RMRED

Thanks for the tip - I've had a look in the bits that came with the loco and found a sleeve for the decoder, so plan to attach the sleeve to the tender body so I can slp the decoder into it, out of harms way, as I put the body back on. Thanks again - Richard

Wel, it gets more interesting .... For the R8249 I can read CV's 1, 3, 4, 7, 8 OK but CV's 2, 5, 6 give the XXX readback! Looking at the R8249 decoder sheet CV's 2, 5, and 6 aren't listed so 96RAF has hit the nail on the head - its bonkers not having these available. Shame I didn't know before I bought it, simply didn't occur that what are, to my mind, basic settings aren't available. I have another 2 locos, each fitted with Dapol imperium decoders and can read the CV's off those with no issues. It runs differently with the decoder fitted as well - on DC it runs smoothly at all sppeds, from very slow through far too fast! With the dCC chip in though, it still creeps well enough, but at a slow running speed its not constant, makeit go a bit faster and its as smooth as anything. But I prefer the slower speeds. So if anyone knows of a decoder that works a bit better for my R2980 County of Radnor 1908 Olympics set I'd be very interested.

Controller is Hornby Elite. When trying to read CV's from my R8249 decoder I get the value "XXX" instead of the CV value. The Elite manual says to check the decoder instructions. But the decoder insruction sheet doesn't give a clue! How can I read the CV values? Thanks - Richard Addendum: I'm using Direct mode.

Just fitted an R8249 decoder to my county class loco. The problem is best illustrated by the attached photos - the decoder is on the ends of a bundle of wires, with a spare (purple)one floating about. At present its temporarily encased in its antistatic bag for protection - but how do I secure it in place and protect the components? I'm reluctant to tape it over (warnings on the decoder installation sheet) or use heatshrink due to the risk of damage. Clearly I can't leave it unprotected or flapping about either! Any pointers anyone?

Thankyou - have looked at the Dapol wheels, about half the price (20 instead of 10 axles/pack), and since I have 4 coaches to sort out that may be the way to go! (Plus some other s/h wagons that I haven't tested but which clearly have the square axles and thick wheels). Interestingly, some suppliers are showing them as discontinued, and Dapol's website shows an interesting article dated last year (which I found following your lead) about a new machine to make their own wheelsets ,which makes me wonder if some suppliers have older stock. Thanks for that - have adjusted my micrometer (and my brain) and re-measured at 12.6 mm. All-in-all I now have more knowledge from all the responses, than I had earlier today and I can move forward with this one, so heartfelt thanks to you all. Now for to find the next problem ...

Just been looking at the hornby website, the "good" wheels look like Hornby R8097, would these be correct? Or perhaps the R8096 (no holes) would also be a good replacement?

Thankyou Photos attached, in each case the "Bad" wheel is on the right, the "good" wheel is on the left. As you can see, the "Bad" wheel has a closer back-back than the good one, and I don't think it can be adjusted as far as I can see. The difference in wheel thickness is obvious! I thik also there's a smidgeon difference in axle length. I had a go a measuring the diameter, and I think there's about 0.5mm difference between the two ("Good" 13.1 v "Bad" 13.6). I'm not sure if my measuring technique is good enough, unless my micrometer has gone out of adjustment these seem like an odd size. Tried putting "good" axles onto a coach that derails, now works perfectly albeit with a tiny bit more lateral movement of the axle, so I think replacement is the way to go if I can identify the correct wheels Thanks - Richard

I've recently purchased a number of used carriages of varying types, however some of them derail on my points (Peco, some setrack and some streamline) while others work OK. The wheels on the ones that work look different to those on the ones that don't (they seem to be made of thicker metal). Is there a resource somewhere that will help me to indentify the correct wheelset? I could of course remove the axle from one that works, and travel across Brum with it to identify what I need, however best to be able to ring first to see if they have what I need in stock before hand! For example - My R413 (Operating LMS brake coach, which appears unused!) and R434(57' brake 3rd) derail, but most of the pullmans (except one) work OK on all points, so I guess its wheelsets from these that I need. Plus - to measure the diameter, what should I measure - across the flanges or just the flat face? Thanks - Richard

Now I know - couldn't find the number on the box!

Thanks for that, Shame the tool isn't included with the train pack!

I have a "London Olympics 1908" train pack, circa 2012, which includes a 4-4-0 County class loco "County of Radnor"., which is still in its DCC eady state. (Recently bought "used" however its pristine!) The instructions are a bit vague or this 73 year old, so could anyone help? First of all, what is the correct decoder for this model? (is it this one: https://uk.hornby.com/products/standard-8-pin-decoder-r8249 ) Secondly, the instructions state that all tender bodies are clip fit, and to remove, pull the body upwards. However I can't remove the body on mine - is there a knack to this e.g. pressing in on the side of the chassis somehow? Should I detach the tender from the loco, if so how? (If there's a video clip somewhere, that I haven't yet been able to find, a link would be appreciated) Thanks - Richard

I must admit, I'm struggling to see how and end-to-end shutlle - or any automated program - can work without positive detection of the loco's position. The distance any given loco on my layout travels in any given time depends on many factors - whether its going forward, or backward, or how long the loco has been running, whether the room is warm or cold, etc. etc. Timed processes just do not work accurately enough no matter how well you calibrate - or attempt to calibrate - the program timings. How can you have a train stop at a station, or switch points, without train detection ? It could be in the wrong place! I bought Railmaster with the objective of controlling and automating my locos centrally, yet this (coupled with the ability to invoke multiple scripts - or 'programs' - independently) is a major limitation to any form of full automation.

Railmaster Pro 1.70 r 2 When I invoke the Quick Select screen, then press a button for a loco, the control screen scrolls up to that loco and the quick select screen disappears. I am expecting the quick select screen to remain visible, and show moving locos in its bottom r-h corner (. Do I need to do something to make this happen?

I had a similar problem recently, caused by my de-registering the copy of railmaster on my laptop in favour of my old XP machine. When the XP machine went I had to get it deregisteed then re-register the laptop. HOWEVER the registration key on my laptops version was still visible on a panel which, as I remember, I invoked using the "?" button on the top. Worth a try?

I did try doing this directly via the resources.mdb database, however it must have a pecular setting on it that I am not familiar with. Basically, if you open the file directly using MS Access you it appears that there is only one loco in the database (I has 4 loaded at the time. If you make a copy of the database from within windows explorer, and then open that up you can see them all! But if you then delete the unwanted locos in the copy, ad copy it back to the original folder under the original name (having made a backup copy of the original just in case) you get spurious results - in my case, the deleted loco reappeared as a duplicate! More experimentation needed on this one I think. PS as they say "Don't try this at home!"