My original thoughts with regard to going DC was heavily influenced by the fact that I had close to 30 locomotives from the old days, the majority of which would be difficult to convert to DCC (thank you Bachmann split chassis).
One locomotive I was able to convert was a Bachmann Class 42 diesel-hydraulic. This particular model was always a superb and smooth runner, no doubt thanks to its all wheel pickups, all wheel drive and hefty flywheel on the motor. However, compared to modern locomotives it's not particularly well detailed, but for me its running characteristics made up for this.
One area that I did want to change though was the addition of lights. With DC forward and reverse is track relative. With DCC it becomes loco relative and, at a distance, I was struggling to tell the difference between the front and back of the Warship.
Installation of lights wasn't as straightforward as I originally hoped for due to the lack of space between the inside fascia of the body shell and parts of the metal chassis. I resolved this by filing part of the metal chassis away, which just left enough room to install a pair of 3mm LEDs at each end.
As 3mm would be way over scale for lights on this engine, the LEDs do not extend to the exterior of the fascia. Having removed the original painted 'lights' I enlarged the holes to 1.5mm which allowed me to use a very short length of fibre optic cable between the LED and the exterior of the body shell.
If the original plastic painted 'lights' were truly to scale, then even 1.5mm is slightly over scale, but not so oversized that they are really obvious. Ultimately I think the final effect was well and truly worth the effort, and forward and reverse are now easily distinguishable.
*mod note* I don't think your host liked you linking the images like that, as they wouldn't display. I've reuploaded them to postimg and linked them to your post. SD.
