Laser Lines and Intentio, I planned to put a retaining wall at the back of the depot and set out the Slatters plasticard stone walling ready to be fixed back and painted. I made a refuelling point from plastistrut and corrugated aluminium from Goodwood Scenics.

With the scenic section built I needed an off scene area for trains to run to which would enable running of the layout. The off scene section needed to be small enough not to take up too much room on my work bench but large enough to provide enough interest in running, I added a section which routed to 3 sidings along my work bench and terminated at the far end. In time I would construct an off scene section if I was ever lucky enough to the layout to an exhibition but for now this would enable me to run the layout. I purchased a depot building from Railway Laser Lines and my first Heljan class 60. With the track in place and wiring completed I started painting the rails in preparation of starting the scenic work. As is always the case additional loco's were purchased without being able to run them yet and I began the installation of ESU Loksound V5 L decoders into them. with the decoders installed I was finally able to test the layout and create the iTrain layout and the programming of this. With the testing complete additional items of buildings, steps and walling was purchased to start building the depot and plan its layout. I opted for a brown ballast to provide a dated feel to the depot which I planned to make it look like areas had been recently updated so there was a bit of a contrast.

After helping my dad with his OO Gauge layout, I decided that I would like to build myself an O gauge layout that could be taken to an exhibition. I wanted to continue with the DCC control and automation using iTrain as this was part of my enjoyment of the hobby and I thought it would allow visitors to an exhibition the chance to actually control the layout themselves. I was restricted with room within my workshop to be able to build and run the layout so decided on a small depot layout, the theme I chose was BR Sectorisation as growing up as a kid this was what I saw on the railways. I was always a fan of the Class 60s in coal sector livery so planned on these being my focus on the layout. I messed about with a few layout ideas and finally settled on a layout that suited the space I had and the general idea that I had for what the layout would look like. With my previous experience on my dads layout I opted to control the layout using the Z21 and Digikeijs modules for presence detection, servo control and accessory switching, I placed the required controls at the front of the layout in view so it could be seen what operates the layout. Each section of track and point had presence detection wired to it, each point had microswitches installed to provide confirmation the point has switched and servos to switch the points.

Where and how can I connect a Lais 2 wire stay alive to an ESU Lokpilot V4 FX decoder?

Purchased a fantastic looking weathered loco from TMC, installed a ESU Loksound v5 decoder from Wheeltappers, sounds fantastic but can not get this to run smooth. Got smooth running at speed step 1 but when running mid speed it speeds up and slows down. Adjusted to stop this and now runs awful at slow speed. Really frustrating, spent a lot of time trying different setting with no real luck. Used pre set settings for coreless motor which made it run just as bad as factory setting. Will keep playing see if I can sort it

Thank you both, will sort materials to make the snubber.

I have been trying to find out what this device is, as it says Dcc in on one end and out on other, I was told it was a snubber but can't seem to find any more details on it. The stop button on Z21 is configured to cut track or in this case accessory power, which it did but on reapplying power there is a large spike momentarily in voltage. I measured the voltage from the Z21 without the rest of the layout connected. The multimeter I have is unable to record the max voltage in time, I have some at work which will, just wanted to know if this was normal?

Been running the layout over the weekend, centre now works nicely, put the centre accessories on a Z21 booster with a snubber. The main layout is now on the Z21 with a snubber also, I switched layout on earlier and none of the points on the main layout work. On testing found no output on the snubber?? Testing voltage output from Z21 which was 14v, push the stop button and then again the voltage jumped over 60v for split second before settling back to 14v. Should it jump this far up? I know it will have an initial jump but wasn't expecting it to be that high surely that will do damage?

Yeah Gloucestershire based, sorry forgot to add to my profile

Thank you Nigel, I have put a snubber in today and lowered output voltage from 18v to 16v see how this goes. Yeah quite a large layout, it has been built by my father and I have done the automation with iTrain. Was all working very well then since adding a centre section it has been a bit of a nightmare, getting through some of the technical issues now. Thanks Alan yeah have the off set for Z21, I address them on our ECoS and checked with that also which shows they have lost their address. Hopefully reduced voltage and the snubber work will see how it goes.