rewheeling the Bachmann 150 and more

[jim s-w]

Hi All

As a break from layout building I have been tinkering with my Bachmann 150. First up how to rewheel them to P4 (or EM for that matter)

Real class 150s have a wheel size that equates to 11mm in 4mm scale. My preferred Branchlines wheels only come in 10.5mm, 12mm and 14mm. Since wheels dont get bigger but do wear down I have used 10.5 for my conversion.

The Bachmann original uses a stepped split axle held together by the gear. I have drilled out the gear to 2mm and used a solid axle instead. This means I need to rearrange the pick ups a little bit.



You can use one side as is but on the other side you need to cut off the pick ups where they connect to the brass bearings (I have also cut off the pick ups that extend upwards but you dont need to if you are doing a simple wheel swap - I will come back to why I have done this later.

To rearrange the pick ups a simple piece of 0.3mm NS wire is soldered to the pick up to bear on the back of the wheels.



New wheels fitted - make sure you fit the insulated wheels to the side with the new pick up and on the same side of the vehicle throughout. You will need to file the pinpoints off but if a simple rewheel is all you are after you can now put it all back together and the job is done - simples!

The trailer just accepts P4 wheels as it comes so a simple swap is all you need.

However if you find (as I do) the idea of a passenger vehicle being full of chassis not a good one here is one option.



Cut the end of the chassis off as per the picture - the step in the cut is to hide as much as you can in the cab. The trailer is very free rolling and the unit only has to move itself so I decided I only need 1 powered bogie.

For the new trailing bogie I modified a MJT one as per the following pic



This means all of the new brass bogie is hidden behind the sideframes - you will need to cut the sideframes off the spare powered bogie and a little bit off the back/bottom of the air bag for the sideframes to fit. You will also need new holes for the bearings to fit into.

I mounted a piece of 60 thou plasticard across the hole in the floor at the inner end of the unit and mounted the (flat) MJT mounting plate onto a piece of 2mm plasticard to give the correct ride height - I will fit extra pick ups to this bogie when I come to DCC it.



Putting everything back together and using a sticky pad to fit the motor to the floor your chassis should look like this. I soldered wires to the pick up and did away with the PCB all together

Which means this much is now visible through the windows



HTH

Jim

[jim s-w]

Hi All

Being in a sprinter mood I have turned my attention to my class 155's. I need a couple of these for the layout and have had 2 Dapol ones in a stock box for years. When introduced they (the models I mean) didn't go down all that well but the 155 was considered the better of the 2 (the other one was the class 150/2 which was dire). However while out of the box the 155 didnt look much like the real trains it always had that air about it that it was fixable.

First up the body is too tall so it was reduced in height by removing 2mm from the bottom. (except for at the cab end). This exposed the plastic chassis and instantly transformed the side on view of the train - the black chassis being missing completely from the original model.

the underfloor detail was removed completely and replaced with parts from NNK. The solebar on the real trains is angled and ribbed so this was made up from a piece of 20x80thou microstrip, spaced at the top with a 20x20 thou strip. the ribs are 20x40 thou pieces.

Most of the NNK bits are OK but the large box on the second mans side is far too small - this was knocked up from plasticard leaving the underframe looking like this.



The bogies are a bit puny and were replaces with sideframes from Hurst models - power is from a black beetle. Most of the cab end can be transformed with paint but I built a new gangway from plastic strip faced with a spare from my class 317 etch. My thoughts now turn to the windows - the frames on these units are quite heavy - I think I need to do an etch.

The following shows progress so far in a before and after way.



Cheers

Jim