Technique for reclaiming scatter material

When adding vegetation to the train layout, there is usually a lot of material that does not get stuck down and has to be removed. This is easily removed using a vacuum cleaner of course. I present here the technique I use to not only remove the material, but in such a way that it can be kept clean and reused.

Planting trees

Trees are an important part of almost every landscape. One typically also needs lots of them! I thought I would share my technique of 'planting' them.

Converting Märklin 7283 to LED operation

I decided to convert a Märklin Tower Mast lamp to LED operation and rewire it using much thinner wires than the originals which were pretty thick , bright and unsightly.

It is a pretty easy operation and the steps were carried out as follows:

Remove the lamp cover and light bulb.

Tips for building plastic kits

Constructing a building from a plastic (such as from Faller) can be a pleasant project. There are also many pitfalls and as I construct my kits I often develop techniques that I think may be useful to others and also an aid memoir to myself for my next project. I have therefore assembled the list of tips below.

k83 tester

Since I have now built a pile of k83 modules (actually Viessmann 5211) I need to test them. Each one has 12 outputs to be tested, I decided that a small plug-in module was in order.

The module tests three plugs at a time, allowing all four output pairs to be tested in turn.  I took a piece of plywood, screwed three Märklin plugs into it and connected them up to two LEDs and a 1.5K Ohm resistor.

Viessmann 5291 kit to build 5211

In order to keep costs down I decided I would buy the kit versions of the Viessmann 5221 module that is used for switching turnouts, signal control modules, etc. It is the equivalent of the Märklin k83 module. The Viessmann item 5291 is a kit containing all the components to build a single 5221 module and is cheaper than the 5221 (which in turn is cheaper than the Märklin k83)

Laying K-track

I have just a little bit of track left to wire up so I decided I had better document how I do it before I have nothing left to photograph...

Crud-B-Gone track cleaner

I decided it was time to give my entire layout a good cleaning as I had never done a comprehensive cleaning before and there were dirty spots here and there on the rails. If I wiped my fingers along the track I could get a light black line of crud on my fingers.

I looked at commercially available track cleaners such as the LUX vacuum and motorized cleaner cars but they seemed pretty expensive. I had heard about a product from Noch (60157) that clips onto the axles of the rolling stock and drags a small cleaning pad along the rails. I ordered a pack of 5 ($8) and put the cleaners onto my trains and ran them around a bit. The pads did start getting dirty.

I decided this was probably going to be a bit slow and decided to wipe the rails by hand with cloths. Trouble with that is that sharp rail joints tend to go right through the cloth and injure the fingers. Next I decided to make a block of wood to place in the cloth to protect the fingers. Then I decided it would work better if I cut the block so that there were small ridges that fitted into the rail so I made one and tried it with the cloth. It was a bit too tight and I was about the cut it down some more when I tried it without the cloth. To my surprise it worked really well without the cloth! Thus was born the Crud-B-Gone cleaner. Since a bunch of train friends were going to be visiting my layout this month I decided to make a batch of them and give each visitor one.

The cleaner is made out of pine wood and needs to be machined to have just the right size grooves to fit into the rail such that it does not touch the center studs, ties and trackside items. All 4 edges are machined and the short ends are used for cleaning curves.

I find it very easy to push it along the track, even in areas that are difficult to reach. Since the track guides the cleaner along it is possible to rub it up and down along stretches of track that cannot be seen.

I have now cleaned the entire layout as well as all the wheels of the trains currently on the layout. I can no longer get a dirty finger from the rails. I have left the Noch cleaners on the trains since they can do no harm.

Review: Digitising a 3048 steamer with ESU LokPilotDCC

The ESU LokPilot and LokPilotDCC decoders are good multifunction decoders with load control and many configurable settings, for example, the light intensity of lights, various flashing patterns, etc. The only reason these decoders do not get 5 stars is their extreme sensitivity to momentary loss of power - which can happen if the track is dirty.

This is a sequence of photographs showing how I installed an ESU LokPolotDCC decoder into my Märklin 3048 steamer that has the old motor type with the large flat commutator. Also shown is the relay I added for the smoke unit.