SDLgo9

When I was a nipper and 9v first came out, I used a Hornby-Dublo regulator fed from a Sinclair Spectrum 9v power supply - because both of those were things the family already had. Track connection was accomplished by poking the bare ends of wires into a track joint

Your choices aren't limited to red and black motors. You could also put a 12v power unit in a blue or yellow motor.

For lighting: at various times, I've used either a 1x6 prism brick (replacing the headlamp bricks, and set one stud further back) or LEDs. With the LEDs, I used red/green ones and a bridge rectifier, so they lit up yellow (red+green) when going forwards and red when going backwards. Red/yellow would have been easier but I couldn't source any then.

I'm piecing one together at the moment, but I'm taking the easy option: making the tender one brick higher so the hub fits inside it.

Here are a couple more from 241: The circus train from p84 that I mentioned above, and the double-track viaduct from p85.

I remember thinking at first that the world of 241 looked rather bleak without minifigures, though a few of the scenes have brick-built figures (such as the circus train at the bottom of page 84, or the station on page 70). But the lack of minifigs does open up the possibility of models that aren't at minifig-scale (such as the circus train on p84 again, the jet-powered train on page 27 or the microscale monorail on page 94). Since my original posting I've built some of the other 240 and 241 models, which can be found on my YouTube channel: 240, 241.

Did anyone make a case for 4.5v?

I was wondering last night about the practicalities of using a Power Functions LED set to light a 12v train. Obviously at the physical level it would need a modified cable, but I was wondering more about the electrical situation. If the LED set is designed for a maximum voltage of 9v, that implies it needs a series resistor when fed with 12v. Has anyone done this, and what resistance did you use?

I mean removing the entire armature + fixed magnet assembly, and putting it back the other way up. That way, if I remember my DC motor theory aright, the direction of current flow is the same but the poles of the fixed magnet are swapped, so the motor will turn in the other direction.

I think that it's possible that the motor could run backwards if the armature assembly had been removed from the chassis, and replaced with the fixed magnet the other way up. I have a vague recollection of that happening to me, when I was experimenting with a dismantled motor.

It doesn't look bad in the physical plastic, to my way of thinking. We didn't discuss 7755 before. Here it is in azure: I'm taking the alternative model to be some sort of maintenance vehicle, so it should be orange: And its little brother from 7777: I also thought the other day that the tank wagons 136 / 7813 / 7816 would have a lot of scope for recolouring. An Octan 7816 looks reasonably straightforward, but remembering how many different designs of tank wagon Hornby (for example) made, that's only scratching the surface.

I don't think there was an original one, either. The only stickers I can remember seeing used in 7777 were from the donor models (eg, '7760' for the maintenance vehicle on page 4) or from idea book 6000 (the circus scene). I've seen one third-party sticker sheet that consists of: * Stickers of a size to fit on train doors (company logo with '7777' underneath) * Smaller stickers with just '7777' * Two weight / water / coal capacity stickers of a size to suit weight bricks All in white. But no clown faces -- they're in the same vendor's 6000 sticker sheet.

Nice - the red/white/blue one reminds me of the 1960s style of tipper wagons. It looks like an orange 7720 would be possible (replacing the shutters with the style of grilles used in idea book 241), which I think would also look good on a works train. I also had a go at mocking up a 7750 in 30575 colours - sacrilege?

I experimented with green because I had a fair amount of it to hand - it works quite well replacing red in a lot of models (such as the big 7777 diesels, or the 7730 diesel shunter). And there are green train doors and 1x2x3 windows, which is helpful. It might have been considerably more challenging to try and replicate an 80s model in purple or lime green. There's a bit more freedom in 80s locomotives than coaches, because they often just need doors rather than doors and windows. I think there'd be even more freedom when recolouring blue-era models, because they tend to be built from generic bricks and don't require colour-limited doors and windows. I did try sketching the 7740 locomotive in LeoCAD to see if it could be done in 30575 colours. It looks possible: It might also work on 7750 or the 7777 Pacific, though I haven't tried to mock those up. Recolouring 7750 (or 7727, 7730) would be one way of avoiding the requirement for those black windows...

Thanks! If you don't like the idea of a Blacktron theme, you can always call it "4559 colours"