Five Easy Ways to Improve Your Locomotives – The Yorkshire Dales Model Railway
Five Easy Ways to Improve Your Locomotives – The Yorkshire Dales Model Railway
Five Easy Ways to Improve Your Locomotives – The Yorkshire Dales Model Railway
Just a few thought this week on improving steam locos a bit, including adding Modelu lamps, Bachmann crews, brass smokebox door darts and adjusting valve gear.
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Also Lewis for Class O with light engine movements like when a train comes into Misselthwaite and has to run round the train a lamp with a red indication would be put over the coupling hook of the now rear facing end of the loco and a white lamp over the leading coupling hook that was next to the train. This indicates to the signalman that this is a light engine movement and not an engine where the train has broken away even though it's pretty obvious. The Southern Region used discs but they denoted the route a train was taking rather than the type of train it was. They only used discs in the daytime for at night they had lighted lamps. With the Modelu lamps this is easy and quick to achieve.
Yes I sent you the footage Lewis of 73050 on it's royal train duty and I didn't include the southern region disc interpretation because it would fill a book!. Thank you for pointing out the cock up with the valve gear as I have a large number of Hornby locos and all with Walschaets valve gear that I need to check because no doubt Hornby got it wrong. I'll no doubt be doing a Officer Crabtree whilst doing it and saying "oh bigger it!".
I like your thoughts Lewis on the loco crew and the way some people go on about getting the figures as accurate as possible but when the loco goes by you can't see that accuracy. It's the same with figures in coaches and painting the interiors and having dinner laid out on the dining coach tables. Once again when the train goes you're just not going to be able to see it all.
Those Modelu lamps are a real money saver and if you didn't want to have the red tail lamp permanently on the coach you can use Tacky Wax from Deluxe Materials. The little pot of wax will last you a life time and is better than black tak which is extremely sticky. Tacky Wax is enough to hold the lamp in place but also easy to remove.
The lamp positioning conundrum looking at the engine facing the smoke box.
Class 1 which has two lamps one above each buffer indicates a train either express passenger or newspaper train. The same code also meant a breakdown, snow-plough, a light engine on it's way to assist a disabled train or an officer's special that is not booked to stop within a section.
Class 2 is a single lamp at the top of a smoke box shows a train meaning an ordinary passenger train, branch passenger train or mixed train. A breakdown train, snow-plough train also carried this code if "off duty".
Both class 3 and 4 were represented by the same pattern of lamps, one above the left buffer and one above the coupling hook which indicated empty passenger stock, parcels or perishable loads such as fish, fruit, livestock or milk were classed as class 3 as long as all vehicles conformed to coaching-stock specifications. Class 4 meant a freight train with automatic brakes on not less than 90% of vehicles (fully fitted).
Class 5 which is one lamp above the left buffer and one lamp at the top of the smoke box describes an express freight train with automatic brakes on at least 50% of the vehicles.
Class 6 is a above the coupling hook and the other lamp above the right buffer means an express freight with automatic brakes on not less than 20% of the vehicles.
Class 7 is one lamp over the right buffer and one lamp at the top of the smoke box means an express unfitted freight.
Class 8 is one lamp above the coupling hook and one lamp at the top of the smoke box is just a fully unfitted freight train.
Class 9 is one lamp over the right buffer means a branch pick-up freight train but also an officer's special or ballast train due to stop within the section.
Class O is one lamp above the coupling hook and means single or multiple "light" engines hauling no more than two brake vans.
Royal head code is 4 lamps, one on top of the smoke box and one over the left buffer, one over the coupling hook, and one over the right buffer when hauling the royal train or a train that's not the special royal train but a train that's conveying royalty. The Nene Valley Railway conveyed Prince Edward when he opened the railway's Peterborough extension. The train comprised of six newly painted BR mark 1's and the engine was their BR class 5 73050 painted in green and carrying the royal headcode.
Nice to know about the lamps headboards of named trains is the same am I right like the Cambrian Coast Express etc
Really cool.
Great video my friend, have you never heard of tweezers?😂😂
BRILLIANT "MOULDY RASPBERRY" WITH VERY HELPFUL TIPS.
I've added some real life railway technical notes & rules (below) to help explain.
HEADLAMPS: As "Mouldy Raspberry" has mentioned the LMS; GWR; LNER & BR used the four position CLASS Headcode system. Usually with oil headlamps, (except LNER/BR Great Eastern section which used White Discs in daylight). The Southern Railway & BR Southern Region used a 6 position method with White Discs in daylight hours & oil lamps at night, which indicated the Trains ROUTE (not Class) because of the complexity & density of traffic on the Southern Network.
The four position system had 10 CLASS options. Before 1948 these were coded Classes A to K, and there were slight differences of what type of train fell into each category on each of the GWR; LMS & LNER Railways !!!. When BR began in 1948, they introduced a "Standardised" method for ALL BR Regions except the Southern, using Class NUMBERS 1 to 0. Where 1 was an express passenger; 2 a stopping passenger etc…. This system was in use until steam vanished in 1968. Although BR had started introducing the Four Character Headcode (roll round blind) system on other types of modern traction. The Southern Region was again the exception as it replaced the steam era 6 position Route codes with a two digit roll round blind Route Code system already in use on Southern EMU's.
The BR Standard headlamp codes from 1948 onwards can be found on the "Standard BR Headcodes" website. Beware many of the websites showing "Headcodes" are incorrect or in many cases show PRE BR (GWR/LMS/LNER) set of codes, without explaining which !!!
SOUTHERN RAILWAY & BR SOUTHERN REGION Route codes can be found in diagrammatic form on the "Southern Email Group" website (for free). NOTE: This system was subdivided into 3 separate tables of codes, one for each of the three Southern Divisions: South Eastern; Central & South Western, and the website shows all three.
TAIL LAMPS: Displaying a red light HAD to be placed ONLY on the last vehicle of every train. No tail lamps were allowed on any intermediate vehicles & especially NOT of the rear of a loco hauling a train whether they were illuminated or not !!!
KADEE COUPLINGS: Are of course a virtual copy of the real life British Buckeye (a slightly smaller version of the American "Knuckle") semi-Automatic rigid coupling. Introduced to Britain from the USA in the 1880's when Mr. Pullman arrived in Britain with Shiploads of his Pullman Dining & Sleeping Cars. These model couplings are fully automatic and can be actuated by Kadee split pole magnets placed IN or UNDER the track !!! For British models with NEM coupling pockets Kadee couplings Nos: 17; 18; 19; & 20 are needed. Where 17 has the shortest clip in shank & 20 has the longest clip in shank. And are of course a lot more realistic than the silly toy coupling provided.
SMOKEBOX DARTS: The inner handle is the locking handle, while the outer handle is the screw up tightener ! Which means the inner handle has to be in the 6 "O" Clock position when the door is locked shut. The "tightener" is necessary because a slight vacuum has to be maintained within the smokebox as the loco is running. So has to screw the door VERY tightly shut to ensure this vacuum, so can be found in any position once tightened.
Good evening Mouldy!
I was wondering if you could possibly help me please.
I would like to get some sort of ideas towards steam locomotives that ran near my village of Hillsborough, County Down, N.Ireland.
I’ve only started out and to date what I’ve found is locomotives with a: 2,2, makeup or 2,2,2, or one that’s baffling me is a 2,2,2,WT?
Is it very hard to change the colour of a locomotive if it’s default is say, Green but maybe I need it in Blue but it can’t be bought in the required colour.
Yours sincerely,
ross
https://youtu.be/Y-LoPF5iQ8A
Please the true link for the DMR product ? Thanks😊
It's interesting how people perceive detail differently. To me buffer beam detail on models always looks underscale, probably because I'm used to seeing real-life locomotives from below.
Great tutorial 👍
Could you provide a link in the description on where to find the lamps pls
Hi Lewis
I really enjoy your videos and love the realism of your layout. However I am curious as to the name on 70007. It should be Coeur-de-Lion?
Spot on re valve gear. I've been going on about this to Hornby for years and they take no notice. Watch out for external admission e.g. as you say the rebuilt Bulleids, also the SDJR 2-8-0's s and some internal admission locos e.g. Woolwich 2-6-0's and derivatives!
I love what you done with your corridors (approx 4mins 40s in). Any chance of a video on that?
Electronic repair kits also have multiple sizes of those hex bolt drivers, as well as many other odd screw bits you may run into. You can get them fairl cheap
I know, Lewis, my friend! Perhaps you do twelve coaches on a long Express train with some engines pulling them. Like more Great Western Railway Hall Class 4-6-0 Tender Engines, more more British Railway Standard Class 5mt 4-6-0s, some Great Northern Railway J50 0-6-0 Tank Engines, London and North Eastern Railway Gresley A3 Pacific Class 4-6-2 Tender Engines, and South Eastern and Chatham Railway C Class 0-6-0 Tender Engines. Especially raising more to buy them and other stuff.
Thanks for that. Ive heard of this problem many times but never remember seeing how to put it right. Brilliantly simple, thanks 👍👍👍👍👍
High Lewis that was interesting ,I’ve found the biggest difference is to add a crew ,that really does make a difference big improvement especially half cabs .😊
Wow those darts do make such a difference ' …the lamps too, I have a collection of the real sized ones, mainly from the 30s to 60s, the headlamps, square and cylindrical have a red aspect within that turns into position to double as a taillight for running in reverse. Great video, models look very realistic.
Hi Lewis. 100% with you regrading the lamps and share your OCD in trying to ensure their positioning correctly represent both the era and the train being hauled! Having said that, I'm not judgemental in any way of modellers who couldn't care less.
I use a tiny amount of black tack to secure lamps to locos that do not have the necessary brackets.
The crew, and other characters, you add to your locos & layout certainly add to the realism. I particularly like the driver leaning out of the cab and the signalman on his balcony. The muffled background speech is also very effective.