On Monday afternoon, I went to my local DULUX paint place and spoke to Geoff about spray cans of Silver paint for my Far North Models QR 2000 Class railmotors. I picked up a can of recommended paint. When I got home, I sprayed the railmotor shells with some testers white primer. That was to seal the shells before I hit them with the silver paint. I gave them two coats on the outside and them focused another coat on the inside of the shells just to be sure. I let it dry overnight.
PK also emailed advising that our shared delivery of the CCH prairie wagons from CGL had arrived. I told PK that I will collect mine on Friday when we go for a trip around the QR Brisbane network for $0.50.
So on Tuesday I hit both the shells with the silver paint. I let them dry and had a bit of a viewing a couple of hours later. I thought I might have been a bit light with the silver paint along the bottom of the shells, so I gave them both another light spray in that area and then put them to bed overnight to dry.
On Wednesday morning the job was to install all the LEDs required for the QR 2000 Class passenger car railcar. That went along quite easily until at one point when testing an LED, when I applied a 9V battery to an LED (instead of my 2 x AA – 3V battery) and it went POP. Bugger. I was then one LED short for the guard's luggage railcar. But PK came to the rescue as he lent me one, while I placed an order for another 30 white 0402 LEDs. So once all the LEDs were installed, the wires connected to the decoder and the railmotor assembled, the railmotor was placed on the track and the lights were tested. They worked great. Maybe some are slightly a bit bright, but I can fix that later.
Thursday was the day to install the LEDs into the Guards Baggage railcar. Well all but one light to a marker light. I took my 3 railmotors to the Club on Saturday to show off. I showed them on the club layout, but just ran them on the Powercab test track. The common comment was that the marker lights were too bright. I will try replacing the 4.7K ohm resistor with an 8.2K resistor to reduce the light intensity on Monday or Tuesday this week. While at the Club, Guy showed off his almost completed 3D print of a 2000 Class railmotor. He also advised that the 2050 class railmotor was ready to print. So early next year we will get his version. There are a few of us lined up to get them and put them on the track. They come with two different types of bogie mounts. One for my Halling 12mm bogies from Austria, and another for some locally made bogies. I still like my version from Austria, but they are not cheap, but postage is better when you make a bulk order. I think I will need to place an order for another 12 pairs of power bogies and 12 pairs of dummy bogies before Christmas, so we are all ready for the new year when these railmotors are released.
I met up with PK on Friday, picked up my CCH wagons and the LED. We also arrange to meet Arthur and Kevin at Roma Street Station and we caught a train to Doomben followed by a walk to a nearby Bowls Club. Coffee and Caramel Slice for $7.50 was great. We jumped back on the train and we went to Bowen Hills. There we were sent into platform 3 – instead of platform 1, no doubt due to a points failure. But our Ferny Grove train was sitting on platform 2. As we had to ascended the stairs walk across the walkway and back down to the other platform. As we were doing this, the train whistled out. Bugger. We had to wait for another 15 minutes! I think Sparkles planned that. We had lunch at the Ferny Grove Tavern and got free coffee and cake with the meal. Boy were we full! Back to the station, caught the train to Bowen Hills where PK alighted and the south siders continued to Sunnybank, where Authur left, I left at Altandi and Kevin got off at Kuraby. All this for a total of $1.00 travel cost. My bus was just 7 minutes away and I was still full at dinner time. A great day.
On Sunday we had the Club Buy and Sell and I walked away with over $120 in sales. I may have purchased some items and also paid $20 for my usual table location. The weather held off, but buyers seemed to be down a bit. But there were plenty of bargains available.
Other activity next week, is the track from Rocklea Sidings to Sunnybank will get supports underneath it. I might even have trains running before next Sunday.
Thanks for sharing your build on the QR 2000 Class. It's been an interesting set of posts and open up the possibilities in scratch building. Being a novice, I would like to tackle something like this in the future, was there some resources you used to help get underway or was it a costly trial and error exercise. Also are you able to provide direct link for QR modeller's for the bogie type you have used? I looked at the site and become overwhelmed with the options. Thanks in advance, Little Shunter.
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