Model Railway Forum

Home from our hols - long but steady run home due to the eye not taking its full share of the load. But we did see this as we passed through Pickering after a quick visit to TMC.



One detour that I wasn't going to postpone was to the recently erected monument at Norton Disney near Newark.



And when we arrived home the 3D transfers I had ordered from Railtec for the oil fired shunter had arrived. They really are good. The nameplates are usually polished steel for modern diesels but a request for a brass finish resulted in these.

I can still paint with one eye taking diminished responsibility for binocular vision. Just the decoder speaker and stay alive to fit.

Looks good, Steve.

Very good Steve - you could convince many you had bought a new loco.

It's proving to be frustrating and slow work dodging round the unwelcome guest in my eye. But I'm getting through the recent acquisitions as far as decoder fitting is concerned.
The Fairburn 2-6-4, for duch s large loco, has very little space inside, so that challenge is for tomorrow.









And a new engine shed to be installed - possibly with some surgery to the layout.

Nice bit of work there, and some great pictures.
I have a similarly sized Fowler Tank Engine in my "to chip" pile, may be a similar situation !

Too Tall wrote: ↑Mon Oct 06, 2025 6:42 am Nice bit of work there, and some great pictures.
I have a similarly sized Fowler Tank Engine in my "to chip" pile, may be a similar situation !

I make things more 'challenging' for myself by fitting sound and stay alives to all my locos. That requires a degree of ingenuity in most cases (particularly older locos). The Fairburn had a speaker and HM7K decoders stuffed in the smoke box, with a small AEModels stayalive either side of the DCC plug. A standard 8 pin decoder would not fit due to the bulky wiring harness, so I used the Next18 version with a ribbon cable adapter - it just fits!
The Y14 (J15) has everything in the tender, which is very shallow - whatever I tried wouldn't work. I use my own 3D printed speaker enclosure, slightly narrower than the Hornby one so it fits in the centre well of the tender chassis. Even with the tender weight removed and using the smallest stay alive, I couldn't get the top back on. But by removing the rear face of the coal space, the decoder will fit under the plastic coal load, leaving space for the stayalive next to the DCC socket.
As for the Caprotti Black 5, it's a new design and Hornby included a moulded in speaker enclosure, 21 pin decoder leaving acres of space for the stay alive.
Every one is different.

I've started, so I'll finish.
The track spacing isn't correct for this shed so I'll have to refurbish and relay the whole board.

It seems that the DAS clay I used to simulate concrete in the engine yard, replicates concrete in another way - it took a hammer and chisel to get it off the baseboard.

In between dog sitting and ordering a new computer, I managed some track laying in the engine yard.
I had picked up some track from Howes Models (I called in on my way home from Redditch after collecting the diff for the Spitfire) as it was on my route.
This was always a cramped corner but I managed to fit in an extra siding/headhunt. All sidings now extend into the corner hillside to gain a few extra inches so I will have to print some tunnel entrances as a disguise.