Real Trains Plymouth and Riding Car Modifications
Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2019 5:16 pm
Hello all. I have been reading these forums for some time, but I've finally gotten around to posting something.
My father and I purchased Real Trains electric Plymouth number 0072, along with a three-seat riding car, in 2011. We have attended several meets since around 2010, but I don't remember seeing any other Plymouths out there, so I don't know how common the locomotives are, but maybe some of these ideas will help someone anyway. Information is useless unless shared.
One of the more recent modifications we made was to add ditch lights. The stock headlight is positioned on the front of the cab, which is pretty far back; as a result, the low hood casts a long shadow, obscuring the track immediately in front of the locomotive.
My father bored the housings, which are mostly straightforward and likely self-explanatory. Most of the depth is bored a close fit against the OD of the lamps; there is a shoulder on the front end to retain the lamps, which are held in place by a spring between the back of the lamp and the back of the housing. The mount is a piece of angle, which threads into Nylock nuts on the bottom of the locomotive base plate (running board?). The only thing not shown is the wiring: the wires pass through a hole in the bottom of the cylindrical housing, run just below the base plate/running board, and come up through the motor hole. The wires are just visible in the background of the first image, passing through into the cab alongside the thicker motor wires.
The ditchlights can be toggled between "Auto" and "Off" using what used to be the Brake switch on the handheld locomotive controller. The original 3-position Brake switch was replaced with a 2-position switch we had lying around (I do not know the part number or manufacturer). Additionally, if the headlight switch is set to "Dim", the ditch lights cannot be turned on.
When on, the ditch lights are controlled by an Arduino microcomputer (a long-standing joke my father makes is that a young person's solution to every problem - from powering a light to drilling a hole - is to "Put a computer on it", and yet he always seems to be the first to reach for the ATTiny ), which was originally programmed to flash for 30 seconds after the bell or horn was actuated. This duration proved too long, so we shortened it to 20 seconds. It seems not all FRA regulations scale equally.
Since the ditch lights were going to be LEDs, we went ahead and replaced the original halogen headlight with an LED as well. The entire project has been a wonderful success: the ditch lights illuminate just about everything in front of the locomotive, and the replacement lamp draws much less power for the same illumination. The part numbers are given in the control circuit diagram.
I will make a video of the lights flashing once we have the locomotive back together. It is currently apart for a motor controller replacement project, which I will document more when it is finished (the new controller is in the mail).
edit: as a side note, I realized after submitting that I'd forgotten to resize the pictures before uploading them. I will try to remember to do that in the future.
My father and I purchased Real Trains electric Plymouth number 0072, along with a three-seat riding car, in 2011. We have attended several meets since around 2010, but I don't remember seeing any other Plymouths out there, so I don't know how common the locomotives are, but maybe some of these ideas will help someone anyway. Information is useless unless shared.
One of the more recent modifications we made was to add ditch lights. The stock headlight is positioned on the front of the cab, which is pretty far back; as a result, the low hood casts a long shadow, obscuring the track immediately in front of the locomotive.
My father bored the housings, which are mostly straightforward and likely self-explanatory. Most of the depth is bored a close fit against the OD of the lamps; there is a shoulder on the front end to retain the lamps, which are held in place by a spring between the back of the lamp and the back of the housing. The mount is a piece of angle, which threads into Nylock nuts on the bottom of the locomotive base plate (running board?). The only thing not shown is the wiring: the wires pass through a hole in the bottom of the cylindrical housing, run just below the base plate/running board, and come up through the motor hole. The wires are just visible in the background of the first image, passing through into the cab alongside the thicker motor wires.
The ditchlights can be toggled between "Auto" and "Off" using what used to be the Brake switch on the handheld locomotive controller. The original 3-position Brake switch was replaced with a 2-position switch we had lying around (I do not know the part number or manufacturer). Additionally, if the headlight switch is set to "Dim", the ditch lights cannot be turned on.
When on, the ditch lights are controlled by an Arduino microcomputer (a long-standing joke my father makes is that a young person's solution to every problem - from powering a light to drilling a hole - is to "Put a computer on it", and yet he always seems to be the first to reach for the ATTiny ), which was originally programmed to flash for 30 seconds after the bell or horn was actuated. This duration proved too long, so we shortened it to 20 seconds. It seems not all FRA regulations scale equally.
Since the ditch lights were going to be LEDs, we went ahead and replaced the original halogen headlight with an LED as well. The entire project has been a wonderful success: the ditch lights illuminate just about everything in front of the locomotive, and the replacement lamp draws much less power for the same illumination. The part numbers are given in the control circuit diagram.
I will make a video of the lights flashing once we have the locomotive back together. It is currently apart for a motor controller replacement project, which I will document more when it is finished (the new controller is in the mail).
edit: as a side note, I realized after submitting that I'd forgotten to resize the pictures before uploading them. I will try to remember to do that in the future.