VT 55

Trix and Trix-Express are trade marks and registered trade marks of Trix Modelleisenbahn GmbH & Co. KG, Göppingen/Germany. Trade marks or product names mentioned are trade marks or registered trade marks of the respective owners.

A journey to the Moosbach-Rheinheimer-Railway

3fahrt - Dream and fiction in 1:87

3fahrt

A journey to the Moosbach-Rheinheimer-Railway

Equipment of Moosbach-Rheinheimer Railway

3start

3fahrt

The Cantenary Maintenance VT 55 for Trix-Express is build of the old Günther Kit B 0555.

Facts:

· VT 55 of Deutsche Bundesbahn (German Railways)

· Günther Kit B055 (Die-Cast)

· Length: 161 mm

· Weight 403 g

· Günther gear kit B055/1 Bühler Engine, flywheel, two wheel drive

· 11mm Trix-Express wheels, 1 traction tire

· LED-lamps (self-made)

· NEM/ NMRA RP 9.1.1 medium interface

· Lenz DCC Decoder Silver

· Weathering

· The work platform and pantograph can be raised, lowered, and turned manually.

VT 55

Catenary Maintenance Rail Car for Trix-Express (2010)

All Pictures 2010 © H. Fengel

Technology:

The reconstruction to the Trix-Express-System was done with Trix-Express wheel sets from Ton Jongen (2 x 33339010 (66690) Zapf.L. 11mm Metal isolated/Metal not isolated). The changes needed cutting on the gear platform to make room for the Trix Express wheels (Picture above). The Günther Kit is already prepared for a Märklin 3-Rail picking shoe. The original gear set needs to changed into the gear box frame to make room for the Trix Express wheel set. Take care at this work to prevent the gearbox frame from bending out of shape. I have used small hard wood pieces inside the gearbox. The isolated driving wheel got for better traction a cutting for a traction tire

Building the kit:

To work with this die cast kit, i degreased all parts with lighter/washing fuel. After a checking of matching of the parts i have glued them with Uhu Plus.

I put the parts into the sun to increase the temperature above 40 degrees and increased so the solidity of the clueing.

The parts fitting well and needs little or no work. For the decals it is recommended to use decal softener (Gassner, Conrad)

DCC Operation

For the DCC operation, I built in an 8-pin NEM interface to install later a decoder with functions for sound and animation.

For now a Lenz Silver decoder was selected. The decoder fits into the case without any cuttings on the frame, only the DC motor contacts of the connector board had to be removed together with the capacitor and the inductor. The decoder was installed according to the instructions and requires no changes at the CV settings (except for the address CV3) in this locomotive

Technology:

Beside the changes for the Trix-Express system i want to upgrade this kit with DCC control and weathering. The VT-55-Kit was purchased for 100 Euros „out of the bay“ and has good driving behaviour.

To colour this engine I want to use the first time the new paintbrush equipment

The colours I have used (from www.Conrad.de):

Revell Basic Color Primer

Elita

- RAL3002 Carmine Red Life Colours 53 002

- RAL 9006 White Aluminium Life Colours 59 006

- RAL 9005 Jet Black Life Colours 59 005

- Semi-gloss varnish Life Colours 50 070

- Thinner Life Colours 51 001

Changes on the Günther platform B 055/1 for Trix-Express

· Headlights, tail lights and driving lights were logical connected together (13 SMD-LEDs).

· Working area interior lighting (3 SMD LEDs) is placed on F1.

· Outdoor work lights (6 LEDs) on F2.

· For the outside working lights I used four 0603 SMD-LEDs glued with super glue into lamp bodys made of paper and connected in series with copper wire to a 1 kohm resistor.

· The two searchlights on the roof also got LEDs with 0603.

· I have used for all lights warm-white LEDs