2020_09_17 part 2

 2020_09_17 (still)  Played with some lighting today as well.

Now some of you might rightly say that SAR ran large reflectors on their vans. However regulations in Victoria insisted that oil lamps or electric red lights be placed on the rear vehicle of all trains running in Victoria.

The easiest way of doing this,because SAR vans had electric generators fitted, was to replace the reflectors with electric lights and reflectors built into the red shades.

I guess these 8300 Class vans are among the earliest plastic models I purchased of Australian prototype.

Probably the best of the old Aussie Lima from the 70's.

Unfortunately the plug in bogies are unique to the 8300 and I will modify them if necessary. At the moment i will just see how they go.

These did a lot of miles at the Hobsons Bay club at Docklands Melbourne.

So I needed pickups. And I had some nice ones from Blacksmith, but could not find them. So I cut up some circuit board sleepers the width of the bogie frame. 

I was, however, prepared for the job, having bought some phosphor bronze wire for another project.

I tinned them.

measured out the length of the wipers.

connected wires.

superglue' the wipers to the bogies and let them dry. Before this I painted the interior of the vans with matt black, I hoped this would stop the light bleeding through.

 

Unfortunately the black paint was not good enough for the job on the yellow vans.

I found these globes to be too bright. Hopefully I can turn them down and the bleed will be taken care of.

I have two old red vans and these have been turned back to 2.3 volts, and look much better.

Cheers

Rod.