Kadee coupler.

Some years ago, whilst attending the Newark Toy and Train Fair, I found a stall selling pre-used USA outline rolling stock at really good prices. In addition to the price being attractive, the wagons were also fitted with Kadee couplers which on their own are about £5 a pair  to buy. The wagons worked out at just under £5 each so I came away with several! The only thing about them was that the previous owner had obviously fitted them as an after market modification and rather than using the proper Kadee mounting box a paper envelope had been created. The problem with this is that the coupling itself pulls out with any load on it. You cannot glue it or it will not uncouple. Having bought some of the proper mountings at the Bingham Model railway Show I decided to investigate how they fitted. I decided to trial with this caboose.

A close up reveals the coupler in the paper envalope.

With the coupler out you can see that it has a metal 'whisker' either side of the main shaft and this allows the coupler knuckle to move when it passes over a magnet in the track. This then allows the coupling to automatically uncouple from the other wagon fitted with the same style of coupling. You can also see the paper envalope mounting.

The Kadee mounting boxes come in two parts and have an inbuilt piviot for the coupling shaft.

Under the paper envelope was a piece of card that it was glued to. That needed to come off!

With some scrapping it was off revealing a solid plastic base which would form a much better mounting surrface for the coupling.

However I did need to add some plastic strip so that the coupling mounting box was at the right height from the rail.

With that done, the coupling itself was put in one half of the proper mounting box and the other half was carefully glued to it.

Then it was glued onto the caboose.

I have tried it on the layout and it does work so I just need to do the other end and then the 15 or so other wagons! If only I had more time!

Some great purchases at a modest price!

Leaving the Bingham model rail exhibition, my arms were hardly stressed by the weight of purchases much to Mrs. Woody's relief! I did get some interesting things though including some more 3D prints from Eddie at 3D Printing for Charity where profits go to the Lincs.  and Notts Air Ambulance so I feel that my purchases do have a benefit to others as well.

Firstly though. I did find a trader with some Kaydee couplers in stock so these two items were purchased which will deal with some issues with some of the stock on my USA switching layout.

Moving onto the 3D prints, there was this rather nice generic workshop type building that should paint up well.

I have seen this print of the old Atkinson Boarder truck on the stand before always thinking I must get that one. Eddie had two left, the display one and a kit. As he was not going to print it again I somehow ended up with both!

On a smaller size I stocked up on some more electrical cabinets - always useful and a fraction of the price of those made by the major manufacturers.

There was also this nice small signal box that I have in mind for a future project but don't tell Mrs. Woody!

The parts build into this.

Lastly, I got some figures both in 00 gauge and ) gauge.

And one of those ) gauge figures fits nicely, as a driver, into my 09 loco that has sat on the side for a few months awaiting attention!

All in all some great purchases at a modest price! That will please Mrs. Woody!

Bingham model rail exhibition 2025 part two!

 

As I posted yesterday there were a couple of layouts that stood out to me and Mrs. Woody at the Bingham model rail exhibition 2025.

The first is 'The Hot Track' which is a small model but depicting part of a real railway built to transport molten steel four miles from Redcar Blast Furnace to the steel plant at Lackenby ehere it became the famous Teeside steel.

The second layout was also steel themed. Splott is set in the 1980's as a British Steel yard in Cardiff. Although fictional, the quality of modelling and weathering makes it all very believable.

See the office above? Well that had a fully detailed interior which the photo below doesn't do justice to.

We voted this one as best layout of the show in the poll on the way out.

Finishing off with one last layout and the only non-British layout at the whole exhibition, Liljeholmen is a Swedish layout based around a cement works. It is basically a two siding shunting puzzle but it looks good and has a unique look to it.

Al in all a great show and as I have already said my purchases were modest but when I say Eddie with his 3D printing for charity stall was there you can image where my money went! More on that tomorrow!

Bingham model rail exhibition 2025

Having previously visited the Bingham Model Railway Show back in March to only find I had the wrong date in my calendar, todays visit to that show was carefully checked on the website prior to setting off. Mrs. Woody accompanied me in the interests of keeping a rein on my spending but more so just to make sure my checking on the date was indeed accurate this time! It was, and there was a show and I did get into it, it was good and my spending was modest!

The Bingham show is one of those that is regarded as being at the smaller end of the size scale but I do like this type of show. So much easier to get around and you actually get to see everything.

There were some themes running through the show. Firstly, there was an unusually high number of n gauge layouts which bucks the trend of recent years. Secondly, Steel and Scotland seemed to have a high level of representation as well!

One layout that ticked both trends was this n gauge layout called Glenellen. It shows that in a modest space n can really allow scenic development as well as allowing longish trains to run.

Continuing the Scottish theme but moving up to 00 gauge there was Rannock which modelled part of a fictitious Glasgow urban station. It certainly had that atmosphere.

Also with atmosphere was this 00 gauge model called Llanforan Shed which displays the builders collection of Barry locos from the Barry Railway system. If you want to find out about the Barry Railway there is a useful description on Wiki here.

Showing the extremes of n gauge was this model of Rolleston Junction ...

...which allows some long trains to run through the countryside along 15 foot or so of baseboard.....

through to Oxthorne which is a branch line terminus built in around five foot. It did make great use of DCC sound fitted locos as well!

There are a couple of other layouts that caught my eye and even Mrs. Woody's but I will show those in tomorrow's post.

You never know what a day will bring!

Whilst at the Rocks By Rail Museum I had to take delivery of some further dirty ballast delivered by this rather nice looking rig.

Just goes to show that you don't need fancy paintwork and acres of polished chrome to have a good looking combination.

Before he tipped the load I got talking to the driver. I am good at talking! He was a fascinating guy who back in the 1980's used to do runs with trucks down to Italy, Spain and Morocco as well as several other European countries. If you follow this blog you will realise I am a bit of a truck modeller as well as having had professional involvement in haulage so we also had some interesting chat about some of the older trucks such as the Volvo F88 and F12s that he had driven along with Scania 111s and Fodens as well as some USA trucks! It was a great 30 minutes or so and I was really pleased to have been able to spend some time with this guy. Just goes to show that you never know what a day will bring - especially at the Rocks By Rail Museum!

It all points well!

I was pleasantly surprised when arriving at the Rocks By Rail Museum today to find that things on the trackwork front have moved on well from last week with the point now back in place which all points well for the track to all be relaid before the Easter reopening.

There is always a need to think about and discuss th next move with jobs like this!

Also preparing for the Easter opening my work on grass cutting continues with vengeance. I did recut some areas done two weeks ago as there gas been a fair amount of growth despite the lack of rain but I also ventured down the Nature Trail where if I do any further mowing it will no longer be a nature trail but become a well maintained garden! Well that was my excuse for calling it a day! 

What better than to have a five minute break in the sun with no one around!

The only problem with going down the Nature Trail was that I could look back up the line which reveled rather pointedly that there is some work require to level it back up after the Winter!

Oh well! Means there is always a point to being a volunteer!

Formulating a plan!

Back to model railway layout building and in particular My Last Great Project which needs to move on a bit faster than it has. To that end I am looking at the station baseboard where there is a small urban station in front of the hidden sidings for the two main lines. Unfortunately the hidden sidings are just not hidden yet! So, work has started!

The plan, always good to have one of those even if I don't always do that, is to have a wall behind the station area hiding the hidden sidings with something on top. I do have a plan for that as well but as yet it is still in formulation! However to further formulate I need to at least start on the wall.

Starting with my favorite brick paper from Metcalfe, some measurements indicate that I can make full use of each sheet.

Having cut some mounting card to size I cut some brick paper sheets to suit.

I used Spray Mount to stick it to the card. Great glue but it needs to be used in a well ventilated environment like outside! So, outside I went and I used a clothes peg to hold the brick paper as I sprayed it - just hope Mrs. Woody doesn't notice!

Back inside the sheets were attached to the card.

Just to see how things looked on the layout it was temporarily place in position.

It looks a bit basic but in my mind I can further formulate that plan now!

Failure!

Fresh from the success of repairing the Hornby Class 156 DMU and fitting a DCC chip into the Lima Class 117 DMU I thought that I would grab another loco that required a chip. Should have been a simple job but this one has, at the moment, ended in failure!

I bought this las year at the Bingham Model Railway Show for a bargain £25.

It is a great looking little shunter, ideal for my USA switching layout.

With the body off it should have been an easy job to solder in a DCC chip to the circuit board.

I had never run this model as the original owner had removed part of the circuit board so that the motor was disconnected from the pickups. I decided just to check all was well before going any further. 

A 9 volt battery is enough to power a model loco. The motor turned over but jammed after a second. reversing the polarity did the same thing. 

I had an inkling as to what was wrong so one of the bogies was dismantled revealing this.

This is a problem that besets locos of a certain vintage when the use of plastic gear wheels instead of metal became popular. The plastic eventually fails resulting in the part splitting which causes the issue of the motor jamming or a rough running loco if it still moves.

Replacements are both rare and expensive if you can find them (£48 for four gears on eBay!) so repair is the initial option. Superglue can work so that was my first step.

Unfortunately, my trial on one of the gears failed! The next option is to sleeve the shaft of the gear with some brass tubing. The WMD Stores strangely did not have any of the right diameter!

So, for the moment, the model is back in its box awaiting me finding some brass tube of the right diameter. Failure for now but maybe not in the long run!