I managed to grab this Hornby "NRM Special Edition" 2BIL EMU on Ebay a few days ago for just under £70, new and unrun, but with no instructions, not a problem as I already have another 2BIL set (with instructions) anyway. I decided I'd do my usual internal lighting fit, and experiment to see if I could illuminate the route number board, and also (since these units still used the old fashioned oil lamp on the rear) fit rear 'oil' lamps. This is the intended victim as received.
Having run the unit in, ready for DCC conversion, this time instead of my usual LaisDCC decoder, I've ordered a Gaugemaster "DCC29" 8 pin direct plug in decoder, simply to save space as there isn't too much at the tail end of the driving unit. Whilst I await decoder delivery, I made a start on the lighting fit, first step being to drill and file out the route indicator rectangular black panel in the middle of the unit front. I cut some thin strips of 'Plasticard', and glued them in a "U" shape behind the front of the cab to give a little depth which will allow space to fit an SMD LED to a panel to be glued to these strips. SMD LED's are somewhat small and fiddly to solder, but I'm well used to these things now, so attaching wires to this, I glued the LED to the back panel and then glued the panel onto the strips to form a box. I used Black 'Plasticard' to avoid any 'light bleed' through the plastic and the units body. This is the assembled 'box' in place, Blue is the positive wire, White (for 'Forward' direction).
Now you can see the LED through the route indicator board opening, next I'll fit a piece of clear plastic into the opening, and stick one of the supplied route numbers to this, allowing illumination from behind.
Next job is to fit a red 'oil' lamp, I make these quite easily using a 'block type' LED, and gluing on a thin strip of brass offcut to form the 'handle', easy, quick and cheap! A coat of black paint to prevent 'light bleed', then when dry, a coat of white paint and it's ready to fit. I drilled a couple of holes to allow the lamp wires to poke into the drivers cab area, then attach and heat shrink the wires to the LED, gluing it into place at the same time. Then we need to route the wires from the cab end to the back of the coach for connection between coaches, and of course to the decoder 8 pin socket. I stick to the standard wiring colours, White for Forward direction lights, Yellow for reverse, Green for the interior lights which are just LED lighting strips on a roll, chopping off however many I need in a coach. To avoid any 'light bleed' through the coach roof, I glue a strip of white paper down the inside of each coach roof, LED's then stuck to this paper and wiring attached as needed. This is the 'rear lamp' in place.
Fixing the wiring to the underside of the coach roof, in this case I've used a 'sausage' of 'Blu-Tack', but you could just as easily use superglue, UHU or similar, as long as it keeps the wiring in place and not visible, especially when the coaches are lit.
This is the interior lighting strip lit by a 9 volt battery. I will be adding suitable resistances to the supply voltages to dim things down to suitable levels. One end of the EMU done, now for the next coach.
I've had a busy couple of days and finished off a couple of projects including this 2BIL now. I linked the drive and trailer cars together, passing 4 single core wires through a length of green heat shrink sleeving between cars, and assembled both up, having added the direct plug-in decoder, set up and tested, and all is well. Here is a front on view travelling forwards, lighting looks bright but looks fine in full daylight, I still have the option of dimming things down if needed though.
The interior lighting shows up quite well, and is easy enough to do, so a worthwhile add-on. So that's another project finished. I'll have to be careful, or I might get so far in front that I meet myself coming back! Keith.
That looks rather nice Keith. I have a pile of 2Bils and 2Hals in my pile to get to at some point, I'll have to keep your method in mind when I come to sort lighting on them.
Nice work. Did they work 3D rail? Bet you can’t get one at that price now, or even below 3 figures! Andy
Andy, the Hornby 2Bil and 2Hal are not currently in their latest range (or if they are they've long since sold out now). However pre-owned they're going for about £100-140, so not too bad if you compare to the prices Bachmann charges for a 2 car unit (admittedly there are more details and features on those) of around £180-250 depending upon year of release, etc. With a little work they're good models. Of course if you want to go even cheaper and are prepared to do the work you can still source the old Kirk 2Bil kits from Pheonix Paints, who sell all the parts individually. Branchlines sells a upgrade pack and a 2Hal conversion kit for those kits as well as motor bogies. You'd probably start approaching the cost of the Hornby offerings by the time you added all of those, but if you got one and had one as a dummy unit it would work out cheaper than 2 hornby models. In more recent years Hornby has offered the unique 2Bal and 2Hil varients, where they paired a Hal coach and a Bil coach in each case due to accident or war damage etc. You can of course replicate these yourselves by mixing a pair of 2Bil and 2Hal units and renumbering accordingly. One hal variety Hornby doesn't offer is the tin Hal, which had a 4SUB trailer car in place of the standard Hal trailer. It is a unique unit, but no kits currently exist for the 4SUBs (though Roxey do a kit for the 3 'sub', and Blacksmith used to offer a 4SUB etched kit (I have one to make at some point) and Ayjay models make a resin one I think, but the quality of their kits is a bit suspect in my eyes). More information on both classes is available here: https://sremg.org.uk/emu/2bil.shtml https://sremg.org.uk/emu/2hal.shtml
You may have that last one the wrong way round: the last 'Tin' HAL, 2700, had a 4 SUB DMBS with a HAL DTC. It was confined to the Eastern section for some time due to having only one guard's periscope, and was easily distinguishable from the other 'Tin' HALs through having a smaller van section and an extra compartment in the DMBS. Later on it gained a second periscope and was able to be used singly if required (single HALs were rare on the Eastern section).
There were also several 'Tin' HAL style driving trailers made to replace war- or accident-damaged cars from some 2 BIL and 2 HAL units, so the styles within the units were mixed pre- and post-war.
