Newton Broadway

Keith: the Track Magic worked nicely, but I can't honestly say I noted any difference from using the IPA. My track tends to stay reasonably clean anyway, being indoors in a fairly constant environment.

And now for something completely different!

I enjoyed my rides on Danish IC3 DMUs so much I wanted a model as a momento. The only model of these units in HO scale has been from Heljan in the early 2000s. They had some mechanical problems and weren't especially detailed, but they looked reasonable. There were several livery variants released, including two different DSB (Danish state railways) versions, a Swedish (SJ) one (their class Y2) and an Amtrak one, marketed as a Walthers model. They are all as scarce as hen's teeth!

I managed to locate one in the Swedish 'Kustpilen' livery (literally 'coast pillow', as far as I can ascertain) at a reasonable price in France, and it arrived today. I may, at some stage, repaint it into DSB silver with dark blue window strips, but for the present it will remain in SJ livery. I have already done one modification to improve reliability, and that is to tap a small screw into the base of the centre car at each end to locate the bogies, which previously just rested there and tended to pull out the drive shafts (a known fault with these models). The centre car has a central motor and flywheels, whereas the real ones have the outer, driving cars powered (with two Deutz engines each) and the centre section unpowered. It was DCC-ready and now has a Lenz Standard+ V2 decoder fitted.

The unit has run successfully around Newton Broadway, but still needs a little adjustment and fettling before I can say it is totally reliable.


P_20190212_213559_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190212_213614_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

I have done some further re-engineering of the IC3 unit, and it now runs happily around the layout, including through reverse curves with no problems. Improvements/modifications have included adding self-tapping screws to locate the inner ends of the centre bogies (replacing useless little moulded plastic 'pips', adding a fair amount of lead weight to the outer driving cars, extending the spigots on top of the powered bogies to ensure the leading and trailing cars can't pop off, thus keeping the weight on the powered bogies, and bending the rather stiff wires to keep them clear of the pivot points (the wires really need replacing with thinner, more flexible wiring, but that can be done later).

The result is a DMU that I can set off running, and sit back and enjoy. I have uploaded a short video to YouTube to show it off.




As an aside, the Swedish livery doesn't look too out of place against some of my Network South East stock! To give an idea of the size of the real things, the Heljan model is HO scale, and doesn't look all that small against the British OO stock, but the fairest comparison is to put it side by side with the HO scale NSW interurban V set.


P_20190216_110950_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

Random thought for the moment: Seeing as I am dabbling with Danish railways (with German locos travelling through too), should I be listing the layout as Newton Broadway/Nyton Bredvej?



I have now added a DSB ME class Co-Co diesel electric from HobbyTrade to the Danish roster, with four Roco coaches. I don't know if the formation is prototypical, but it looks reasonable. Seen here on the programming track is 1506 in the earlier DSB livery of red and black, which preceded the rather drab dark blue livery, which has, in turn, been superceded by an all-red livery.

The Piko Bo-Bo electric loco, 185 066-8 is from their budget range, and appears to use self-coloured plastic for the red part of its livery. It actually looks quite acceptable to me, although I had to paint the insides of the nose ends with some light grey paint to act as a barrier for the headlights, otherwise they were producing a red 'halo' around the white lights. I am working on a short freight train for this and a couple more DB locos to haul, and am in the process of weathering the first two wagons from Roco - photos to follow soon.

Both of these locos have central can motors driving both bogies, although the ME, very like Heljan diesel mechanisms, drives only two of the three axles on each bogie, as an A1A-A1A. Both emit a slight growl when running, but run very smoothly and seem powerful enough to haul anything I can fit behind them. Both have 8-pin DCC sockets and are running Lenz Standard+ decoders, to good effect.


P_20190226_170559_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190226_212100_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190226_212047_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

Work in progress: weathering the European wagons. I am happy with the very light weathering on the tarpaulin wagon, but the telescopic steel wagon needs further work.


P_20190302_124011_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190302_124029_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

Getting better: I have added a couple more layers of weathering to the telescopic DB steel coil wagon. I'm much happier with this effect now, although it still needs a little fine-tuning. The photos show both sides of the wagon.


P_20190303_165350_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190303_165439_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

Just arrived at Newton Broadway is my second Golden Valley Hobbies Janus industrial diesel electric loco. I actually ordered this one sound-fitted around two to three years ago. Anyway, it ran perfectly straight out of the box, and the legomanbiffo sound fitted as standard is superb.

In line with all of my fictional industrial locos, she now sports name and number plates from Narrow Planet, in my own series for No. 17, Amy.


P_20190309_102518_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190309_102530_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


In the meantime, some more European wagons and locos arrived, from the Roco and Piko ranges. I have not as yet weathered any of the new arrivals. I am sure the train formation is not particularly prototypical, but it adds a nice splash of colour to the Continental contingent. The locos are another BR 185, 185 540, in Kassel Huskies livery, and 182 003 in standard DB traffic red.


P_20190306_205829_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190306_205939_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190306_205809_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190306_210053_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190309_103008_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190309_103034_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

A video showing these recent HO European models running on Newton Broadway.

 

Ha ha; saw your comment on YouTube as well!

The so-called funeral wagon is acting as storage until I find or create suitable places to put them more permanently. Like the 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' movie, they are awaiting the restart of their world to come to life!

Incidentally, one of the other wagons in that rake has a whole heap of little detail bits that have fallen off locos and rolling stock around the layout. Some I know what they belong to, but with others I have no idea!

I agree with you about the Warships: they were supposed to be a scaled down German V200, but they definitely lost something in the translation! On the other hand, I think the Westerns were among the most attractive looking diesels ever. Ironically, the WR management wanted the Warships to look like the Westerns ended up, but were overridden by BR management, much to the detriment of the result.

I'm no expert on the German locomotives, but have noted that quite a few of their classes appear to use the same styling. The Danish ME class won't win any beauty awards either, but at least the red and black livery looked OK, as does the current all-red livery. The intermediate livery of very dull dark blue looks quite dire and forbidding. One can be seen on the right of this photo I took at Copenhagen H in September last year.


P_20180924_125319_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


The fencing uses Ratio GWR fence posts, but I used 20 thou (0.020") plastic rod for the rails. The posts are painted with a light grey from the standard Humbrol range, then the railings were painted with a dark steel metallic colour. All of this was done with the fence in situ.

 

It has been the standard design for new Danish DMUs and EMUs since the late 1980s until the early to mid-2000s - you can look up IC3, IR4 and
Øresundståg (DSB class ET). The IC3 design was also sold to Israel and Spain, and trialled in the USA by Amtrak and in Canada too. Interestingly, the design allows IC3 DMUs and IR4 EMUs to couple together and work in multiple. The cab unit swings to one side and gets locked away, allowing free passage between units for passengers. It wouldn't pass any contests for beauty, but it works very well at sealing the connection between units. Maximum speed of the units is 180kph, and they get to that speed pretty rapidly.

My wife and I had a very pleasant journey between Copenhagen and Hamburg in two of the IC3 units of DSB (5058 in the photo above, and 5085 below, seen in Hamburg Hbf), changing at Fredericia. I have some video of the journey posted on YouTube, but I really need to edit it down a little as it currently goes for over 45 minutes, and the quality had to be reduced to keep the file size reasonable.. Watch it at your own risk!




P_20180924_180234_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

Absolutely no problem Gloria. Thanks for the compliments.

Still in keeping with my Danish/European sub-theme, I managed to purchase a reasonably priced ESU LokSound v. 4 decoder brand new. I downloaded a sound file from ESU's online libraries of sound projects for a Danish DSB ME diesel-electric locomotive and fitted the decoder into my HobbyTrade example of this locomotive type.

I used two differently sized 'sugar cube' speakers to get a better tonal range - the bigger double with large sound chamber I wanted to put in was too big to fit. I wasn't thinking and instead of wiring them in parallel to achieve a 4 ohm total rating, I wired them in series, giving 16 ohm impedance, but it actually worked very well this way, with nice clear and loud sound: loud enough that I had to turn the volume down quite a lot with CV 63 now set to 80 instead of the default 192. I think the horn volumes may need to be increased a little though, which is possible but I'll have to look for the correct CV values for those two sound slots.

 

A small improvement at the loco/goods yard entry: I have made up some gates using the Gaugemaster Fordhampton level crossing kit without the roadway parts. At this point they are unpainted, but I will be painting and weathering them in due course. I used the bracing wire differently from the instructions: I drilled the posts at either end of the gate itself and ran the wire as a diagonal brace above the top of the gate.

They are being used as an occupation crossing, so open outwards rather than across the tracks. I will have to post suitable signs up in the near future too.


P_20190330_132804_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190330_132746_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr