Express Model Lights on my Heljan 47s - DC to DCC?

I've got two fine Heljan Class 47s - 47063 in Railfreight trainload construction livery, and 47299 "Ariadne" in BR Blue livery. They're fine models, except for the brass wheels that corode over time...

Last year, I purchased two Express Models kits to upgrade the simple light bulbs in the front of these models to more realistic directional LED lights.

Having recently upgraded to DCC, the "DC" kit I'd installed now simply lit all LEDs regardless of the direction of the loco. Express Models would gladly furnish me with new DCC lighting kits for £20 each, but wanting to avoid this cost, I'd have a go at a little rewiring!

Having an A-Level in Electronic Systems, re-jigging the little circuit board shouldn't be too much of a chore I thought. Fortunately for me, armed with a soldering iron, within 10 minutes or so, I had the yellow and red LEDs lighting in the direction of travel, but getting those white LEDs running properly? I could only get the both on at the same time.

The little circuit board supplied with the lighting kit seems to have some transitors on board, but with the circuit tracks not visible, I'm not quite sure how they're connected up. I didn't want to blow them sky high with 16V, so decided to unsolder the white LEDs for now - we'll see if I get more time in the future.

Oh, I set CV55 and CV56 down to 192 to hopefully reduce the voltage on Functions A and B down to 12v, so as hopefully not to fry those LEDs...

New Lease of Life for my Hornby Class 37s

Most of my locos are in excellent condition, being either the high quality Hornby models (Class 31, 50, new 08 etc), Heljan or Bachmann.

I've got two older Hornby Class 37 locos (R402 37207 "William Cookworthy" in BR Blue and R348 37063 in Railfreight livery). Both are poor runners and are not much used.


I've investigated the price of replacement motors and bogies from Model Spares of Burnley. They're a friendly bunch, but I was looking at about £30 per loco all in.

Instead, I've decided to look around for the cheapest, new, Hornby 37s I can find. I eventually ordered 2x R2574 "DRS Class 37 038 Co-Co Diesel Electric Locomotive" from Rails of Sheffield for £37.50 each. My master plan is to remove (and sell on) the two DRS body shells, clip my existing BR Blue and Railfreight body shells onto the new chassis, and sell on the two old chassis for "spares or repair".

I recently did something similar for my aging HSTs, having bought two new Hornby Midland Mainline HST sets for just £54 each with two Mk3 coaches per set. Having sold on the parts, the upgrade paid for itself.

We'll see if I'm as fortunate this time.

I've also forked out for two of the obligatory Lenz Silver decoders. I've not seen a DCC installation on the web for a Hornby 37, so I may well document it here if I get chance.

Programming ANY CV Value Using the Lenz Compact

I've recently sold off my old Hornby HM2000+ controller and am upgrading to DCC. Having looked at the DCC systems out there, I eventually went for a second hand Lenz Compact DCC Starter Set - with a Compact controller, a TR100 transformer, two LE1024 decoders, and an LS150 stationary decoder. This was a bargin at £86 including shipping (it's over £160 new).

With all of my points already wired using good old Peco PL26 switches, I had no plans to use DCC here. I sold the LS150 for £23 - result!

Now, according to the manual, you can only alter CV values 1-4, 7-8 and 29 using the Compact. I discovered (quite by accident) how to program ANY CV value using the Compact - so here goes:

1. Place the loco you wish to program onto the programming track.
2. Enter programming mode "Pro" as normal.
3. Select, and read off the value of R1 (CV1) - the loco address.
4. Press F2 (X) to return, so the display reads "r1" again
5. Now use the "-" or "+" buttons to scroll through r2, r3 as normal, but you'll now find that after r8, instead of wrapping back to r1, it continues to "c09" and onwards and right up to 255 - all CV values are now accessible for reading or writing.

I've not seen this documented anywhere on the web, and in fact have seen a few sites that state that the Compact cannot alter other CV values - I can confirm happily that this is not the case!

Hope this helps!

Mr RailsInTheRoof

3 Section Steel Loft Ladder

After 6 years of using a step ladder, the Loft Shop has finally (two months after ordering!) fitted a Three Section Steel loft ladder. This should significantly improve access, and gives a much larger opening.

A Rolling History of Rails in the Roof

My love of model railways began at Christmas 1980, with my first train set. A GWR 0-4-0T tank engine No."101", a "Texaco" tanker, "McVities" box van, and two trucks. "101" still runs today (all be it with a replaced motor). The set also came with a vinyl record narrated by Bernard Cribbins. He was doing some Hornby adverts on TV at the time I seem to remember...

At that time, I had to lay out the track on the carpet each time I wanted to play trains. I still remember coming home from school one day to find loads of track laid out on the floor, and my Dad having made a 6'x4' baseboard.

Here's a photo of me (aged 6 probably) with that layout. You can see "101" with the aforementioned wagons, and 0-6-0 Pannier Tank "2744" hauling a rake of three GWR "Chocolate & Cream" liveried coaches.


Another photo of the same layout here, showing GWR 4-6-0 "Hagley Hall" passing Swindon station on a passenger run, and 0-6-0 Pannier Tank "2744" in a siding awaiting its next turn of duty.

As time passed, the layout progressed. Birthdays and Christmas's brought more locos, wagons and accessories. We see the same baseboard here in 1986.You can see how my wagons and locos ended up in play-worn condition!


As my teenage years went on, I played less and less with the railway. I suppose I had "better" things to do with my limited money by then.
When I was sixteen, we moved house. I carefully wrapped and boxed my locos and stock, knowing one day I'd take up the hobby again.

Some ten years later in 2001, now married and with a house of our own, I decided to setup a permanent layout in the loft.

This photo, taken in June 2001, shows the task which awaited me; a few suitcases, and lots of fibre glass.The first job was to install better lighting (there was a single tungsten bulb), followed closely by boarding the floor. A few weeks later, the roof was fully boarded.

The next job was to design the layout. I didn't want to make any kind of start without having first planned how the layout was going to look. After taking extensive measurements, I purchased a copy of "Hornby Virtual Railway", and used that to plan the layout of the track.As a design tool, it was pretty good really. I'm sure there are better programs out there, but it did for my purposes. The only real problem with it was that the largest layout you could do was about 2x2 metres, meaning I had to split the layout into four chunks, called North, South, East and West. Imaginative eh? Fortunately, Hornby Virtual Railway 2 doesn't have this limitation.

Once I had a good design, it was a case of starting building in earnest. I decided to start with the one side of the loft that was brick wall (adjoining next-door), as this would be the easiest. This would be the "South" of the layout. I put up a length of baseboard 240cm long, and about 100cm wide, supported by cheap shelf brackets. Here's my first photo of that proud moment!


I then arranged the planned track on top to see how it looked, and to make sure it fitted well.This photo was taken in October 2002




I decided early on to use roofing felt for "ballast". (You'll soon learn one thing about me. I'm not big on scenery. I'm much more interested in operating the trains). Once the ballast was down, the track was pinned, motorised points installed, and a simple DC controller connected up.


Once I was happy with this part of the woodwork, I extended to the left...









and to the right of the first piece of board.










I then spent some time adding a bit more details. Like I said, I'm not big on scenery, but a few nice details here and there are always good.





I also experimented with some platform and yard lights - to good effect I think. This photo was taken in February 2003.






Next it was time to extend clockwise round to the "West" of the layout.This took quite some time, as there was a fair amount of woodwork involved, and I'm no carpenter! This piece of board was 2.4m x 1m.
You can see 37207 "William Cookworthy" and a MK1 coach testing the newly laid track. As you can see, the board is still propped up on a workbench - the "leg" isn't in place yet.
This picture was taken in June 2003.

More time passed (much more) and I have started to extend further round to the "North" of the layout.In June 2005, you can see 31270 with an engineers train testing the newly laid track. In the background is the West loco shed (minus the shed building!), with 08830, 56105, 50035, 25033 and 25056 residing.

I decided to put in place all the supporting woodwork for the "North" and "East" sections of the layout before fixing any baseboard or track. My aim was to make a complete circuit of track, simply resting on baseboard laid over this supporting woodwork. This would give much greater pleasure operating the layout while the long task of finishing the "North" and "East" sections of the layout were completed.

To this end, on 3rd July 2005, the circuit of track was completed. The aforementioned 31270 with engineers train was the first to make a complete loop, closely followed by 50035 "Ark Royal" with a passenger service.


More to follow...

Here we go...

Hi all.

I'm a 30-something train buff from the UK. I've been modelling a large OO Gauge railway in my roof for some time now. I'm currently going through the pain (expense anyway) of upgrading to DCC. I thought I'd scribe some of my experiences here as I've learned a lot along the way, not all of which seems to be on the web.
Hope you find at least some of my mumblings of use!

Bye for now,

Mr RailsInTheRoof.