CWJ

PS. Is everyone enjoying the TV ads featuring a reliveried Hornby Class 800 and a Northern Class 331 made out of a Bachmann 150? Someone on here will know who made them 🙂

NR has released their Network Change paperwork for the biggest element of the TRU (in my opinion), which is the reinststement of 4 tracks between Huddersfield and Ravensthorpe, with a new cutting for the 100mph fast lines at Heaton Lodge Jn, a new flying junction at Ravensthorpe and the remodelling of Huddersfield among other things. Coupled with all the behind-the scenes feasibility, design and consultation work, plus some enabling works on the ground, I'd say this means it's pretty certain to go ahead. There used to be a really good description on NR's website but it's been taken down. This video sums it up well: Cheers, Will PS. I forgot to mention that this part of the project includes electrification 🙄 Pretty importsnt given the title of the thread!

Sunshine and showers at Huddersfield as 68027 departs with a Manchester train on 6th November 2023.

Imagine the conversation on Kingmoor Depot, when the old hand told the apprentice to clean all the yellow front ends... 🤣

A pair of 170s on a Liverpool-Norwich service this afternoon, seen departing from Manchester Piccadilly: Last time I checked this route was operated entirely by 158s, so I mustn't have been paying attention recently! Cheers, Will

...and here's the second: Doesn't really work when you've just heard the punchline, does it? 🙂

Great minds think alike: I'm already on it! I scoured the internet for a decent photo of the moquette in even lighting (it was actually on a bus) then extended the pattern like wallpaper to create the middle image below. The green patch below is actually the same pattern shrunk to 4mm scale and repeated enough times to complete the Balloon. I'm thinking of giving my tram the type of seats in the LH photo, so I can paint round the edge of the transfers with dark green to represent the leather. Otherwise my home-made transfers tend to have a scruffy edge. I won't actually paint the interior until the body and chassis are all finished, then I can do all the messy painty stuff at the same time. Cheers, Will

I have some similar ones, very useful for 'layout wire' right up to mains twin & earth. For finer wires as described though, I find a pair of good, sharp scissors gives more control. Just let the blades squeeze the insulation ever so slightly, then pull sideways off the end of the wire. Usually needs a second attempt at a different angle to cut all the way round the circumference. Much easier to do than to describe in writing! Cheers, Will

You can see daylight under the boiler; very prototypical.

Only one working day left... the end of a (brief) era! I used to enjoy catching these home from work. Rail travel without an engine under your seat is a luxury in the North. This was taken a couple of weeks ago on a 1535 MAN-SCA, possibly the most frequent journey to be downgraded to a 185! I never know how much industry gen I can mention on here without getting into trouble, but let's just say these sets will still need to be moved occasionally for maintenance purposes, so if you live by the railway that runs between the LNWR's carriage works and their shed that was known as 9A in BR days, and you like vintage traction, keep an eye out for the next few months 😉 Cheers, Will

A few more interior details... On the left is the handbrake wheel and on the right is the top of the controller and the driver's side dashboars. They're made up of brass etches, brass rod and a lump of styrene. A passenger's eye view. I must remember to put a blob of paint on the end of the power handles to represent the knobs. Although this detail is a bit fiddly, it will be very visible through the windscreen. This angle shows why I haven't bothered modelling anything on the can below waist height - it wouldn't be visible. Cheers, Will

I soldered a short spring to the top of the bulkhead walls which will make contact with the lighting PCB above: This protrudes through a hole in the glazing moulding, but I'll need to trim a bit more off the diecast body to prevent short circuits: I think this pretty much completes the lower deck interior assembly, except for painting. I'm still enjoying playing with the lights too... Cheers, Will

All the head and tail lights are now installed and working, so it's time for some proper modelling. The etched central partitions/floor were glued in place, after soldering in a brass handrail on each side: If you're interested in how I made these, please take a look at my 'Etching Brass On The Cheap' thread. Next I prepared the cab bulkheads by using solder to repair some defects in my homebrewed etches: I'll actually use these to conduct track voltage up to the interior lighting PCBs, hence the wires which will run through the floor to those copper tapes I installed earlier. Poking the camera into the windscreen, here's a view of the lower deck, loosely assembled. Yes, those staircases are on the wonk: To be continued...

Yes, I have no desire to return to N-gauge, it revealed eyesight deficiencies I never knew I had! After finishing this model I read about bus modellers making up decals from individual letters, but that was in OO. I have also discovered this working trolleybus layout: https://youtu.be/3GUfZ9ZybJ0?feature=shared Full details are here: http://www.trolleybus.org.uk/model/Ridings.htm Cheers, Will

A very brief update today: the Glue 'n' Glaze in the headlights set over the weekend, and I actually topped it up as it shrinks and I wanted the lights to have flat fronts. The tram was then transferred to the Low Light Photographic Test Facility (AKA a carboard box) to see what the lights look like. I'm happy with that. As usual, LEDs look a bit brighter in photos than they really are. What you might not be able to see from the photos is that the lights are not as diffused as in RTR models, they're a bit more 'twinkly' like the real thing. Even when switched off the lights now look more realistic than the silver-painted dots they replace. Now please excuse me for a few days / weeks while I repeat the soldering and hot-gluing three more times for the remaining lights. Cheers, Will

Interesting! I stand corrected. 👍

This is an interesting conversation, and I think the Op has made a more valid point than some of the responses acknolwedge, for example... "It has always been this way" - correct I'm sure, but the days when we only got 2 new models a year from Hornby and Lima can't really be compared with today's thriving RTR market where smaller manufacturers are releasing models of obscure one-off prototypes from 70 years ago that 90% of us have never set eyes on. In that context it seems odd that I can't go out and buy a OO-gauge Electrostar. "Just build your own" - a lot of satisfaction to be had from that if you have the skills to get it right, but for those of us born after woodwork and metalwork were taught (properly) in schools, scratch-built or kit-bashed models just don't look as good as modern RTR. Having said that, 3D printing has opened up more options for people to build whatever they want with limited hand skills. "EMUs aren't glamorous enough" - undoubtedly true, but whether you like running Gresley pacifics, HSTs or Pendolinos, you need something to run next to them on the slow lines. Perhaps the problem is that people are happy to have just one example of a stopping train to run alongside their large collection of expresses. "The same applies to the pre-grouping era" - it does, but who can remember it? Modelling 1920 today is like modelling 1890 when I started 30 years ago. It will always be a minority interest, albeit with some beautiful models. For anyone under 40, the privatisation era has filled their adult life, BR blue was 'old stuff', the popular steam-diesel transition era was 'when Dad was little' and anything before that is ancient history. I still hear people describingClass 150s as 'modern' just because they have internal combustion engines. This is equivalent to someone in 1990 calling a BR Standard steam loco 'modern'. As depressing as it is for some of us, we need to get used to the fact that there are full-grown adults among us who have never known what it's like for the current year to begin with a '19'! "Privatisation liveries change every 5 minutes" - in many cases, yes, but the longer-lasting ones have been more permanent than the BR sectorisation liveries, or the working life of classes like the 9Fs. I would have thought the manufacturers would see this as an opportunity for multiple re-runs. Take Bachmann's 170 for example - in BR days a 20-year-old fleet would still be in the livery it was built in. I don't mean to argue with anyone, but I suspect many of those defending the shortage of privatisation-era models would have been as disappointed as the OP if they'd been unable to buy a Class 101 in the 1980s. None of this necessarily means there's a financial business case for new models, but if I were a manufacturer in 2023 I'd be wondering what will happen to my business when the Baby Boom generation passes on. Regards, Will

To resolve the light bleed effect, I cut some black foam sheet into thin strips around the LEDs: Both the foam and the PCB are now held in place with hot glue. I used this because it set quickly while I held the PCB in position, but it's very messy. Thankfully all this will be hidden by the cab floor and the dashboard/controller. The two wires from the PCB are soldered to the copper strips underneath. Just a brief touch from the iron to avoid melting the plastic floor! Finally for today, I used Glue 'n' Glaze from Deluxe Materials to fill in the light openings. This is just a trial really (it will need removing again when I paint the body anyway). They still look like this at the moment, but when they're gone clear I'll pop the lights on and see how they look. If they don't look convincing, I'll whittle up some solid lenses out of clear plastic rod. Cheers, Will

Today I've installed the head and tail lights, just in one corner to see if I can assemble them correctly. Having tested the LEDs to find out what series resistor was needed to give the correct brightness, I drew a schematic to avoid confusion over left/right, back/front, positive/negative, etc. The top and bottom lines are the track power, and each of those four rectangular clusters will be one PCB containing a head and tail light. I'm using surface-mount components which are absolutely tiny, so I did a scale layout drawing to make sure everything would fit. The green T-shape on one LED and the diagonal chamfer on the other are markings to show their polarity. The circuit board is not really a PCB but a bit of modified Veroboard. It's just big enough to hold the components, and just small enough to fit behind the headlight holes. I trimmed the copper strips to avoid any chance of unwanted short circuits... ...and soldered on the components, starting with the LEDs because they're in the middle. It won't win any beauty contests but it will soon be hidden, and in my defence surface-mount components were never meant for human fingers! I found some very thin wire which will lead to the copper strips I laid under the floor. The PCB roughly in position, where it will be supported and protected by the interior moulding, allowing me to disassemble the tram for maintenance. It works! Although the lamp looks bright in the photo, it's actually nicely dim. And the red. These photos show the light bleeding between the two holes, which I'll sort out next. I'll also be making some kind of lenses. Cheers, Will

A bit of progress today. Having done all the destructive surgery, it's now time to gradually start putting the tram back together. Although I bought a lovely set of etched brass lifeguards, I decided that they wouldn't last very long in such an exposed position, so I decided to retain the plastic Corgi ones which are really tough. They're glued with MEK to small remaining sections of the original 'floor plate', which is in turn glued to the underside of the interior moulding. Next I replaced the missing floors with new ones, raised up by about 2.5mm. These are 40 thou styrene, glued to the underside of the seats. I could have used 20 thou but I had the 40 thou in black which means less painting effort later. I drilled 2mm holes for the bogie pivots. Third and final job for today was laying self-adhesive copper strips on the underframe. This will create accessible 'busbars' to the motors and lights without filling the interior with wires. My copper tape was too wide so I cut it into two thinner strips using a craft knife and straight edge. This stuff is basically only foil so it cuts easily. It looks a bit garish from below but won't be visible when the tram's complete. And yes, these strips will be conducting track power so it won't matter if the wheels touch them. Cheers, Will

Thanks for the kind feedback, all, but the tram has been on hold while I turned my attention to summer DIY jobs etc. (and an N-scale trolleybus). I hope to start on it again soon. Yes, I saw the Hadfield kits on Ebay too. I can't remember why I chose the Corgi model, perhaps it was my naive idea of keeping most of the nice paint job. We'll see how much of it survives 🙂 Cheers, Will

Thank you, Les. It isn't my finest work, but as a quick project to create something in a scale I find difficult, I'm happy enough with it. Cheers, Will

Thanks Steven! Yes, I actually printed all the decals on both clear and white paper in case one worked better than the other. The destination blinds have rounded corners which I didn't think I could cut out neatly without leaving a white bit, but with hindsight the radiused corners aren't really visible so I could have just printed them with square corners on white paper. Cheers, Will

Thanks! I had to look up that large scale model (photo here: https://i1066.photobucket.com/albums/u405/hanger69/trolley56001.jpg) ...very impressive! Cheers, Will

The trolleybus was finished off by touching up the gloss black, very slightly dirtying the roof detail around the trolley poles and painting the undersides of the wheel arches (which had been bright red). I popped some mucky black paint on the ends of the unpainted metal axles, and some new blobs of silver where my cream paint had spoilt the headlights. I decided to use gloss varnish because my Dad's layout is populated with fresh-out-of-the-box road vehicles and I wanted this to match. So there you have it. This took me a couple of weeks, doing half an hour here and there, but those of you without young kids could probably do it in a weekend. It's not going to win any awards but I've achieved what I set out to achieve - unmistakably a Huddersfield trolleybus which will look adequate on the layout. Maybe towards the back 😉 Cheers, Will