GWL

Hey all, just a quick note on the lack of cold start on the DCC sound fitted models, I felt compelled and dropped Accurascale an email to say how fab the loco is, but that I’m sad about the absent cold start sounds. I’ve had this promising reply from Stephen at Accurascale: Hi George At the time of making the sound project we didn’t have a cold start recorded on a refurb so those projects have a wheel slip instead. However we are recording a cold start 37 hopefully in the coming few days and if that works out well offer a free reblow service to add the option. So potentially some great news and excellent service from AS! My first foray into DCC sound so I’m very happy to have done so with them 👍

I couldn’t believe no one has mentioned this until your post, the new chassis is a marked improvement over the old one in my opinion - I also had a pre order and am very happy with it, super runner! Lovely and smooth. I am enjoying many of Bachman’s recent chassis improvements with NXT18 decoders. My class 03 and 94xx are also fab. Thanks for posting, hopefully this decent model will get some attention.

YouTube It’s a wonderful thing. I stumbled upon this 8mm cinefilm home video from the 60’s, just as the Clevedon branch’s working life was drawing to a close. This line is the inspiration for my layout, and I am trying to distill the general feel of it while giving it my own twist. (I wasn’t around to see the real thing, after all!) 1:30 > 2:15 in this video is all footage of the real Kingston Bridge, 5 minutes walk from my childhood home. I’m trying to create a representation of this as the titular bridge on my layout, at the far end where trains will emerge and disappear through to the fiddle yard. A 3D printed letterbox is in the works to be set into the bridge wall. Here are some then and now comparisons: You can just about see where the old postbox has been removed from the parapet, as well as the old (BR? GWR?) fence posts buried in the hedge. The rusty old excavator has been buried in weeds on the old track bed since before I was born, I think it will be given a nod to on the layout in some way. Grant me some creative license, I am trying to capture the essence of 4 miles into 2 metres....

Hi Miss P, thanks! I’m not sure exactly what you mean, but I’ve added more detail and photos to the blog post which I hope will help. The base colour is just brown acrylic painted over the paper mache and cork (see previous blog entry 6), and the footpaths & muddy areas are simply brown grout, stuck with PVA and then dropped over with water & IPA mix to make it into a paste. Hope that helps!

Thanks Mikkel, it works really well as a spray adhesive, fixer and sealant!

Static Grass. Is now all over the flat... I’m chasing after myself with the hoover before I get told off! A short update today with some work in progress. I wanted to share some photo’s of my first attempt at serious landscapin’... I’ve gone for my own take on Simon George’s method of static grass application (thanks MW for the links!) and I think it works rather well! See Simon’s Heaton Lodge Junction thread here, where I found much inspiration: As all of this first board is either road, farm track, grass or mud, the entire surface was painted in an earthy brown acrylic (my mix is 1 part each white, black, raw sienna and burnt umber). Note there is no initial layer of ground cover over everything, just papermache and cork underlay painted brown. The exception is the dusty footpaths and dry mud under the tree which is brown grout from B&Q, which goes down before I start any grassing. I work in small patches at a time, no more than 20cm sq. PVA is liberally painted on, then an initial layer of static grass scattered over using my peco precision applicator. While the glue is still wet, I use the handheld vacuum with a pop sock on the end to take off the excess fibres and get it standing up a bit more. This also blows it about a bit which is good. I’m going for a summery Somerset look, using a smorgasbord of cheap bags of Woodland Scenics products. I have used three lengths of static grass in three colours: 2mm Medium Green, 4mm Light Green, and 7mm Straw. The initial layers were a mix of two lengths, 4mm & 7mm for the embankment, 2mm & 4mm for the field. Next, for the more overgrown or weedy areas, a liberal amount of Crystal Clear Matt Coat is sprayed over and a second layer of grass is applied, usually just 7mm Straw, sometimes with 4mm mixed in as well. Finally, more Crystal Clear is sprayed in specific areas. Fine and course turf is scattered in patches to represent weeds; I found that fine burnt grass really looks like nettles, fine green grass like brambles, and a mix of medium / dark green coarse turf like the general melee of scrub undergrowth you find at the edges of fields, besides bridges & hedgerows, etc. Crystal Clear Matt Coat is my new favourite aerosol, although I fear my lungs may now be 90% Matt varnish... use a mask, people. The fencing is all made from matchsticks and tooth picks, with 0.25mm Polyamide thread for the wiring. I’ve also tried a couple of trees à la Luke Towan; twisted wire, coated in latex rubber, with static grass added before spray painting, brush painting, and finally dipping in coarse turf. When it’s dry, I simply pushed the roots into a layer of wet grout to fix in place. Bob with his barrow, note that the darker brown is just painted cork, not any sort of ground scatter. Fencing team at work. There were ideas of having a boggy pond in the middle of the field, but I thought better of it. The sheep would get stuck. I really like the way the fine turf sticks to the grass, I do think it looks like nettles. The paths are just brown grout from B&Q. Before anything else, PVA is painted where the path should be, then grout scattered over the glue. Water & IPA mix is dropped over the top to make a paste, and finally a dusting of extra grout is applied to the wet stuff using a small brush. Tree trunk needs a touch-up, fingers covered in Crystal Clear took off some paint. The tree is just pushed into a wet layer of grout, I will clean up the tops of the roots with a wet brush now the grout is dry. Rough hedgerows not stuck down yet, but give an idea. Bit of extra fencing yet to go in next to the stile, perhaps a dog gate and footpath sign? Overview of work so far. Plenty more details to add, dirt to tidy, fencing to install and weeds to grow, but it’s a start!

Change All my previous forays into railway modelling had been both temporary and analogue, but Kingston Bridge has been the launchpad from which I can explore Digital Command Control. The choices are mind boggling - there as many options as there are methods of modelling railways. I preface this by saying that these are the choices I made that suit my needs, but I'm certain they will not be to everyone's taste. So lets have a little ramble about the DCC products I've really enjoyed working with. I am going to assume you know what DCC is and the basics of how it works. If not, here is some light reading to start with! Mind, control. Choosing a control system was the first step. Much research was done on the forums, and particularly watching YouTube videos of the various controllers in use. My criteria were: well designed full-featured easy to use capable of running 2 locomotives simultaneously expandable in the future under £200 for the full controller kit (excluding decoders). The NCE PowerCab quickly emerged head and shoulders above the other options. I like that it offers the same features as it's premium big brother, the ProCab, the only limitation being it's power supply and therefore the number of locomotives and accessories it can power. It can also be linked to PC control systems if I wanted to head that way in the future. I really could not to find anything else that ticked all these boxes for the same price, so the NCE PowerCab was the winner for me. Bag o' chips! Controller sorted, I now enter the world of DCC decoders... so many to choose from! What features do I need? Which brand is 'best'? To cut a long story short, I had three loco's to fit (see the end of blog post 6) so purchased three decoders to test, one each from Lenz, Zimo and DCCconcepts (Zen). They were all brilliant, but I have settled on Zimo as my decoder manufacturer of choice. Here is why: Zimo offer decoders for all pretty much all installation types, certainly the ones I need; 8 pin, NEXT18, and 6 pin Direct. All of the basic decoders cost only £20 each! All* of the decoders have solder pads provided for you to easily fit a stay alive capacitor (*NEXT18sockets have solder pads on the Loco rather than the chip, more on this later) They are very well respected, with lots of positive reviews and acclaimed reliability. I buy my decoders from DigiTrains (I'm not affiliated in any way, but I find their website and service brilliant) Smooooooth runnin'. My layout is essentially a shunting puzzle, and therefore low speed controllability and smoothness are really high my list of priorities when it comes to locomotives. I want to avoid the 'hand from the sky' making an appearance if I can at all help it. (This is also why I've gone for Kadee couplings, see blog post no. 3) This lead me to the decision to fit stay alive capacitor units to all of my locomotives. A built in battery unit in every locomotive that pretty much guarantees smooth running? Clean track and good loco servicing are still important of course, but more time running trains and less time prodding trains is a win-win in my books. One of my recent purchases was a Bachmann 03, and it runs beautifully. So let's start there and I'll show you why I love the NEXT18 decoders. Easy Breezy. Many people make their own stay-alive capacitor units, with the required resistor and diode protection circuit, and to be honest I really should learn to do this. But as it is, I have bought off-the-shelf units to get my feet wet (and avoid a great price. The three variants are here, here and here. For the Class 03, I used shape no.1 (long and thin), part no. 870007. Removing the top of the Class 03 reveals the Next18 decoder socket, contacts for the cab LED on the top, and housing for a DCC Sound speaker in the front. Removing the two screws securing the decoder socket allows you to flip it over, revealing extra solder pads for lights, functions and (most excitingly) V- and V+ for a capacitor stay alive unit. Before soldering, I needed to find a home for the Kung Fu stay alive. I found the logical answer was to wrap it in black electrical tape and hide it in the cab behind the driver. Now I simply soldered the black stay alive wire to V-, and blue wire to V+, carefully tidy the cabling inside the loco body and job done! I enjoyed working with the NEXT18 socket so much that I decided to install the same type in my old Dapol 14xx. LaisDCC make a brilliant adaptor board (part no. 860031) with the NEXT18 socket on one side, and all the solder pads on the other, ready for rails, motor, lights, functions, loudspeaker and stay alive. (Note that V- and Ground are one and the same) Just needs some crew to hide those wires! Of course, there are other decoder types too, and Zimo's 8 pin and 6 pin direct decoders are equally as easy, with solder pads and/or wires provided on the decoders themselves for adding stay alive’s. (See this helpful video from Digitrains on how to fit a stay alive to a Zimo MX600R 8 pin decoder) Standards. In my opinion, this is the way that DCC should be going - making things as easy and as flexible as possible for the modeler. Some people are happy and able to hunt about decoder circuits with multimeters to find the tiny spot to solder to, but why should we have to?! LaisDCC bring a range of economically priced components to the market, and brands like DCCconcepts and Zimo are providing decoders to suit every need and price point. Most importantly, they are accompanied with clear instructions including where all the necessary solder points are. I applaud this "we will guide you to the door, but go through at your own risk" approach, I think it shows a real understanding of the hobby. It seems an increasing number of models are using the NEXT18 connection. One that caught my eye is Dapol's new Mogul, with 'tool free decoder and speaker fitting'. The decoder and speaker are attached to a sled (similar to a USB stick), which slots in place behind the smokebox door. See Sam's video here showing this in detail- I think he's as excited about this design feature as I am! I would love to see NEXT18 decoders become the standard for all models, I just think they’re brilliant (can you tell?!) What do you think?

They look wonderful - new to the thread by the way, excellent work sir! I've just ordered the Bachmann 9405 in GWR weathered, with a Hornby Choc & Cream Collett 'B set' on the birthday list... but your photos are making me wonder whether to go for BR Black and maroon collets instead!

Thanks @Black 5 Bear! So, reading between the lines, this could come with a reworked body this time around, but we won't know until we hear more from Bachmann? And any word on what Awaiting means? I'm assuming Awaiting start of production rather than awaiting delivery, seeing as other models have a date attached?

Hi all, I think this is the best place for this post... I'm in the market for a 2MT Tank as it fits my current Clevedon branch project well. I've noticed Bachmann's 31-443 Ivatt 2MT Tank listed on their website here: https://www.Bachmann.co.uk/product/lms-ivatt-2mt-tank-41227-br-lined-black-(british-railways)/31-443 What do we know about this? Specifically: Is this an upcoming new tooling and/or mechanism or is it just a new batch of the old tooling? If it is new, what does "awaiting" mean on the Bachmann site? I've recently bought Class 03 (Fantastic!), and have my eyes on the 94xx after Sam's youtube review. Based on these, if this is a new Ivatt 2MT tank, I'll definitely be placing a pre-order! Plus I'm a big fan of Next18 decoders, if one can be a 'fan' of such things! Apologies if this has been covered somewhere else. I searched the forum for Bachmann 31-443, Ivatt 2-6-2, 2MT tank but couldn't find what I'm looking for. Will keep looking though.

Well, it's been a while! I've been back to work, furloughed, back to work again, furloughed. The railway had to find a corner and wait a while. There has, however, been progress. I'll keep this post as concise as possible and give you an idea of what's been happening. NCE DCC. I took the plunge and bought myself an NCE PowerCab starter set for christmas. Really impressed, after a lot of research I can see why NCE repeatedly comes out on top as a great entry system to DCC. More on this in an upcoming blog post - it's been an interesting journey finding the pro's and con's, pitfalls and bonuses of each DCC product (specifically decoders!). Arts and Crafts. I've rekindled my paper mache skills and made embankments around the titular bridge! My method is: Cardboard formers Gaps filled with newspaper 3 layers of plain white paper (strong base) 4 layers of newspaper (easy to layer and smooth things out) 4 layers of kitchen paper (for the textured finish) The strip of 300gsm brown card I laid down the hill for the road base was pointless, I don't think it made any difference to the lumps which evened out anyway when it all dried. On the second board, an early platform attempt is awaiting resurfacing - I'm contemplating a filled and painted surface, but I'm still researching options and looking for the best option. I've been testing out "soil" paint colours and some foliage in the newly ballasted run-down goods yard. The layout is definitely taking shape as a preserved railway, with some areas well maintained and others awaiting the next fundraiser or National Lottery grant! Future areas will be painted more grey-brown to represent the clay-heavy soil of the North Somerset area. I'm about to launch into the world of static grass, watch this space... I'm still undecided as to what the two sidings north of the platforms will be. The idea was a factory, but now I'm tempted by a loco shed... I think ideas will come into focus once the platform and station building is built. I've been playing around with weathering the ballast - I don't have an air brush, and I like low-tech low-budget solutions, so I've brushed on watered down acrylic for light weathering, and neat black and greys for the oil & coal stained areas where locomotives stand, as well as the top of the loading stage. Some real coal is on order to create some wagon loads and a coal stage. I used wood glue (Gorilla was what I had on the shelf) for applying the foliage as it dries clear and is more tacky than watery. I certainly works better than the cheap-as-chips PVA I use for cardboard, paper mache, etc. Loco's and Rolling Stock: Some new toys have appeared in the past few months. After all, you've got to spend some time playing trains! Here's the list - photo credits to KMRC as they do a great job of showing off a model in its natural habitat. Bachmann 31-361B, Class 03 in BR green - I LOVE this loco, high build quality, super smooth, crawls very well, and the NEXT18 decoders are brilliant for wiring a stay alive to. I'll be doing a subsequent blog post on my DCC choices and what my go-to products are now. Hornby R3721, Class 61xx Large Pairie GWR green - waiting for a decoder for this, nice model but a little fragile. DJ Models K2203, Class 13xx 0-6-0 GWR green - lovely to look at and runs okay on DC, but on DCC it lurches each time it starts moving. It might be down to the Zen Blue decoder I originally paired it with, and I considered returning it as the mechanism is really not that great... but I'm going to try a Zimo 6 pin and see if I can get it running at least as well as it does on DC. I've also bought a selection of Dapol GWR wagons - the NEM pocket springs are very easy to bend or snap which means Kadee coupling's can play up, but all fixable. You can also see my old Dapol 14xx which I've DCC fitted. Slightly wobbly runner but it was my first ever loco so I love it all the same. And I think that just about brings us up to speed. Not as detailed as my previous posts, but I'll try to update this blog more regularly to document my progress. I hope you are all keeping safe and sane in these crazy times!

Rob I meant to reply to this ages ago - what wonderful photos, really useful! Thank you!

Hiya, it is evostik Impact adhesive! You can see the tin in a couple of the photos. It sticks really well, no problems with it at all! sorry for abandoning this thread folks, things had to pause as we came out of lockdown 1, but I’m now getting the layout back under way so hopefully some new posts over the coming weeks!

Completely understood, and in your case where you’re likely to be reusing track for future layouts you’re right, it would be ridiculous! From my perspective of building a layout where my priority is ultimate reliability, I can justify my time taken “dropping” every piece of track as for me that is the most reliable option. Plus I never intend to take the track up again. It all comes down to the priorities of your use case, time, money and patience, ultimately!

Are we talking about EITHER soldering all joiners OR droppers on every track piece? Or both? If you’ve soldered dropper wires to every piece of track and hooked it all up to bus wire of an appropriate csa... soldering rail joiners as well seems like huge overkill to me, and stops the rails from being able to expand and contract. If you’re not an experienced “solderer” you can get away with lovely big blobs of solder under the rail to “weld” the droppers on and make sure they’re 100% secure and conducting, all hidden by ballast afterwards. Neatly soldering rail joiners requires a slightly higher skill level if you’re new to it. Either option is time consuming, and if you simply enjoy the process then absolutely, knock yourself out. And of course in a thread like this the context varies hugely - converting old layouts vs building new, investing lots of time and money vs the least amount to get you running trains. But in the context of a new layout that will be built to last forever, I’d say “simply” putting droppers on every length of track and using unsoldered joiners with a mm or two gap for expansion seems like the most reliable investment of time IMO. Someone please tell me if I’m missing something!

Some triple checking on Google gave me confidence to proceed. So I soldered up the “long and thin” Kung Fu to the V+ V- pads. The top of the cab unclips, giving access to the cab floor around the driver to place the capacitors. You can see the stay alive through the window but I’m reluctant to start cutting away at a brand new purchase... I’ve wrapped it up with black LX tape, as well as the cables feeding through under the floor which helps. The cables follow the pickup the wires under the decoder, there are two plastic pillars either side of the motor for cable management, which keep the wiring back away from the body. Here are some photos of a test fit before soldering. It works! Very happy. Thanks Bachmann for making it easy!

Onto the Bachmann 03: What a lovely model it is. Runs super smooth with the Zimo MX618N18. As explained above, I’m fitting stay alives for the added reliability on my shunting layout and generally for the learning experience. Remove the body, unscrew the cab LED contacts, remove the decoder and unscrew the PCB and lo & behold! There are lots of helpful solder pads on the underside! Now... no mention of these tabs in the manual but the PCB labels seem pretty self explanatory. I simply solder my stay alive to the V+ and V- tabs, right...? They’ll be the decoder +/- from the bridge rectifier? Photos attached for reference and info.

Thanks all for the advice! Norman - Mick from DCC concepts has been helpful in suggesting some CV changes but we haven't managed to solve the lurch yet. Paul - I ran in the 1361 for a good two hours on DC, and had another 3 hours running in with the decoder today. It hasn't improved things sadly. I suspect it may be something to do with this model... Grriff - yes agreed, I'm hoping that the prairie will not really need one, but the s1361 definitely benefits - I do regularly clean and maintain my track and locos, but I'm looking at it from the perspective that doing both will mean far less chances of the "hand of god" making an appearance! got the kung fu's for £10 per stay alive which I think is good value. My Bachmann 03 and Hornby 61xx have arrived today, looking forward to fitting a Zimo and Lenz into them respectively. I will see how they cope without the stay alive first, then work out the best way to fit to each. Best, G

Thanks Paul, reassuring to hear I’m barking up the right tree. The Zen Blue+ arrived from DCC Concepts today, fitted into my 1363. BUT... an issue on my length of test track - when I set speed step 1 the loco starts moving quickly for a fraction of a second then immediately slows down to a lovely crawl... it’s like it goes from speed steps 0 > 40 > 1 in a fraction of a second. Any ideas how i solve this? CV2 is set to 0, Accel & Deccel speeds are low at 8. I’m stumped. I’ve been reading about “removing capacitors”, something to do with the decoder thinking its on DC for a moment? This feels like a solution to a problem i shouldn’t have to deal with in a brand new model with a brand new decoder fitted... I’ve also turned off DC operation on the decoder. One for a new thread for sure, but any thoughts here welcome.

Hi all, Long time no modelling! I'm lucky to have been back at work for a few months, and now have some time to return to the layout. So I have decided to take the plunge into DCC. Loads of research done here as usual, thanks RMweb! My NCE PowerCab has arrived, confident I've chosen a great controller to learn the ropes with, now just waiting on decoders and a couple of new models. There are so many decoder choices, it's been very intimidating...!!! But after research and for the sake of variety and learning, I've ordered: Zen Blue+ 6Pin for my Kernow (DJ) 1361 Lenz Standard V2 8Pin for a new Hornby 61xx Large Prairie (Great Western) Zimo MX618N18 Next18 for a new Bachmann 03 (BR green wasp stripes) I am aiming to fit stay alive's to all the models because A) I want to learn how to deal with the different decoders and B) I'm all about low speed reliability. My school lessons on capacitance and resistors are dusty memories, so I've shelved learning to make my own Stay Alive's just now and ordered the following off the shelf versions: 3x KungFu stay alive (one of each shape) 1x Zen Super stay alive My query is this - do all these stay alive's have charging/protection circuitry built in, so they can be used with any of the decoders? I think I’ve worked out how to fit them all but it is based on the assumption that I don’t need to solder up a resistor/diode circuit for any of them. Also any other tips/thoughts/opinions on my purchase choices are more than welcome! Many thanks in advance, G

My DJ Models 1361 arrived today, gave it a good two hours running in but it stalls frequently at low speeds... needless to say I’m returning it, but wanted to ask if anyone else experienced this? Trying to work out whether I’ve just got a dud and to ask for a replacement or save my cash for a different small engine bargain...

Splicing. This... ...has turned into this... ...and it all works! (So far!) These quick splice crimps (from CPC of course) have been great - they clip onto the main bus wire, the dropper wire slots into the second hole and butts up against an end stop, then the blade contact is crimped across both conductors using pliers. The insulating lid is then folded down and clips into place. It can get a bit tough on the hands after 50 splices as you need to exert some force on the pliers to crush the splice down, but they are reliable and made the whole job so much quicker than terminal blocks or soldering. Everything is cable tied to the underside of the board using 19x19mm adhesive bases - both from Amazon. The dead-end splices have two cable ties to stop them slipping out, and the trailing main bus feed wires have been loomed together using electrical tape and the bare ends tinned. I may put a connector on the end and make a Junction box that sits on the floor for each board to plug into, along with the controller feed. One for another day. My two dusty old locos are running as well as I can expect, but the time has come for a brand new ready-to-run engine to test my track laying, electrics, and magnetic decoupling properly and hopefully provide some more enjoyable running sessions free from the “giant hand in the sky”. So, I’ve splurged this months budget on a DJ Models GWR 1361 from KMRC. At £69 I hope its as good a bargain as the reviews suggest...

Good point... I think the bar has been set very high by these: https://www.shapeways.com/product/KVV2JMJ2Q/nem-oo-type-9-couplings-step-up-3-link-x10?optionId=63382630 But I cannot argue with the price of the Bachmanns... I will give them a go - thanks!

Is there an affordable product out there for fixed wagon rakes? There is a shapeways option but gets a bit pricy with a long lead time from the US. I could buy Kadees and chop off of the arms but it feels wasteful for an expensive coupling. The Bachmann 78035 NEM EZ Mate couplings are half the price (though not in stock anywhere right now), and although I've read they're not as good as Kadees perhaps they're ideal candidates for having their arms chopped off for use as non-decoupleable couplings... am I making sense? My 3d printer is stuck at work, but I'm going to try to arrange to collect it so that I can design and print my own flexible 3 link NEM semi-permanent couplings I think...

Nice! I had never heard of Trix-C, just had a google - looks like great stuff!