LGB motorised signal no. 5029

[C&S]

Failed to get this on eBay last week, as it went to £35 plus p&p. This is way beyond other LGB signals on sale recently. My budget was about a third of this as I was going to alter it. Was I planning scarilege on a "vintage/collectable" item, or did the bidding just run away?

 

[mike]

no possable some one wanted it more than you did?

 

[stevedenver]

well if you dont actually own these let me give you my thoughts

i purchased 2 for 25 US each some time back-both in virtually new condition-mine are yellow box versions
they seemed a bargain compared to the modern 2 wire versions for my basement table top layout-and are suitable in this regard

however

unless you particularly like these (and i kinda liked the older bavarian style flags)

you havent missed much-the wiring is bulky and a bit obtrusive-very 'tinplate'

and the contacts can occasionally be dodgy -that is, in powering the isolated sections they are 95% reliable but every once in a while the mast arm has just enough weight to cause the connections to the track to disconnect-this is probably however, simply an adjustment to the internal copper strips that make contact i imagine

also the early bavarian arms have a rather pale green (more yellow green imho) lens

and they dont have the convenient plug in aspect to the mast that the later version has-
and the have that under-the-sleepers-snap-in-cradle for attachment

but compared to 3x the price for the 2 wire version-they do quite nicely
but i wont buy the older 3 wire versions again -more a curiosity and bit of LGB evolution than anything else-but perfectly functional-not sure about weather resistance compared to newer versions

 

[C&S]

Oh, absolutely, Mike. I just didn't want to pay more than about £10 considering I was planning to cut the model up. Above that price I would probably make something myself. Having seen the final price I wondered if the model was something special, that's all.

Steve - yes it was in a yellow box. I didn't know LGB boxes were ever that colour, and it did look "old" or tinplate-like in your description. I wasn't planning to use the track isolation feature as I was hoping to make an American style train-order board out of it, which would have meant flipping the arm over to the other side of the post and altering the arm itself. With all that speculative work to do, which might not have worked out anyway, you can see why I was unwilling to pay top rate.

 

[minimans]

I modified the later version as they were cheaper and more available as I was not competing against the "collector crowd" they are easy to convert and if I want to sell them all the original parts can go back.............

 

[Spule 4]

The older ones can be a bargain, I think I got one for around $20 or $25.