It looks fairly drab and toy like!

 This is the interior of the Lima Class 117 DMU.

It looks fairly drab and toy like which I guess for its 1980s origin was the common approach by manufacturers who were still selling vast amounts of train sets for the younger market. Now, whilst much of the interior is unseen through the body windows, I still felt it could do with brightening up and be made to look a little more like the prototype.

First job, having taken the seating unit off the chassis was to filo down the various ejector pin marks.

Now, given that you cannot really see these through the windows of the DMU, you may wonder why I spent time on fikling these pin marks flat. Well, there is a reason for that as I will explain tomorrow! In the meantime, the seating units were sprayed up in grey primer from a rattle can.

It already looks far better then that beige colour! However there is more to come!

A bit of a service!

Whilst doing work on the pickups on the Lima Class 117 DMU I thought I might as well give the motor a bit of a service. Not that there is much to do on these old pancake motors but it was worth opening it up as I found this.

The blackish ring is dirt on the commutator which needs to be cleaned off as it is affecting contact with the brushes supplying power to the motor.

That was soon done with some fine abrasive. With the cover back on having lightly lubricated the spindle, I turned my attention  to the other side of the motor casing and the gear wheels. They needed a light greasing but also, Lima gear wheels are renowned for having these ejector pin marks on them from the manufacturing process. The edges can stand proud of the surface and cause uneeded friction with the rest of the gear train. I used a fine sanding stick to smooth them down

After reassembly I used a 9volt battery, whose terminals conviently match the two brush holder points on the motor, to test that it all still worked which amazingly for my work it did!

I just need to replace that burnt out DCC chip now.

Pick ups!

With an hour to spare I thought I would pick up on upgrading the Lima Class 117 DMU by adding an additional pickup to the rear bogie. At the moment it only collects current through one side of the bogie. Adding pick ups to the other means that it should run better!#

I have done similar on other Lima models so my first thing to do was to add a strip of styrene to the side of the bogie to mount a phosphor bronze strip to.#

Next stage was to super glue the phosphor strip to the strip once I had soldered a wire to go to the DCC chip.

Then it was a case of drilling a hole in the chassis for the wire to go through.

I am thinking of doing the same with the unpowered trailer car which would really add to the reliability of running but I will have a think about that! At the moment I am pleased with what's been done so far. 

Woody's Hardware Store!

Following on from yesterdays post here are a few more layouts from the excellent East Midlands Narrow Gauge Group show.

Jubilee Works was unusual in that it was a 7mm dual gauge layout with both standard and narrow gauge track running together. I can only wonder at the skills in making those points!

Another unusual layout was Angst Lesspork which was themed around the Terry Pratchett book Going Postal

Show winner was Gnant Gwernol a very scenic 009 gauge layout. In fact it was so scenic that the railway almost disappeared!

Going down in size one modeller had produced a number of micro layouts.

And then going back up the size scale was this monster!

Finally, over the years I have met with James and his Grandson Dylan. James has only been modelling six or seven years nut has skills that defy that short time and Dylan.....well lets just say with what skills he has at his tender years if he carries on model making he will end up as one of the greats1 His 009 gauge layout is still a work in progress but as you can see it will be a fantastic layout.

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Dylan is even building his own rolling stock which is fantastic to see.

Unbeknown to me, Dylan has created a bit of WMD on his layout.

It took me a moment to notice but the shop is named Woody's Hardware Store! 

I was quite taken aback by that but thanks Dylan! Very much appreciated!

There were some great traders there with products you never knew existed. I sis purchase a few bits despite the concerns of my Financial Advisor and wallet Watcher, Mrs. Woody! Eddy from 3D printing for charity had his stand there s a few interesting items came home as they always seem to do when he is in attendance!

A great show and some great people. Unfortunately I did not see Steve from Steve's 009 and 09 Adventure Blog. We probably just missed each other or he was keeping an eye out to miss me!

My Financial Advisor and Chief Wallet Watcher in the form of Mrs. Woody accompanied me!

I went to the East Miidlands Narrow Gaauge Group show today. My Financial Advisor and Chief Wallet Watcher in the form of Mrs. Woody accompanied me - just to keep an eye on things she said! We went last year and there were some nice layouts but this year the event had doubled in size and the tsandard of layouts was fantastic. We were particulraly taken by this one, Tony's Forest, a 7mm scale running on TT gauge track.

The detail on the scenery was stunning.

There was also some nice rolling stock.

Bunkers Lane was an 009 gauge layout and unusually for an exhibition layout it was scenic on both sides and one end, whilst the other end serbved as a fiddle yard - all very innovative.

Derwent Road was arn 009 gauge layout with a modern feel of a preservation line set in the midst of a housing estate. Very well done!#

Proving you don't need masses of space, this layout on a traders stand was only about two and a half feet long by about 18 inches deep.

I will cover some of the other layouts tomorrow and a rather special tribute to yours truely!

A certain irony - making things better!

A few days ago I posted about the DCC chip that fried itself in my Lima Class 117 DMU. I have been looking at it with a view to putting a new chip in. However, with the power car dismantled it struck me that my plans from years ago to freshen it up were ripe to be carried out now!What brought this thought on was finding my chrome pen and just trying to colour in the door handles on the bodyshell so they were chrome as on the prototype. 

The interior can be painted up too from that drab brown to the blue that the seats were uphuulsteed in later on in their lives.

To make running better I will add some additional pickups on the trailing bogie as I now have that in bits!

So that is the plan - it will be ironic if I actually complete it though!

Another Woody video on YouTube!

Once again the WMD film crew have been at it and another YouTube video is published giving an uopdate on My Last Great Project Layout. Always worth a watch if you have insomnia!

A certain irony!

there is a certain irony in what happened to my Lima Class 117 DMU after posting about a Blue day yesterday! The DCC chip blew up! The DMU had become stuck whilst I was too busy with something else like going through Mrs. Woody's job list and the motor was still drawing current. I am guessing it all got too hot and the chip blew! I knew it had gone as I could smell it. On the workbench the good news was with a bttery on the motors terminals it ran. Meanwhile the lack eveidence on the taope was enough to confirm what happened.

Peeling back the masking tape showed that the plastic sleve that the chip is wrapped in had melted and the chip did not look very well!

Lesson learnt! Don't look at Mrs. W's job list whilst operating trains!

At least the motor is OK so I can fit another chip when I have tiime from that job list! The irony of it!

I had a blue day today!

I had a blue day today! Not that I am feeling blue as in 'under he weather' or feeling out of sorts but a day, well only an hour, (just in case Mrs. Woody is reading this) Playing operating My Last Great Project Layout. Blue, because, during a tidy up, I rediscovered this Class 37 loco in British Rail corporate blue livery.

Coupled up to a rake of Mk2 Br coaches it looked very smart.

Adding a few other BR blue bits made it into a 'Blue day'!

There is the Class 37, a Class 25 and the Class 101 DMU. 

It is probably about 40 years since you could see a sight like this on the real railway but on a layout you can take that Time Machine back to those times. I like this Blue Day!

That's all folks!

 That's all folks! No, it is not the end of WMD, but as the cartoons used to say, That's all folks, refers to the end of another season of events at the Rocks By Rail Museum. Where has a year gone as it only seems like a few months ago we  closed the 2024 season!

Anyway, whilst previous years final events have been blessed with Autumnal brightness, this year we had wetness! The morning was dry but by about 1pm the clouds had opened and we all got soaked! The prospect of rain had not put visitors off and there was a good attendance and the volunteers all had fun so it was a winning day!

I was shunting, as seems the norm these days, assisted by John, Pete and Dave as well as Martyn operating the face shovel and with Mr. D as our shunting loco.

It was a long day but the final train of wagons left with Mike the guard waving goodbye for the last time this year!

Then it was time to put Mr. D to bed in the shed at the end of the day but we still had visitors!

That's all folks! But it won't be that long before we start again!