Rolling Stock

AD60 Garratt – more weight by Josh Beveridge I managed to have a look at my Garratt yesterday. I found a piece of lead flashing (about 1.5mm thick) in the garage. I cut 2 pieces 55 x 12mm to lay between the driving wheels under the keeper plate. I removed the centre screw from the … Read more

by Collin Hussey For those concerned about the Eureka Garratt’s pulling ability, especially for the front water tank, I decided to remove the tank from the chassis to access what space is available for more weight. It seems that everyone you hear, says there’s not enough room for more weight, I thought that it might … Read more

Gerry Hopkins MMR The Bachmann Tamper was fitted with a TCS M4 decoder. This gave me enough functions to run white lights, red lights and the Rotary Beacon. The Decoder sits down beside the motor, held in place with double-sided tape. The white and red lights are 3mm LEDs with fibre optics. The Rotary beacon … Read more

Gerry Hopkins MMR The Lima XPT requires some extra work to make it a reliable runner. There is nothing we can do about the “pizza cutter” flanges but we can get it run well. The first and most important thing to do is replace the “motor”. The normal method is to replace the armature with … Read more

A few hints about the 49 Class not in the manual. The new 49 class released by Trainorama is a beautiful model and comes with a few features not mentioned in the instruction that come with the loco. THE HEAD LIGHTS – ON DC Besides the obvious reversing headlights are the reversing marker lights. When … Read more

HO Proto 2000 Diesel LocomotivesDiesel with 4-wheel trucks (Clicking Noise – Split Gear) Text by Ron Solly While these locos are good value, they have a common mechanical problem. After some running & things get warm, the plastic gears on the axles tend to either split or break into a couple of parts. If they … Read more

The 0-8-0 loco from P2K runs perfectly at all speeds but does suffer from a lack of picks on all wheels. The tender trucks were designed to take pickups but these were never fitted in production. This page will show you how to add picks in less than an hour. The P2K 0-6-0 is supplied … Read more

The SD7/9 locos from Proto 2000 are smooth running, quiet locos. However, after a few hours of running they can get erratic due to the pickup design. Below is the procedure I use to combat this. My locos have decoders for DCC and they are programmed for a top speed of 35 mph and do … Read more

Fitting Pickups to Brass Locos for Reliable Running Brass locos are built to be displayed on glass shelves, but, a few people like to run them on a layout. The problems start here. The locos do not normally have a flywheel fitted to the drive shaft or motor. They have minimal pickups to get the … Read more

NR Class – Decoder Installs This is the second release of the NR class by Austrains and this time consideration has been given to installing a sound decoder and speaker as well as a good light selection. This page will show you how to install a Tsunami AT1000 GE sound decoder and a reasonable speaker. … Read more

80 Class – Decoder Installs With the body removed, remove all wiring and then remove the weight from the chassis by removing the 4 screws. Remove all the garbage pieces attached to the motor. It is only required if you take the loco to Europe on holiday with you. Add the two motor wires as … Read more

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