SRman's Current Layout - Newton Broadway

[SRman]

With the arrival of Hornby's new Merchant Navy, 21C3 Royal Mail, in original original form, plus the further work on my kit-built original in slightly later form, I have gone off on a Merchant Navy kick! I did an inventory of all the rebuilt versions I have from Hornby to work out which ones still required DCC fitting, bearing in mind that all the ones with sockets had already been done. I found three models still not converted, all to be hard-wired jobs.

I started off today with 35021, New Zealand Line. I found a suitably small decoder with (apparently) 4 functions, which I'll probably not use, but it was stored in among some Hornby decoders. I haven't identified it yet as the MN had very dirty wheels and wouldn't give me a reliable reading at the time (I got three different readings for the manufacturer code!). I'll put it back on the programming track later and try again, having cleaned the wheels and successfully programmed the address. There is not a lot of room in these MNs so a small decoder like a TCS M1/M4 is required.

In the meantime, 21C3 also had a decoder fitted, a straight 8-pin plug in to the tender, using a DCC Concepts Z218 decoder.

Both have been run successfully around the layout with coaches in tow, and have been posed for their portrait shots for the records.








There are two more rebuilt MNs to be fitted, currently numbered and named 35023 Holland Afrika Line and 35024 East Asiatic Company, although I will be renaming and renumbering a couple of existing rebuilt models. 35027 Port Line (already decider-fitted) is a candidate for renaming to 35029 Ellerman Lines or 35013 Rotterdam Lloyd, with a 5100 gallon tender fitted (I have checked the polarity of the coupling and it works with 35027, but shorted on one of the others - it would be nice if Hornby had been consistent with their wiring on these models). This would be its second renaming as it started off as a duplicate Clan Line, 35028!

To round all this off, I already have rebuilt 35005, Canadian Pacific, in blue (authentic for preservation only), 35012, United States Lines, and 35028, Clan Line, in rebuilt form, and unrebuilt 35023, Holland Africa Line, with sound on order.

I also have a non-runner 35028 in original form from an unsuccessful Millholme kit. I will try to shoehorn a Hornby chassis into the white metal body and get that running eventually. It looks great, but goes nowhere!

[SRman]

Another Merchant Navy converted this morning. I am having some difficulty because of the longish spells of standing, since I had a heavy fall a few weeks ago, landing on my hip and taking some of the impact on my shoulder and neck, which means that by the end of the wire stripping and soldering sessions, I am getting quite shaky. However, it all works in spite of the hand shakes while soldering the last few connections!

This time I have selected 35023, Holland Afrika Line, a locomotive I bought second-hand with a few 'enhancements', such as a rather nice firebox/ashpan moulding and Kadee couplings added at both ends. I have swapped tenders, with Port Line receiving a 5100 gallon version pending a renaming, and the weathered 6000 gallon tender from that locomotive going to Holland Afrika Line. This tender also has the coal space opened out (something I should do to some of the other 6000 gallon tenders too), and real coal added. The polarity of the connections were compatible on both locomotives.

To show the style of conversion, here are a couple of photos of the finished job before replacing the body. This one used a TCS M1P decoder with the 8-pin plug cut off. As a part of all of these DCC conversions I have replaced the wires from the electrical connections on the locomotive's tender drawbar with longer wires. With the previous one I tidied all the connections up and shrank the heat-shrink tubing before checking the brush polarity, so ended up having to use CV29 to reverse the locomotive's direction of travel, but with this one I checked first ... I got it wrong initially so swapped the two brush feed wires (orange and grey).

The body is a very tight fit over the motor and gear tower, so I had to reroute the orange wire lower down the side of the motor after the photos were taken, and also watch the red wre coming up through the chassis at the front end - that wire has to have some slack and also has to go over the top of the decoder, not to the side as in the photo. Yes, it really is that tight!

Anyway, having tested all was well, some duct tape was used to secure most of the wiring to the motor and gear casings, and the body replaced.






And here are the usual (obligatory?) posed portrait shots of 35023 in service.

Edited May 7, 2017 by SRman

[SRman]

Yet another rebuilt Merchant Navy has finally been converted to DCC. Like the other recent ones, I have used a TCS M1 decoder hard-wired in. This time, it's my last unfitted Hornby MN, 35024, East Asiatic Company. The conversion went smoothly, since I had so much practice with the previous ones, although just to be really annoying, I tested it, put it all back together, tested again and one side's connecting rod and expansion link dropped off; the retaining screw had gone missing. I couldn't find the missing screw, but I knew that 12BA screws fit the thread, so shortened one to fit. It doesn't look very good in bare brass (I'll blacken it later), but it works.

Here are my, by now, usual portraits of 35024 in service.

Edited May 13, 2017 by SRman

[St Enodoc]

Yet another rebuilt Merchant Navy has finally been converted to DCC. Like the other recent ones, I have used a TCS M1 decoder hard-wired n. This time, it's my last unfitted Hornby MN, 35024, East Asiatic Company. The conversion went smoothly, since I had so much practice with the previous ones, although just to be really annoying, I tested it, put it all back together, tested again and one side's connecting rod and expansion link dropped off; the retaining screw had gone missing. I couldn't find the missing screw, but I knew that 12BA screws fit the thread, so shortened one to fit. It doesn't look very good in bare brass (I'll blacken it later), but it works.

 

Here are my, by now, usual portraits of 35024 in service.

As soon as you've painted that screw you'll find the original.

[SRman]

Another new arrival, bought at a price I couldn't resist. Up until recently, I had no possible excuse for buying the Heljan class 05 diesel shunter. With my recent interest in industrial locomotives, plus the attractive pricing, I purchased Heljan's Cider Queen version of the Hunslet 05. The Bulmers livery sits very nicely, although perhaps not quite in line with my 'generic' industrial user ideas.

The Hunslet was fitted with Bachmann's latest 6-pin decoder, 36-568, which is really a re-badged Zimo decoder, and I am very impressed with it too. It was a tight fit in the space, and I even shortened the pins slightly to make it fit more snugly.

I wasn't going to fit the nameplates, but decided that Heljan have also done a nice job with those, so they are now on the model.

In the meantime, I have also tweaked my fictional livery on the Hornby Sentinel diesel, with a few touch-ups of the blue, plus painting the steps and their recesses black, and adding a light grey cab roof. I still intend to add LNER style white/black/white lining along the cab sides and side panels.

Anyway, here are a few photos to illustrate the new addition and the various features I have mentioned.

[SRman]

The class 73 visible in the two earlier photos above is a Dapol model, which which I have never been entirely satisfied. Chief dissatisfactions were the colour (which I can't do much about without a complete repaint) and the cab lights being permanently on; Dapol's "solution" for the cab lights was to suggest sticking a bit of tape over the terminals, leaving the lights permanently off. They seem to think that was a perfectly reasonable "fix" for their shoddy design.

 

Anyway, I followed a conversion done by someone on RMweb a while ago (for which many thanks are owed), which involved cutting the tracks on the PCB to R1 and between R1 and R2 (clearly marked on the board). Then, two wires had to be soldered between the correct pins and the two resistors, R1 and R2, allowing the cab lights to be controlled individually from the Aux 1 and Aux 2 functions.

 

To test my wiring, I removed the expensive sound decoder (ESU) and put a TCS decoder on - if I blew that up TCS would replace it under their goof-proof warranty conditions! Well, it all worked perfectly, with cab light at the #1 end turning on on F1, and #2 end on F2.

 

Plugging the LokSound decoder (with Legomanbiffo sound) back in, the cab lights worked on F19 and F20.

 

While I had the soldering iron out, I also replaced the temporary speaker setup (the standard 23mm round one) with a bass enhanced rectangular speaker wired in parallel with a sugar cube speaker (both being of 8 ohm impedance). The sound is somewhat better than it was.

 

I put it all back together, then realised I had left the grey plastic 'shield' that stops one seeing the pcb under the central electrical compartment grilles, so off came the body again (four screws)!

I am now feeling pleased with my efforts and thumbing my nose at Dapol for their poor customer relations and total lack of effort.

[P.C.M]

Hi Jeff,

Are you going to Rogers on Saturday? I wouldn't mind hearing the ED.

 

Cheers Peter.

[SRman]

Hi Peter.

 

I am hoping to get there. I also have the class 37 'mule' with the reblown sound decoder for you too.

[DougN]

Well I will be wanting to head along and as it is Roger's its even close! I am positive Rob will be interested too! Though no new car for me this week   So that means next week 

[P.C.M]

Hi Peter.

 

I am hoping to get there. I also have the class 37 'mule' with the reblown sound decoder for you too.

Ah yes forgot about that cool. See you Saturday.

 

Cheers Peter.

[SRman]

Ah yes forgot about that cool. See you Saturday.

 

Cheers Peter.

 

Darn! If I'd kept quiet I could have added another sound loco to my collection!     

Edited May 19, 2017 by SRman

[P.C.M]

Darn! If I'd kept quiet I could have added another sound loco to my collection!     

Ha ha I would have remembered eventually. 

[SRman]

A small improvement to the Hornby Sentinel: I have added some lining to relieve the plain blue panels a bit.






Next jobs: a coat of varnish and the addition of some etched plates, when they arrive, then a little weathering.

[SRman]

An unplanned purchase has added one more steam locomotive to the industrials: someone had a Hornby J94 in a lined maroon livery for $AUS50 at a recent BRMA meeting (approximately £20 - 22). While my preference would be for the newer DJM model, I was vacillating about whether to buy this or not. My wife offered to pay half to persuade me to buy it, so Harry now graces the line-up of colourful industrial locomotives. It caused me to renumber a couple of existing locomotives to keep the industrial numbering in an approximate date order of when they might have been purchased by my mythical private owner. The Harry name will eventually be replaced with something different - I'll reveal a little more of my naming theme when the Narrow Planet nameplates arrive for some of the earlier locomotives.

Initially I tried a DCC Concepts small decoder (S4SAX) but that was still too large and would have required quite a chunk of the cast weight to be removed. Instead, I did a decoder swap with Hornby Arthur 30777, Sir Lamiel, putting a DCC Concepts Zen Nano direct plug-in decoder, and recovering the TCS M1P decoder, which, with its 8-pin plug cut off, was hard-wired to the J94, with only a very small hollow milled out of the weight to allow the wires to pass under it. I had some difficulty getting the cab and rear bunker to sit properly, with a resultant gap along the rear part of the saddle tank too, but eventually I got it all to sit properly, after consulting a much earlier topic here on RMweb detailing the same problem and its solution. The photos show it before I had fixed it properly.

Harry now bears the number 10 on its bunker, following on from the pannier tank. The ex-class 05 (numbered 2 out of the box) will eventually bear the number 11 and possibly be renamed from Cider Queen, while the Hornby Sentinel now bears the number 12 (it was number 10 before but didn't display that number anywhere). The necessary adjustments were made to each locomotive's decoder. The numbers used are actually Bulleid's SR yellow 'sunshine' numbers with black shading. This style seems to suit the locomotives well.








Today, there was a nice surprise in the mail too: the first of my two DJM class 71s arrived. E5003 in the later green with small yellow panels was duly run on the rollers on DC for a while. All was well, so the next phase was to pull the top off (which was very nearly disastrous for the delicate pantograph when my grip slipped and I grabbed the falling loco right across the panto well!) and fit the ESU LokSound decoder that has been sitting in a box for some time awaiting the arrival of this model. I had already purchased the sounds from legomanbiffo and blown them onto the decoder.

I used the same speaker setup as I used on the Dapol class 73 a few days ago; that is, a bass enhanced speaker and a sugar cube speaker, both of 8 ohm impedance, were soldered in parallel to the solder pads on the PCB. The sound is good, without any tweaking done, although I may still experiment further.

 

As others have pointed out in the relevant class 71 topic, the DJM model really needs a decoder with five functions, whereas the LokSound only has four, although there are ways of getting the logical function outputs to do the job, with a little soldering of components. I don't intend to do this at this stage. I can't help thinking that because the marker lights were rarely used, I would prefer to use the aux outputs for those to operate the headcodes instead. I will work on this idea.

The third rail shoes were fitted with a glue that would not be as difficult to remove as a cyanoacrylate to allow the shoes to be remounted higher up if the clearances proved problematic; fortunately, there were no problems whatsoever. I have not, as yet, tried to fit the lifting lugs.

E5003 is seen here on a short engineers train of Dogfish, Sealions and a Shark.

Edited May 23, 2017 by SRman

[SRman]

Some further work has been done on locomotives for Newton Broadway.

First of all, here are a couple more photos of #10, Harry, with the body now seated properly!






Next, a Bulleid light pacific that was professionally weathered and renamed/renumbered: I bought this one off a friend, but soon realised that the name and number selected, 34033 Chard,  didn't match the wide cab body style. I eventually ordered some nameplates from ModelMaster for 34072, 257 Squadron, including the cabside numbering. I cleaned off the cabside weathering and removed the old numbers, then added the new waterslide numbers. The etched components, including the front smokebox number plate, were glued on, and the side oval plates had the waterslide crests added.

I will have to patch up the paintwork around the new nameplates and crests, but overall it has come out alright. Sorry the photos are not very good. I'll get better ones in daylight soon.






The third project was a 'banger blue' class 09. A long time ago, I bought the Hornby model of 09 012, Dick Hardy, in grey livery, with a view to repainting it. However, I liked it too much as it stood, so looked for a second Hornby model with the high level pipes. As far as I know, Hornby have only produced two such models; Dick Hardy, and an 08 in Cotswold Rail livery. Anyway, I managed to locate another Dick Hardy at a good price, so this is the one that has had a quick repaint into BR blue, leaving the wasp ends untouched.

What I wanted was a pre-TOPS numbered 09 with high level pipes, but, for some reason, photos of such a beast seem to be very rare. I have the Modern Locomotives Illustrated magazine on the 08, 09, 10, 11, 12 and 13 classes, but even that has an absolute dearth of photos of BR blue locomotives of any of the classes with pre-TOPS numbering. I have located one photo online, of 4107, with BR arrows on the cabsides and the numbers below the arrows. So, at the moment it looks like this model is going to become 4107 (no 'D' prefix).

These two photos show the 'before and after' effect, of 09 012 and the future 4107 in part-competed condition. The cab handrails have to be repainted white again, and the electrification flashes on the ends will have the earlier style added over the existing printed ones.

[SRman]

Some slightly better photos of 34072, 257 Squadron, also with 34083, 605 Squadron. As can be seen, 257 Squadron still has a couple of patches around the nameplates and shields to be blended back into the overall weathered finish.

[SRman]

The now BR blue Hornby class 09 has been numbered 4107. The early style of having the BR arrows on the cabside with the numbers below has been used, as per the photo of the real thing.

Overall it is looking the part already, but needs some weathering, plus some sort of replacement for the missing marker lights to complete it. The Southern Region 08s and 09s had two extra marker lights compared to other regions, with the norm being four and the SR norm being six. However, in later life, as per the Hornby model of 09 012, all but two marker lights were removed, leaving only the ones above the buffers at each end. In backdating my model, I need to put the missing four back again. Does anyone know of some suitable castings or mouldings, please?

[SRman]

A video of one of the Hornby Pecketts (ex-Dodo) running around Newton Broadway. I actually had the idea to do this with the wagons behind the locomotive before taking the video of the DJM class 71 (posted in the relevant topic), but someone asked about the legomanbiffo sounds so I took that footage first. 

There are a couple of photographs at the end of the video showing just how powerful these little engines are.

[SRman]

The etched name and number plates from Narrow Planet for the industrial locomotives arrived today, and very nice they are too. The Pecketts have also received etched works plates.

I have fitted them to the three Pecketts and Private Owner pannier tank, with a few more (mainly numbers) left to go on some of the other locos. You'll notice I have gone with a theme of female names starting with "A".
 

Starting with Huntley & Palmers Peckett, that has become no. 4, Amelia, with a slightly different treatment to the others (mainly because I still haven't been able to bring myself to remove the lovely H & P signwriting yet). The number plate hides the letter D which acted as its fleet "number".
 

The 'generic' Peckett green one, ex-Dodo, has now become no. 5, Alice.
 

 

MSC green Peckett, ex-no. 11, is now no. 6, Alexandria (based on its real name at one time in the past).
 

 

The pannier tank has become no. 9 (with transfers for numbers), Ashleigh (with full-sized plates), named after my good friend DougN's daughter. Besides the fact my wife and I have a fair bit to do with Doug's children, the significance is that Ashleigh owns a GWR pannier tank on Doug's layout. I also ordered Peckett plates with the same name for Doug to use on his Peckett.
 

 

And here's one of the three Pecketts all lined up.
 

 

I will order a few more plates to add to the collection, particularly for the J94 which arrived after the original order was sent to Narrow Planet. Currently, that bears the number 10 and the name Harry. I am thinking that should become Agnes, after my wife. After all, she was the one who persuaded me to buy it and even went shares in it!

[P.C.M]

The now BR blue Hornby class 09 has been numbered 4107. The early style of having the BR arrows on the cabside with the numbers below has been used, as per the photo of the real thing.

 

Overall it is looking the part already, but needs some weathering, plus some sort of replacement for the missing marker lights to complete it. The Southern Region 08s and 09s had two extra marker lights compared to other regions, with the norm being four and the SR norm being six. However, in later life, as per the Hornby model of 09 012, all but two marker lights were removed, leaving only the ones above the buffers at each end. In backdating my model, I need to put the missing four back again. Does anyone know of some suitable castings or mouldings, please?

 

 

 

Hi Jeff,

I will have a look in the bits box I might have some lights for the 09. The Pecketts look good all lined up I like the Nameplates too.

 

Did you have any luck with the sound decoder?

 

Cheers Peter. 

[St Enodoc]

Fair enough regarding Agnes, but shouldn't Harry become 'Arriet?

[SRman]

Hi Jeff,

I will have a look in the bits box I might have some lights for the 09. The Pecketts look good all lined up I like the Nameplates too.

 

Did you have any luck with the sound decoder?

 

Cheers Peter. 

 

Hi Peter.

 

Thanks for that. The marker lights would just complete it nicely if you have anything suitable.

 

I haven't yet tried the decoders. Will give it a go next weekend.

[P.C.M]

 

Hi Peter.

 

Thanks for that. The marker lights would just complete it nicely if you have anything suitable.

 

I haven't yet tried the decoders. Will give it a go next weekend.

Hi Jeff,

No stress on the chip. I haven't found the lights yet, I may have chucked them out but will have another look tomorrow.

 

Cheers Peter.

[SRman]

I have been taking advantage of the long weekend to improve some of the electrics under Newton Broadway, in turn leading to improvements in signalling and lighting.
 

I started by wiring up a 12 segment "chocolate block" connector, so that the two DCC output wires from my NCE Power Pro command station now have five extra loops each on one side of the chocolate block, allowing easy connection on the other side for dcc track, accessory and signalling take-offs. 

The first use was for three of Train-Tech's new sensor signals. For the LT lines, all are 2-aspect signals. I had experimentally cleared some ballast and used the track contacts on two of these signals, but I really wanted to separate the DCC feeds to the signals. For the third one, I ran a couple of bus wires from the chocolate block at the command station end to the far end of the layout, where a smaller chocolate block (3 segments) provides connection to the signal. I snipped off the under-track connector arms as per Train-Tech's instructions, then soldered wires to the two terminals indicated. These wires were connected into the smaller chocolate block terminal.

This signal has a "feather", with five white lights showing (I know, LT tended to only have three lights - I may paint out two light lenses later). I followed he instructions for programming them as accessories, although something didn't quite match my plans: as the feather means this signal replaces a 2-headed junction signal, I intended the main signal to be #18 and the feather to be #19, matching the original track diagram I have. However, the signal decoder had other ideas and insisted on the feather being operated as #18. Not a great problem as I have two of Train-Tech's mimic switches on order to control this and a second similar signal at the other end of the LT tracks (one that was then plugged into the track).

Today, I treated the other two sensor signals to the same wiring treatment, and allocated addresses 1 and 2 to the red/green override and feather aspects, respectively (this one worked according to plan!). The remaining one is at the tunnel mouth and is still fully automatic. 

Later on, I want to insert a couple of these 2-aspect signals in the tunnel sections themselves, feeding back to the previous signals in each direction. That will await a few experiments, as I am not sure they will work properly in the darkness of the tunnels - I may actually have to add a directional light on the opposite side of the track to each such signal to operate the sensors properly. We shall see!

I have snapped off a couple of photos on the mobile phone of the initial installation, showing green with feather, and red after triggering the sensor. Sorry about the lens distortion.






I am definitely happy with the results so far, even with the slight compromise in appearance caused by the visible electronics and connectors adjacent to the signal posts. 

Next I'll have to add the ladders and other detailing bits Train-Tech provide. I thought it better to get all the heavy handling out of the way first.

[SRman]

A very small but important improvement to the corner shop in Newton Broadway village: I have used a little Wills stone paving to create a door step/ ramp and some Peco stone walling to add an extension downwards from floor level to street level. I still have to add pavements, but these small additions make it look a lot more convincing.

This was a 'quickie' job done while waiting for two LokSound decoders to be reprogrammed (for a friend) on my LokPorgrammer.

Corner Shop Improvements - 2 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

Note that I am trying out Flickr, with a view to getting out of Photobucket. I still haven't got the hang of their menus yet, but am trying to create sub-albums within a 'Rail' category.