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Test piece of track weathered and painted. The weather has been a bit rubbish over the last two days so I’ve not been able to do much, except make a start on the viaduct. This is a Wills plastic kit that I’m probably going to fill with resin. I need to extend the piers too. Hopefully I can get some more track laid soon.

Hi Chris, I think I saw your light improvements on the 158 some time ago and decided to have a go at the same time as DCCing my own. Though I don't have an electronics degree or qualification in any form so it is nowhere near yours in quality. I also used this webside as a guide. I wasn't bothered about day or night, happy with just day lights so that is all it has. It has been in for repair ( re-soldering a lead to a pickup) so I took some photos. Being an early Scotrail 158, it needed the original lighting configuration. It is actually my first go at re-lighting anything so more of a learning experience than anything else. Some things I am happy with and others need further improvement. Like you did, standard on the left and modified on the right. I'm happy with the intensity and lower light bleed on the tail lights compared with the standard, the power car has a bit more bleed than the trailer (shown) which I think is down to me not being thorough with blacking up the LEDs and also one LED sticking out a bit further - leaving the lighthouse LEDs a fraction recessed seems a little better. On the head lighting, I don't have a massive selection of LEDs so tried to create the rectangular marker light at the outside of the left cluster by cutting down the original yellow LEDs. I then used a warm white lighthouse LED for the headlamp. This has worked OK, the photo makes it look brighter than it is in reality but I'd still like to reduce the intensity further. I think that might be 2kR already from memory, modern LEDs seem much more efficient so need more resistance I guess. When I cut down the lighthouse LED to fit, I used the offcut glued into the night headlamp space as a fake lens to finish it off. The pictures before it goes back to my Dad. I know he was involved with the project at BREL (I think his team costed the bid, I'll have to ask him). He'll be happy to have it back working anyway.