SRman

That 'Merlin' livery really seemed to be designed to suit the lines of the HSTs - it has to be one of my favourites too.

Was that the reason certain batches of Bulleid SUBs and the 'Tin' HALs had the extra handrails above and beside the windscreens as well as proper step plates on the tops of the buffer shanks?

Hi Ivan. Yes, I had considered that as Peter's Spares do advertise the N15 cylinders periodically. However, I was going to try filing down the sides of the Stanier ones first and use a little Milliput to build up the valve chests a bit to resemble the G16/H16 cylinder style more closely. If that fails then I will invest in the N15 cylinders. Thanks for that suggestion though. I like Peter's Spares and have bought stuff off them before but I tend to build up an order for multiple items as the postage to Australia tends to be bit on the dear side for one item only.

As an aside, I have just been watching an old (1952) black and white movie on TV called 'Ghost Ship'. It is largely based around Shoreham and includes occasional shots around a station with a narrow wooden-boarded platform with nice Southern concrete lamps - I'm not actually sure if it is the real Shoreham. Several 2 BILs and NOLs appear during the movie although I didn't record their unit numbers (too slow!).

D1075 'Western Firecracker'!

My 14mm 10-spoke bogie wheels arrived today from Mainly Trains in England, so I wasted no time in fitting them and testing again. Before I show the pic of it with the new wheels, though, I took a photo the other day before decoder fitting but after adding the motor and works back in and temporarily hooking up the wires for testing on analogue (12V DC). This also shows the various mods and add-on bits. And now, with the body on, decoder fitted and the new bogie wheels. The capuchon has now been filed off the chimney and a small amount of filler added to the ridge on the cab roof where there was a slight gap in the casting. I did intend taking a pic of the bogie springing arrangement but forgot to do that before screwing the bogie back on. Haulage power is good but I reckon it'll be even better when I add some lead sheet to the insides of the side tanks!

Ha ha, Ken! I did exactly the same thing as you with the chimney on mine when cutting it off!! I replaced it with a bit of straight brass tubing drilled through the roof and weathered in (I have overdone the weathering at the moment and will tone it down a bit). Mine is now a parallel sided chimney but it looks like a stove pipe chimney so near enough for me.

Just for info: Phil Radley was the original designer of the Harrow Models kits. He set off on his own when Harrow Models folded. So, essentially, the Radley white metal one will be the same kit as the Harrow Models one.. It's looking good, Mozzer ... are you not tempted to keep it??

Very interesting, Grasslands. My own Craftsman 07 has been runnable for some years but I never fully completed it because one of the wheels has an annoying wobble and all attempts to fix it have failed, to date. I also want to convert it to DCC. Your idea may provide me with a workable solution to both my problems.

They filled the Guard's compartment and luggage space with batteries ... the Guard just had to be very careful where he sat with all those bare terminals around! It does look good. Was this a pre-production/review model?

A quick update (but no photos at this point): I reinstalled the motor and intermediate gear this morning then hooked up the wires temporarily to test it on DC power. It ran perfectly on the test leads so I placed it on the track and switched that over to DC (from DCC). There was an initial stickiness but after a couple of circuits it ran perfectly, although there was an annoying ticking noise that I traced to the front articulation on the coupling rods touching the spacing washer on the valve gear on each revolution: it doesn't affect the free running so I won't worry about it for now. Next job is to fire up the soldering iron and hard-wire the TCS M1 decoder I have for it.

I like the sound set but haven't got the ideal speaker set up yet. Sound is a bit mushy with a single ESU 4 Ohm round speaker in the fuel tank. It was slightly better (slightly sharper) with a CT 8 Ohm speaker wired in series but I really need to get at least a bass enhanced speaker in the fuel tank, possibly in parallel with another speaker in the body. The only other 4 or 8 Ohm speakers i have in stock right now are too big to fit the 33 (two are bass reflex and one is a 20mm x 40mm standard) so I have ordered a few more different types to try out. I am enjoying the manual notching method of driving (the decoder has two sound sets loaded and you change from one set to the other by changing the value in CV 265, which can be done on the fly using programming on the main). As with all such projects, there is a bit of guesswork and trial and error to get the best out of it. The decoder costs around three quarters of the price of an ESU LokSound decoder so represents good value, although you have to add the cost of speaker or speakers to that. Once I'm happy with the speaker set up I'll post a video in the DCC Sound section. You, Peter, will, of course, be able to hear it in person!!

Just after sending that last post of mine, I had to do the very same thing with a Heljan class 33 that I have just fitted a Zimo sound decoder in. I ended up with a value of 9 in CV2. Peter, if you set up the loco on a programming track, press 'esc' then number 4 (or just repeat pressing 'esc' until you see ... ) => programming track. The NCE interface should then give you a choice; the one of interest here is '2. CV'. It will ask you which CV to change (type '2', 'enter') then what value you want (type in the number you wish to try then 'enter'). Once entered, escape back to the operating mode and try it out. find out what speed step causes the loco to just start to move. If it isn't speed step 1 ... Repeat until you achieve the desired result. It is easier than it sounds. One other thing: make sure you are programming only the one locomotive on an isolated bit of track otherwise you'll reprogram all of the locos that are on the layout at the time!

I haven't watched the videos yet but there are some really great photos there. Good stuff!

Hi Philip. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy this has been so far. It does look daunting when you read the instructions but it all makes much better sense if you have the chassis in front of you at the same time.Probably the toughest bit was removing the 6mm from the back of the chassis - I started this off with the Dremel and a slitting disc but finished it off with a razor saw. I could have left the motor in place but preferred to remove it and the wiring to reduce the risk of filings getting int the works. I haven't done the 'Z' although I know someone with the kit (unbuilt though). I wouldn't mind one but it would be dependent on getting a suitable chassis at a reasonable price, as I managed with the G16.

Thanks for answering that, Geoff (good name, that!). For the class 33. Peter, try adding values into CV2 (the startup voltage). I generally find Heljan locos can start fine with a value of 0 but keep adding in until the loco just moves on speed step 1. Try a value of 3, then 6, then 9, an so on, then fine tune it from there (if it doesn't move with a value of 6 but moves too fast on 9, try 7 or 8, for example). I have a couple of locomotives (not Heljan!) that have required quite high starting values (in the order of CV2 = 35). While it all sounds fiddly and complicated, it is actually one of the pluses of DCC in that you can tweak locomotives to behave similarly to each other or to a particular performance specification for a particular type of Loco (eg an 08 shunter).

The practice may have been frowned upon but is a boon to modellers who can't readily change the stencils or tail lamps!

A interesting project that has come out surprisingly well, considering the unpromising looking body you started with. That really is crying out for some finer wheels to be fitted. Could I also suggest (with no criticism intended) that you could improve it further by extending the straight line along the bottoms of the side tanks. Overall though I admire your skill in getting it to look like the USA tank and your imagination in even seeing it in the initial model in the first place. I'm sure I have one of those sitting in a scrap box somewhere that I haven't known what to do with.

The resistance of the motor is a bit different but with DCC you can tweak a heap of settings to get it to closely match the performance of the other brands. Try it with your existing one first.

After three days of ice packs on my face and pain killers I have had to have a root canal job on a tooth. Now that I'm recovering and feeling human again, I have pushed the G16 project a little further. I have put a temporary wheelset on the bogie and given the body a preliminary coat of black. On reading the potted history of the class in the instructions, I have realised that I need to remove the capuchon from the chimney - a few strokes of a file will fix this. I am almost ready to fit some of the small parts like the steps at the front of the footplate and te cab roof ventilator. Also before the final coats of paint go on, I need to add the wires/pipes that go diagonally from the fronts of the tanks to a position just behind those bulges over the cylinders, and add some lamp irons. The sprung LSWR buffers I have for it will go on after spray painting has been completed. At this point it seems to be moving freely so I can consider putting the motor and intermediate gear back in.

Just a thought Peter: if you can get old of a ViTrains class 47 chassis it will fit under the Lima body with very little modification. It will mainly be the cab interior that needs modding to clear the light units. The down side of this idea is that adapting the ViTrains for Kadee couplings will not be as straightforward.

It is actually a resin body for an original Merchant Navy from Golden Arrow Productions (GAP). It is mounted on a Hornby rebuilt MN chassis although I have yet to modify the valve gear properly. At the moment the body is simply tacked together to show what it will look like. Chris Meachen (of GAP) offers versions of the MN to represent most of the major variants, with two different cabs and different front end arrangements. I won this one on eBay from Chris's shop; it was offered as a second series version with 5100 gall tender body but as I had more 6000 gall tenders 'spare' I asked Chris to substitute the tender body, which he very willingly did for me. I have no connection with GAP or eBay but am a satisfied customer of both!. I currently have two other GAP products in build: a Maunsell diesel-electric shunter from the BR 15201 - 3 series (nearly finished) and an ex-LSWR G16 4-8-0 tank which is proceeding nicely. The MN will follow on from these on the workbench.

Yes, some of the earlier photo links were lost when RMweb was upgraded. I restored some but haven't got to all of them yet. Sorry about that. Thanks for the kind comment.

Hi Peter. Yes, Graham's pages are very useful indeed. Perth has had a real heatwave. Thankfully, so far, we have been spared the worst over here, although Friday is predicted to reach 39. I hope you survive it ... there must be an end in sight.

And now with the cylinders and valve gear in place.