37lover

I received an email Saturday advising courier delivery would be today but as no-one would be here I asked them to hold and arranged to pick up tomorrow [the earliest option they offered]. Called in on the off chance today and collected my Tornado. It's now sitting side by side to the Bachmann model which cost me at least three times as much. The Bachmann is very detailed but for value for money, no question, the award goes to Hornby!

Admin, I appreciate you're busy chap but is there any reason why my photos haven't loaded yet?

Just loaded the pictures; should be approved tomorrow, but probably well after your breakfast and even lunch!

And finally a couple of the finished coach with happy passengers./media/tinymce_upload/finished1.JPG /media/tinymce_upload/finished2.JPG

A few photos Top view of bogie /media/tinymce_upload/Top_view_bogie.JPG Bottom of bogie; you can see the white pieces of H section then the phosphur bronze strips all fixed with epxoy. Strips need to be adjusted for pressure on the wheels, a bit of black paint will make it look a lot better. /media/tinymce_upload/Bottom_of_bogie.JPG Chassis and bridge; wires looped to offer more flexibility. slot for switch on far right [LED strip in background] /media/tinymce_upload/Chassis_bridge.JPG Chassis & switch, you can see the extra resistor too /media/tinymce_upload/Chassis_switch.JPG Close up of notched shell bottom. The switch position is above the "2015" part of the date stamp. The two faint grey marks, just to the right of the black/red wires are where I've almost ground through the floor. /media/tinymce_upload/Close_up_of_notched_shell.JPG Painted shell; apologies for the poor colour representation, colours really are much better! This shows the rebates and slots cut into partitions for the wires and LED strips. /media/tinymce_upload/Painted_shell_with_recesses.JPG LED strips; all ready for assembly. The 2mm dia bolts holding the switch can be seen sticking down under the chassis, I might try and cut them but at the very least I'll paint them black. /media/tinymce_upload/LED_strips.JPG

I have posted this in the General section as I think it could be useful for both DC and DCC systems. I'm going to describe how I've fitted internal lighting to one of the Pullman coaches that is in the GWR Western Pullman set R1077. This first post will describe, in text, what I did and then I'll post again with photos which will be held by moderators and so probably will not show until Monday. These coach bodies are held only by four clips, one in each corner. Undo by sliding a thin screwdriver and lever the body away from the chassis. Pull the roof off and then pull the white plastic shell out from inside the roof. This shell forms the seats, coach floor and partitions. I sprayed the shell with grey primer, painted the floor with black matt and then stippled a random red pattern over the black. Seats were painted medium blue, tables white. You have to look closely to see any of these colours! The gold coloured table lamps can be pulled out with small pliers before spraying and refitted later. The tops of the partitions fit snug to the roof so I cut shallow recesses to allow the LED strips to run the length of the coach, I also cut out the tops of the end sections [will be clear when you to see a photo]. I fitted two phospur bronze strips to one bogie [i used Slater's Ref:1220 which has enough in the pack to do 15 wagons]. The bogie has small strengthening gussets and I cut away a small piece of the gusset and epoxied two small offcuts of H section plastistrut either side of the gusset. This was to provide a flat bearing so I could glue the strips. Each strip was 49mm long and I soldered a short piece of 10/0.2 equipment wire to the middle of the strip, the strips were bent to what I think is called a compound curve! See a compound bow? A drilled a small hole through the bogie for the two wires but before fitting the strips/wires I temporarily placed the bogie on the chassis and drilled up through the bogie hole to mark the chassis. I then cut a curved slot in the chassis corresponding to how much I thought the bogie would swing going around my layout [no first degree curves]. I glued a 1.5A 50V bridge rectifier on the upper surface at the end of the chassis. A point to note; the shell and roof only fit one way, they cannot be rotated 180 degrees - check and double check you're cutting and gluing at the right end! After fitting the bogie I soldered the two wires to the AC terminals of the bridge, covering all bare wire with heat shrink. I didn't want to have the lights on all the time so I have fitted a small single pole slide switch under the chassis, I actually cut a slot in the shell floor [spoiling the exquisitely finished carpet] but now know if I pack the switch lower by only 2mm the terminals will not come through the shell floor. So you can guess I fitted the switch and connected to the positive bridge output and then ran a wire to go up to the roof and inserted a 10K resistor in line. Some may think that's a bit high but I don't like the lights too "in your face". I had to grind away some of the shell to make a route for the wires to & fro the bridge and switch. Wires are sandwiched between the top of the chassis and underside of the shell. Nearly finished... I've got some of those self adhesive LED strips which I think are great products, I've already fitted to several buildings on my layout. Mine are warm white 3528 and have inbuilt resistors for a 12V supply, the individual led's are at about 17mm centres and can be cut in groups of three. As I just said I added an extra resistor to dull them down. Unfortunately the coach roof has a [female] tube protruding down about midway along the coach that fits to a [male] tube fixed to the chassis to help keep everything aligned. This meant I couldn't run a single length of LED strip and had to rig up a bypass around the tube(s). After I had prepared the LED strip I soldered to the two wires coming out of the shell top, exposed the sticky back, fixed to the roof and assembled the coach. Now busy doing my remaining six coaches, only three came with the original set but a rake of three doesn't look right - not that I'm a rivet counter, far from it. Dinner time, will try and load some photos later.

PJ, Your layout is coming along nicely, pity about being cluttered with all those signals :o) I do like the idea & use of the underpasses, visually I think it looks good having a long line of sight without a footbridge spoiling the continuity. With hindsight I wish I had put more sidings on my layout.

Hi Vespa, Have you consider building your own? I know it takes a while for photos to be approved but here's some of a Summerhouse I built in the corner of my garden. I built up flat pack type sides, two pieces for the rear and ditto two for the front where the double but narrow door sits. Double glazed windows in each side that I collected locally for 99p each off Ebay. Walls have 50mm insulation board lined with water-resistant sterling board. Flat ceiling is fitted with insulation above. I have a 60w tube heater in their which keeps the frost at bay,; don't use it for my train, presently full of my daughters horse stuff!. I think I spent about £1,800 on materials including concrete for the strip footings. I can't remember the exact size, and it's too cold to go check, but think it was about 10ft x 8ft. I'd certainly go with wood & insulation. /media/tinymce_upload/SAM_0644.JPG/media/tinymce_upload/SAM_0710.JPG/media/tinymce_upload/SAM_0716.JPG

Viaduct, Wow; that's impressive and shows up my blinked view. I thought it meant 106 tags that were encoded. Are you saying each tag has 106 codes? I don't understand your reference to binary otherwise. Be gentle with your reply, I use computers but don't understand them!

Graskie, SoT has done everything but name his ID, if you still can't find him I would suggest looking for a Hornby R.2672 loco!

Further to my separate posting, although I have very little experience of Railmaster, I asked if it was possible to have dual monitors so for example one could display the schematic layout on a wall mounted flat screen and use a second, or laptop monitor to control locos, points etc?