SRman

The new models are coming thick and fast. Fortunately I have prepaid most of the pre-orders, although this one only had a deposit on it. The Rails/Dapol late crest BR D1 31246 arrived on my doorstep this afternoon. A very quick test on DC showed it to be smooth but my old controller couldn't go low enough to allow the loco to run slowly. I fitted a Lais Next 18 decoder (the only brand of that configuration I have at present), then programmed it. That allowed smooth take-offs and running, although it didn't seem to have a great deal of finesse to the control, it is more than acceptable. I may reprogram the firebox flicker and glow to F1 rather than F0 as it is at present, and alter the flicker rate a little if I can, but it is a nice feature that can, of course, be turned on and off at will on DCC. The test train looks rather odd, but there is a reason for that. The double veranda SECR brake van still kept derailing at one particular place on the curve at one end of the layout. I thought that maybe the kinematic couplings of the Siphons were pushing it off if there is a kink at that point (I can't reach it to check until I clear some rubbish away!). I added the old Lima Seacow/Sealion with its wide and rigid coupling attached to the bogie to allay any doubts about the kinematic couplings being at fault, then swapping the van to the rear proved it was a fault with the van itself. A check with the calipers showed all wheel sets on both vans to be right on the 14.5mm gauge width, with one axle on the double-veranda'd van showing nearer 14.8mm. A few squeezes with finger pressure seems to have cured the derailing now as I ran this test train around at reasonable speeds with the D1 hauling and it completed several circuits without any problems. I haven't added any extra details to the D1 yet. I have to say, the D1 seems slightly more sure-footed than the previous D, on which I removed the traction tyred wheels. The D1 doesn't have traction tyres at all.

Continuing the upgrades, I have just done two of the earliest DCC conversions I did that were hard-wired using Digitrax decoders (the only ones I could get at that time that would fit, a DZ123 and a DZ125). These were my two Bachmann N class 2-6-0 locos, 31860 and 31862. I have fitted two very small Zimo decoders now, and MX617F with its 6-pin plug cut off, and an MX616. 31860 was a little stiff and jerky at first but a spot of oil and a long running-in session freed it up nicely. 31862 ran beautifully straight off. The original Digitrax DZ123 doesn't even have BEMF compensation. Both old decoders will go into the spares for possible use as lighting (function only) decoders. After that, I had run my two new Rapido/Rails SECR 6-wheel brake vans on the tail of the train but both were derailing at particular points on the layout. I investigated this, and as reported elsewhere, found the centre axles don't have any vertical play and very little side play. After unclipping the centre brake rigging and removing the axles, I pulled out the two bearing cups and reinserted the axles, so they are now fully floating on each van. A quick circuit showed the running was more reliable.

As reported in my post of 22nd May 2023, I bought a used Dapol class 73 in GBRf livery. I rewired the cab lights and reversed the direction of travel using CV29 (radiator end leading), and renamed and renumbered using Railtec transfers - the 3D name plate is particularly impressive. I have now added to all that by fitting Coastal DCC sound on an ESU LokSound 5 decoder, with a bass enhanced speaker with 3D printed sound chamber from Rail Exclusive. This is a very short few clips put together this morning to show it firstly as an electric (F7 engaged), then changing over to diesel power as it rounds the bend. I can't help the shaky camera work as I was trying to operate both phone cam and locomotive at the same time. I used a video stabilisation setting in MovieMaker, with limited success. Also in the video are two of the Accurascale Siphon Gs, and initially two of the Rapido SECR 6-wheel brake vans (shunted off after the first circuit). On the outer circuit of the main lines are a heap of other locomotives temporarily stored there awaiting their turns on video. Each of them has had some recent work done to improve or upgrade them. The LT pannier has already been seen with YouChoos sound fitted, Met Bo-Bo No. 8 Sherlock Holmes has had a decoder upgrade to ESU LokPilot, class 16 8404 has had another ESU LokSound decoder fitted with Coastal DCC sound, class 22 D6315 has had a LokSound 5 fitted with Coastal DCC sound, replacing the previous LokSound 4 with Howes' sound (that latter will be reblown and reallocated, hopefully with Legomanbiffo's class 207 sounds for one of my class 205 units), the Black 5 has had its running sorted out and a Zimo MX600 decoder fitted (replacing a Hornby decoder), and the S15 was a recent acquisition from a late friend Brian's Estate. The Black 5 was an iffy runner before, but part of that I traced to none of the tender pickups working as all were pressed hard against the sides of its chassis. Putting a decent decoder in also helped. The S15 has had an ESU LokPilot 4 fitted, and ran superbly right from the get-go. It looked like it had never been run when I took it from its box, although Brian had fitted Kadees to it.

Wot? Turn over a new leaf, you say?

Depending on how accurate you want the PUL trailers to be, the Hornby Maunsells are good candidates for the general appearance, but are 59' stock where the PUL and PAN units were 63' (i.e. there was an extra compartment). You could easily use a Pullman coach in there, but the side profile was different from the standard Pullmans, so a Brighton Belle centre car would be more appropriate, or if you are happy to have shortie coaches, the original Triang Pullmans actually had the correct Southern unit profile. You could also consider hacking two of the Triang ones int o one longer car. The 6 CIT units had one or two shorter 1st class coaches in their formation (edit: actually three!), but the first units had prototype motor cars, one of which had the a flatter side profile with the side sheets extended to the bottom edges of the solebars. There's a lot more detail here: https://www.bloodandcustard.com/SR-6Pul.html As for the 4 SUB, you might be able to find an old kit or two from MTK if you are lucky, or use a couple of the old Airfix GWR B set coaches with the upper sides reprofiled and blended into the roof - these won't have the lozenge shaped windows over the door droplights, but may pass muster at viewing distance. Edit: note that the Southern Electric units in real life didn't have Pullman gangways between coaches, instead having the older British standard style gangways and side buffers. This also applied the the 5 BEL Brighton Belle units. There's a certain irony in that! 😅

It could also be an ESU decoder. Bachmann confusingly changed the spec and supplier but used the same 36-557 catalogue number. The ESU also has a 1 amp rating and should be OK. Easy indicators: green is Soundtraxx, blue is ESU. DevilsAdvocate, I would remove the decoder (if you haven't already), and check the bases of the pins to see if there are any whiskers of solder bridging the gaps where the pins meet the PCB. If you can, use a sharp knife to cut between each pin at the base to make sure of this. I had a few anomalies once with a Bachmann class 150 with just such a problem. Using the knife solved it completely.

So, for the next EE Co model they will include a box of matches in the extra parts! 😈🤣

Absolutely: when I fitted my own ESU LokPilot (bought locally here in Australia) to a non-DCC-fitted class 92, Accurascale's help team were very obliging and sent me a complete file of the CV settings that I could import into my LokProgrammer software and put onto the decoder. All I had to do was ask. 🙂

Good tip, but be careful as the tenders aren't always wired to the same polarity as each other (from different models). Hornby, or their factories, simply weren't always consistent with this.

At risk of diverting this topic, and totally agreeing with you, you should try London buses of old. For the large classes (think STL and RT double deckers, also RF single deckers), they had 103 bodies for every 100 chassis, and the two parts were combined and recombined repeatedly over the lives of the buses. At overhaul they were so completely stripped and rebuilt, it's not even certain any of the parts that were on the bus that emerged at the end were from the bus that went in. When it comes to preserving them, that's an accepted part of their history. Steam locomotives were much the same, with boilers and sometimes even chassis being renewed.

Not just seeing them in action, but a big part of it is hearing them and also smelling them (not so much the diesels for the latter, although there are distinctive odours there too). As to the breeding habits of A4s, you of all people should be able to duplicate that in 1/76 scale, Doug! 😉🤣

Accurascale have proved themselves repeatedly, whereas KR seem to be a bit hit and miss. I did buy the Fell, because I don't know sufficiently what the side differences are and liked it enough to spend on it (I like oddballs!), but the pre-production 4DD fronts look wrong, and won't be easily fixed if they persist with that. So, like you, I'm not pre-ordering this one until I see the finished product. If I miss out, I wasn't meant to have one.

In my impoverished teens, I could only afford two 3-car sets of Triang BR mark 1 coaches, one in green the other in crimson and cream. I took them apart and reassembled them with different coloured sides to form one 6-car train, so one side of the set was crimson and cream, the other side was green. That worked because the ends were black and the roofs grey, so no one could see both sides of any coach at the same time.

Thanks for that. I just got back from a walk and lunch with SWMBO, logged back into my computer and spotted your post. I am now £165 poorer (price less VAT but plus tracked international postage). If my wife complains, I'll just point her in your direction! (She won't really, she encourages me). 😅😅

I took a few photos while they were on your layout on the Saturday. I didn't notice at the time that you had slipped 10000 in there as well. 😅

I have to have a biopsy after my PSA level jumped recently, and a scan showed some small, suspicious areas that needed further investigation. The first attempt failed because I had a collapse three days before it was due and the anaesthetist refused to take the risk. I was very upset about that. They haven't given me an actual date for the rescheduled biopsy, but the surgeon and the anaesthetist are supposed to be phoning me this Monday, 19th June. The collapse was most likely caused by the medication the urologist gave me in preparation for the biopsy interfering/interacting with my existing blood pressure medication, causing a sudden drop in my blood pressure. Fingers crossed I'll get the biopsy and it will produce a watch and monitor situation rather than cancer, but until I get that result I'm feeling rather apprehensive. I wish good luck to all the others here who are undergoing treatments or awaiting results too.

Nicely done, Ian. I don't wish to detract from your work in any way, but don't forget to add the Pullman rubbing plates between the buffers.

As a slight aside, I don't have any problems with the magnet in my Wrenn Belle unit, but putting it back together after disassembly was always a pain, resulting in much cursing and swearing on my part. The assembly really wasn't well thought out by Wrenn. While mine doesn't get much use nowadays, the magnet seems to have remained useable, but that in my so-called SR EMU was weak, so I replaced it with a neo-magnet ... that was a mistake! Doing that in the 5 BEL is OK because it has plastic sides and body, but the tinplate EMU sides are attracted to the extra strong magnet. It works brilliantly in a straight line, but the moment it encounters a curve, one side or the other clamps itself to the side of the motor bogie and causes it to derail. One thing I did find on my old layout with the Wrenn Belle unit was it would cause creep in a dead section every time it went over a Peco diamond crossing. The Wrenn wheel treads were wide enough to connect the dead rail to the live power as the unit passed over the crossing. Anything parked in the dead side track would creep forwards each time the Belle passed over the crossing until either I noticed it had moved, or the stored item collided with the side of the Brighton Belle as it passed. 😆 One other curiosity I noticed quite by accident was that the plastics used on the Belle motor cars were different from what was used on the centre cars, even those with the correct names for the unit. This became evident when they passed under an ultra violet light, and the glow from the brown plastic on the driving cars was quite different from the trailers.

Over the last few years I have acquired quite a few European items, mostly from Denmark, Germany and Sweden where I have done a few travels, with a few Swiss ones thrown in as well - I have not yet been to Switzerland but I like the looks of their stock. Some of these have been older models from the likes of Roco and Lima, but all have been converted to DCC. Those with sockets were easy, of course, but the older ones were hard-wired, retaining their circuit boards (usually only single-layered) with copper tracks cut through where necessary, and any pantograph connections soldered lightly to avoid accidental switching to overhead. None of these are entirely recent purchases, but all date from 2020 onwards. The Re and Ae 6/6 locos are from Lima (which has a decent can motor and flywheels driving eight of the wheels) and Roco (I have two of these, one older model and one newer DCC-ready model), and the new-style Re 4/4 was also from Roco. Finally, the BLS Vectron was a Trix loco with sound, on special from Modellbahn shop Lippe. There is a set of coaches bought as a job l ot from Ellis Clark Models second-hand. One of these is visible behind the locomotive in the top photo. There are also sundry wagons but the nature of freight operations in Europe allows me to mix them in with those from other European railways in the one train. I hope I haven't bent the intent of this topic too far by including details of my entire Swiss locomotive collection. 🙂

Sorry about the late response (others may have beaten me to the title): The Great St Trinians Train Robbery. This is my favourite comedy railway film as it contains some of the funniest railway sequences, even if they were speeded up a bit on film. It was silly, but good fun. One of our friends who we would regularly run into at local swap meets was one of the drivers involved. He said they pushed the safe working bounds a bit, and did, in fact, have a couple of minor derailments. He also said that as a driver not actually in the film, he had to duck down out of camera range to drive while trying not to be too distracted by the supposed school girls in short dresses and fishnet stockings! We can just about recreate the film in model form in OO now, with most of the models being available ready to run (a couple of exceptions or variations needed, though). Only a 2H unit for the police, rather than a 3H; the Bachmann gandy dancer would need some school girls in uniform; we have 59' suburban coaches from Bachmann, or better ones to come from Accurascale; the LMR diesel shunter was not quite the same as an 08 but close; J94s are readily available; suitable wagons are available; the pseudo-J50 was actually another J94 with fake side sheets added to make it sufficiently different for film audiences to recognise the different trains; and the Wickham trolly is readily available, although a suitable sound file with the headmistress yelling through a megaphone might be harder to source!

Not tightlock, but the next best thing might be the Scharfenberg couplings from Hornby.

I always pronounce it as Morn-sell, but it really is supposed to be Man-sell. However everyone knows who we mean when we say Mornsell, and it avoids confusion with Mansell (as in the wooden wheels).

That reminds me: there is a park (for real) in Brisbane called Faux Park. 😅 I have had my share of mispronounced words, mostly from reading them and not hearing them. I still catch myself saying HY-per-bowl, rather than hy-PER-bollee. The one that really caught me out though, was chiaroscuro.

I have been playing around with the Decoder settings on my Heljan Met Bo-Bo N0. 12 and Bachmann 20 142 'Sir John Betjeman' to try to align the functions a bit and also to speed match them to allow top-and-tailing a Kernow 4 TC set. The result so far is in this short video I posted to YouTube. There is still a little work needed to get them to match perfectly, but they are now close enough to run reliably in this formation - you will see them hunting slightly as they pass by. The main function I needed to remap was the brake, which was on F5 on 'Sarah Siddons' but F2 on 20 142. As I wanted to keep the rather nice whistle on 'Sarah Siddons' on F2, the class 20 had its brake reallocated to F5, and the horns from F3 and F4 shifted down in the hierarchy to be on F2 and F3. It does all work, although at some stage I may reverse all this and put the brakes on both locos onto F2.

I have just had some fun with swapping a few functions on both the LT pannier and the Bachmann LT class 20 (20 142), both of which have Zimo sound decoders. It took me some time to get the hang of it, with some very helpful guidance (as always) from John Guymer of YouChoos. Essentially the CVs in the 400 series correspond to the F key, so CV402, for example refers to function 2. You then put in the value of the function key you want that to take over the operation. In my case on the pannier, I wanted the playable whistle that was on F18 shifted down to F3, as being much easier to operate in the lower numbers. Conversely, the continuous looped blower sound that was on F5 could go on what was now a spare F18. The two shorter non-playable whistles on F3 and F4 could shift up one F key. Taking the F18 key, I wanted that on F3, so put in CV418 = 3 (to shift that function to F3). The same applied to getting F2 remapped to F5 on the class 20: CV402 = 5. It's all very simple … 🤣🤔 Anyway, I now have to try to speed-match the class 20 and Sarah Siddons, but at least the same F keys work the same functions for brake and whistle/horn. They are now in consist top-and-tailing the 4 TC set. After working my brain around that, I need a drink!! 🍺🙄