SRman

Hi. I intend to use Kadees, probably in conjunction with Parkside NEM mounts on extensions from the bogie pivot points. However this will take a little bit of experimentation. I could also try Kadees mounted directly under the bodies, but I suspect I will have trouble with the tighter (radius 3) curves on my layout. The 456 will remain a 'dummy' unit for the time being, but I may possibly motorise it at a later date. As such, the 455 will provide the power for the present time. Classes 313 - 315 and 507 - 508 would be nice but, at the current time, none are readily available in 4mm scale that I know of. I would happily run a 508 (or two) on my layout. Thanks for the compliment.

Continuing on with the Bratchell class 456, I have now fitted the underframe details as supplied in the kit. I have posed the nearly complete unit with the Bratchell class 455/8 on my layout, although this is a little bit of a cheat, since neither unit has yet been fitted with end couplings!

I have to say that with the recent price hikes from both Bachmann and Hornby, our investment seems like far more reasonable value for money than it looked initially! I am prepared to wait patiently for the result. Regardless of whether or not we are kept fully informed, as long as the end result is as promised, I, for one, will be very happy. It is nice if the information we receive is updated regularly, though, and Dave does do a good job of informing and consulting with us, IMHO. I'm not sure what price Hornby's effort will be, but by the time both models are out, I may be in a position to buy a second one - just whose that may be will depend on price, available liveries/identities, and the quality of the product.

Bratchell Models had a sale recently, offering £30 off the cost of their class 456 model in Network SouthEast livery. I quickly ordered one of these units, together with the wheels and coupling pack. While Bratchell's kits are not exactly cheap, they are well thought out, well moulded and well finished (for their pre-painted ones). They build into robust and usable items for normal model railways. As such, I have already built (and documented here) the class 455/8 and class 319/1 kits from them, which are in service on Newton Broadway, although both awaiting a few finishing detail touches. My class 456, 456 007, is intended as a dummy unit only, to run in "multiple" with the 455 835, which has a Replica Railways motorised chassis, which has more than enough power and traction to deal with hauling itself plus five coaches. 456 007 arrived in kit form on Thursday. By Thursday evening, I had fitted all of the windows, using my usual Micro Krystal Klear as the glue. For those who haven't read my previous entries, Krystal Klear is intended as a glazing medium itself, for smaller windows or apertures (head and tail light 'holes' are ideal for this) but it also makes a good glue for any clear glazing material, since it is sticky like a glue but can be thinned or washed off with water and dries clear. Two of the window apertures at the leading end of one of the coach sides needed opening out slightly to allow the glazing to pop in properly, but all others were perfect fits right from the start, making this a relatively quick and simple job to complete. The windows were left to set overnight. Today (Friday), I have assembled the now glazed body shells and the bogies, and put them together with the baseplates push-fitted in. They will require some added weight, and the underframe details are yet to be added, but I couldn't resist a quick photo on the mobile phone. The front ends will need quite a bit of extra detail added (not in the kits) for the jumper cable boxes and other bits and pieces. I will also be drilling out the lights and adding LEDs later, plus end coupling to allow for use with the 455 unit.

More likely one of the 'glitches' from Kernow transferring over to the new website. Email or phone them to check on this.

Just the sky reflecting off the green livery. If it was in blue it would have at least some form of yellow panel. As far as I know, no SR-based locomotives carried electric blue. The class 73/1s that people attribute as electric blue were, in fact, the early matte finish BR blue done with an airless spray technique which gave the impression of being a lighter shade than the later gloss or semi-gloss finish - electric blue was lighter still than that.

I liked that prototype HSDT too. That's quite a nice piece of footage. I did notice a bit of a wobble in the trailing driving car of the APT in several of the shots. Presumably just a wobbly wheel set that should be easily fixed before production begins. It does look very impressive, though. The articulation is quite fascinating and looks as if it will cope with all of the possible ups and downs and twists of the model on sharper than scale curves and gradients. It's a pity I can't justify a set (too many other commitments and pre-orders!) although I'd like to wish Rapido and NRM/Locomotion every success with it.

Thanks for the kind comment. Tony (LBC) does do reruns if there is sufficient demand. However the BT Models version may just kill off any interest in the kit, once they correct their models (as recorded elsewhere, the first two releases are a couple of millimetres too tall). This one is actually the second of the LBC MWs I have built (not counting the entirely different 1960s MW Royal Blue coach). Tony very kindly substituted the bus seating unit in my kit as the kit was originally one of the dual purpose units. Technically, my model is not quite accurate for the H & D vehicles as it should have a rear route destination box, even though most were blanked off in their later lives. I may add one at some stage using Milliput.

Well, the Little Bus Company Hants & Dorset Bristol MW has taken another step towards completion. I filled the ragged edges on the driver's side headlight and touched up the paintwork there. I have put the grille, Bristol 'wings' badge and fleetnames on, leaving just the registration numbers and destinations to add, plus painting in of the tail light clusters. The photos show up a few ragged paint edges rather cruelly, but overall it doesn't look too bad. I will try to fix up the worst bits before I declare it "finished".

My BR lined black 32500 arrived today, just as I was going out! Once I got home, I opened the box and placed it on the rolling road on DC power and ran it for a good 45 minutes in each direction. Running was as smooth as silk and it exhibited absolutely no wobbles at all; it was so steady that the only indication that it was running was the motor noise and the wheels turning (from above, where one could not see the wheels turning, it looked just like a static model). After running in, I took out the three screws indicated on the diagram and the body came off very easily. I fitted a CT Electronik DCX75 6-pin decoder, a brand and type I have never used previously, and tried to set the address on the programming track ... no dice! I had inserted the decoder upside down! Once I had corrected that, it read properly and I was able to set the address, plus my usual inertia / momentum settings (CV3 = 20, CV4 = 15, usually adjusted slightly after testing, until I am happy with the behaviour). I also found that I had to tweak CV2 (starting voltage) to a value of 6, altered from the default of 3. I expect things to just start moving on speed step 1. This may be revised downwards later as the mechanism frees up a little more. Finally, I tweaked the pickups on the backs of the driving wheels as a couple of them weren't touching when the axles were on full deflection. I tested the locomotive both backwards and forwards through a crossover and there were no problems with the trailing wheels derailing or causing any of the problems a couple of other people have reported here. I haven't tried it with a load, yet. I'll do that in the next few days and take a few photos. Overall, I'm very pleased with it and think Bachmann have produced a real winner here. Now I'm just awaiting the arrival of the LBSCR version.

The acrylic came from Bunnings in a much larger sheet, which I just cut to suit the bits I want. ​There is more than enough in that sheet to cover my needs for the next panel for the main lines (upper level), as well as replacing either if I make any mistakes (quite on the cards!) or revise or change the layout at any time.

Hi Neil. The panel was made with a faceplate of clear acrylic, with a track diagram done in Microsoft Word, printed out and laminated, then bolted to the faceplate. Holes for the switches and studs for the point motors were then drilled through both layers. The other, temporary panel with the two switches for DC/DCC is just a piece of plasticard hot glued and Blu-tacked to the woodwork. It will be replaced in the near future with more permanent switches that will switch the whole underground (lower level) to one or the other, so there can be no "accidents" with trains crossing over between the two systems.

I have used those before on the old layout, converted to double track (each arch needed three of the Triang/Hornby items to get the width), and have 'recycled' part of it as a place-holder for part of the viaducts further along. Some of the dummy arches under the track bed on the right-hand end are leftovers from those conversions, also.

After leaving it aside for quite some time, I have now got around to glazing the Little Bus Company Bristol MW/ECW bus. I have opted, like with the previous Wilts & Dorset one I did, to glaze it using the outside mounting method, which meant cutting each piece of glazing material to fit each of the window apertures. The photos were taken in fairly poor light, but the first one emphasises that I need to redo the driver's side windscreen as it is not straight and also not sitting correctly. I use Micro's Krystal Klear to glue all windows in as it dries clear and also fills in any gaps I may have left by over-trimming the windows. A couple of the windows in the photos show the Krystal Klear hasn't quite dried and is still milky white, but rest assured, the glue will be invisible very soon after the photos were taken. There are a few things left to do before I can say it is complete: one of the headlights needs a little filler, there are some very minor paint touch-ups to do, and then the transfers may be applied, including that for the front grille.

Not entirely convinced that the Vollmer viaducts are doing what I want, I have been experimenting with the Wills viaduct. The Vollmer ones have the brick finish I really want but the arches are a little narrow and don't quite give the view through to the trains that I would like. The Wills one has wider arches but is only available in a stone finish. Anyway, I bought a three-arch kit to start with and have been cutting down the piers to suit my needs. The leftover pier components have provided material for a nice buttress to support the girder bridge section. I have another arch and pier kit on the way. Once that arrives, I can paint it all properly, but in the meantime I have done a wash of Humbrol #29, with a thin wash of their dark grey weathering wash to fill the mortar joints. I will be picking out stones in more colours but I want to do the whole lot in one go to keep it uniform. Then the full weathering will follow. The clearances are very tight, so I may have to remove a little from the bottom sections of the piers at the baseboard edges, or I may add a thin strip of wood to the edges (25mm x 25mm square section, perhaps?).

I would have expected £200-250 as being a realistic price. However, as you say, the 350s are still listed as £189, and are somewhat cheaper still from some suppliers where there is still stock available (anywhere from £130 to £150+ from my Internet search), so, as long as one is prepared to do a bit of modelling work, buying one of those plus the Electra Railway Graphics (EGR) class 450 vinyl overlays (£35 from memory) still results in a cheaper, yet reasonably accurate class 450. Some people don't have the skills or, perhaps, just the confidence to tackle the conversion, so their only option would be to buy at the Bachmann dealer's prices. Much as I would love a proper, factory finished 450, if they really are going to be around £400, I won't be buying one of those. I'll be doing a second EGR conversion.

Going off-topic for a mo', most of the first 20 class 24s (as they became later) worked on the SR, although not all at once (usually around 15 of them at any one time). D5010 most certainly did work on the SR eastern section. Thus, bringing us back on-topic, the early class 24s could be seen side by side with the early class 71s, all in green with no yellow panels at the time in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Continuing on from fixing the Silverlink class 150/1 Sprinter, I have now repeated the steps with my Provincial sector class 150/1, with photos! Dismantling is relatively easy, once the three body fixing screws are removed from the chassis. Two very small screws hold the PCB in place, and two larger screws retain the bogies. A flat-bladed screwdriver at the inner ends of the bogie side frame mouldings will release those (easier to do before removing the bogie retaining screws), and the axles just pull out with a small amount of force. This is what you should have before any soldering occurs: Insulated wires are prepared by tinning the ends, and the copper pickup strips on the bogies are also prepared with blobs of solder - one up near the step, another just above the "tee" formed with the strip along the bogie sides. The wires are soldered at one end to the strip. Meanwhile, some brass (or copper or phosphor-bronze) pickup wires are prepared by cutting to length (a little shorter than the bogie wheelbase) and the centres are tinned with solder. The pickup wires need to be bent outwards and slightly downwards to bear on the wheel backs when the axles are reinserted later. The insulated wires are fed up through the slots in the chassis block. The wires can then be soldered to the springy strips that bear on the tops of the bogie strips. Reassembly is mostly the reverse of dismantling, although I found it better to screw the bogies back on as soon as I had soldered the wires to the PCB. Axles and sideframes were clipped back into place, ensuring that the wires go behind the wheels. From outside, one would never know there was anything different! After a quick test, the body is replaced and the unit is ready for service, with no more hesitations or flickering lights. I'm not too sure whether the Provincial liveried units would ever have run in multiple with Silverlink ones, but here are the two units posed together, regardless!

When the Bachmann Collectors Club offered the class 150/1, 150 123, in Silverlink livery, my wife offered to buy one for me for my birthday. Naturally, I accepted this offer! Around the same time, I had bought a Regional Railways Provincial liveried version, 150 148, pre-fitted with Howes sound, at a very reasonable price. I swapped the chassis on the motor coaches so that the prized Silverlink set had the sound. However, there has been an ongoing intermittent problem with minor power interruptions on both units. Initially this caused the (non-sound) Bachmann decoder I fitted to keep resetting itself back to address 3. After fitting sound, it was more noticeable because the unit would stop, then restart the engines, then accelerate again. I have investigated the units several times but could not see any reason for the interruptions. Then, the more recently released Bachmann class 40 with sound alerted me to what might be the problem. As I have documented in an earlier entry, I found the class 40 pickup arrangement was causing intermittent breaks in power collection (as reported by several other modellers in the forums as well). The solution with the 40 was to add soldered wire pickups bearing onto the wheel backs. I decided to do the same with the 150 123 (and may well follow up later with 150 148). As some people had also reported problems with some of Bachmann's DMUs not transmitting power reliably through the rubbing contacts between the bogies and the main PCB, I decided to use a few decoder wire off-cuts to solder connections between the vertical contacts on the bogies, and the tops of the contacts on the PCB. While all this was a little fiddly, it wasn't all that difficult either. The bogie side frames simply clip off the bogie chassis and the tops are released by undoing the screws through the main chassis block, so access is not hard. I checked that the cardan shafts were engaged before reassembling (they never came out of their sockets) and test ran the chassis before replacing the body. Running of 150 123 is now faultless. When I tackle 150 148, I'll take a couple of photos to show the work done. This is quite an old picture of the unit, running on my old layout.

So apart from needing a coat of matt varnish, my unit looks fairly presentable. I do want to weather the underframes and bogies on mine. If I am reading the previous posts correctly, I get the feeling that this would then represent what most of us think Bachmann should do for their weathered version.

That would be nice to know if they have, indeed, used a darker shade for the roofs. That would make my unit more accurate, seeing as I used First 'Barbie' blue for the roofs and ends on my Bachmann 350/1 conversion. The First blue is half a shade darker than the blue on Electra Railway Graphics' vinyl overlays, which was near enough for me to proceed without lightening it. That, in turn, means that it is easy for me to touch up any of my painting errors or omissions as I discover them. I don't mind the idea of a weathered unit but the one shown in the catalogue is too heavily done. All the pictures I have seen of the SWT units show them with clean sides, and only light weathering on the roofs, as per Godfrey's photos (apart from that white patchy one).

Hi Malcolm. I wouldn't say no to those sheets as long as you are offering. I have to say that it is very generous of you, so thank you. My address is in a PM to you. I very much appreciate your suggestion and help with finishing the models off properly. Kind Regards. Jeff.

I couldn't resist a bargain at the recent Sandown model railway exhibition. I bought a Heljan Dutch livery class 26/1, 26 038. The locomotive has been weathered and has Kadee couplings fitted to the locomotive base plate, with the snowploughs fitted around those. While class 26s don't belong on a Southern based layout, I have always liked the BRCW locomotives (I have six class 33s!), and when this one was offered at a price I couldn't refuse ... I couldn't refuse! As with all of my previous Heljan locos, it runs superbly. I also recently purchased a Hornby RailRoad TTS class 37 (97 301), with a view to using its sound decoder in a ViTrains 37. Here is the Hornby model, straight out of the box. It uses the old Lima body moulding, which lacks the proper tumblehome at the base of the sides, and the windscreens are really not the right size and shape, but overall it was still not too bad a moulding. I will probably still try to sell the remains after the sound removal. The ViTrains model has been in my possession for some time, being one of the first issues, complete with traction tyres and slightly dodgy assembly of the nose ends (they still pop out occasionally). I repainted the rather plasticky finish of the yellow ends. The sound decoder from the Hornby model pops straight in, but the speaker installation needs a bit more work. I have swapped to a high-bass Soundtraxx speaker but that seems a little mushy at the moment. I'll have to try a proper plasticard sealed box around it to see if that improves it. It still works out as a pretty cheap sound installation, and the TTS sound is not too bad at all (not perfect by any means, but good value for the price). Because Hornby stuffed up the wiring for the light outputs (they work in reverse to what they should), I took the simple expedient of swapping the white and yellow wires on the decoder's 8-pin plug. That way the lights will work correctly on any locomotive I choose to put the decoder in, and the ViTrains 37 will work correctly with any replacement decoder if I swap things in the future.

Order the lined late crest version, then remove the crest and apply a transfer for the early crest. I have done this in reverse on quite a few occasions, where I have bought a Bachmann or Hornby early crest loco and changed them to late crest. It is not usually that difficult to remove the printing; I usually use a track rubber or ink rubber, but I and others have had success with T-cut on cotton buds too. The T-cut method can leave a shiny patch, which is actually better for applying transfers to, but means you have to consider weathering or matt / satin varnishing the whole tank side (or tender side in the case of some other locos).

Gout is very painful. I can't say my attacks have been as bad as Peter's or Rick's, but when the doctor gave me some tablets they were too rough on my stomach. He had to prescribe something milder. Fortunately for me, my gout attacks are rare.