Newton Broadway

Now, for something a little different, here's a video showing Hogwarts Castle on the Hogwarts Express, with its lighting effects fully operational now, after a short programming session using JMRI's Decoder Pro software.

https://youtu.be/tHImAHFGIfs



Next, I'll have to fit lighting in the coaches, won't I?

And, to round things off, when Hogwarts Castle stalled, typically right in the far reaches of my tunnels, I sent a Heljan Hymek in to push the dead loco and train out. I videoed this partly in response to a query on another forum regarding Heljan's Hymeks, to show the prodigious haulage power of these mechanisms, as well as the smoothness and quietness of them.

The Hymek pushed the dead train out, then, after I revived the Castle, I set it off forwards with the Hymek anchoring the train, so the Castle just slipped instead (actually doing me a favour in cleaning and polishing the wheels!). The Hymek was then set in motion hauling the train backwards as if there was no resistance at all. All of the movements, backwards, forwards and stopping, were completely under the control of the Hymek.

I should add that the Castle is no slouch where haulage power is concerned, in spite of my altering the weights inside to leave room for the decoder and fittings.

https://youtu.be/pXVrPU4A9eo

 

Handbrakes? Yes, they did have handbrakes, but I'm not too sure about turns - I could try that in the tunnels and see if the loco comes out facing the other way!

The real Hymeks settled down to be a very successful design, as far as I know. they were thrashed on type 4 duties in their early days and survived with their reputations not too tarnished by the duties that really should have been beyond their capabilities. It was mainly the BR policy to standardise on diesel-electric and electric train heating that killed them. In fact, all of the type 3 designs proved to be very capable 'maids of all work' and generally reliable for BR (that's classes 33, 35 and 37).

Heljan's models are capable of far more than their real counterparts were, which says something for their mechanisms.

 

Only a few of what became class 31 were type 3s, one even became type 4 for a while. When the Mirrlees engines were removed and English Electrics substituted, they all became type 2, with a nominal rating of 1470 hp.

If any had survived into TOPS days with the original Mirrlees engines, they were to have been classified as class 30.

I still have my green Hornby (super-detail) model, with updated livery details to take it into the mid-1960s, fitted with Howes' Mirrlees sounds.

 

I have updated the speaker installation in the Hornby S15 now. I had to trim some of the square base plate from the QSI 28mm hi-bass speaker to then fit it below the tender weight, which still sits a little higher than it used to - I have used some Blu-tack and black-tack to anchor it in place. The speaker itself has had all the edges sealed against the grille in the tender's baseplate so that the tender body acts as the sound chamber. It was all a very tight fit, and I thought I might have to cut a hole in the coal space to allow bits to poke through, but I *just* managed to get it all inside without any modifications.

I was so busy soldering wires and seating everything that I forgot to take any photos of the internals to show how it was all done.

I have done a new video to show off the slightly better bass response for the YouChoos sounds. Also in the video is my Hornby Q1 with a fairly recent iteration of the Howes steam sounds, which has coasting, light and heavy power sounds according to the throttle settings.

Forgive a couple of slightly shaky camera bits, but I was using my phone again. It's picture quality is not as good as my proper video camera, but it does have two microphones which give a rather nice stereo effect, and this vid is more about the sounds than about the visuals.

https://youtu.be/cm5PgZCaaKc

 

Gary wrote:

Thanks; I'm happier with it now. At some future stage I may add the 'stay alive' capacitor and/or a sugar cube speaker, if I can find the space inside.

In this case, the speaker is facing down towards the track. This is always my preferred option as the bass sounds seem to be accentuated when bouncing back off the track bed (don't ask me why, this is purely from my observations over the years). The speaker edges have been lined with black-tack so the fully enclosed tender body becomes the sound chamber for this installation.

Because of the tightness of space I very nearly decided to have the speaker pointing upwards, which would have meant adding a separate sound chamber (because of the open floor grille) and also drilling holes in the coal space to let the sound out. I'm glad I didn't have to do this in the end, even though it meant hacking the speaker a little.

The Q1 was far simpler because it has a deeper tender body. The S15 tender is also slightly fiddly to disassemble because one of the body mounting screws is obscured by the trailing bogie, which means unscrewing the bogie too and trying not to break the pickup wires while handling everything - I loosely screwed the bogie back on while doing all the handling, then unscrewed it again to replace the body screw.

 

There is still much to do with regards t tracklaying and scenery on Newton Broadway, but most of it is dependent on doing things in the right order. However, a few bits are half ready. Some time ago I made up the 'skeleton' of Newton Church Hill, and left it painted dark brown, just before a BRMA meeting.

I seem to be hosting one BRMA meeting per year, usually in August. For the following meeting (last year), I added some road textures from Scalescenes and pavement from Superquick, with a very small amount of grass and a couple of trees, just to "beautify" it a bit. For this year's meeting, I did nothing new apart from tidying it up a bit.

It looked a bit dreary, but I haven't really finished the landscaping yet - it needs some more packing and a bit of plastering to do it properly - but I don't feel like doing the messy stuff at the moment, so I decided to do a layer of grass material to liven it up a bit until I am ready to make a mess again.

The results to date are shown in the photos. There is a staircase to go in leading down from the church and upper car park to the access laneway below, and I plan to do some rough stone retaining walls where the cutting is, and also at the edge of the drop from the upper car park. The lower level will become part of the cemetery.

 

Yet another new locomotive has arrived, although originally pre-ordered back in 2013. Model Rail Magazine's ex-Southern USATC Dock Tank 30064 has arrived from Kernow Model Rail Centre. I asked them to include a Bachmann decoder in the box, but they actually fitted the decoder as well, so many thanks to them for the extra service.

The front three-quarter view is actually stitched together from two photos with slightly different focus lengths, so forgive a couple of ragged edges - it's not the model or the modelling!





It runs nicely, although there is a very slight stiffness still, even after running in both directions on the rolling road for an hour in total. A bit more running should cure that.

The paint finish is superb. I have not added any extra bits yet, either, although you'd hardly think so to look at the detail already on the model.

 

A couple more shots of the USATC tank with the front folding footplate and various pipes added.

 

Over the last week, as detailed in my workbench thread, I have been working on glazing each car of my London Transport Q Stock train. Flushed with success, I have videoed the Q and CO/CP Stock trains circulating on Newton Broadway. Note, the Q Stock still doesn't have any number or fleetname transfers yet; those are the next items on the agenda.

The Q Stock train consists of the following variants: Q23 DM + Q27 T + Q23 DM + Q38 T + Q27 DM. At a later stage I want to add one more trailer (T) car, preferably of Q31 or Q35 types.

 

With the ability to switch the Underground lines to DC or DCC in mind, I wired it initially with ease of isolating certain sections to allow for easier DC operation. Up until now I have had to move trains off whichever circuit I want to run on analogue to prevent them from moving while other trains run.

I have commenced the operation to incorporate isolating switches (simple on-off toggles) on all four of the station loops, plus on the branch. I succeeded in doing the two loops on the outer circuit this evening, while the switches for the inner circuit loops and branch remain unwired at the moment.

What it means currently is that I only have to shift one train to clear a track for running on DC, while I leave the other train in one of the loops (either the platform line or the passing loop).

There are a few stray bits of plastic swarf trapped behind the clear acrylic that I will have to blow out with a bit of compressed air later.

 

A recent addition to the locomotive roster at Newton Broadway is the Hornby Huntley & Palmers Peckett W4 saddle tank. I didn't really need this one, and when they all sold out in the UK, I thought I was safe from temptation, but it is a very attractive little model, and a couple came up at very reasonable prices in a local model shop, so my friend Doug and I both lashed out and bought one each. Doug got the green MSC version.

We both fitted them for DCC; Doug by hard-wiring a DCC Concepts nano decoder into his, mine with a TCS M1 decoder wired to the 'looping' plug to utilise the existing 4-pin connectors (why did Hornby have to invent a non-standard interface?). Running on both DC and DCC is exemplary, being smooth, slow and controllable, and also powerful. Mine has been happily hauling 15 wagons around, while Doug's was hauling 12 on his gradients.





I managed to dislodge and lose the plastic whistle on mine while fitting the decoder, while Doug only bent his! I crudely turned up a replacement for mine out of a piece of brass wire, using a Dremel and some files. It's not accurate, but at normal viewing distance it passes muster.



Here it is in action:



Yesterday, I got brave and weathered the Peckett, although only with some weathering powder for now. The effect can be wiped off or added to later, if I think it needs adjustment. I think it looks alright, with the bright colours toned down a little but not lost.

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