With DCC lighting, many people seem to think that you can have automatic, directional lighting or full manual control - but not both. Yet simple directional lighting can quite happily co-exist with the more precise switching of individual lights. You don't have to lose the out-of-the-box directional automation if you want to be able to switch tail-lights off, for example. This isn't propellor-head stuff and you don't have to wire in extra gubbins such as transistors to do it. Head and tail lights do need to be on separate circuits, however. This is fine if you routinely fit your own LEDs, but ready-lit RTR models will need minor wiring modifications.
As long as your decoder supports a reasonable level of function mapping (the ability to alter which lights respond to which buttons) it's simply a matter of setting up your decoder to work how you want. For a basic diesel (one set of white headlights and one set of red tail-lights at each end) I wire mine up as follows, using Lenz Gold or Silver decoders:
This lets you switch simple, automatic directional lighting on and off using the '0' button on your handset as you always could. But, you can also switch the four individual sets of lights on and off on their own, using the '1' '2' '3' and '4' buttons. This gives you the best of both worlds and doesn't cost you a penny. I'm not sure why this appears to be such a well-kept secret, but I suspect table 15.1 from the Gold handbook might have something to do with the mystery. It looks too much like maths homework!
As I'm obsessively interested in authentic operation, it's essential that I can switch the tail-lights off when a loco is hauling a train. I'd never be able to sleep at night if I couldn't do that. But at other times I don't mind admitting that I value the automatic directional features very highly as well. Auto-directional lighting makes it easy to know which way a unit parked 30 feet away is actually facing, for example - sorry, but I can't tell one end from the other without this aid. Another bonus is that the lights of individual units will work easily under computer control with no extra effort. But the biggest benefit is that guests don't need a 15 minute lecture on the finer points of prototype train lighting before they can play trains.
Because, frankly, most people don't give a t*ss...
Currently On My Stereo: The Darkness - One Way Ticket To Hell...And Back
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Over the last week or so, I've made a start on upgrading my multiple units to Lenz Golds, long overdue as the humble units have had to make do with old Lenz 103XFs until now. These relics are adequate, but nothing special. Lacking back-EMF, slow speed control is poor and the overall performance isn't consistent enough to give precise positioning under computer control.
This particular Bachmann Class 158, pictured complete with discarded 103XF, took me pretty much all evening unfortunately - even though it was theoretically just a decoder swap. I decided to hard-wire the pick-ups and lights of both cars together, standard practice for me now but not when I first converted this example. Typically I ran out of finer, more flexible wire and had to make do with a less cooperative sort that didn't want to go where I put it. Threading everything between cars probably took four times longer than it should. Performance is transformed, however.
I can't stand the Euro-style couplings supplied with the 158s, so I tend to replace them with the fixed bar supplied with Heljan Class 47s. This is a straight plug-in replacement and works well. If you've got gentle curves then you might be able to get away with the similar but shorter bar supplied with the Bachmann intermodal twins. These give an excellent close-coupled effect, but performance is borderline on my 30 inch curves - I get the odd derailment, which isn't something I'm willing to put up with.
For some of my Bachmann 158s I've used the simplified wiring scheme detailed here in order to save time...
Whilst on others I've carried out a 'proper' job, as the intestines of this one prove. These headlights, tail lights and door warning lights belong in a trailer car that's currently on my workbench. I've re-used the original Bachmann 'Peace Yellow' LEDs as a temporary expediency, but will substitute some decent warm-white examples in the future. Unfortunately I ran out of these, as you do, late on the proverbial Saturday night.
Currently On My Stereo: Marillion - Misplaced Childhood
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As the various coloured pins stuck into the cork in the above photo indicate, I've been experimenting with block sizes in the staging yards over the last week, with a view to determining the optimum size for automatically storing DMUs. There isn't a perfect block length, of course, merely a best compromise for an individual's set of circumstances. Short block sections offer more flexibility and a higher train storage density, but need more electronics and thus cost more. Longer block sections are cheaper, yet can waste a fair amount of space if a 12 foot section only contains a 2 foot long train.
Much of my staging yard was built before I realised the advantages a computer brings, so, although I did a lot of planning, I didn't plan for the right things. Since then I've progressively re-done parts of the yard as my understanding grew, but have never had the nerve to rip the whole lot out and start again. I've gone for 'opportunist' upgrades on the back of something else, and as one road has been out of service since last year when a dropped power drill smashed the rail from it's chairs, now seemed a good time for another upgrade.
The two 'DMU roads' in my staging yard have been subdivided into 5 sections each for a long time now, giving storage space for 10 multiple units. Yet this has still left a lot of wasted space and I've been aware that I could improve upon matters. So, with the track being lifted anyway, I decided that this was the ideal time to create some more track sections. But what size block would work best for me?
Multiple units vary in size, with a typical Lima Class 117 being 32 inches over 3 cars, or a Hornby Class 110 being 29 inches. Typical modern 2 car units (Lima 156s, Bachmann 158s, etc) are 24 inches long, with a 3 car version being 36 inches. There are other types, both longer and shorter, but these examples represent the average units - indeed most of my fleet would be either 3 car first generation sets or 2 car modern equivalents. A minimum block length of 32 inches would seem to be a good choice, then, as it would hold a 117 set. Longer units, such as a Super Voyager, would have to straddle two blocks.
On top of this main block section, a smaller 'stop' section is needed to control exactly where a unit comes to a halt. In theory, a couple of inches is sufficient, but I've decided to allow 10 inches to accomodate the odd rogue that might overshoot. So I've ended up with a theoretical preference for 32/10 inch block combinations, which I've now put into practice...
It took pretty much all of my hobby time for the week to do the physical labour on the layout, planning, removing track, cutting new lengths, soldering on the connections, fixing the track down and wiring it in to Lenz LB101 block detector modules. Once done and tested, it took a further 10 minutes to make the changes to the Railroad & Co software so everything worked. I don't miss old-style control panels in the slightest!
The set-up supports three modes of operation:
Currently On My Stereo: Marillion - Afraid Of Sunlight
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I don't know when Cyril Freezer's classic 'Minories' plan first appeared, but the earliest recorded instance in my rather haphazard index is the April 1957 edition of Railway Modeller. If this was indeed the plan's first outing, then next year will mark the 50th anniversary of this influential design.
As a child, my attention was grabbed more by the name than the plan. Minories was a short passage under the middle of Lewis's department store in Birmingham, a thoroughfare I visited frequently on my way to the toy department on the fifth floor. Later, of course, I came to appreciate the plan for what it was and the opportunities it presented, indeed still presents to this day. The author offered several variations on the theme over the years, but none fired my imagination to the extent that the 1957 axonometric drawing did. The depiction of structures and retaining walls immersed me in a railway environment in a way that a plain old track plan could never do. The later grafting-on of other trackwork destroyed the purity and simplicity of the original design for me. Very nice, I'm sure, but not really the Minories I came to imagine and love.
I wouldn't presume to second-guess Cyril's original intentions, but, whether by accident or design, for my money one of the most significant factors that has made Minories consistently attractive over five decades is it's do-ability. It's buildable by anyone, regardless of scale or gauge. It'll work with everything from set-track upwards, and uses standard pointwork cleverly, arranged in such a way that dog-legs and reverse-curves are minimised. All too frequently, published track plans show flowing pointwork on sweeping curves, artistic license painting an idyllic picture that, whilst prototypical, just isn't attainable when you start nailing the savage corners of commercial trackwork to your baseboard. In a hobby where 99.99% of plans seem to be aimed at the 0.01% who think hand-building track is a worthwhile use of their leisure time, Minories stays with the mainstream. The sharper than scale bends inherent in commercial pointwork are masked as much as possible by using them where a train needs to turn a fairly sharp corner anyway. The design works with these limitations, using them as features rather than obstacles.
I've never built a Minories, although I did experimentally tape an N gauge version to an old shelf a couple of years ago, an aborted attempt at a fully-automated DCC demonstration. I've thought about the plan a lot, though, and mulled it over yet again recently, following a thread on the RM Web forum. Perhaps one day I'll have a crack at it?
Being a child of the modernisation plan era, I've always believed Minories would be at it's best with diesel multiple units, especially the high-density types typical of commuter land. Unfortunately, this signature variety is poorly supported by the trade, even the perennial DC Kits range offering nothing. Like it or loathe it, the only contender so far has been the Lima Class 117, with it's freelance body-shape and dangly bogies. I hope Hornby don't see fit to re-release this old horror, something of a reasonable standard is sorely needed.
Apart from the Lima offering, first generation units have so far been low-density or cross-country types. Even Bachmann's forthcoming Class 108 does nothing to redress the balance, although it should still be a very useful product indeed - especially when compared to Hornby's geographically limited Class 110.
Move your modelling period forward into the post-blue years, though, and Minories starts to crackle with potential. Bachmann's range encompasses a whole host of useful products, including the ubiquitous Class 158s and 170s, plus a Class 150 promised for the future. If you're willing to rebuild old models, Lima's Class 156 (pictured above) has a useful bodyshell if nothing else, and is also scheduled for re-release by Hornby later this year if you didn't stock up first time around.
I've also harboured a Southern Electric Minories urge for a long time now, but I'm not significantly interested in these strangely-painted trams to devote the rest of my to life building them from odd bits of brass and old mark 1 coaches. I'd be seriously tempted by a good RTR release, but until then things SR will remain a dream. Curiously, one of the few EMU releases so far has been Hornby's Class 466, regrettably never expanded into a 4 car Class 465. One product does not a layout make, and the 466 smacks of the kind of bizarre release that Hornby seems to use to periodically convince itself that there's no market beyond the steam loco collector. But I can't help thinking that with a slam-door EMU to run beside it, and possibly a 465 grown from the 466, Hornby would virtually have a modern SR starter layout in a box.
There's half a Eurostar set, too, although that isn't really Minories material...
Currently On My Stereo: Wishbone Ash - Distillations
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I've doing a bit of brainstorming with a friend, who is of the opinion that it would be more sensible to use my available plank-space for a 7mm shunt-fest rather than a 4mm one. I can see the logic, in that I've already got somewhere to run my 4mm stuff, but I'm not entirely convinced as yet. Worth pondering, though.
He being of an LMS persuasion, my old steam era stuff has been pressed into service for 3D layout planning. Although an 0-4-4T isn't an obvious loco for a punting shuzzle, it works as a 'loco plus five' place-holder well enough.
Currently On My Stereo: Wishbone Ash - Distillations
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It's stretching things a bit, I know, but I guess the garden is as much a workbench as my modelling surface is. More so, probably, as the latter is supposed to be the computer desk.
For a few years now, I've been particularly pleased with how some Pampas Grass was doing in the back garden. It grew to be much bushier than can be seen in this photo from last year, in fact, and provided a welcome texture in a relatively featureless winter landscape. Unfortunately the pups decided it was good fun to break off the plumes and chase each other around the garden with them.
When visiting, my mother decided this was "not on" and wrapped the base of the clump with mesh, the logic being that it would at least protect the core of the plant, if not the decorative part. The flaw in this plan is the grass is now sufficiently tightly bound for a pup to stand on top and finally grab those elusive fronds that had been tantalisingly out of reach up to now. This was the sight that greeted me as I threw back the curtains this morning - I wonder how close collies are to locusts, in the animal kingdom's family tree?
Always assuming the family tree hasn't been eaten...
Currently On My Stereo: Status Quo - Ma Kelly's Greasy Spoon
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As this canine-infested household has begun to settle into a new routine, a small modelling window seems to have emerged on Saturdays. Yesterday, for example, I managed to put together a couple of Parkside diagram 1/107 mineral wagon kits. There are still buffers, couplings and assorted details to fit, but this is definitely progress.
Actually, although I haven't updated these pages for nearly two months, I have managed to fit in a little modelling here and there throughout this period. I can't do anything too substantial whilst keeping any eye on the pups, but cracking on with some of my unbuilt wagons is ideal as they fit nicely onto an easily-protected tray. Cleaning and preparing parts is especially suitable, this is a Parkside LNER cattle wagon that I started about a month ago.
Also started was a Parkside GWR MOGO van. Progress on this one came to an abrupt halt when I came to fit some of the ABS plastic parts and realised the tall, thin, bottle of Butanone would be all too easily knocked over by a low-flying pup.
Also in my OMWB in-tray has been this 15" Hunslet, a kit produced by 85A Models many moons ago. I seem to remember the waiting list for these being over a year at the time, not helped by people like myself buying in multiple. This one needs a decoder fitting and the bits putting together. A useful shunting loco, albeit a little light in the tractive effort department, I used a pair of these extensively on my old layout. These will again be ideal for a little wagon shuffling in 7mm scale.
This flurry of 7mm activity denotes not a change of direction, but the recognition that I've let this side of my interests lie dormant for far too long. This was brought home to me recently when I had a play with someone's shunting plank and was reminded of just how much easier coupling with 3-links is in a larger scale. I must be mad to persevere with the fiddly things and tired eyes in 4mm!
Currently On My Stereo: Genesis - Selling England by the Pound
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