Old Kent Biker

I have - a train! Yesterday, a Fisons sulphuric acid tanker arrived, and today, a Toad E brake van! Just need a loco now, a few more wagons, and my Inglenook is good to go... In the absence of a Hornby steam shunter, my choice at the moment is a Class 08, although that is a bit modern for my liking.

@cm said "But having received some laser-burnt MDF ones, I think they are too high." Are you mounting the track on cork underlay? This may take up the difference in platform height.

MTB point motors are very good with low profile (underboard), quiet, slow action, and flexible DC/DCC wiring options. Not the cheapest, but very good value I think. Czech-made, they are available from several UK suppliers https://www.mtb-model.com/pages/prestavniky.php?lang=en

The Graham Farish Class 08 is available with DCC sound - in N gauge! to be fair, that doesn't have the HM7000 wifi, but it could, I'm sure it could have been done. Perhaps given time, and once the initial surge has died down, Horby will be able to revisit this, either through redesigning the chassis or shrinking the decoder... In the meantime, however, I'm happy to make do without sound!

So what SHOULD we drop locos onto? Would a wooden floor be better?sweat_smile

Are the three named coaches in the Scotsman starter kit available separately as lit versions?

This is obviously a silly question, but looking at the "coming soon" list, I noticed two diamond-crossing track parts - one left-hand and one right-hand. What on earth is the difference?

To be fair, quite a lot of experienced OO modellers are embracing TT as an addition to their existing hobby, but yes, it is a crying shame that there is a lot of vitriol aimed at TT120 just because it dares to be new and different. (including from TT 3mm modellers). My response to them would perhaps be "at least my wheels are the correct distance apart!" :)

There is a class 08 TXS sound file already (or very soon) available - it's used by the OO scale 08

Not exactly a cheap option, but for a shunting operation, perhaps you could get a HM7000 sound decoder as well as the 6-pin version for the loco, install the second chip and speaker statically near the shunting yard, then run the two on the app as a consist? Just an idea...

Has anybody compared these errant Hornby curves with the Tillig equivalent? I believe they are supposed to be the same geometry.

Have you looked on Shapeways? It's a pain to search, but I've seen a few gates in 00 and N, the designers can be contacted and may be able to resize to TT scale.

The Metcalfe official Facebook group is at https://www.facebook.com/groups/164503870960532 I have mentioned it there in a few replies to posts. They recently had a poll on what new kits people would like to see...

@96RAF said "One aid to achieve this is the motor auto-tune facility. Set CV149 to 0 then with the loco pointing down a longish bit of track - hit F0 and the loco will race off at max chat, then stop. CV149 and various other CVs will be written with appropriate values for the motor." How long is longish? Is there enough straight track in a train set? I can see numerous "Blink Whitelaws" crashing off the end of the line... :(

There are already other systems that employ Bluetooth with DCC (Sountraxx Blunami for one example) but they do use their own protocols, as BT is not included in the NMRA DCC standards. I would expect HM7000 to remain proprietory for some time to come.