Southeastern Electrostar conversion project - Underframe detail

[tjf4375]

Hi all,

It's been a while since I've posted here. This is kind of a companion thread to 'Sevenoaks', which can be found in the layout and workbench forums. 

 

The layout when finished will cover the time period of early Network Southeast, right up to present day - so quite a variety of stock and liveries! Sevenoaks is on the Southeastern network, and sits on the main line between Hastings and Charing Cross. It also sees services to Blackfriars and onto Bedfordshire, operated by Thameslink. It's been great fun gathering a number of the RTR models that are available for 3rd rail, such as the Hornby 4-VEP, Bachman 4-CEP and the EPBs, as well as of course the Hornby Networkers.

 

However, no southern region 3rd rail layout looks right without an Electrostar whizzing round.

 

The vast majority of services at SEV are operated by these Bombardier Class 375 units, which have been around since the mid 2000s. Despite their ubiquity, we've never had an RTR model. The closest model to the Electrostar in appearance is the Bachmann Class 170/171 Turbostar. Many of you will have seen James Makin's superb thread and conversion project, from which he created two superb Class 377 units. James's work inspired me to embark on a similar thing, although I had no idea of the amount of work I was getting into!

 

Like James, I started off with two Bachmann Chiltern Turbostars, which I then needed to cut down to size. I won't go into too much detail there, as James has already covered what's involved in his thread. I took a slightly different approach when it came to the cabs though, and thought I would try creating some 3d printed models. Given the complexity of the shape, I decided to produce the model in several parts, which could be painted before final assembly. I also produced these so that brass etched parts could be used to pick out the more intricate details, such as the headlight surrounds and corridor connection facing. 

It's taken a number of weeks of cutting, filling, sanding, painting and huffing and puffing - but the project is now over the half-way point, so I thought I'd share a few pics of the progress! The two centre coaches are in livery and awaiting transfers and couplings. The two driving coaches are approaching the same stage, and I'm hoping to have the cab attached to one driving coach by the end of this week. I only ordered one set of cab parts initially, and this proved to be fortunate as it's enabled me to make some modifications and improvements to the second set, which is on order.

 

I'd welcome any feedback, questions or comments as always. The cab comprises 4 separate components, being the main cab, the valance, the corridor connection and the coupler. I will eventually make them available on Shapeways, and I will make the brass etched parts available for sale as well if anyone wants them (limited stock available!). 

Thanks for looking :)
 

Edited November 25, 2022 by tjf4375
new updates

[Towbridge Junction]

Extremely nice work, the cab ends look spot on to me and the unit is looking good already. Look forward to seeing the completed unit soon 👍

[tjf4375]

Thanks Towbridge! Really appreciate the kind comments. I'm hoping there will be a bit more to show after this weekend, as one of the driving coaches is at the livery stage and almost ready to have the cab attached :)

[KeithHC]

Excellent piece of work. It’s something I hope in the future to be able to do I have a need for a few Different Southern cabs. I am at the moment able to very basic CAD design and have set myself a task to perfect design work over this winter. Then I can hopefully start on a cab front for the 3D(class 207).

 

Keith

[tjf4375]

Thanks Keith, appreciate the kind comments. Best of luck with your design work - do you have drawings to work from for the Class 207? That sounds like it will be an interesting project and look forward to seeing it take shape.

[Hal Nail]

On 29/09/2022 at 16:52, tjf4375 said:

 

Quite aside from the cracking bit of design, the finish looks really good. Is that as printed or was there a lot of additional work there?

[tjf4375]

Thanks Hal, much appreciated.

There wasn't much finishing work needed to the 3d prints - a couple of good coats of primer was enough really. The print quality from Shapeways, especially when using super detail plastic, is superb and improving all the time.

 

Kind regards,

 

Tim

[Tom Burnham]

As an ex commuter from Staplehurst to CX, and also one who used to go to Sevenoaks for train spotting in the mid 1960s (when it still had platform faces both sides of the outer tracks), I'm pleased to see your 375. Looks as if it will be very good. Not so sure what I think about Connex liveries - rather a low point in the view of many actual passengers...

[James Makin]

Looking beautiful Tim and can't wait to see this progressing further! 

[tjf4375]

4 hours ago, Tom Burnham said:

As an ex commuter from Staplehurst to CX, and also one who used to go to Sevenoaks for train spotting in the mid 1960s (when it still had platform faces both sides of the outer tracks), I'm pleased to see your 375. Looks as if it will be very good. Not so sure what I think about Connex liveries - rather a low point in the view of many actual passengers...

Thanks Tom! Yes the earlier Connex liveries were certainly divisive and rather garish. The later white southeastern liveries were certainly an improvement, although a magnet for dirt and graffiti. It is amazing how many variations on this livery there were - with and without grey band, yellow doors, blue doors, dark blue doors, etc etc. I've decided to opt for the yellow doors without grey band as this seems to have been fairly common, and is hopefully less fiddly to reproduce!

[tjf4375]

4 hours ago, James Makin said:

Looking beautiful Tim and can't wait to see this progressing further! 

Thanks James! This is certainly one of the more fiddly conversion projects I've embarked on - I have the utmost respect for you having the patience to do all this twice, with such great results :)

Edited October 4, 2022 by tjf4375
typo

[tjf4375]

Well, a few days later than planned - but I finally managed to get one of the driving coaches assembled with the cab fronts yesterday, and I was quite pleased with how everything came together. There was a lot of cutting and removing bits of the chassis to allow the PCB for the lights to fit properly - I didn't realise that part of the interior would foul this, so had to remove some of the first class seats! :)  

 

This one is now ready for the transfers, but still needs the coupling and windscreen wipers fitted - I will cover these in the next post. And then obviously the focus will be on the underframe detail, which is a project in itself!

 

Most of all I was really pleased that the lighting is working ok - the PCBs for these were made by my Dad, and feature 4 multicolour SMDs which display either warm white or red depending on the direction of travel. I'm really pleased with them! There is a bit of light leakage between the clusters, which is a fault with the design of my cab - I think I will try to reduce the thickness of the part in this area in future so that the LEDs can fit more closely to the lenses at the front. That said, I don't think I'll be embarking on another one of these for a while, as it's just so labour intensive. I would like to have an SE blue one though!

 

Anyway hope you enjoy the pics - more to come soon, and comments and feedback most welcome as always!

 

 

 

 

[tjf4375]

Hi all,

Hope everyone's well. The Electrostar is still progressing, and has taken a slightly unexpected turn. When I started researching pics for livery details, I realised that none of the later units (-800 onwards) were wearing the all white livery. So the leading car is now sporting the lower grey band, and obviously the other coaches will follow suit. In retrospect, I quite like the added interest that the grey gives, although it was a bit fiddly to get right.

 

I've also applied the running number to the cab fronts, and the windscreen wipers and coupler have also been fitted. Overall I'm happy with this coach, so I'm focusing on the other end now - the other cab has arrived from Shapeways so is now being painted and prepped - more pics to follow!

 

As always hope you enjoy the update all feedback, good or bad, is welcomed!

 

Tim

[KeithHC]

Well after the Banana van announcement as your conversion is coming to an end maybe Hornby will announce a hole raft of electrostars today…………..

 

But well done so far.

 

Keith

[tjf4375]

Thanks Keith. Was the banana van a long awaited thing? I don't think there's much danger of anyone announcing an Electrostar any time soon, sadly. It's odd when they're so commonplace. If anyone did, it would be Bachmann, but I think the costs involved for 4 coach EMUs these days is so high, the market is just too small to make it worthwhile.

[chb2488]

Hello Tim, your Electrostar looks amazing! I‘d be interested to know what software you used for the cab, and how you went from drawing to 3D model (broadly speaking).

Many thanks

Christian

[tjf4375]

Hi Christian,

Thanks for your kind comments! I used Sketchup to make the CAD model, and you kind of put the elevations (front, top, side) onto flat planes and project out from them in each direction to get the shape right. It is a little tricky to explain but there are some tutorials on youtube. This particular video, if you can ignore the distracting music, does somewhat explain the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I-0NYi-fOo&ab_channel=TheBaj. After you've got the overall shape, it's a case of working from photographs and videos to get the proportions right.

 

I used Bombardier's own drawings as a starting point, but they were rather small, so these were over traced to produce more accurate scalable elevations. It is a fiddly process and just takes a lot of tweaking - a CAD professional could probably knock something up much more accurately and quickly, but it kept me busy for days! 🤣

 

Tim

[tjf4375]

Hi all,

The Electrostar is still making progress, and all four coaches are now painted, decaled and sealed. It's great to finally get them all together in the same shot, and I'm really pleased with how they've turned out, but it's been a real slog to get to this point and I feel like I'm running out of steam! The two major bits to finish now are the couplings, and the underframe detail. Regards the couplings, I'm a bit concerned as there seems to be very limited space available behind the bogies, without fouling the corridor connections, although I'm hoping that I can get kadees to fit somehow. I removed the Bachmann couplings from the bogies early on, as I really don't like them and the gaps between the coaches looked much too wide. I'm worried I may have been a bit hasty in doing that though! I'd welcome some feedback from James on how he managed the couplings on his units!😂

 

All four coaches have the train-tech coach lighting/amber door light modules fitted, which I really like, although they are fiendishly fiddly to install. On the driving coaches I've also attached additional yellow LEDs to the traintech strips, to backlight the destination displays on the cab fronts. Again awfully fiddly, but now they're in I'm glad I persevered. 

 

Hopefully I can get some running footage in the next week or so, if I can get the coupling sorted! Thanks for looking and really welcome any comments or feedback :)

[tjf4375]

23 hours ago, 313201 said:

Hi tjf4375

 

First of all great work on your unit.

 

Can I ask please how much available space there is on each chassis where the coaches will couple ?

 

The reason I ask is because I am thinking it may be possible to make coupling bars of the necessary length to keep the coach semi or permanently coupled depending on whether the unit is left on the layout all the time or not.

Thanks for the suggestions. It will be spending most of its time on the layout, although I would like the ability to separate the coaches for storage if needed. as you can see from the photo, there's very little space available behind the bogie. Possibly able to shave a bit more off the bogie moulding, and I've been looking at the hunt couplings screw type, as these look to be perhaps slim enough to attach to the underside of the gangway plate.

I'd welcome any thoughts on this as I really hadn't given this much thought until this stage 🤦‍♂️
 
The

[tjf4375]

Good thoughts there, thanks! I too thought about the idea of sticking a NEM pocket to the bogie ends. Having another think today, I think I may have found a solution - I had already ordered some No.29 Kadees just in case they fitted, and as luck would have it, the gearboxes fit exactly in the vertical gap between the bogie and the chassis. Cutting a small slot in the coach end and gangway allows enough clearance for the shank to run underneath. I'll post a pic when I've managed to get one set done! Thanks for the input though, greatly appreciated.

[tjf4375]

Well, the coupling problem is sorted - the kadees turned out to be the answer, although not the No.29s! I had bought those as they had an overset arrangement and I thought that might work better with the position of the chassis and gangway. As it turned out, the ones I ordered had a long shank, whereas I found some old No.5s left over from another project which had a medium shank and these allowed a much closer coupling. It still required chopping a bit off the bottom of the corridor connection on each coach, but this isn't noticeable when the unit is all coupled together. 

There were some loose connections to sort out with the head and tail lights as well, but with those sorted, I had a running session this evening and was really pleased with how it looked :) Not quite so pleased with how it sounded, and that old Bachmann turbostar chassis is a tad noisy! I've ordered some lubricant which I hope will help with that a bit.

Anyway here's a short video showing the results of the test run this evo - hope you enjoy it, and all comments and feedback welcome!
 

 

[tjf4375]

Well after putting it off for ages, I finally sat down and tried to make some underframe modules for the Electrostar in Sketchup, for 3D printing. It was, as expected, extremely tedious and time consuming. I was lucky enough to have the help of Train Sim World 2, which some of you may be familiar with - it is a PC based train simulator which happens to include a very nice rendition of the Electrostar classes 375, 377 and 387, and it is possible to walk around and inspect them on foot. This allowed me to do what would never be possible in real life - that is jump down onto the track and take some close-up shots of the underframe detail 😂 I did contact Southeastern, hoping that they may have some upcoming depot open days as these are perfect for such things, but alas it's not something they're doing at the moment, and they were very uninterested in helping me with any photographs.

I made them so that all the components hung off a single strip, a bit like the original Turbostar mouldings that were there. There was a lot of repetition but in the end only two complete sides were duplicated, those being the sides for each driving motor coach. The position of the modules is shown in one of the screenshots below.


I used this diagram to keep track of which strip was going where! In the end 6 different strips, with the two sides of the DMCOs being repeated.



Once all finished, these were laid out and attached to a sprue so they could be printed as a single part. 


A closeup of the MSO and DMCO strips


And here's how the printed parts looked with a bit of primer - I was really pleased and amazed how well the printer at Shapeways had picked out the tiny brackets and details!


A close up of the modules shows some layering but the orientation actually helps add a bit of detail so I'm happy with that 😂

The next stage will be to paint the various base colours (mostly black and silver I think) and tons of yellow warning transfers, and I will apply a good dusting of frame dirt once they're on the model.

I wasn't sure whether to post this stage or not as it's not exactly riveting but I was chuffed with how the prints came out! Hope this will be of interest to some, and as always comments and feedback most welcome.

Cheers
Tim

 

 

[andyman7]

1 hour ago, tjf4375 said:

Well after putting it off for ages, I finally sat down and tried to make some underframe modules for the Electrostar in Sketchup, for 3D printing. It was, as expected, extremely tedious and time consuming. I was lucky enough to have the help of Train Sim World 2, which some of you may be familiar with - it is a PC based train simulator which happens to include a very nice rendition of the Electrostar classes 375, 377 and 387, and it is possible to walk around and inspect them on foot. This allowed me to do what would never be possible in real life - that is jump down onto the track and take some close-up shots of the underframe detail 😂 I did contact Southeastern, hoping that they may have some upcoming depot open days as these are perfect for such things, but alas it's not something they're doing at the moment, and they were very uninterested in helping me with any photographs.

I made them so that all the components hung off a single strip, a bit like the original Turbostar mouldings that were there. There was a lot of repetition but in the end only two complete sides were duplicated, those being the sides for each driving motor coach. The position of the modules is shown in one of the screenshots below.


I used this diagram to keep track of which strip was going where! In the end 6 different strips, with the two sides of the DMCOs being repeated.



Once all finished, these were laid out and attached to a sprue so they could be printed as a single part. 


A closeup of the MSO and DMCO strips


And here's how the printed parts looked with a bit of primer - I was really pleased and amazed how well the printer at Shapeways had picked out the tiny brackets and details!


A close up of the modules shows some layering but the orientation actually helps add a bit of detail so I'm happy with that 😂

The next stage will be to paint the various base colours (mostly black and silver I think) and tons of yellow warning transfers, and I will apply a good dusting of frame dirt once they're on the model.

I wasn't sure whether to post this stage or not as it's not exactly riveting but I was chuffed with how the prints came out! Hope this will be of interest to some, and as always comments and feedback most welcome.

Cheers
Tim

 

 

I'm working on a 3 car version, and this fret would be very hand, even though it needs adapting. Is there any way to obtain a set for suitable remuneration?

[tjf4375]

Hi Andy. The whole set cost 71 euros to print and ship (I'm not sure what that is in pounds but assume £70). If that's something you're interested in let me know and I'll be happy to order another set and post to you.

[andyman7]

Thanks - the project is in a box and I do have some half fashioned underframe parts so in all honesty I need to remind me what sort of  work needed to make them satisfactory as the 3D parts are (understandably on reflection) not cheap. But if you're OK I will PM you should I want to pursue your option, and I appreciate the offer.