N gauge railway

My recently purchased second hand model "Schienenzeppelin" (rail Zeppelin). The original was an experimental railcar built in Germany in 1929. It achieved a top speed of 230.2 km/h, the speed record for a petrol powered rail vehicle.

My recently purchased second hand model "Schienenzeppelin" (rail Zeppelin). The original was an experimental railcar built in Germany in 1929. It achieved a top speed of 230.2 km/h, the speed record for a petrol powered rail vehicle.

The body and chassis are easily separated after sliding off the propeller.

There is a 10 mm x 20 mm cavity provided to fit a DCC decoder.

The circuit board has removable links to make it easier to fit a DCC decoder. The suppression components, which many decoder makers recommend removing, would still be in circuit though.

The main circuit board slides out in typical Kato style. Note the bridge rectifier feeding the front light so it is on whichever direction the railcar is travelling in.

The rear light is mounted on the spacer between the two chassis halves and can only be removed be separating them. One of the LED leads had broken, which is why the rear light wasn't working.

I replaced the rear LED with a 0603 size surface mount LED, crudely soldered to the series resistor and a flying lead to connect to the DCC decoder.

The two chassis halves ready to reassemble.