[SRman]

I love some of those colourful iveries on European locos. That da Vinci one is particularly nice, David. I'll look forward to seeing more of your models.

 

[Pantograf]

Hi David, those are some excellent "Brenner" themed additions. I got to see the Paneuropa trailers at Brenner 2 months ago and the Leonardo loco at Innsbruck Hbf as well. I didn't see the BR 151 but there were some Lokomotion Vectrons running around so that's what I bought. I did see that small maintenance crane in action on friend's layout and it's quite impressive, I might get the Marklin version of it which is identical other than the power source.

 

[dwb]

Glad that you like them. I think this second batch brings up me to date.

My collection grows in two ways - a manufacturer announces a model that is just what I want so I tend to pre-order to avoid disappointment should it prove popular and sell out. I watch out for special offers and pick up models I like or which are of some relevance to the areas I model.

This BR 189 was picked up as an 'offer' some time ago. It was DCC ready so it went on my backlog of models to be fitted with a decoder. I eventually got round to doing some catch up during the summer.

Another from the DCC backlog was this Roco model of preserved 1020 number 018. This is still in service from time to time. They were seen a lot on the Brenner in their heyday.

This on the other hand is a 2019 release from Roco. It's a BR 139 which are frequently seen as bankers on southbound Brenner trains.

So far as I know there has only been one full Railjet branded train which has run over the Brenner Pass. That was for the 150th Anniversary celebration. There are Railjet services to Italy which means multi voltage 1216s are required. I think the route goes via Villach rather than the Brenner. This does not stop 1216s being used on other services over the Brenner, presumably when the traction department is running short of locos. For example I have seen Railjet 1216s in youtube videos on the Okombi ROLA service even though it terminates at Brenner and so a dual voltage 1116 or 1016 would have done the job. So this 2019 Roco release of a Railjet 1216 was a must. This particular model also has a four pole conductive coupling at one end so that it can be used with the illuminated Railjet coaches.

Speaking of Okombi ROLA services Roco have just released a set of three wagons in current Okombi livery along with the driver's coach. The set also includes a set of buffers for the end wagons. The set does not include any lorries. The Fercam lorry in this picture is from Herpa. The Fercam company worked with some local schools on a project which resulted in the children's drawings being transferred to the back doors of the trailers. This model has this feature.

This next model is a souvenir from our summer holiday in Bavaria. We made a couple of visits to Munich, parking out of town for 1 euro and then taking the train in. You cannot arrive at Munich Hbf and not visit the Gleiss 11 model shop. This Rocky Rail deep well pocket wagon is the result. These Fercam lorries have plain doors on the back. Roco are releasing a new deep well pocket wagon with Fercam trailers and rear door graphics early next year.

And finally while at Warley I found that C-Rail had a range of HO scale tank containers in various liveries. When watching youtube videos of freight over the Brenner I take notes of the various liveries that I see. The notes are recorded in One Note. It just so happens that the One Note application is loaded on my phone by default. So while at the stand I was able to consult my notes and choose these three models. The tank at the bottom has lettering which states "Not to be stacked" so I didn't. Don't know if the other two have similar markings

That's all for now.

David

 

[TheAndrian]

Hi David,

Nice additions you have there again. Regarding the "Leonardo" 1216 one should note that this particular elok had previously two unique liveries before; "Wagner/Verdi" (2013-2014/15) and "Achensee" (2015/16-2018). I have the "Wagner/Verdi" music edition in N and I'd been looking at ways to obtain the various liveries for this loco and others at a reasonable cost; option one is to buy the shells of the alternate liveries or option 2 is to buy the analog/digital version of the alternatives which in some cases the analog rtr version is cheaper than buying the spare part shell! The pricing structure for spare parts is obscene.

Cheers

 

[dwb]

QUOTE Regarding the "Leonardo" 1216 one should note that this particular elok had previously two unique liveries before
I did wonder. I will have to make sure that my Achensee and Leonardo don't appear in the same place at the same time

Thanks for the information.

David

 

[SRman]

More less than new purchases I have made recently: this time representing the start of a Swedish train, using three Roco coaches and a Lima Rc2 locomotive.

I'm not a fan of Lima but as I am working on a strict budget limit, and this locomotive came up at exactly the right time, I now own it! I happened to be talking to my good friend Mary (from Brunel Hobbies, but I was talking as a friend, nit as a customer) and happened to mention as an aside that I was looking for a Swedish locomotive, probably from Roco or Fleischmann, in the unlikely event that she happened to get one in her second-hand section, and she said she had just acquired the Lima one.

This one runs extremely well on DC, so will be converted to DCC in due course. The Roco coaches so far have come from eBay dealers at reasonable prices and also reasonable postal costs, although one is missing its handrails and a couple of ventilators on its roof (I should be able to fabricate the vents from plastic card and the handrails from some wire), but I have a few more Roco and NMJ SJ coaches on the way from Modellbahnshoppe-Lippe, with some in the newer blue liveries.

Anyway, this is what I have so far.


P_20191218_204049_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20191218_204035_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

p.s. those Swedish coaches must be huge! Physically, they are about the same width and height as my OO scale British coaches, but are considerably longer.

 

[Alex Hempel]

I have acquired a model of an East German Mitropa restaurant car to add to an approximation of an interzone train of the epoch IV.

This model was actually made in East Germany, by PIKO precursor Schicht. It may be as old as the late 60s, but is at least as old as 1981, that's when production under those brand names ceased and everything was rebadged to PIKO. So there's a good chance this car is older than me (1978).

There are a fair few of these floating around in the 'bay, in good condition and for decent prices. I got this one from a guy in Hungary, the whole shebang cost about 30 Euros incl shipping down under. It's in good condition, a few nicks here and there, nothing you'll notice while the thing is in motion. Even the interior lights are working, although I will probably replace the incandescent bulbs with a modern LED setup with capacitor. The couplers will also be on the chopping block at some point, I want to replace them with close coupling mechanisms and a different coupler type, once I have some money again

 

[alanoes]

Waldbrunn gets a Royal visitor

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed//3PskyXdXmGU?rel=0

This is the Roco 61472 S 3/6 of the Royal Bavarian State Railway with private Royal carriage.
Got this before Christmas but was waiting for lighting, smoke generator and appropriate passengers which have now all been added

Regards
Alan

 

[alanoes]

Something Magical passing through.

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed//47JOfyo5ge8?rel=0

This just arrived.. Hornby R3803TTS Hogwarts Express with R4934, R4934A and R4935 coaches
Don't normally have British outline trains as my layout is German, but thought my grandchildren would approve and it can go with the Flying Scotsman I got a couple of years back, also Hornby TTS sound.
Regards
Alan

 

[Babz]

My Purchases so far this year Trix FC 2 x3/4 Kofferli 100 year old Elok from switzerland Digital Sound

Piko SBB Railcar set all Digital Sound

Hope you like them
Babz

 

[alanoes]

Very nice babz
I do like the elok

Regards
Alan

 

[Babz]

HiAlan yes it is very nice indeed i have on Order another one with a blck body looks fantastic. Theywere used for freight trains 100 years ago. And the Piko railcar is very nice as well it looks very long compared to my HAG railcars. Butthey are not Digital like the Piko.
Happy days.
Babs

 

[SRman]

While I am not modelling anything Swiss (yet?!), I have to admit a sneaking admiration for those old electrics with their jackshaft drives and complex coupling rod arrangements. The model looks superb (I'll bet the price was too!).

Any chance of a short video of it working, Babz?

 

[Babz]

Hi SR Man i will try and do a little video. But this grey matter is getting old with this computing technology and the problem with Coppa on you tube makes this difficult. But i will try.
Babs

 

[Alex Hempel]

For a train build that eventually wants to be an approximation of an era IV DB express train (D-Zug), I have acquired this Ar4üm dining car made by Märklin:

Absolute bargain from a German eBay seller, the shipping cost more than the car itself. Technically this car belongs to era III, but there's no real reason it couldn't run in an era IV train, at least not for me

It does need DC axles before I can run it on my layout though.

 

[SRman]

I have been spending again! This time I have bought a few Swiss models from Roco with one Lima item. All came from Ellis Clark's eBay site and were very resonably priced.

There was a set of five SBB coaches sold as a job lot.

I bought two Roco Ae 6/6 Co-Co electric locos, one a newer product than the other, so 11454 was DCC-ready, but the other unnumbered one was not and will have to be hard-wired. Both ran fine on DC on my test track. The unnumbered one came with a complete set of transfers to choose a number and associated city or canton name.

The odd man out was a Lima Re 6/6 tri-Bo electric loco. One pantograph had snapped off at the single support arm, but a similar (but not identical) replacement was included in the bag of bits in the box. I had investigated this model before buying it and found out that it was a later, higher quality model from Lima with a central can motor, flywheels and 8-wheel drive, with the centre, floating bogie being unpowered. This seemed worth the purchase price, so I included it in the total package. It also tested fine on DC, although a little juddery at first. I worked out how to open the lid (remove all four buffers then spread the body near the cab ends) to allow lubrication and fettling, and observed what appeared to be a decoder sitting there. A quick test on the programming track revealed it to be a Lenz 1026E decoder, so perhaps a little older than I would like, but a bonus, nevertheless. While this decoder does have BEMF control, I thought maybe I would substitute something a little newer. Fortunately, even though this was hard-wired, it has a 9-pin JST connector, which meant that I had some suitable decoders from Gaugemaster or TCS (a T1) which would do the job. For the moment I have added a Gaugemaster OPTI1 and the running is smoother. I may try the TCS decoder and see how that does. Whichever way, I am happy with this purchase.

First up, the Re 6/6 Bo-Bo-Bo loco 11637 from Lima. It is quite interesting watching the centre bogie moving around on the curves. It is seen on the Roco coach set.


P_20200226_150214_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20200226_150224_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

The Roco Ae 6/6 Co-Co 11454 compares with the Ae 6/6 behind. The second, as yet unnumbered Ae 6/6 is all but identical in appearance to this one, so does not feaure in these photos (being still on Dc it was not a good idea to sit it on the live DCC tracks).


P_20200226_150247_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20200226_150300_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

I should add that I have bought from Ellis Clark before and they are excellent to deal with (no connection - just a satisfied repeat customer). They include a card with each locomotive to say it has been tested.

 

[SRman]

Last post, a week or so ago, I posted pics of some new models of SBB trains I had acquired second-hand from Ellis Clark Trains. Two of the three locomotives were either DCC-ready (Roco Ae 6/6) or already equipped with a DCC decoder (Lima Re 6/6). The third was an older Roco model, also an Ae 6/6 but was not DCC ready.

I contemplated the circuit board for some time before working out how to convert the latter to DCC. This involved cutting a few tracks to separate the light circuits, and bypassing the track feeds altogether to go straight into the decoder (red and black wires), with the brush wires (orange and grey) also going directly to the brushes. I removed various redundant components, like the capacitor between the brushes, two chokes leading to the brushes, and the two diodes feeding the light bulbs. The light bulbs were replaced with cool white LEDs (I should have used warm white, but they are easily swapped later).

I also soldered the changeover contact solid so it could not be accidentally switched to overhead pickup from the pantographs.

I soldered the LEDs and resistors to the remaining appropriate pcb tracks, with the continuous one being connected to the blue positive wire, with the new resistors in circuit to the positive legs (shortened) on the LEDs, and the remaining negative legs (also shortened) soldered separately to the yellow and white wires.

I used a 9-pin JST harness so I could try it all out with a cheap Gaugemaster decoder, before swapping it for something better. Unfortunately, I found the Gaugemaster OPTI to be on the large side for the available space and I cannot quite clip the body back on properly, yet. The main thing is, it proved my wiring and modifications were good, and it all worked as it should. More by luck than anything else, I got the lights working th correct way for the direction of travel (that would have been easy to correct if necessary, either with some CV tweaks to reverse them, or simply swapping the white and yellow wires).

I may have to desolder the JST harness and sodler a much smaller (and better quality) decoder in, but having worked it all out properly to start with, that should be a relatively quick and easy job.

The first photo shows the chassis with all the mods and rather messy wiring. The decoder is tucked on its side down the side of one bogie (restricting the swing, but allowing me to get the body on sufficiently to take the remaining photos.

This is Ae 6/6 Co-Co locomotive 11494, Schlieren, now available for service. Bear in mind that the body is not quite fully seated, so there is some light bleed at the side from the LED.

Anyway, that has been my evening's work with the soldering iron, knife, and drill.


P_20200303_234049_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20200303_233952_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20200303_233940_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

[SRman]

Update: Seeing as the initial installation was a success, and I don't need to allow for a quick decoder swap if one blows up, I have now put in a TCS M1 decoder, which sits comfortably on top of one of the bogie towers, with heaps of room around it. Motor control is also much, much better with the TCS.

With the Gaugemaster decoder, I had to put a value of 15 in CV2 to get the loco moving on speed step 1. There was no such problem with the TCS decoder, and the loco inches along on speed step 1 with no extra tweaking needed.

It now really needs a good run to get the electrical pickups back to good condition - it was a little hesitant at first but after even a short run it improved considerably.

The positions of the LEDs need slight adjustment to get them in optimum positions for the light guides, but in all other respects I am very happy with the results for what was a real bargain purchase.

 

[Richard Johnson]

*** In the interest of accuracy... Need for adjustment of CV1 has nothing at all to do with decoder quality.

It simply means the design decision settled on a different start point as the default - because of the current draw etc of the core target locos. With CV1, what is perfect for one loco is not necessarily so for the next etc. The TCS is designed around US locos which have heavier start currents/voltages so its "step 1" is therefore set higher than a decoder set for other locos, especially newer EU or UK models.

Your loco being an older mechanism is simply more suited to the settings of the TCS.

QUOTE (SRman @ 4 Mar 2020, 09:14) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>With the Gaugemaster decoder, I had to put a value of 15 in CV2 to get the loco moving on speed step 1. There was no such problem with the TCS decoder, and the loco inches along on speed step 1 with no extra tweaking needed.

regards, Richard

 

[Babz]

Good Afternoon Everyone, My latest purchase from MSL at a very Good Price complete with sound Digital Extra version. Hope you like it. Babs