Modernise your 4.5V trains.

[John Hill]

We started our LEGO train collection about 40 years ago when 4.5V trains were the current art!

Buying batteries became a bit stale as the years went by and those little trains tended to stay on the shelf until I made a few 'improvements'. The first thing I did was replaced the 3 'C' size batteries with 4 'AA' size NiCds which were a very good substitute having slightly higher voltage but not excessively so. This hack does require a bit of traumatic surgery if you want to continue to use the battery cars but I was eventually able to live with myself!

The next 'improvement' was to fit copper contacts under the battery cart so that I could park the train on a section of 12V conductor track and recharge the batteries without taking them out of the battery box.

Then one night while watching TV I thought of another 'improvement'! I found a relay of the kind that is made to fit in the same socket as a 14pin IC, these are quite small and can be had with 5V coil. I fitted the relay in the battery box with the coil connected to the DC side of a small rectifier and the AC side of that was connected to the underneath contacts. I wired the relay so that when the coil was not energised the battery was connected to the train motor and when the coil was energised the motor was disconnected and the rechargeable battery was connected to the DC side of the rectifier.

With this system I could use a simple timer circuit to control power (about 7V) to the conductor rails of which I had just one section at the LEGO train station. With a charged battery the train runs until it gets to the station and when the contacts hit the live conductor rail the relay opens to stop the train and the battery begins to take a charge, when the timer cuts the power to the rail the relay closes and the train heads out.

If you have 4.5V trains sitting on the siding I trust you will find these ideas useful.

P.S. the rectifier does not mean that you need AC on the conductor rail, it is just there so that the train can be facing either direction and still charge properly.

[dundarach]

Nice post thanks.

I did something similar, however not wanting to move too far from the authentic 4.5v experience I simply bought C cell rechargeables and modded a PF receiver to work with the stock 4.5v motor block.

Now have two lovely little 0-4-0 steam shunters using PF whilst keeping everything original :)

Have you some photos, would love to see...