EuroNight / EuroCity / InterCity

 

While creating the train formation from Vagonweb or from other sources, there are many formations from EuroNight or EuroCity, or even "named" trains. 

 

EuroNight

 

 

EuroCity

InterCity

 

Here are the links for further reference:

• Train categories in Europe - beyond EN, EC, or IC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_categories_in_Europe
• List of EuroNight trains: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroNight
• List of EuroCity services: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_EuroCity_services and https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroCity
  
• InterCity - list of IC trains in Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterCity
• List of named passenger trains of Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_named_passenger_trains_of_Europe
  

 

DB research: Bcm 243 / Bcom 246 & logo

 

A couple of notes as I'm doing research on various European formations ...

 

Bcm 243 / Bcom 246

How to distinguish those two passenger cars? The Bcm 243 is an older variation and doesn't have air conditioning, so the roof is completely flat. The Bcom 246 is newer and equipped with A/C, so there's a ventilation grille on the roof above the 2nd window - see below

Bcm 243 - ACME 90145

Bcom 246 - ACME 55296

 

Old DB / New DB AG logos

In 1994, DB changed - almost overnight - all the logos on its rolling stocks. The old DB logo refers to the West Germany national company, whereas the new one is after the merge of DB and DR, resulting on DB AG. Therefore, it is very very rare to see cars mixed with different logos - there should always be consistent!

Deutsche Bundesbahn - before 1994

Deutsche Bahn - after 1994

Closed for winter

 

http://www.nic.funet.fi/index/pics/railways/Czech/electric/index.html

 

PKP EP08-009 and MÁV V43-1282

 

Recently purchased two new engines.

 

PKP EP08-009

 

MÁV V43-1282

 

Z 24500 NPDC en livrée d'origine

 A while back, I purchased body shells of a Z24500 from Jouef, since the actual train set is almost impossible to find. I had the shells done to match the original livery. I then changed the body from a set I got with a livery I'm not interested in.

 

Prototypical EMU

Here are some pictures from the real thing:

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/hhhumber/5474243189/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/16412147@N08/8666123100/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/plzen242/49358365702/

 

Miniature Model 

Here's what I got made for me:

Here's the set I'm going to convert:

It's the reference Jouef HJ2122. It's the Métrolor livery for the Lorraine region. The body shell came with no pantograph, so I had to unscrew them from the Métrolor  body to the other one. It was very straight forward.

I added the two ESU decoders from Train Modelisme and some figurines as well. Here's the result:

 

Videos 

Interior lighting for Z 24500 - part 6 of 6

In the previous post, I successfully installed the ESU lighting strips in the intermediary car of my Z24500. Shortly after I removed the "old" LED strip from the two other cars thinking it would be now easy to upgrade with the ESU lighting strips.

I did the tear down and started looking into the ESU strips. As it turned out, there's very little head space in those cars because of the decoders and also in the upper section.

I left that project quite literally collect dust for many months, until today. As I was working on another Z24500 with the original livery, I came to the decision that I will not waste more time on that and gave up on adding the ESU strips.

As we stand today, that Z24500 has only the intermediary car with the ESU trip. I might, at some point, come back to it and reinstall the "old" LED strip. We'll see ....

 

Custom test bench - part 13: another switch for DCC-EX

 I realized a side effect of my recent upgrades on my test bench. When I use the ESU LokProgrammer on Track 1 or 2, the signal goes into the Arduino and starts the DCC-EX command station, and then it is a big mess! So the power switch to the Arduino was not enough.

For a while, I disconnected the track connectors from the Arduino, but it makes it cumbersome to put them back when I want to use JMRI since they are enclosed in a box.

I purchased a 4PDT switch to cut both wires from both tracks; probably an overkill ...

 Then, it's pretty easy wiring.

Before

Wires to the tracks

Wires to the Arduino

Reused an existing hole for the switch

The hole is a bit too big, but it works

MÁV V63 005

 I purchased this engine for my Avala and Drava formations. It came in DC and found a DCC Sound decoder from the Hungarian brand DigiTools that I ordered from Vasútmodell.

 

I found that the "extra" piece needed to be glued again by the buffer on the left side.

 

It wasn't easy to remove the body. I did follow the instructions; there are no screws or pieces to remove; it was just stuck and I had to force a little, but no damage was done!

 It took me a while, a long while, to figure out that the decoder was going underneath the main board. It was my mistake since it was actually written in the manual, but looking at the black plug from above, it seemed logical to put on the top rather than removing screws to put it underneath. Anyway ...

 

 

Everything works perfectly on this one (different from my PKP EU07). However, I cannot find out how to change the address from 3 to something else ...

 

PKP EU07-433 - part 1

I purchased this PKP model for several formations for the Ost West Express. It's a brand I didn't know about and from what I could read, they might have some issues during the manufacturing regarding lighting.

In any case, I got the model and only realized later on that the same store - modelcenter.pl - has the related decoder. But it was too late. Later on, as I was looking for a sound decoder for my MÁV Class V63, I found this vendor: digitools.hu. I bought two sound decoders, one for the PKP EU07 and one for the MÁV V63 from this store: vasutmodell.com.

 

 

As it turns out, the speaker is already installed. You can see the 2 black wires right above the decoder going underneath the main board. Under the black wires, it is written SP- and SP+.

I tried to change the DCC address with JMRI, but DigiTools does not have profiles in JMRI, even though it is a recognized manufacturer by the DCC standards - CV8 = 75. I tried to use a NMRA generic profile, but it didn't work.

I then tried to use the engine with the default address #3 and the engine did response to DCC commands. And the sound did work which confirmed that the speaker was indeed installed at the factory. That said, there must be a short somewhere because the DCC-EX would reboot and restart after a couple of seconds. Thankfully, everything is protected with DCC Concept modules.

More investigation required ...