How to build battery locos for your garden railway - Part 2 - Modifications and conversions

This is part 2 of a series of posts exploring the construction of battery powered locos for garden railways. It is unashamedly UK focused, mainly because I am based in the UK and prefer to write from first hand experience. The other parts of the series are:

• Part 1 - Kits
• Part 3 - Semi-scratchbuilding
• Part4 - Scratchbuilding (pending)
• Part 5 - 3D printing

In this part of the series, we will explore:

• Modifying kits
• Modifying toys
• Modifying and converting commercially available track-powered locomotives
• Modifying and converting live steam and clockwork locomotives

Making modifications to pre-existing locomotives can be a very cost-effective and rewarding way of extending your fleet of locomotives - particularly if you want something different or unique running on your railway but don't have the skills or confidence to scratchbuild a loco.

Modifying kits

You will have seen in Part 1 of this series, that there is a range of kits available in the UK (and beyond) which can be quite modestly priced and fairly easy to construct. Once you have built a basic loco following the instructions, opportunities arise to make changes or add enhancements. If you are feeling confident, you might even consider changing the appearance more drastically during the construction process.

Enhancing a kit

Suppliers of kits usually acknowledge that the constructor will want to further detail their kits and some of them (eg Garden Railway Specialists) supply a range of additional detailing parts for locos. Some suppliers specialise in providing detailing parts such as Cambrian Models, SLR Models and LocoWorks.

Enhancements can include adding exterior details such as the buffers, louvres, handrails and exhaust pipe on my HGLW diesel loco kit.

The buffers came from Binnie Engineering, the louvres are from a fly-screen sent to me by my mate in Australia, while the handrails and exhaust pipe were made from scratch. For more information see How I detailed my HGLW diesel loco.

Further details such as a toolbox, re-railing jacks, a horn or whistle, pipework, vacuum pipe connectors, a driver and cab interior details can further improve the appearance of a basic loco kit. These can be purchased from the above suppliers, made from scratch or modified from 'found' items, such as this safety valve for a steam loco which I made from the handlebars of a 50p model motorbike, a self-tapping screw and a small piece of brass.

Modifications

Modifications involve changing the appearance of a kit, either subtly or in a more substantial way. For example, when I constructed the model of a plate frame Simplex loco from IP Engineering, I decided to remove the non-prototypical mounting for the on/off switch on the side of the loco, 

.....with some detailing made from plasticard and Cambrian Models bolt heads, based on photos I'd taken of a real Simplex loco at the Devon Railway Centre,

In addition, I added a cab and a toolbox, also made primarily from plasticard.

A modification I made to an IP Engineering Albert loco ....

..... was cutting-down its cab to give more clearance when entering the crushing shed. This modification also required the addition of some cab detailing parts which were obtained from Cambrian Models.

Of course, modification might include a complete make-over from the kit's original appearance such as this transformation of one of Phil Sharples basic kits, from this .....

Source: https://philsharples.com/shop/ols/products/small-sharp-stuart-0-4-0-locomotive-kit

..... to this.

Source: https://philsharples.com/gallery

Modifying Toys

There are quite a few toys available for modest prices which could be motorised and battery-powered. Unlike conversions of track-powered locos (see below), toys sometimes provide you with a suitable body shell but no appropriate mechanism.

Requiring no conversion but maybe some modification, Playmobil trains are a good candidate for extending your battery loco fleet. They are (at the time of writing) no longer available but have come in various styles over the years and can be bought secondhand on eBay and similar online platforms.

An easy toy modification is to find a cheap model train which is designed to run on 32mm or 45mm gauge track. These are sometimes sold as Christmas themed train sets.

They are often fairly cheaply constructed and so their mechanisms won't withstand a great deal of heavy usage, but they do provide a cost effective entry-point for your battery loco collection. You may need to do some work on the loco body to make it look a little less toy-like. At the time of writing, this was available on AliExpress for around £40GBP plus £8GBP postage to the UK.

Another possible source for easily adaptable locos is Lego-compatible trains, such as these (also available from AliExpress).

They vary in price from around £25GBP (including shipping) to £140GBP.

If you are prepared to do some work by using a cheap motorised chassis from, say IP Engineering, Phil Sharples, HGLW or Essel Engineering or even make your own chassis, then you might be tempted by toys such as this Postman Pat Greendale Rocket train.

The model is approximately the right scale for 16mm and G Scale garden railways and has been converted by several modellers to run on their tracks. For example:

Or if you are feeling a bit more adventurous ......

My own experience with converting a toy to run on my railway is the modification of a Sylvanian Families wedding car.....

.... into a rail-car ......

.... using a cheap worm gearbox motor mechanism.

For more information see - How I constructed a car railcar

Tony Bird is probably the most accomplished and extensive converter of toy models for his garden railway and I can recommend browsing through his YouTube Channel for inspiration.

Conversions

My idea of a conversion is to start with a finished loco such as one which has been manufactured by a company such as Bachmann or LGB and converting it from track power to battery power. Less common, but certainly feasible, would be a conversion from live steam or clockwork to battery power. In addition, such conversions could also include enhancements and modifications.

Straight conversions

Over the years, I have converted a range of locomotives to battery power; either for my own use or for fellow modellers. A very common conversion is the LGB Stainz locomotive which is included in their various Starter Sets or can be bought separately in various guises.

They often turn up on eBay, though sometimes sell for ridiculously large sums as some variations are quite collectible.

At the time of writing, I wouldn't be prepared to buy one for more than £70 or £80GBP for a secondhand Stainz loco.

The loco is very easy to convert to battery power as it has a power socket at the back of the cab which can be used to provide lighting for coaches but which can alternatively be used to feed power to the motor. 

A very basic conversion can easily be achieved by connecting the socket to a battery pack carried in a wagon, van or coach coupled to the rear of the loco.

As well as the batteries, the trail-car could include a basic manual or a radio control system - See How I converted a Stainz loco to battery power. Apart from the ease with which the conversion can be carried out, a key advantage of using a trail-car is that one could be used to power and control a range of locomotives by simply unplugging it from one loco and plugging it into another. However, there are drawbacks. Firstly, if you want to run the loco into a terminus and then run around its train for the return journey the loco will end up between trail-car and the rest of the train. More importantly, if the electrical pick-ups aren't removed from the wheels, the power supplied to the loco's motor will also be sent through the wheels to the track - which might cause some interesting and unexpected problems when other locos try to use the same stretch of track.

To overcome these problems, somewhere needs to be found in the loco body to house the batteries so the trail-car can be discarded. I found there is plenty of room on the cab floor of the Stainz loco for a small lithium-ion battery pack.

The second problem is relatively easily solved by removing the pick-up wipers. On most track-powered locos, this is accomplished by removing the bottom plate on the base of the loco and extracting the pick-ups and connectors which are usually a push-fit.

For more information see How I converted an LGB Stainz loco to battery power - Part 2

The process of converting track-powered locos to battery power is virtually the same regardless of the loco:

1. Dismantle the loco
2. Remove the track pick-ups
3. Find somewhere to install the batteries
4. Wire-up the batteries to the motor through a switch and either a manual speed controller or a radio controlled electronic speed controller (ESC)
5. Re-assemble the loco.

From my experience, the main difficulties are working out how to dismantle the loco (sometimes there are hidden screws or lugs which need to be sprung open) and finding sufficient room for the batteries. I now make my own lithium-ion battery packs as I can configure them to fit into the available space(s). Lithium-ion packs are much smaller than other battery packs because each cell holds 3.7v rather than the 1.2v or 1.5v other cells hold. However, you must do your homework before attempting to construct your own battery packs as you might not only ruin your model, you could burn down your house if you handle them incorrectly. For more information see - An introduction to batteries for model trains.

For more examples of battery conversions see:

• How I converted a Bachmann Lyn to battery power
• How I converted a Piko DB BR80 tank loco to battery power
• How I converted a Dapol 0 gauge terrier tank loco to battery power

... and there are several similar accounts to be found on the internet. For example:

• A dummies' guide to converting a loco to battery power
• Convert engines to battery power
• Conversion to battery power

Conversion and modification

As discussed above, a straight conversion does not need to be the end of the process. Once a loco has been converted to track power it can be further enhanced or modified to personalise the loco or, in my case, to make it more suitable for a 1930s UK-based railway.

Some examples of my own conversion-modifications include:

Anglicising my LBG Stainz loco

From ....

.... to.

For more information see - How I Anglicised an LGB Stainz loco

Modifying an LGB Otto

From ......

.... to.

For more information see How I converted an LGB Otto into a Black Hawthorn saddle tank

Bashing an LGB ToyTrain diesel loco

From ......

..... to.

See -  How I Anglicised an LGB ToyTrain diesel loco

In reality, the only limitation to such conversions is your imagination, your expertise and your confidence. In reality I have found it's far more related to confidence than anything else - any expertise which I have gained over the years has been developed simply by having a go, making mistakes (many many mistakes!) and learning from them.

Converting live steam and clockwork locos

To be honest, this is something I have not (as yet) tried. The main reason has been the lack of availability of donor locomotives. Live steamers tend to be very expensive. Even the lowest priced secondhand live steamers (eg Mamod) can fetch around £200GBP in even tatty condition.

In an ideal world, I would find one with a dodgy boiler in a car-boot or garage sale at a knock-down price.  I have seen such models converted to battery power and then modified to enhance their appearance.

Similarly, old clockwork locos can be converted to battery power, particularly if the clockwork mechanism has failed. It is possible to buy commercially produced electrically powered chassis for some old clockwork locos......

Source: https://www.collectors-club-of-great-britain.co.uk/articles/new-upgrade-service-for-old-clockwork-trains/

..... but it should be quite easy to make your own.

Conclusion

Converting and/or modifying (aka 'bashing') an existing model to run on your railway can be a cost-effective way of extending your fleet of battery locos. It can save you a fair amount of effort compared with building a loco from scratch though I have found from experience that, sometimes, it can be easier to start from scratch than trying to adapt something - as was the case with the LGB Otto conversion mentioned above. A lot depends on the level of realism you want to create. If you are happy for something like Postman Pat's Greendale Rocket to run on your railway in it's original form, then the conversion could be quite quick and easy. 

As has been said many times - it's your railway and you set the rules.

Battery powered locos survey - Final results

I created a simple and short online survey using Google Forms to inform a discussion I was having on the G Scale Central forum about battery powered locos and charging. 

Over the period of a week at the start of May 2022, 197 responses were received. Here is a summary of the results

As you can see, the majority of respondents have between two and five battery locos (45.2%) and a further 22.8% have between six and ten locos. 14.2% have just one loco, 4.6% have twenty or more locos and the remainder (15.2%) have between 11 and 20 locos. There seem to be a lot of battery powered locos out there!

The majority (55.8%) use NiMh battery packs but li-on (and LiPo) are becoming popular (47.6%). I was surprised that some (17.8%) are still using NiCd packs. A goodly proportion (18.3%) use non rechargeable batteries and 9.6% use lead acid - but this includes some respondents who have 5" gauge ride-on locos.

While the majority (35.1%) use two chargers, almost the same number (36%) use only one. 5.6% use three chargers, 7% use four, 2.5% use five and 2% use more than five. 3% have one per loco. Looking more closely at these six respondents - one of them has only one loco, two have 2-5 locos (hence 2-5 chargers), one has 6-10 locos and two people have over 20 locos (and therefore over 20 chargers...). These multiple charger users represent only 1% of the battery user fraternity responding to the the survey.

Six people (4%) have no chargers (presumably because they use non rechargeable cells) and one person has two locos with built-in chargers and uses a single charger for his (or her) remaining two locos.

The majority (46.7%) charge their locos when they know they are going to use them, while 32.5% charge them after each running session. Forty-seven people (23.9%) wait until their packs have run down before charging them and a further twelve people (6.1%) follow a schedule for charging their locos. Ten people say they use non rechargeables and so don't need a charger and five other individuals have their own systems for charging. One says he can't remember when he last charged his loco(s) as he hasn't run it for a while.

Nearly half of us (49.2%) have never needed to recharge our locos during a running session and a further 32% say this rarely happens. 15.2% say this happens occasionally with the remainder (3.6%) saying it happens often. Two of these individuals use non rechargeable batteries and so, presumably have to replace spent cells during running sessions. Three of those who often need to recharge their locos use NiMh packs, one uses li-ion and the other uses NiCd. One of the NiMh users says he struggles to keep his packs charged up during the winter months and so finds they need replacement the following year. Maybe he is not using Low Self Discharge (LSD) cells and so they don't hold their charge when not in use. Maybe the other users either have very small locos with limited capacity packs or they aren't topping up their packs before use. It is reassuring, however, that the vast majority of battery loco users never or rarely need to recharge their locos during running sessions.

Further to the above question, I was interested in whether this happened when the locos were fully charged before the session. As you can see, 55.8% say that it never happens, 21.8% say it rarely happens, 20.3% say it happens occasionally and four poor individuals say it happens frequently. I investigated these four and found that two have all their locos equipped with NiCd batteries. As we know, NiCd cells have memory problems and so don't always fully recharge. Another has two to five locos and uses non-rechargeables and li-ion with one charger and the other has 20+ locos, uses a mix of non rechargeables, NiMh and li-ion with five chargers.

So why do the respondents use battery powered locos?

It seems that the majority of us (55.3%) run battery locos because they don't need a lot of preparation - the majority of these (70%) also have live steam locos but 12.5% run trains using DC track power. The next most popular reason is that it obviates the need for track cleaning (28.4%), while 20.8% tried other forms of power and decided battery suited their needs better. 16.8% wanted a battery loco to rescue live steam locos. Five people mentioned that is was something that kids or grandkids could use and eight said that battery power better suited diesel or i/c outline locos.

As you can see, the vast majority of respondents (70.1%) use battery locos alongside their live steam locos, though 19.3% run them with their track powered fleet (in a couple of cases to clean or clear the track prior to running their track powered locos). I was interested to see that fourteen people also use clockwork locos and four have live diesel or petrol. For 18.8%, their sole means of power on their railways are battery locos.

Additional comments

Many thanks to all those who contributed. Based on feedback and my own curiosity, I have compiled a more generalised follow-up survey which aims to fill some of the gaps missed by this one (eg what control systems do people use) and also to explore some of the issues further - eg why do people use more than one charger?

Below are the comments which people added at the end of the survey. I have removed those who responded with "No" I have nothing further to all - and corrected a few typos for clarity (and because I used to be a teacher)!

If you want to contribute to the follow-up survey, it can be found here - https://forms.gle/P6DCJbb7r7c3CQoP9

• I am probably a 'special' case?
• My garden railway covers a lengths of 50m and this way I can follow my trains with the remote as needed
• My battery ‘loco’ is actually a railbus, though it can trail a light wagon.
• I have problems keeping batteries alive during the winter non running season. I often find they don't last so long the following year. It's very frustrating
• Three quarters of my battery locos are diesel outline, so battery is the best option.
• Battery rc can be retrofitted to (most) commercial locos giving the same performance as track power, often simplifying electrical sectioning, isolating and reverse loop wiring. Many of the DCC type sound functions can also be replicated if the rc set is chosen appropriately.
• Loco is a 5inch diesel using 2 batteries
• All my battery-power locos are also r/c.
• I get just as much (usually more!) pleasure out of running battery engines than live steam
• I use RailPro with my battery systems
• Several of my locos and railcars have been converted to switchable two rail / battery power.
• You don't ask about the controller.
• I can build battery locos, but not live steamers, I don't have the tools or skills needed.
• I have a spare battery set so that there is no delay when battery needs recharging.
• All diesel profiles
• Any one who thinks DCC is better than RC is clearly just an Internet Troll
• I have moved towards kit built and scratch built battery powered locos from LGB/Bachman track powered. I still run my track powered locos, but I need to use a battery powered one to haul a track cleaning wagon round if I wish to run track powered. I would now say I use battery powered the most, then live steam and track powered the least
• I recharge at shows when I am running all weekend
• Wish you luck with your decision
• Use Railpro with my batteries
• Have been using battery power and radio control for over 40 years, with no significant problems.
• Using Lipo and smart charging has been a steep learning curve, I lost one kit built loco and Deltang RX to a fire whilst on board charging, fortunately it was in a clear area in a garage.
• I also wanted a diesel sound, so added a sound card
• Arthritic hands mean that I am increasingly not able to lift heavy live-steamers.
• They work better with sound.
• Please share the results. Thanks.
• A lot less hassle and maintenance of the electrical power connections between rails especially on a large layout.
• Drive the Loco, not the track.
• After many years I've found battery/radio control the best combination for me.
• I use battery cars
• LiPo’s give you a lot of power, but you need to follow the charging/storage voltage rules
• All of my battery-powered locos are also RC and sound equipped, much to the delight of visitors. However, I have no electronic skills, so I must rely on help or paid service for repairs.
• Battery locos are just a part of my stock not exclusive.
• Also have NiMh batteries for R/c in live steam locos.
• Migrating from DC track power (Crest 10 amp RC Train Engineer) to battery/RC. I run anything from an 0-4-0 16mm scale to 2-8-2 15 mm scale, mostly all metal construction. I have 2 chargers as some battery packs are over 14.4v. Battery packs are mostly AA cell size, between 10 and 14 cells. All locos run with sound on and smoke where fitted. Some are using ESU DCC combined ESC and sound cards for operation. My line being mainly in full or part shade and with sporadic usage made track cleaning on a regular basis pretty much mandatory. I even regularly used a track cleaning truck during a running session.
• I have in the past used live steam on a circuit of track. Now my line is end to end which would not suit live steam and I am perfectly content with just one small battery loco.
• I have 45mm and 5" gauge locos. If you discount the 5" take off 2 chargers and the petrol/ lead acid and reduce locos to 5 and I do not use electric to rescue 45mm steamers.
• Battery power is always useful if you have children who would like to run trains but are too young to operate steamies.
• Rechargeable battery electric and LocoRemote WiFi control is the simplest method inside and out.
• I previously ran track power (DC) only. Recently, I converted all of my locos to battery power using R/C airplane electronics and airsoft batteries, which not only eliminates the need to clean the track, but also allows me to use reverse loops with no special wiring.