SRman

I have only just been invoiced by Rails for mine, so it'll be a while before I receive it, but following some of the discussions over the last few topic pages, I have formed the following thoughts. A1A-A1A as opposed to C-C drive for the models works fine for me. I have quite a few older Heljan diesels, such as class 47s, 57s, 52s, 58s, Falcon, Lion and Kestrel (there may be others I haven't listed), and all have the centre axle floating axles and 8-wheel drive, with great track-holding on uneven parts, and excellent haulage power - my usual comment is they'll pull the side out of the house given the chance! For the dual function F2, one of the first things I'll be doing is popping it on the programming track connected to the LokProgrammer, which makes it easy to swap functions around, and how they operate. My intention will be to alter the F2 and F25 combination so that the horns are with F25 on, and the brake is with it off. Easy to do with the LokProgrammer, and probably almost as easy with JMRI Decoder Pro. It can be done with CV changes as well, but that would mean reading the LokSound manual! 😅 I have a couple of the Hornby models, and they are by no means bad models, and still very presentable now, but the Cavalex one is quite a few steps above that, and I am really looking forward to receiving mine in due course.

I have an Imperium in my D class, and a Lais 870015 in the D1. both run very smoothly on DCC. What I do change on all decoders besides the addresses is the inertia/momentum settings on CVs 3 and 4. I have all locomotives and units set with large-ish values in those CVs to match closely with the driving qualities of sound-fitted items. This smooths out some of the running, but won't compensate for a stiff or "coggy" motor and gear chain (if yours have other problems). I use starting values of CV3=25 and CV4=18, then tweak them from there.

Thanks for the replies guys. I thought the details looked so good, but I didn't think the lever frames would suit, and you have all confirmed this. I have used several British interior packs from the likes of Wills/Ratio and Metcalfe, as well as manufacturing my own using etched levers from Wizard Models and plastic scraps to make the furniture and floor. Thanks again. 👍👍

There's no hard and fast answer to the "How long ...?" question. Once the new railway companies were formed, they then had to make the decisions on liveries before any repainting could commence, and even then, it took a long time to send everything through the works. Typically you could say that by about five years after formation, the majority of stock was in the newer schemes, but there were always odd survivors soldiering on in the old schemes, especially if they were scheduled for withdrawal anyway. I do have a reference book with a photograph of a locomotive in SR days still in pre-grouping livery on 1927, so that was four years on. There's another photo in another book with a Bulleid locomotive hauling a 3-set of coaches still in Blood & Custard in early 1963 (there's snow on the ground). That's fully six years after that colour scheme was superseded. As someone else has pointed out earlier, the SR and BR Southern Region had a habit of revarnishing rather than repainting coaches, so older colour schemes could survive longer. There are stories (I can't verify them, though) of SR green coaches surviving long enough to go straight into the darker BR(S) green, bypassing the carmine and cream livery altogether. Your best bet is to dig out as many photo images from those periods as you can, using books and online sources, and whatever else you can find. If all else fails, use Rule 1. 😉

I have just seen this Artitec product listed in Modellbahn Union shop in Germany. The mouldings/3D prints look very nice but I wondered whether they would suit a British signal box at all. The lever frame in particular looks odd because it is upside down compared to anything I have seen before, assuming they have posed it the correct way to start with. I won't be buying it (from anywhere) unless I know I can use it without a genuine signalman laughing his head off. https://www.modellbahnunion.com/HO-gauge/HO-Signal-box-interior-with-lever-bank.htm?shop=modellbahn-union-en&a=article&ProdNr=Artitec-10.414&p=802&utm_source=CleverReach&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter+25.01.2024+EN&utm_content=Mailing_15066897 I have no connection with Modellbahn Union other than as satisfied customer, and have bought Artitec items from other places in UK and Australia as well.

Having seen the BR banger blue one in the flesh on Peter P.C.M.'s Llanbourne layout, I was sorely tempted to order a version for myself. I have resisted up until today! I have now ordered 56 120 with sound from Rails. They haven't billed me yet as they work out the postal costs to Australia first then invoice it. Having just received several new models in the last few weeks, I really didn't want to add more expense to my credit card, but with these things one has to decide to order or risk missing out altogether. Obviously I'll have to wait a bit longer than the UK locals, but we're used to that here on the opposite side of the world. 😄

I actually swapped the M7's coupling for a shorter one with a better shaped bar as well, but that still let go. I used Hornby's magnetic couplings within the set early on, as the kinematic coupling arrangement works best with a rigid coupling. Kadees are a much better idea than the tension locks, but as the set is never going to be separated when in service, the magnetic couplings work well. The Roco style short couplings would also do the job, but are more difficult to separate when putting the coaches away, off the layout. Usually, I leave tension locks on the outer ends of coach sets, but as can be seen that didn't work well here. Thanks also for the compliments. 😊

Further to the use of a 6-pin decoder in the 4-pin application, I did this with all of my three W4 Pecketts and an 0-4-0 Sentinel diesel. I used the blanking plug wired to take a TCS M1 or M4 decoder, with wire harness (meaning the number of pins was irrelevant. I'm not sure a rigid 6-pin decoder would fit unless you solder wires to it anyway. The Hornby 4-pin connection is very clunky, and takes up more space than a normal 6-pin interface, so why Hornby went this way is a total mystery to me. The TCS decoders were smaller than the Hornby 4-pin ones anyway, and there are even more choices now for small or micro decoders. I'd recommend either ESU or Zimo for really good control. My reasons for going this way were that I didn't want to be tied to a Hornby proprietary decoder (there are many better ones available), and in using the blanking plug for my connections, it makes it much easier to replace or change over the decoder (there are better ones available now than the TCS ones I used, although they are by no means bad). The other way to go would be to strip out the Hornby interface altogether and hard-wire a decoder straight in. Use either a decoder with a wire harness, or an 8-pin harnessed one, and cut off the plug. I posted a few photos a very long time ago, so here's a couple that show roughly what I did (it was difficult getting a really clear photo of it).

I've been productive with the videos lately: here's a demo of my wife's birthday present to me, Rapido Trains UK's The Titfield Thunderbolt, "visiting" Newton Broadway and re-enacting a little of the movie amongst all the modern trains. I did remember to change the signals for once when doing this one! 😄

I am a Pratchett fan too. Doctor Who also plays on that theme from time to time: David Tenant's first episode had a big red button in it, so of course, The Doctor just has to press it. 🤣

Sorry your notifications are going to get pinged a few times as I catch up with your thread. I still haven't read everything. There's some really superb modelling you have done through all this, Saxokid. I particularly love the weathering and aging you did on a Petroleum Sector class 37 back in 2019 (that's how far behind I am!).

In answer to the first question, with not too much detail, the more pins there are, the more possible functions are available without extra wiring. Even so, some decoders have more functions available on-board than the number of pins. However, some come with wires attached to supply the extra functions (e.g. your purple wire on the 8-pin decoder), but others require you to solder wires to solder pads on the decoder body - not for the faint-hearted or beginners, I think. While I can and have soldered directly to the decoders, I chicken out if there's a viable alternative; for the latter, I have soldered to the base of the pins on the locomotive's PCB with a 21-pin interface, with the decoder removed, thereby keeping the heat well away from the decoder.

You've goaded me into action! The two photos show the colours against a Hornby 4-wheel coach and a repainted GWR clerestory coach I did before any of the LSWR coaches came from the manufacturers, using Precision or Cherry Paints (I can't remember for sure which it was). As can be seen, the EFE shade is a bit pinker. And a video taken this morning. I had some trouble with the tension lock couplings parting on uneven bits of track. The EFE set is very free running, and the slightest downhill part caused it to push the coupling over the M7's. I swapped to a set of Hornby magnetic couplings like those I used within the set, and it all worked perfectly after that. As can be seen, the coach set has no difficulties with slightly uneven track or pointwork. The kinematic coupling arrangement keeps the coaches fairly closely coupled when used with the more rigid couplings. I hope this helps a bit.

🤣🤣 I have studiously avoided pressing that button for nearly 20 years that I have owned NCE's systems. However, while trying to operated the camera at the sae time as working the Cab, the controller slipped from my grip, so it is quite possible I caught that dreaded button! It is a pity NCE don't allow reallocating that button's function as they do with the 'Option' button. One of these days I will stick that bit of tape behind the 'Momentum' buttons on all six of my Power Cab/Power Pro controllers. While it isn't high on my priorities, I will make a point of doing it once I have them opened up for any reason (which is pretty rarely, TBH).

Hi Nick. If you mean D6704 that had factory-fitted sound, i.e. Accurascale's own sound project. I'm not sure who provided that for them - possibly legomanbiffo (guessing! Edit: Jamie Goodman - see McC's answer below), but it is different to the other ones from Bif that are in the same video.

I have recorded more of my Accurascale class 37s. This time all three have the Accurathrash speaker fitted, but all have different variations on the sound files. D6704 has the factory-fitted Accurascale sound for a 37/0, 37 026 has legomanbiffo West Highland 37/0 sound, and 37 602 has legomanbiffo WH 37/4 sound. There were a few anomalies during the recording, because I hadn't reallocated various functions on all of them to align them as I had done with the earlier three. Somehow I lost the inertia and momentum settings on 37 602, which were easy enough to restore, but a nuisance while I was recording and juggling the phone camera and Power Pro controller. I may possibly have accidentally hit the very annoying NCE 'Momentum' button that reprograms decoder CVs 3 and 4. I know a few NCE users actually put a bit of tape under that button to prevent just such accidents occurring. 🙄 Another irritant was the leading Bachmann nuclear flask FNA-C wagon suddenly decided it had to derail its leading bogie several times as it went around. Fortunately it rerailed itself each time. Anyway, I hope the video is satisfactory. As before, I am posting the same link in the Accurascale class 37 topic, and the DCC sound topic.

I have recorded more of my Accurascale class 37s. This time all three have the Accurathrash speaker fitted, but all have different variations on the sound files. D6704 has the factory-fitted Accurascale sound for a 37/0, 37 026 has legomanbiffo West Highland 37/0 sound, and 37 602 has legomanbiffo WH 37/4 sound. There were a few anomalies during the recording, because I hadn't reallocated various functions on all of them to align them as I had done with the earlier three. Somehow I lost the inertia and momentum settings on 37 602, which were easy enough to restore, but a nuisance while I was recording and juggling the phone camera and Power Pro controller. I may possibly have accidentally hit the very annoying NCE 'Momentum' button that reprograms decoder CVs 3 and 4. I know a few NCE users actually put a bit of tape under that button to prevent just such accidents occurring. 🙄 Another irritant was the leading Bachmann nuclear flask FNA-C wagon suddenly decided it had to derail its leading bogie several times as it went around. Fortunately it rerailed itself each time. Anyway, I hope the video is satisfactory. As before, I am posting the same link in the Accurascale class 37 topic, and the DCC sound topic.

Apologies if I am hijacking discussions again; I have recorded more of my Accurascale class 37s. This time all three have the Accurathrash speaker fitted, but all have different variations on the sound files. D6704 has the factory-fitted Accurascale sound for a 37/0, 37 026 has legomanbiffo West Highland 37/0 sound, and 37 602 has legomanbiffo WH 37/4 sound. There were a few anomalies during the recording, because I hadn't reallocated various functions on all of them to align them as I had done with the earlier three. Somehow I lost the inertia and momentum settings on 37 602, which were easy enough to restore, but a nuisance while I was recording and juggling the phone camera and Power Pro controller. I may possibly have accidentally hit the very annoying NCE 'Momentum' button that reprograms decoder CVs 3 and 4. I know a few NCE users actually put a bit of tape under that button to prevent just such accidents occurring. 🙄 Another irritant was the leading Bachmann nuclear flask FNA-C wagon suddenly decided it had to derail its leading bogie several times as it went around. Fortunately it rerailed itself each time. Incidentally, I noted 37 026 started to surge a bit, as reported by a few other people. I used the ESU auto-tune feature on CV54 to retune it, and that seems to have cured it for the moment. I will have to keep an eye on it, though. Anyway, I hope the video is satisfactory.

That's exactly how I have created a few lamp irons and the like in OO scale. It works, albeit, it can be a little tedious to do.

Beware comparing the later batches of HAPs to the 2 EPBs. As mentioned above, the earliest batch had the roof conduits, later ones did not. The Bachmann body shells are complete, including the correct roof details for the unit numbers they represent. As an aside, I have a nearly completed conversion of 2 x 2 EPBs to a 4 EPB, which does require me to remove almost all of the roof detail from all coaches.

I'm not sure on that one. I'll be interested in the answer as well.

Any suitable 21-pin ESU LokSound or LokPilot can be set up to work with the lighting functions on the Accurascale 37s and 92s (pantograph servos as well). I have one class 92 with just a LokPilot (no sound) and Accurascale's Patrick kindly sent me a file with all the CV settings that I could load into the LokPilot, saving me a lot of separate programming. Sound files are proprietary, though, so they might be able to send the lighting settings to a third party one, but not the sounds. Having said that, as I showed before, I have Legomanbiffo and Jamie Goodman sounds in some, and even the generic ESU Hi-Fi sounds and all of these work all of the the lighting functions. They haven't standardised which function keys do what, though, so I have spent a considerable amount of time remapping functions, using the LokProgrammer, to bring them into line with each other, particularly with double heading (in consists). Examples include setting tail lights off on F20, drive hold on F8, cab lights on F21 ... and so on.

I haven't noticed any difference in the gutter lines.

That's fine, because you were absolutely correct. 😊 I have watched various YouTube clips of cold starts on all sorts of locomotives, and some of them go for a lot longer than the models start up. I do like the compromise that Jamie Goodman adopted, though. It seems a good balance between absolute realism, and being tedious while waiting to be able to drive the model. Thanks for the compliment, too. 👍

My slightly early birthday present from Mrs SRman arrived today from Rails. She bought me the Deluxe Titfield Thunderbolt pack. I haven't added the figures to it yet, preferring to run it in a bit first. There is a tight spot in the running, which has freed up a bit but it needs some more running yet. It is still a smooth and powerful beast, in spite of its size. I did fit the folded chimney to the coach, though. It is a lovely model and a good bit of fun.