Mr. Morris

Hello All! so i recently bought the set depicted in the title (still unsure when it was made, will put a seperate post out to find this later) and as i was poking about inside it i found that one side of the pickups uses the chassis to conduct electricity to the motor, now i have an idea on how to DCC it but i thought i'd ask you lovely people in the DCC section how you'd go about it as ive not seen power go through the main chassis since the "Railways" was dropped from the hornby name. so for context as to which duchess i have, its one of the ones with the speedo attatched to the back wheels with the tender having an airfix railway system pre-NEM pocket, similar to what's in the dapol kits that are ex-airfix for the wagons and some hornby rolling stock pieces still using it like the ruston match truck, and its locodrive, i know for a lot of you you don't need this clarification but theres always one that will think i'm on about the tender drive one or earlier tri-ang ones heres a link to some images of the chassis, i would take soem myself but i don't want to take it apart too many times, delicate speedo and all that: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/hornby-china-6-duchess-class-complete-538508915 any insight into this would be greatly appreciated :)

ahh cheers, the quote block above is pretty much all i wanted to know :P as i know of the later track (the wider type you have in the photos supplied) being produced around the early 2000s as i saw it a lot in toysrus :P and ive got my head around the variations of the models of thomas produced in roughly the right order, brain just decided to send me on a spiral the other day becauseof the roof lever and that dream i had :P from what i'm gathering is my first clockwork set, despite having china track could well have been old thomas model stock? as i know when they produce models and toys and such they do tend to overproduce by a certain margin should replacements need sending out and what have you, so i could have had one of the held back ones, as i rebought the exact same set i remember having a few years ago and its the out the window lever, and even though i was happy to have the set again i always thought something was off yaknow?anyhoo, i'll leave the rambling here as i need sleep :P but i know one thing, i'm sorely tempted to have a go at 3D printing the rarest clockwork piece of all (purely for the challenge and usefulness of it) the playtrains diamond crossing, as i bought an ebay listing of a thomas and percy set (the beginning of this madness) because of said track piece :P never even knew it existed.CheersMr. Morris

Hello All, so this all starts with a young me, having a dream about the battery powered thomas being able to be powered like a tomica world engine instead of annie, and the switch was the same as that of the through the cab clockwork thomas, now i always assumed this was a discrepency of the dream as whenever i rationalised it the lever came out the side of the window as my first clockwork thomas set had the red twist together track, but after getting a thomas and percy set where the thomas has the through cab roof lever, and it looking identicle to the afformentioned dream its making me wonder when the red playtrains track was introduced, that and when the lever position changed from through thte roof to out the side window. if anyone can help on this matter i'd greatly appreciate it as i have a fascination with the playtrains era clockwork thomas stuff, pre toby bill and ben's introduction with the weird track type cheers ~Mr. Morris