30/07/08: A Grand Day Out

A corner of Redhill made it’s first public outing on Saturday to the RMweb member’s day. Realising that the DCCar equipped vehicles would not be in a demonstrable state I started hunting round for suitable performers.

The ever-dependable S17 was first up along with a stock Faller Mercedes O.405 city bus and SK 88 lorry. A Porsche Cayenne and Ford Transit needed a bit of tweaking before behaving in an acceptable manner. This left rather a hole in the British bus representation so I started digging in the stalled project box and found...a D9.

This project has been stalled for a while and was fitted with an experimental chassis based on a Faller Mercedes O.405 bus from a Starter set. The chassis had been cut in half with the front half fitted normally and the back half back-to-front. The bus had a tendancy to part company from the guide wire which I put down to the heavy body and various experiments with larger magnets took place until I got fed up with it and slung it into a box. The front axle had been scavenged for another vehicle so a replacement was fitted and with no further changes it was happy to behave in an orderly manner. Larger NiMH batteries were stashed in the top deck along with a small variable resistor and everything was temporarily wired up. A quick spin around the layout late on Friday night confirmed that we were ‘good to go’.

Meanwhile, up top on the railway the Up line (Lichfield to Walsall) was set up so that a DMU could shuttle back and forth. The DMU itself is a three-car Lima 117 with the Lima powered chassis replaced by one from the new Clas 121 by Hornby. This has been fitted with a Lenz Gold decoder which was set up for automatic shuttle operation using the ABC system by adjusting a couple of CVs. An asymmetric signal generator (OK - five diodes and a length of termianl connector) was made up for the tracks on the two outer boards with a straight DCC feed to the centre board. The DMU was put on the track and happily shuttled backwards and forwards.

Meanwhile, back with the D9, the setting of the variable resistor was touchy and critical. Too high and the thing wouldn't move, too low and it would give a 4mm scale Lewis Hamilton a run for his money. Putting the batteries upstairs moved the centre of gravity upwards giving a distinct wobble and sway at times - not unrealistic I have to say. When the speed was just right the bus performed well, but at Higher speeds the corners could be too much for it leading to some off-road experiences for the passengers. Not helped by some daft so-and-so (me) accidentally routing it into the car park at one Point. Write out 100 times: ‘Double-deck buses do not fit in multi-storey car parks.’.

Previous update :: Next update