SRman

I agree fully with you here. I would add that even in the days when I ran analogue DC on my old layout I was able to run multiple units quite happily on an H & M controller. While I am predominantly a Southern modeller I also have a 'side' interest in DMUs and ran up to five units in one train on few occasions, including a mix of original and modified Hornby and Lima units (of classes 101, 104, 117, 110, 120 and 121). While not up to modern low-current motors none of the Lima or Hornby ring field types drew a huge amount of current and both brands seemed to be quite compatible with each other.

Jeff who???? I intend being at Roger's meeting next week. I'll try to remember to bring the 33 to show off, although i still want to try more speaker variations and combinations before I finalise the installation. Coming in a bit late here but the other guys earlier were right about reversing the loco's default direction. Swapping the orange and grey wires to the brushes is the real answer but adding 1 to CV29's value will also work (assuming CV29 wasn't already reversed, in which case subtracting 1 would be the answer!). Great photos of great modelling skills as always, Peter. Your layout and models are quite rightly admired by many on the forums ... and in the BRMA.

I decided to take a few videos of various workbench projects actually running on the layout (for which I still don't have a firm name, yet!). These are a little shaky as they were only on my mobile phone and I have strung some of the clips together but couldn't use decent transitions on my Pinnacle software in Windows 8 - it kept repeating the last second or so of the previous clip. I will eventually set up the tripod with the proper video camera and take some better quality vids but, in the meantime these will have to do. Bear in mind that most of these models are not yet completed, missing things like glazing or handrails or final paint touches before adding transfers. The London Transport 'Q' stock, made from resin kits (mostly Radley Models but a couple of DC Kits too). There are 1923, 1927, 1931 and 1938 cars in this train, powered by two Black Beetle motor bogies with one T1 decoder in one of the 1923 cars. I want to add one more vehicle eventually, ideally a 1935 car but these are n longer readily available so I may have to wait a while. The Ayjay Models 'Tin' 2 HAL unit, powered by a Black Beetle bogie with an NCE decoder on board. I still need to tune this decoder to better suit the running qualities of the Black Beetle. The Golden Arrow Productions (GAP) G16 4-8-0T on Hornby Stanier 8F chassis (ex- 2-8-0 !). This still needs a little adjustment to the wheels' back-to-back settings as it occasionally stalls momentarily on certain curves and points. And the GAP Maunsell 0-6-0 diesel-electric shunter using a Bachmann chassis and a TCS M1 decoder. This has a 'stay alive capacitor but has the old-style pickups on the wheel treads which means it still stalls if too much dirt builds up on the pickups. Note also that the body is not sitting fully down n the chassis at this point. Also, please ignore that second mineral wagon that kindly chose to derail while I was trying to video and drive at the same time!!

... and yet another 'quickie' taken on the phone camera but this time three shorter clips strung together. This shows the Heljan 33 I fitted with a Digitrains (Paul Chetter) Zimo multi-drive decoder and (currently) two 8 ohm speakers in parallel, one bass enhanced in the fuel tanks and one 'sugar cube' in the main body. I still intend experimenting further with speaker combinations.

Yes, they were in the early matt shade of rail blue which did appear lighter due to the finish.

Hi Peter. It is usually advisable to remove the capacitors as they affect the decoder's ability to adjust for BEMF, although some brands/types of decoders are better at coping than others. You could also adjust CV2 (the starting voltage) to make it more responsive. I am usually not impressed with Lima running qualities on DCC but I was so pleased with 31 327's running I decided to do the other one, with the resulting tales of woe above. It ended up being a lot better than the initial problems would suggest but it took some perseverance to get there.

Addendum: after about four hours of running 31 004 is now behaving as expected. I had to change the value in CV2 to compensate for the stiffer mechanism (set to a value of around 50). That's still with the Digitrax DH123 decoder but I may try the Gaugemaster one again after this - it works very well in 31 327.

And a few more 'quickie' videos, taken on my phone. This time they show the Bachmann class 24 D5014 with Howes sound in tandem with a Heljan class 33 D6585 with Digitrains (Paul Chetter's) multi-drive sound, while the Hornby 4 VEP, now fitted with an ESU Lokilot decoder, circulates in the opposite direction. The two diesels were not consisted as I haven't speed matched them - the 24 was running on speed step 43 while the 33 was on speed step 70 and they were almost perfectly matched on those settings!

Encouraged by how smoothly the DCC conversion of 31 327 went, I decided to do 31 004. This one also ran very smoothly on DC so I thought it would go just as well as 31 327. WRONG!! The actual hard-wiring went more smoothly because I knew exactly what I was doing this time. I pulled the Digitrax decoder out of 31 327 and plugged it in to 31 004. It ran like a dog! It stuttered and stopped and refused to complete even one circuit without stalling. I thoroughly cleaned the wheels, oiled the mech, cleaned the wheels again, making sure I got the backs as well, checked the pickups and tried again. It was better but not brilliant, so I tried a Gaugemaster decoder (demonstrating the wisdom of using the JST-compatible decoders!) with BEMF but that was no better (probably slightly worse), so I put the old Digitrax one back in. The Gaugemaster decoder worked a treat in 31 327 though. After much persuasion (both physical and verbal!), 31 004 has been trundling around the layout for an hour and a half now. Hopefully this will free it up somewhat. I took a few photos of the hard-wiring process this time so you can see what s involved. Incidentally, I removed that capacitor between the brushes on both models after the photos were taken. And here is 31 004 in service. I detailed it with the separate handrails on the fronts some years ago. 31 327 was easier in some ways because it only had two handrails at each end whereas 31 004 has four, albeit they are all straight ones. It now just needs the red circle coupling codes added above each buffer (these early 31s had electro-magnetic control), some pipework on the buffer beam at the end without a coupling, and a lot more weathering added.

Another diversion from layout building and work on the G16 and 2 HAL. I looked at my Lima class 31, 31 327 in Railfreight grey and thought I would like to do something useful with it, as the 30/31 was a particularly good model from the Lima stable. Some years ago I fitted separate handrails to the front of my blue 31 004 and repainted the yellow ends completely. 31 327 had been languishing in a drawer because it had never had the side handrails which were supposed to be supplied in the box but weren't. I decided to shave off the moulded on handrails at the front and drill the holes (#76 drill bit) before losing track of the correct positions for the handrail ends. Bending the handrails involved a small amount of trial and error. followed by gluing with superglue (cyano-acrylate). The door handrails were just as fiddly to get right, especially the ones with the bend at the top on the edges closest to the ends. I partially repainted the yellow using slightly thinned Humbrol gloss yellow (#69). This should not have matched fully but blended with the slight weathering I had applied at some time previously and barely shows at all. Flushed with that success, I decided to try it on analogue DC and it ran very sweetly, even without cleaning the wheels (I'm not a huge fan of Lima's running qualities but occasionally one could get a 'winner' that ran really well - both of my class 31s are in this category). I decided to try out a DCC conversion, using an old, sidelined Digitrax DH123 decoder, which has the advantages of 1. being expendable and 2. possessing a 9-pin JST connection from the wiring harness into the decoder, allowing me to replace it in the future with a better decoder. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the running, even with this non-BEMF decoder, particularly in light of my previous poor experiences with Lima mechanisms on DCC, so much so that I will convert 31 004 as well in the near future. Now all it needs is a little more judicious weathering and some etched nameplates and I'll be very happy with the result.

The motor bogie design is adapted from existing tooling and materials so still boasts a 'skew wound 5 pole motor', like the 4 VEP and 5 BEL units and also all the other variations of ex-Lima locomotives. Bear in mind that the Brighton Belle was listed originally as having sprung buffers - it doesn't! I hope the BIL will have the sprung buffers as this will assist greatly with close-coupling units in multiple. I don't think this is such an issue for the Belles as not too many people can run two of them in multiple (ie 10 cars). First one to receive their unit(s) is to report back here!!

Excellent customer relations, Dave. That plus the sheer quality of the models now being offered means you deserve every success in your ventures.

May Bach get you for that, Ivan! The Model looks very good. Not sure I can afford one on top of all the other goodies due this year, including the Dapol class 73, which should be to an equally high standard.

Just for a little fun, I took a few short videos (using my phone) after working on my friend Doug's number one son's Bachmann class 25 and my own Hornby 4 VEP. The 25 had a problem with stuttering when the horns (F2 and F3) were sounded but only if the engine sounds (F1) were on at the same time. Cutting a long story short, I eventually had to reset the decoder then reprogram the loco number and alter the volumes (master volume on CV63 and the volume settings on F2 and F3). While I had the 25 body off, I enclosed the existing factory speaker with some Blu-Tack to form an enclosed sound chamber. It is seen in this vid in tandem with my modified Bachmann class 24 with Howes' sound and bass enhanced speaker. The 25 and 24 are being driven in tandem as I wasn't bothered creating a consist for such a temporary lash-up. Also circulating was my Hornby blue 4 VEP, in which I have now modified the seating unit for the first class in the trailing driving coach (as it relates to this video). The corridor side now has see through windows from the compartments! Obviously it was a preserved railway train!

I love your house number display, Judge Dread.

Ditto all of the above! Very nice, N15.

Since most of the remaining painting required will be by brush, I decided it was time to add the buffers, after first painting the buffer beams and shanks red. There was a minor disaster when I dropped one of the sprung buffers and it fell apart on the floor. I fished around with a torch for extra illumination for a while and eventually reunited the buffer head, shank, spring and tiny retaining screw! I do have to check to see if that rear buffer beam should be red for its entire depth or only for the bit up to a level with the tops of the buffer shanks. One buffer seems to have drooped slightly so I'll have to reseat it before I'm done. There is still a bit of filling and filing/sanding to do but overall the painting can proceed apace. I even started a little of the weathering finish, with dark grey (Humbrol #67) darkened with a little black painted on to the cab roof, smokebox and footplate. Oh yes ... and I have filed down the outer sides of those 8F cylinders a bit. p.s. The roof is glossy because the paint is still wet!

There was a Midland maroon 47 (Lima issued a model of this, I think) and very nice it looked too. The livery you are suggesting, Bruce, might partly resemble the application I did on my Hymek, earlier in this topic. When it is a fictional livery, there are so many possible variations on themes: should the cab window surrounds be a contrasting colour? Should there be a relief colour band or block? Should the roof be a different colour? ... and so on.

Value for money always comes into the equation. At full price I wouldn't buy any. At decent discount prices I succumbed and bought two!

The only way to learn is to try it yourself. Start off with something that doesn't matter if you mess it up, like a body from the scrap box and progress from there when you feel you have gained sufficient skills to do it properly to your satisfaction. We all had to start somewhere and I'm positive that everyone on these forums will have their tales to tell of things that went wrong or simply didn't work out (I know I have!). I'm not trying to put you off but, rather, I'm trying to say 'Have a go' and don't panic if it doesn't go right first time. We get better as we go and learn from our mistakes. That is a part of the fun of our hobby.

I spent a short time this afternoon gluing the steps, toolbox and cab roof vent on the G16, followed by filing the rear body mounting to make it sit more levelly. The Christmas bag in the photos was to hide the glare from the TV as I decided to take the photos in the sitting room next to a window. Still to add before painting are the lamp irons from flattened brass wire, remembering that these Southern locomotives had six lamp irons at each end, lubricator pipe runs, and the clack valves and feed pipes near the front of the boiler. To be added after painting are buffers, safety valves and whistle, plus the cab door hand rails (to be made from modified Peco track pins, as per the kit instructions). On test, it has now hauled its first heavy train, although I will probably add a little extra lead into the boiler and side tanks later. The front bogie needs a little more side play as it struggles and even derails on my inner radius curves. Other than that, I am happy with its progress and running qualities.

It will certainly be interesting to hear one in action. As Rick already has all three, I'm guessing we'll have to wait for someone else to get one!

A nice video of an interesting layout. I like the flash as they go through the point work, Dan. If those SPUD motors work for you then there is absolutely no need to change anything. It goes to show that what one modeller swears at, another will swear by (to rearrange an older saying slightly!!!).

Hi Colin. The LED pointing through he floor was pretty well what I had in mind. I was thinking of blue but it may actually look better with twin LEDs, one blue, one white. I also had this in mind for some of the class 73s I have (mostly Lima bodies on Hornby chassis). As for paint quantities, yes, I have enough to sink a battleship ... or at least, to paint one!! I did much the same thing with the London Transport train red.

As always, lovely photos and lovely models. As an aside, Kernow's newsletter this week is listing two of the Beattie Well Tank versions with sound fitted. I had enough difficulty getting an ordinary decoder in mine, let alone a sound decoder and speaker! I'm wondering how they have done it!