Sean the Bob

These look great, I'm looking at the Longmoor ones with great interest! I echo @Legend that it's a shame there's nothing there representing north of the border, but aim holding out hope for the future batches! Something in Caledonian Railway would be particularly welcome... Great announcement regardless.

Issue resolved! I hadn't thought to check the tender before, but on inspection it turns out the 21 pin DCC blanking plug was loose. Some tight wrapped electrical tape around it and she seems to be working nicely now.

Hi all, I recently won a competition for the Hornby "Big Four" releases of locomotives, one of which was the Southern N15 "Joyous Gard". Of course I was very pleased to have won the competition, but sadly when testing the locos the N15 turned out to be a non-runner. After some playing about and testing, I've narrowed the issue down to the small PCB which is in place of where the decoder used to be for these locos (it's now in the tender). Does anyone have any experience of issues with these, or have any photos of the same model to compare the wiring? I've done some testing and it appears that there's no continuity between the pickups from the wheels and the wires leading to the motor, so I'm thinking there's a possibility this has been wired up wrong in the factory! Any advice would be much appreciated. Cheers, Sean

4 is a good fleet, hope you have plenty of Mk5s for them to pull! I'm now just waiting for the inevitable announcement of an RTR version now that I've put all that effort in...

The 3D decal nameplates arrived from @railtec-models and they really are excellent, very fine and the colours are great with a nice shine. They look great down on the loco, along with a couple more warning labels from a generic sheet also from Railtec. Also, some work has been done on the driver end of the loco adding some pipes and the folded down Dellner couplings. The finish line is close now!

There's been quite a bit of progress on the 73/9 now, the finish line is definitely in sight. I've been focusing on the cosmetics of the model and what needs to be added/changed, I notice that the Dapol model has this little cable fixed to the bearing cover (not sure what it's for!). My photos of 73970 don't seem to show this on any of the bogies, so I removed these. To accommodate the piece, the bearing cover is raised and has a hole in the middle - cue some filing and filling. With a bit of work and yellow paint on all the bearing covers (and red on the springs), I'm happy with how the bogies look. I've also worked on the ends, fitting the ploughs and one of the Accurascale magnetic Dellner couplings (painted black as per the prototype). Windows and cabs have been refitted, the wipers installed and I installed an extra set on the centre window as this seems to have been addition on the 73/9s. Light lenses were also created using Micro Krystal Klear. Speaking of lights, I've finally got them working, albeit they're a bit dim and don't kick in until about 25% power, but the concept works and I may go in and take away one of thr resistors (2 were installed in series as I seemed to keep blowing the red LEDs). I've ordered a couple more warning labels just for some of the side panels from Railtec, and very conveniently they've just released the 3D nameplates for 73970 named W S Sellar, so hopefully these should arrive soon.

So I think it transpires that I was being daft and assumed there were resistors in the circuit board before the small board fitted to the loco roof... I had it all working nicely off a 3V battery but when I put it in the loco it all went wrong. After a bit of testing and realising the full track voltage was being transferred through the plunger contacts, I think I just need to remake my lighting circuits and include the resistors. I'll probably test it all with a 9V battery before I fit it all to the loco though! Have you ever considered creating any of the changes that were made to the various bits of equipment on the bottom of the chassis? I have some good ref pics so I'm going to attempt to recreate some of these to the best of my ability.

Another small update, decals have been applied and it's getting close to the finish line cosmetically. I did have a disaster with one of the main CS decals when I hit it with a little too heavy spray of varnish and it wrinkled up underneath, - cue a lot of swearing, sanding and repainting! Fortunately @railtec-models provide a spare for each decal, the quality of which I was very impressed with and had no issues with silvering or breaking whilst applying any of them.

Nearly there with the colours, after a disaster where masking tape lifted a big section of blue off the side! After much sanding and respraying, it doesn't seem to be noticeable on the side anymore. The various vents were painted in Mig Ammo matt aluminium and the fibreglass panels were painted Vallejo stone grey. Just some touch ups to do, details on the end and it'll be ready for decals.

Some more progress on the painting now. I tested the Caley Sleeper Midnight Teal paint I had, however it looked far too blue to my eye. I instead opted for the Citadel paint Incubi Darkness as suggested in @LMSfan72's thread. This seemed to be a much closer match and the paint sprayed nicely through the airbrush with some Vallejo thinner. I did however notice I hadn't filled a couple of holes on the ends which were unecessary for the 73/9! Back to some sanding and repainting...

A little more progress made, the final details before painting. There's a small shroud of some sort on one end of the loco roof, so I did my best to create this out of some sheet. brass. I added the radio pods above the cabs and primed everything ready to finally get some colour on it.

Quite funny that they were going on about the merits of the running numbers being different on the coaches for those that like detail, whilst the power cars have this glaring omission. Think I know what I'd notice first out of those 2 things...

Agreed, probably the most unprofessional announcement I've ever seen. Very disappointing.

Not having any luck with the lighting as it stands, I can get them to work via a 3V battery but when I connect them to the loco, it all goes horribly wrong. I'll probably shelf that for a while and go back to the modelling part. Not too much progress has been made, but I did paint the cabs a little to match the real thing's interior. I also ordered a pre painted driver who is really quite nice, just required a little repositioning of his right arm.

I've just started my 73/9 conversion myself so you're right, it would be just my luck for Accura to announce one! Would still buy one of course if it was...