SRman

Paul: I reckon that some of those photos should go in the 'How realistic are your models thread'. I had to look several times to work out that they were, indeed, models.

We had our first postal delivery since Christmas Eve today (Monday), and look what the postie delivered! My Bratchell class 319/1 kit in Network South East livery! I pre-ordered this kit back in May and got the special advanced order price, which saved me over £50. The body shells go together very quickly and easily, so I have glazed and assembled all of them already and slipped the Replica Railways motorised chassis into the PMS coach (that's Pantograph Motor Second!). I still need to remove the moulded on footboards from the chassis but I'll leave that until I am ready to adjust the height it sits at in the body. Now here's a question: does anyone have a good photograph of a 319 pantograph well (319/0 or 319/1 will do), please? I will need to recreate the insulator and bus bar runs as well as mount the panto in the right place. Here are a couple of photos of the first bit of my progress.

I have glazed and assembled all of the body shells and slipped the motorised chassis into the PMS coach (that's Pantograph Motor Second!). I still need to remove the moulded on footboards but I'll leave that until I am ready to adjust the height it sits at. Now here's a question: does anyone have a good photograph of the pantograph well, please? I will need to recreate the insulator and bus bar runs as well as mount the panto in the right place. Here are a couple of photos of the first bit of my progress.

319 174 in NSE livery has arrived in kit form today. I have already assembled the body shell with windows (pre-fitted to make things easier) of the pantograph motor second which will also have the Replica chassis fitted. One slight adjustment was required for each side (additional to the supplied instructions): there are two moulded spigots on each side at cantrail level on the insides, which need the spigot at the pantograph roof well end to be filed down slightly so as not to force the sides outwards as they foul the pantograph well sides. Other than that, construction should be just as straightforward as the 455 (see my workbench blog if interested). In fact, becuse there are no jumper cables or handrails to add to the front ends, this should be easier. Like the 455, I intend to drill out the lights and insert LEDs.

If you leave home now, waterproof your bicycle and pedal hard, you might just get here in time! Oh, and p.s. - remember to hold your breath for the underwater bits!

Yes, not to mention the LT pannier and a Warship diesel, and the Maunsell diesel shunter and Z visible on the upper level! Then there's the Siemens class 450 in the foreground in some shots too! Because I can only have five usable trains on the lower level at any one time, it limits my abilities to keep everything to one period while still being able to test run the items I am working on or simply acquiring. p.s. There's a Clayton just outside the camera's view as well. Shhh! Don't tell anyone.

319/0s used a Faively style pantograph, for which I bought a Sommerfeldt one. The 319 Bratchell are offering (or about to) is a 319/1 which should use the Brecknell-Willis high speed pantograph. I couldn't find any of those in the usual places and the Hornby offerings are crude (the earlier ones as on my class 92 are rather chunky, wheres the later plastic ones are very fine but tend to be permanently bent). Then I bought a Bachmann class 350/1 to convert to a class 450 and lo and behold, there was my pantograph! Edited to correct a couple of typos and the spelling of "Sommerfeldt".

I have taken a little bit of video footage to show just how smooth and quiet my Hornby class 92 is with the more modern Hornby class 60 chassis fitted to it (see my workbench blog for more details on how I did this). This is the lowest quality clip to keep the file size down a bit, so is a little grainy. My faithful companion, Toby, wanted attention while I was videoing as well - I left the little squeak in! Next, I'll consider getting sound for it! Both Howes and Legomanbiffo (through DC Kits) offer class 92 sounds, and from the YouTube clips, both sound good. I'll have to see if I can find an 8-pin LokSound to have reblown. Note also I have experimentally rearranged the walls to fit the signal box in down at track level. What does everyone think of this position? As usual, apologies for the shaky camera work.

The 150 should be the right length for the class 317/318/319/320/321 electrics whereas the 170 chassis will need to be shortened and modified more heavily to fit. Bachmann's 150s do have that horrible huge metal block, though. I'm not sure about regearing - in theory, other bogie drive units should fit but I know of no one who has tried this. The Replica chassis fit very well and do not cover any windows but require some low-relief seats to complete the illusion of an interior being fitted. Top speed is reasonable. My 319 in NSE livery should be arriving any day now. I have a Replica chassis and Sommerfeldt pantograph sitting awaiting its arrival.

To the best of my knowledge, you cannot change the keys in that way with any NCE cabs. The 'horn' key remains the only one that is momentary. Even the F2 key which operates the same function is latching, which suggests that it is hard-wired into the keys themselves.

Hi Southern Bliss. I would be interested in any answers you receive regarding the refrigerator vans in 4mm scale. I wouldn't mind doing a couple of those myself.

Class 92 lights tamed somewhat by painting the cab interior mouldings, both inside and out. I also painted black over the insides of the tail light apertures. This satisfies me for the time being, until I can rig something more sophisticated using LEDs.

I have made good progress on this project. I wired the chassis back up, initially for a quick test on DC power, which involved tack soldering the feed wires to the brush wires. It ran perfectly, so the next step was to wire in a decoder. I chose a TCS M4 that I happened to have lying around. While I am only using two functions at the moment (for the headlights), it leaves the way open to improving the lighting later with separately worked tail lights or cab lights, if I so choose. One correction from the last post: the PCB I referred to did not, in fact have a resistor; it had two diodes and the actual lighting is provided by incandescent grain of rice bulbs. This meant I could discard the PCB completely from this project and wire the lights directly to the decoder. The presently unused purple and green wires were left intact and secured out of the way. The blue, yellow and white wires were also tacked temporarily out of the way and the red and black wires were shortened and connected to the track pickups and the orange and grey wires were similarly shortened and connected to the brush feeds. I removed the capacitor at the same time. The decoder was secured to the top of the can motor with a piece of double-sided thick tape that also acts as an insulator. I tested again on the programming track, and it all read properly. Address 9222 was allocated (for 92 022). A quick track test proved it ran very sweetly indeed. You can also see the shiny bits where I ground the height down a little. After that test, the lights were wired, noting which way the locomotive had run, so the white wire was connected to the forward bulb and yellow to the rear, with the blue common return connected to both. Photo with lights on at the forward end: ... and photo with the light off so you can see the wiring a bit better. The body was clipped back on and it had its first run around the layout, minus couplings. The lighting is fairly crude and is crying out to be improved ... later! The whole cab is illuminated at the moment when the headlights are turned on, as are the tail lights in white. It works as well as I had hoped, though and that's the main thing. There are still a few minor things to do. I did fit couplings immediately after the last photo. It could do with some handrails on the ends. The cab interiors need painting, which would also reduce the lighting effect. The body is still sitting about 0.5mm too high on the chassis. I made a small error with the undergear and stuck one small bit on the wrong side so will fix that later too. I suppose my only other problem with it is that I cannot tell which is the front (for DCC operation purposes)!

As a quickie project, I bought a Hornby class 60 on eBay for a quite reasonable sum with the intention of updating the old class 92. I made a previous attempt to improve it with a 5-pole armature and DCC decoder but it still didn't run as well as I would really like. In some ways it is almost a shame to lose the EWS 60 as the only fault with it was the windscreens were broken (easily replaced if I wanted to). The real class 92s used a very similar body shell to the 60s and after examining the 92 shell and 60 chassis, I decided that it would fit, provided I removed the PCB. I also found after test fitting that I needed to grind a little metal off the two metal 'towers' along the edges f the chassis block - only about 1 millimetre was removed. The body shell, cab interiors and lighting blocks fitted very neatly , with a small amount filed off the mounting spigots and spacer moulded on to the clear plastic lighting blocks.. Next I have had to remove the class 60 fuel tanks, compressors and battery box mouldings, then cut off the class 92 electric equivalents file down those to fit the 60 chassis. I fitted one of the choke mouldings (I think that's what it represents) to fit over the metal ridge on the chassis (also ground down a bit). The other bits still await filing and fitting but I have made good progress, considering I only started this on Christmas Day and it is now Boxing Day! I have to rewire the beast but that's not difficult. I intend reusing the small PCB with resistor and diode from the class 92 but if that doesn't work, I have plenty of resistors suitable to wire each end's lights separately to the decoder white and yellow wires. Here is a photo posed on the temporary workbench. I'll post one of the chassis separately next time and of the finished product when it is done. I have already added the etched tunnel rings and will shortly be ordering the Shawplan BR arrows and Charles Dickens nameplates. I'm looking forward to having a class 92 model that will actually run very smoothly and haul trains that suggest the 5,000-odd horsepower available on third rail! Edit: I have to reglue that missing shoebeam - it can be just seen at the left, in front of the locomotive. I have glued them on several times with a superglue but obviously the plastic is resistant to that particular glue!

I was going to suggest the same thing, Robin. BRs1962, it really isn't difficult to renumber Hornby or Bachmann locomotives. The numbers are easily removed with various techniques all working - I use a track rubber, a friend uses lolly sticks, another uses T-cut. The number or numbers can then be replaced from various sources - HMRS and ModelMaster numbers come to mind but there are several other good quality transfer suppliers out there.

No problems from here. Could your firewall be interfering with the link?

Most HAPs had the express ratio. I think you are recalling that a small batch of EPBs had the express ratio fitted. Groups D and E could work in multiple but were only allowed to run at express speeds if two thirds (or more) of the motors were fitted with the express ratio.

Hi Rick. Thanks for the compliment. I too fitted the steps and speedo drives (broke one of those, though!) with no problems for clearances. I will eventually swap the fully detailed end for a coupling to be fitted through the cowl/skirt with the slot. Inspired by the way the Dapol Western looks with the partial skirt at the front, I cut and filed the front fittings for the Heljan Western and the Bachmann Warship, improving both their appearances considerably (IMHO), while still being practical.

I have now wired up three signals (actually, four as one of them is a twin-headed junction signal). These are on simple Single Pole Double Throw (SPDT) on-on switches for the time being, until I decide how to automate the aspects in synchronisation with point settings and whether there is another train ahead. There were a few trials and tribulations on what should have been a simple wiring job. I wired them according to the diagram, using the supplied resistors on the negative common return legs. Each resistor was then joined to a common return negative wire to a 12 volt DC transformer. The wires to each positive terminal (one red, one green, for each signal) were run to two SPDT on-on switches, with the red wire going to one terminal and the green to the other on each switch, then the centre terminals on the switches were run to the positive output on the transformer. All well and good so far. This should have given me independent control of each signal aspect, with each individual signal only being able to show red or green, not both. What actually happened was this: Selecting green on both switches illuminated both green lights. So far, so good! Selecting red on both switches illuminated both red lights. Again, good! With both signals at green, selecting red on the near signal knocked out the far one altogether. Not so good! With both on red, selecting green on the near signal knocked out the near signal and switched the far one to green. The problem, in the end was due to my working under the layout with a blue-white light source, which meant I couldn't tell red and orange wires apart!! Once I fixed that up, the result is that both signals are working as they should. Being a glutton for punishment, I started on the twin-headed junction signal today. This time I was very careful to keep track of the wire colours and where they went. This signal uses a common negative return for all four lights so required four resistors in the four positive lines (one each), where the other two single signals could use one resistor in the negative common. Anyway, I wired it all up and tested ... the left-hand red refused to illuminate. I checked and double-checked the wiring and could find nothing wrong. After much head scratching, I shorted a screw driver across the relevant terminals on the SPDT switch and lo and behold, the red lit up! So, it was a faulty switch this time. I swapped it for a good one and all is now well with that signal. Overall, I think the Train Tech signals work well and are easy to put together, with the proviso that one has to be extremely careful cutting the very delicate safety railings and hoops from the sprues. While they aren't entirely accurate representations of LT signals, they look good anyway and I will be purchasing a few more, releasing the hotch-potch of signals already on the layout as place-holders to be used on the main lines, where there tended to be much more of a mixture of types and styles.

I have a scratchbuilt loco body in plasticard sitting waiting for a chassis. I claim no credit for the locomotive as it was given to me many years ago, but it now looks like nothing further will happen to it! I have procrastinated for too long and Hornby have stolen the march.

For the farewell tour with the 2 BILs, there was a part of it where only two units at one time could be transferred to the North London side, over a gap in the third rail coverage. The ED was used on diesel power to effect the transfer of the train in two portions. I have a feeling that platform length was the issue on that line and they had to run as two trains (4 BIL and 2 BIL), which were later reformed into the 6 BIL again to continue the journey. From memory, they also called at Broad Street before its closure. It is all documented in a DVD I have on Southern Electrics but I haven' watched it for a while so all of this is from my less than perfect memory.

RFS: I forgot about the green lining! Thanks for that. If they were rebuilt in 1921 then they would probably have survived in LSWR livery for some time after grouping. Certainly there were other types of locomotives that kept their pre-grouping liveries until as late as 1927 (granted that not many lasted that long!!).

As a goods engine I would have expected black livery with the seriffed 'Southern' lettering in gold or golden yellow, although it is possible they could have had olive green ... I'm more inclined to think they were black for most of their lives though. I wonder when the 'black motor' nickname was coined - that could give a clue to the livery for that time onwards. I will certainly be buying a BR liveried one but I would also like to see (and purchase) a pre-grouping liveried version. Hopefully Hornby will release one in the future.

I was thinking along the same lines as Rick: they don't look out of place at all. Change the signals to somersault types and you have a little slice of Victoria.

Nice photos, Rick. Is that Matilda in the train too?