Keith's workbench.

As the title suggests, this is not really a 'How-To', so much as another EMU given the same treatment as my recent 2HAL upgrade. After some disappointment with a 'used' 2BIL from an unnamed UK retailer, duly returned, I bought a new one from another UK supplier, which was again given 'the treatment'! The Hornby 2BIL is made to a similar standard as the sister 2HAL, ie, no internal lighting or other add-ons, although supplied as 'DCC ready', and again, it's not on the same level as Bachmann's EMU's, despite a not dissimilar RRP, which is why I held off buying one until prices reached a more sensible level (just under £90 in my case!). I tend to strip the units, paint internally and add passengers first, basically because I think if you add lighting, when lit it draws the eye to the interiors, which then looks odd if unpainted and devoid of passengers. With the 2BIL, the DCC 8 pin socket is perhaps unusually, at the rear of the drive car, in the 'toilet' area. As is often the case with Hornby, motor wires are not to standard colours of Orange and Grey (Why not, Hornby, it can't be that hard?), and only 4 out of the 8 socket pins have wires on them, so first job is to remove and upend said socket, solder the correct coloured wires to the appropriate pins and refix the socket in place, leading the new wiring up between socket and coach partition.

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I then glued a blue 1206 SMD LED with suitably thin wires attached, to the inside of the pickup shoe area of the leading bogie on the motor car, carefully feeding these wires up and around the motor so as not to impede the free rotation of the bogie, out the back of the motor housing and under the interior moulding to the decoder area at the car rear, ready for soldering. Interior lighting then followed my usual method detailed in the 2HAL upgrade post. I decided at this point to again use a a 1206 SMD LED to illuminate the headcode boxes, plus 'oil lamps' at front and rear in similar manner to the 2HAL, so shaved off a moulded 'lamp bracket' at each end, drilling and fitting 'oil lamp' LED's in position, and drilling a 3mm hole in the centre of each headcode box, gluing the white 1206 LED's over this hole internally at each end, not forgetting the obligatory 1K ohm resistor in each +ve LED lead. Wiring was heat shrink sleeved and glued into each coach roof alongside the LED strip lighting, 4mm holes drilled in each coach inner end to bring through the wiring to a position by the decoder for connecting up.This necessitates 4 wires between coaches (1 common blue +ve, 1 -ve each directional forward/reverse and 1 -ve for internal lighting, room and flexibility is needed between coaches. Doing it this way does mean that the coaches are effectively permanently joined together (unless you prefer the added slight complication and space requirement of a 4 pin mini plug & socket), but since in use, the units are permanently connected, the only hardship is putting the units on the track in the first place! Pic below shows the unit with interior lighting on, unit in reverse mode.

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The trailer car is rather light, even with the usual Hornby bit of metal weight fitted, so I remove this, cutting out the bits of plastic to enlarge the rectangle as much as possible, cutting a suitable sized piece of lead flashing and gluing into place. This gives the coach much more 'presence' and helps keep the bogies on the track, I find. When it comes to the connecting up of the wiring to the decoder, bear in mind that even with a small decoder (I tend to use the 'LaisDCC ones, quite small and with 'stay-alive' connections), space is quite tight so keep connections as short as possible, consistent with actually being able to do the connecting. As these units have pickups on both driving car bogies, I don't find the need to use the 'stay-alive' connections, so cut these off anyway. You will find it easier to hold both units in some form of cradle (my home made foam lined one will hold both units comfortably and in line) with the drive car chassis alongside the body whilst doing the final solder connections, as you don't want to be chasing units around the bench whilst trying to solder joints. Pic below shows unit in opposite direction mode.

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It can be something of a 'shoehorn job' refitting body to chassis on the driving car, so short connecting leads are a 'must'. Once all back together, it's onto the rolling road for programming and setup, with that done, now it's track time. Final pic I managed to catch with the flickering of the pickup shoe whilst actually lit! Job done!
Keith.

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It's no more difficult keeping 2 cars permanently connected together in my opinion, than having to 'faff' about with either Hornby or Bachmann units, trying to connect 2 or more cars together on the track with both manufacturers equally fiddly connecting bars. It's a shame that no-one (to my knowledge) makes a 4 terminal as opposed to Bachmann's 2 terminal coupling bar to go between units, although you'd also need matching sockets on each car, which would save wiring cars together. At least if you use a cradle to connect the cars up (You'd need a pretty big one for the Bachmann 4CEP's though!), it's not difficult to couple 2 cars together, upend them and place them on the track. Soldering to the Hornby 8 pin socket isn't difficult, Ed, but I wouldn't attempt soldering to a 21 pin decoder.
Keith.