Thursday, March 29, 2018

Let there be light! And a bit of 009 in BRM

Two BRM's in a month eh? You are lucky.



As the nights are getting shorter, I'm adding lights to Didsbury Green. Well, it's that time of year.

First of all, we have LED strips to provide general illumination. I've always been sceptical of these in the past as there have been a few really terrible attempts on layouts I've seen. Working on a micro project, it's been possible to get enough light out of the things and I'm pleased with the results.


While I was at it, I've added some working lights in the buildings and around the model. Just enough to provide a nice nighttime scene.


We're offering one of the Hornby 0-4-0 locos are a subscription offer. They are really toys, although modern ones aren't as terrible a runner as they were in the past, but if you aspire to move beyond playing trains, they also make excellent first detailing and weathering projects. I've breathed on the least appealing model in the set and it's come up quite well. Nothing too difficult, just new handrails, smokebox dart and some dirt. The sort of jobs we routinely carried out back in the old days!

Another loco that has come my way, but with the strict instruction not to mess around with it, is the Bachmann 009 Baldwin. I've cast my eye and dial vernier over the model and come up with a few conclusions.

4 comments:

Huw Griffiths said...

Are there any plans to cover the use of LED roll lights for layout lighting in a future BRM?

Phil Parker said...

No - because that's what I've used in this issue. I'm sure we'll be looking at them again in the future, but nothing planned at the moment.

Huw Griffiths said...

Fair enough - I hadn't had chance to study the new issue of BRM.

(Yes - yes - I know - I visited the "Ally Pally" show - but I had other things on my mind then. Some of them might even find their way onto RMweb in due course - like some of the lighting experiments I'm planning on doing.)

Anyway, if/when the things do make a return to BRM, I suspect it might also be worth looking at their use in carriage lighting - and whether the variable colour ones might be worth a look for certain applications - but I won't worry about that at present.

Mark said...

Okay, so I picked up a copy yesterday and I'm confused. Why does the contents pages not match the rest of the magazine? Page 45 is supposed to be Cakebox Challenge featuring "Rokeby", but is instead a "subscribe to BRM" advert page! What's the point of having a contents page if it doesn't accurately reflect what's actually in the magazine?