big jim

I'll give that cv a tweak and see what happens, thanks I've bought some more plasticard today to do the NMT interior, got some pics last week (although I am on it tomorrow as well) and I plan to make a start on it at the weekend Of course that now means I'll have to also do the inside of the UTU, PLP and TRC coaches too, I'm not going to over complicate the NMT with DCC decoders in the coaches, just light them from the track voltage I got some tiny powerful magnets last week that I plan to use to hold the roof's down on the Lima mk3s as laserglazing them has meant I've had to cut the mounting lugs off roof, at least if the roofs are easily removable I can showcase the detailed insides should anyone want to see them

Iirc it's only one extra window to add in one coach, i scribed the frame in on mine and was going to cut it out but ended up just painting the window on!! It's certainly not a massive change

Now you see that post is all gobbledygook to me, voltage, current etc Yes the LED's are those strips of 3, probably going to have 3 of them per coach so 9 LED's in Total, as you say each led has its own resistor already I've got a multimeter, can I measure the current at the led strip with that?

My sennheisers (HD25 SP's) were bought for club dj'ing back in 1995 for £125 and I still use them today for the same use, replaced the cable a couple of times but other than that like new and a great sound from them I bought a set of beats by dr dre a few months back for when I'm travelling on the train but have given them to my wife as they aren't a patch on the sennehisers and they make my ears all sweaty!! At the cheap end of the scale I have a set of skullcandy 'ink'd' in ear 'buds' which for the £7 I paid for them are great value, they certainly give a nice crisp sound via the iPhone/iPod and are disposable at that price should they be damaged

I turned mine into a 2 car so it must be do-able, thing is a genuinely can't remember doing it!!

One for the DCC experts out there, can I adjust the brightness of the 2 functions on this coach via CVs, I'd like the red laser brighter and the coach lights dimmer if possible, any advice on what CVs to play with

So I want to add LED lighting to a number of my coaches that I'm running on DCC I plan to add pickups to the coaches and take power direct from the track to various LEDs First up maplin LED strips, the type you can cut down to suit, I've used these in the past but they are too bright inside the coach so I need to dramatically reduce the output by adding a resistor of some sort, any idea of what sort of value resistor I would try? Next up I have somewhere a number of tiny surface mount LEDs, pre wired with resistors that I want to use as spotlights in the likes of mentor's roof, each one comes with an individual 1000 ohm resistor in series (i.e. Soldered In the anode side cable) so they run direct off 12-18v the issue with these are the resistors are quite sizeable so will be difficult to hide the 4 resistors within the coach (6 if I also add 2 solebar lights) my question is can I replace the 4 individual 1000ohm resistors with a single one on one cable feeding all 4 LEDs anodes at once, if so do I need to be looking at a different ohm-age resistor as the power is being split As I say I'm a bit of a simpleton when it comes to electrical stuff so nice simple answers would be appreciated so I can just go into maplin and ask for such and such a resistor without being bomboozled by numbers!!

I thought they were under 37175 now, it's certainly been derated from 90 to 80mph as they are CP9 (or whatever) bogies

Various connectors, led's and gubbins arrived today to get the SGT a bit more done 12v red led and micro connectors The red led attached to function 1 for the laser barrel And the lighting bar working off function 2 Led shoved up some heat shrink along with the fibre optics from the barrel Laser glazed the coach as well Much better looking Cut a hole in the end of the carriage for the barrel Glued in place And lit up, also added the micro connectors to the lighting bar wires, the female version on the bar itself so I can remove the body if needed And put together I have prototypically only lit one half of the coach, I cut the lighting bar down a bit and blanked out one of the leds too And in the train Next bit is the seats and tables when they arrive from china then paint it up

One for Mervin jones maybe....

some from last night, RHTT job, shrewsbury-craven arms-bidston-shrewsbury started off at coleham prepping the 56s while the rhtt set was out on the cambrian with a 97 up front the other 56 in the neck ready to drop on the back of the train and in and attached bidston back to wrexham to wait for the first passenger to go, quite why were not timed in front of it i dont know as he was late getting to gobowen after no doubt struggling on the untreated rails! and into shrewsbury where i got relief and went home

Day 2 of 3J71 out of coleham and the locos are looking mucky already

Coleham job started yesterday, 97s down the Cambrian and 56s for bidston and Holyhead

Bit of time in the shed earlier, back to the SGT First up was fitting contacts to the bogies And wired up Quick test with a Hornby light bar Then added a function only decoder, one function for the lights and the other will be for the led for the laser drum Of course lights means interior! Got to add the seats to the desk and a few to also the other side of the partition wall, rather than make them as I did with mentor I've bought some 1:75th scale ones off eBay which hopefully should do the job And with the lights on At the other end of the coach I've made a box that will hold the decoder and red led, I've taken the wire off the lighting bar for now and will add a micro connector to it so I can remove the body from the chassis if required The real coach has an equipment box at this end but it's a lot smaller, to small to scale down and be able to fit a decoder inside! The box will also have the laser barrel attached for the same reason of being able to remove the body but also the bottom of the body was damaged by my cack handedness when I tried to get a previous superglued on barrel off so I cut it away and fitted the 'filler' to the box instead of the body into which the barrel will be mounted I've ordered a prewired 12v red led so will finish the box and barrel fitment when that arrives and I wire it in as well as painting the inside Oh yeah, while thinking of what DCC address to assign to the coach I came up with 567 as it looks a bit like SGT on the lenz handset screen!!

im pretty sure its actually the china clay discharge shed

As with Neil i can't see any loco on either side of the tracks in cockshute or the China clay terminal I know from my mk1 eyeballs there is an abandoned SPA wagon dumped in the north end of cockshute sidings though

They run to a schedule as pointed out above, for example the one I did to Wrexham this week ran 4 weeks ago and will run again in 4 weeks time They have 'gold' recovery runs when a section is missed for the reasons given above and those are a bit ad hoc but normally have a Q path in the system that they can pick up

Just a few from last night Derby to Birmingham and Rugeley with 37175 New st Rugeley Then back to new st and Derby, couldn't be bothered with any more pics after that one!

Typically the job is back as planned but I didn't realise I get back into the RTC for 06:00, don't fancy 4 hours kip in the van beforehand!!

i can certainly vouch that a 2+5 accelerates like the proverbial s*it of a shovel, last night for example, left the down holding siding in crewe, cleared the points, opened up from 25mph at the south ramp of platform 5 and was going 50 at the north end similarly the 2nd run he had me straight out onto the fast north of the station, once clear of the 20 points i hit 100mph in just under 3 miles

Typical, my job tonight should have been starting and finishing in Derby meaning I could have called in for a look on my way home but it looks like it's now starting in tyseley so I won't have a van in Derby to get me to the show I always like a look at this little show, so unless they change my job (again) it looks like I'll miss out this year

And some from yesterday, NMT to Holyhead and Liverpool Crewe first, postman pat passing by And my train Chester Llandudno jn (panorama pic hence the wonky platform edge!) Holyhead Back in Chester Crewe with the 73s lurking in the background Edge hill Then it was back to crewe and back to edge hill again, recorded both fast and slow lines hence the 2 trips Temporary walking route as all Lime st bound trains are turning back at south parkway, some have to continue to edge hill depot to turn back as I did Then as we were running an hour early I had a chance to fuel the train at crewe, also gave it a run through the wash and watered it too Nice little 08 That was it, parked up and home to bed

Having driven over 300 miles yesterday on the NMT it certainly gets the 'normals' looking when you pass by compared to when you are on something like a 37 which normally just gets the 'spotters' looking

Just a few from last night, Bangor to Chester with the UTU Bangor with typical north Wales weather And into Chester and home in my van Anyone else on the coast see the burn off flame at point of Ayr gas plant last night, in all the years I've been along (and lived) in the coast I've never seen the flame so big!!