Today on the WGLR

Unfortunately the weather is way too rough to get me out today, but here is a (shakey) pic of the Corpet on my indoor engine shed diorama. While I was converting it to battery RC I gave it a bit of a make-over re-painting some parts (mostly in the cab area), but probably the most noticeable difference is that I've re-painted the red motion. She has become No.4 Parry Thomas.

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The only noticeable difference as far as the battery conversion is concerned is a small on - off switch on the frame under the cab and a small battery charging socket on the opposite side. A bit of black paint may hide these further in the future. Needless to say, the Corpet's running qualities are fantastic over point-work and track no matter what it's state. The only other thing I may need to do in the future is to add a little more weight. The large LGB weight had to be removed to make room for the battery etc. and some lead was added to gain some weight back. She's fine on the WGLR with a realistic sized train, but would probably need some more weight adding before any visits to Ruritania - there's plenty of room left inside the body though.
 
yb281 said:
Unfortunately the weather is way too rough to get me out today, but here is a (shakey) pic of the Corpet on my indoor engine shed diorama. While I was converting it to battery RC I gave it a bit of a make-over re-painting some parts (mostly in the cab area), but probably the most noticeable difference is that I've re-painted the red motion. She has become No.4 Parry Thomas.

She's fine on the WGLR with a realistic sized train, but would probably need some more weight adding before any visits to Ruritania - there's plenty of room left inside the body though.
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Excellent Mel. Never liked the all red motion on an otherwise exquisite loco.
Pssst. Wanna buy some lead shot? :cool:
 
I look forward to seeing it on Saturday Mel
 
Well the new battery turned up yesterday, but unfortunately it turned out to be a bit bigger than the previous one, so I decided to use it for the standard gauge pannier tank. The battery would JUST have fitted in the coal bunker, but I would have to put the receiver/speed controller in the cab (the resin body would have required more hacking about than I was prepared to risk), so a quick re-think was needed. The answer came with the Thomas truck ventilated van that's featured in this month's Garden Rail. The van body is removable revealing the original coal truck with ample room to fit all the gubbins and battery in. The jump leads for the loco could be fitted without taking it apart (bearing in mind that this is a kit rather than a mass produced model and taking it apart was something that I wasn't keen on trying if I could avoid it).

Anyhoo, everything works a treat. It's just a pity that I've got nowhere to give it a good run at the moment.

I'll try and post some pics later.
 
C&S said:
yb281 said:
Anyhoo, everything works a treat. It's just a pity that I've got nowhere to give it a good run at the moment.
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Aha! Do I sense a cunning plan???
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Two words Giles - seating area. ;);););)

OK a couple of pics of the finished battery wagon. Here it is currently on charge in the kitchen. I built a false deck from some old ply which fits over the battery (the big blue thing) and hides my dodgy soldering. The charging socket sits next to the on/off switch and the receiver/speed controller is at the near end of the deck. The aeriel just sits there at the moment, although this position will doubtless be fine for my small garden - I've never really had any range issues with the Cliff Barker kit.

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You might also notice that I've sawn the wagon's buffers off and spaced them properly to match the loco. I made the mistake of not altering the buffer spacing for the first 3 wagons I re-gauged (before I got the pannier tank), but these have all been done now. Just need to do a little filling and touching-up of the weathering the next time I've got the airbrush out.

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I originally bought one of the troublesome trucks to use as a battery carrying wagon before I decided to convert them to gauge 3. As you can see, they are ideal for the job. It would be dead easy to mount everything lower down and cover them with a removable false load, but in this case, the ventilated van body just slips over the top.

Hopefully I'll be able to post a video of the pannier tank "in action" sometime. :bigsmile:
 
Excellent and a four channel r/c toaster too! :bigsmile:
 
OK chaps, I will warn you now that I have fallen in love and the next few posts might turn into a bit of a gush. :love::love:

Santa (via Steve @ Back2Bay6 and the wife) bought me one of the new Bachmann Baldwins - the plain black version. In line with the current policy of the WGLR, the loco was converted to run with a battery RC wagon this morning. This was made a really easy job by following the excellent diagrams included by Bachmann (cheap too, I've recently found an ebay site where I can get the BEC leads I use for 50p each, meaning that I can now convert a loco with both front and rear leads for a quid).

First I took the running gear / engine block out (6 screws) following the instructions for fitting a chip. Then I unplugged the 3 sockets from the wheel pick-ups from the mother board and taped them up to make certain that they couldn't short out on anything (when converting LGB locos I usually remove the pick-ups because it's dead easy to do, but I didn't want to go to the bother on this one). I also did the same with the sound trigger, just in case. I then snipped the motor wires (grey and orange) from the motor lead plug. As it was now impossible for any power to reach the mother board, I left it all in place with the switch, lights and smoke gene still plugged in. This means that the loco can be converted back to track power simply by re-soldering the motor wires to their plug and plugging everything back into the board.

Next it was just a case of connecting the jump leads to the motor wires (testing to make sure that it was wired the right way round) and drilling one hole in the rear of the chassis for the rear lead to run through. There's room for the front lead without having to drill any holes. Putting everything back together is fiddly, but not difficult. I also took the opportunity to change the rear coupling to the hook and loop provided.

Now everything needed testing. :bigsmile:
 
Some pics of the new loco on a passenger service for it's WGLR debut.

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I have to say that the loco performed perfectly straight out of the box. No grinding gears, no binding, no hesitation. It ran around my R1's without any bother (including a notorius reverse R1 over the road bridge) and without slowing down. I honestly think that this model represents the best value for money I've ever come across in the wonderful world of G scale. Certain other manufacturers of British outline, electric powered locos would be well advised to buy one of these, take it apart and find out how it works. I know that this is Bachmann's second effort at the Baldwin, but they've obviously learnt from their earlier mistakes and come up with an absolute gem.
 
Enough praise, are there any minus points? Well, no not really. Fair play to Bachmann for including a crew, but I have to say I can't stand them, so they'll be extradited. :rolf:

The coupling arrangements look awful, especially when converted to hook and loops, but the important thing is that they work. This is something I'll have to look into in the future.

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Now that I know it all works (superbly) I can start a list of jobs to do to make the loco a little more Anglisized. I'll post more when I start working down the list.

I know that the Baldwin won't suit everybody's railway, but if you've been thinking about getting one, my advice would be don't hesitate. At the current asking price, it's unbeatable value.
 
yb281 said:
If only we could talk Bachmann into making one of the Talyllyn locos. :bigsmile::bigsmile:
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That gets my vote :thumbup:

Edward Thomas could give two for the price of one as both TR and CR fans will (hopefully) get one.

EDIT - I've looked at the Balwdwin in Glendale Jct a few times over the past couple of months and your review does nothing to help me resist any future attempts at buying one..... thanks for the review ;)
 
Mel, as you know I'm a convert too. I think this is now my favourite loco and the best running. Thats why I'm building my ip coaches to go with it. I can't wait to see how you remodel it. The L&B one has a much smaller lamp for a start. James, all my other stuff is Austrian too....it looks fine together...trust me!
 
nice reveiw mell, it looks athome already
 
Well what a surprise from Santa! :bigsmile:

Great looking loco Mel. Some BR "ferret & dartboard" decals, a straight stack and lose the headlamp and I'd say it was pretty darn excellent.

P.S. can you paint the BEC connectors black? Pretty please?
 
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I removed the lamp, painted the smoke box & door black & fabricated a funnel, as I didn't have the stovepipe option on my old banger & left it at that. I will be interested to see how you anglicize yours Mel.:nerd:
 
One of my other Christmas presents was a pair of Preiser signal men. They are typical Preiser, superbly sculpted, nicely painted and pretty expensive, but I had a very definite plan for these two.

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They needed a couple of slight modifications for what I had in mind, the bloke looking down had to have his arm sliced off at the elbow (ouch!!), then re-attached and finished with a little filler. The one looking up had a European style Kepi cap, so another blob of filler was used to turn this into proper peaked cap.

Next they need a bit of a re-paint to make them look a little more British, then I'll post some pics of them in situ.
 
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