Model Railway Forum

Carl L wrote: ↑Sat Jan 20, 2024 11:58 am Reading this, do I really want to attempt to do my 70’s locos?

Personally I wouldn’t bother with locos that old (some will disagree, but they are wrong ). These ones are all from the last five years or so.
The class 122 is now working fine after cleaning and repairing the driveshafts although my dodgy soldering threw a momentary spanner in the works.

The Bachmann Austerity 2-8-0 is fighting me every inch of the way.
Having established that there was a short circuit, I stripped the loco down (again) and replaced the wires from the tender plug to the pickups and the motor. Reassembled it and first of all it ran on DC, then it didn’t, then it started getting hot. It turns out that one of the three orange capacitors was just touching the top motor terminal.
So after some quick repositioning it started running on DC, and ran well into the bargain.
Time to try it with a decoder - and this is where I made the rookie error.
Flipped the track over to DCC but forgot that the loco with DC blanking plug was still on the track. The result being a fried motor. Doh!
Fortunately Bachmann have a decent spares dept. so I’m now waiting on the postman.

I had another look at the faulty motor this morning and found that the brushes are held in place by nothing more than bent over brass tabs with virtually no tension on them. When pushed in with a couple of test leads from my 12v supply, the motor spins easily. Take the pressure away and the motor stops. The answer was to solder the tabs down to maintain pressure.
Reinstalled the motor and it runs as sweet as a nut on both DC and DCC.

One of my heavier freights - LNER Q6 pulling a rake of coal wagons complete with their newly constructed loads.

20240127_112133 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

20240127_112104 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

Lovely pictures Steve.

Amazing level of detail. Very keen eye and great skill. Fabulous. R-

Very nice indeed.

Once more I’m shamed into action My empty private owner wagons need ‘coaling’ - now where’s the hammer

Great pictures as usual - the level of detail is brilliant.

Impressive scenery and the coal loads look good too.

Finally not too cold to go out to the shed. My last three 3D downloads from ModelU have finally been painted. Must stick a few on the layout.

20240204_204203 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr