SRman

"And don't nobody get off, neither!"

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

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.

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.

Even outside of the time period, if it is a manufacturing fault, the warranty still stands. The MAZAC rot is a case in point, where it may not show up for several years. It may be harder to prove a manufacturing defect in a motor, though.

I have a happy memory of a VAL belonging to Crawley Luxury Coaches on a school excursion to Arundel Castle. Even as a nine or 10 year old I was very impressed. Much later on, the Model Bus Association of Australia, in collaboration with another enthusiast society, looked at an Australian bodied VAL (Custom Coaches body) as a potential vehicle for displays. Our Secretary took it for a test drive and it handled and rode well, but, as a bus mechanic and workshop foreman, he gave it a good once-over, and pointed out that all of the brake cylinders were weeping, and had contaminated the brake shoes and the tyres, so we would have been up for eight new tyres and six sets of brakes. Needless to say, we didn't buy it.

Speaking of ModelMaster, I have just today received the MN and BoB plates I ordered a few weeks ago. I also ordered the cabside number transfers with the plates to make the renumbering jobs easier.

I'll soon be able to do that with 35023, Holland Afrika Line; a before-and-after comparison.

I have, in the past, renumbered Heljan locos, including a couple of blue 33s. In my case, I have taken them back to D numbers from TOPS. The Heljan base colours tend to be fairly thinly applied, so my usual abrasive number removal is not a good idea with these. I haven't tried removing the orange stripes, but wonder if that might be a bit easier to do, depending on how well they are applied in the first place. My experience with them on Hornby diesels is that they rub off easily with frequent handling, but Heljan's application may be a little more robust.

Not quite true for the NCE: the F2 button is latching, but they also have a "Horn" button that duplicates F2 but is non-latching.

In a nutshell: a corridor interior in an open coach!

I still say I don't remember them ever being that dirty in green. In blue, however, those models look much more realistic (and I am not a blue livery 'basher').

This is a Merchant Navy I made up a long, long time ago, using two Airfix/Dapol BoB bodies to create a longer and slightly wider MN body (although the cabs are still really the narrow type). It was/is mounted on a cheap second-hand Wrenn chassis that someone had modified earlier without the Walschaerts bits of the valve gear (ideal for my purposes). The smoke deflectors were the Airfix kit ones extended and deepened with plastic card. I painted it in an approximation of BR's express blue with LNER white/black/white lining. The tender is the Hornby Dublo/Wrenn one with some brass sheet panel beaten into approximately the right shape. It was certainly not an accurate model but I think I captured the look reasonably well at the time. Etched plates for 35015, Rotterdam Lloyd completed the illusion. I still have this model but it is a display shelf only model nowadays.

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.

Ahhh. So that's where the vapourware went!

The Hornby ones without rain gutters have a fine trace of the position where they were added. It is clearly visible in some photos, particularly in the topic on the Hornby model. It isn't meant to be there but appears to be a part of the compromise Hornby have in the tooling that gives them the option of gutters or no gutters.

Hmmm. I just received notification that one is on its way, but I ordered a second one somewhat later. To me it would have made sense to send both in the one package, but maybe the system doesn't pick up the two separate orders in that way. Still, it's exciting!

The PTV will have to employ Dame Edna to check his ticket, possums.

Excuses, excuses!! P.s. I can sympathise having been restricted in movement a bit (not as severely as you though) for the last few weeks after a heavy fall.

I have found there is usually a slight delay with responses by email from Bratchell - usually a few days. If in doubt, you could always try phoning them.

A few more details for D6315: Introduced Jan 1960 Withdrawn May 1971 Introduced in green with no yellow panel Small yellow panels added to green livery only after 4-character headcodes fitted. Headcode boxes were fitted from new from D6334 onwards. They were retro-fitted to D6300 - D6333, but I cannot find any actual dates for this - probably around 1965 or so. D6315 seems to have been a relatively shy locomotive, but there is a photo of D6315 in August 1968 with headcode boxes. There are plenty of photos of her sisters still with disc headcodes in late 1964, but with headcode boxes in 1965.

D6315 would have been built and run for a few years with the disc headcodes before being fitted with the four character boxes.

I have used the 'standard' coupling spacing dictated by the mounts provided in the kit extras, but there is nothing stopping me from closing the gaps later on, either by shortening the existing mounts or by making up new ones from plastic or brass. A bit of trial and error may be in order.

I agree with Darius and Matt. The end details need to be scratchbuilt - things like the jumper cables and their 'hoods'. The printed lights are not at all convincing, but, like Darius, I intend fitting working lights eventually (he's ahead of me in having already done so). I have used Replica Railways 64' motorised chassis with 12mm wheels to motorise my Bratchell classes 319/1 and 455/8 (both in NSE livery), but left the 456 unpowered to be hauled or propelled by the 455 unit. As the others have said, the basic body shell is quite robust when assembled. There are no seats provided.

The Bratchell kits are mostly ABS plastics. They go together fairly quickly and form a strong basic body shell, using a plastic solvent for the construction. Make sure your choose a solvent that works with ABS, though; MEK doesn't. No seats are included, and finer details have to be added by the modeller to taste. The class 319s do not include a pantograph either; I used one from a Bachmann class 350/1 I converted to a class 450 using Electra Railway Graphics vinyls. They aren't exactly cheap, but the unpainted kits can save you a bit of cash. I have used the Replica Railways 64' motorised chassis with 12mm wheels to motorise my class 455/8 and 319/1 units (both pre-finished in NSE liveries). I have also built a class 456 2-car unit but left it unmotorised to work with the class 455. Hamish: if you consider buying an unpainted Bratchell kit, you could also contact Adam at Electra Railway Graphics regarding the possibility of getting overlays in the livery you want. Just to give an idea of what the kits are like, here are a few pics of mine part-built then as running on my layout.