Wobbley Junction

A model railway club would be my preference mainly because I'm a member of Preston & District MRS. The downside is they are all closed because of Covid, although several are hoping for exhibitions around October onwards. As RAF96 says some can be a bit cliquey, but the best thing to do is have a search of the internet for clubs in your area.

The previous layout I had was dc and about 17ft by 10. Double track split into isolated sections, I used cat5 network cable to distribute the power soldered directly to the rails. I never had any problems with voltage drop. My current (pun intended) layout is dcc using 2 core mains lighting cable for the bus and 7/02 for droppers.

I had a go at converting a Hornby Class 37 with the twin worm drive to DCC with a TTS decoder, wiring it was extremely fiddly and it kept cutting out or shorting on points. In the end I gave up and bought a Railroad 37 second hand at an exhibition. It runs perfectly even on speedstep 1/128. Daryl

Some of the members of Preston MRS have the Tornado set. They look pretty good, obviously they're not as detailed as the more expensive locos, but there's less to fall or get broken off! And in anycase when they're running round the track you'll be hard pushed to see differences. From memory they ran very smoothly and quietly except for the TTS versions they can be noisy. Just enjoy the experience Datryll

Glad to help, you'll also need a couple of white led's and resistors to replace the headcode lights, the advantage of using a harness comes into its own in this case as you dont have to solder anything onto the chip. Daryl

There's a very good video on U-tube about converting the Class 25 to dcc, I used it when I converted mine, but didn't put a sound chip in. You may find that any tts decoder might not be happy with the current draw of the old motor. I wired in a harness as there's plenty of room, then you wouldn't have to chop up an expensive decoder. I used a Zen Blue which seems to handle the current ok. Hope this helps Daryl

I can remeber making those kits when I was about 10 years old, (about 60 years ago). Why use superglue? Polystyrene cement would have saved you sticking your fingers together, I look forward to your video lol

As well as Anyrail you could have a look at Scarm, www.scarm.info I found it easier to use than Anyrail.

Yes 16.5mm. The scale is different though, HO = 1:87, OO = 1:76 Rog got there first Daryl

The set I got for Christmas probably 1958 or 9 had a black loco and 2 coaches with an oval of track on a grey 'roadbed/ballast' plastic base which locked together. It must have been quite expensive for my parents as we didn't get many other presents with it.

Thanks for the feedback, I've got a spare decoder so will definitely use it. LC&DR, my payment was refused so had to pay over the phone, apparently there was a glitch on their website, I kept getting a 'Braintree' error, they did send me an email though.

Just had my R1251M set delivered, it replicates (almost) the first train set my parents bought for me. Except the detailing is amazing. My dilemma: do I leave it in the box on display in our cabinet or add a dcc decoder and use it?

Hi Rob72, You could have a look at train-tech.com, they have some automatic train control systems that work on dc layouts.

Hi RAF96, I've just posted a jpg of the funcction list for the Class 66 TTS chip, but it hasn't appeared on the forum, any idea why?

Hi here are the functions for the Class 66 TTS/media/tinymce_upload/76083aae46e6ebc8cb8e7278e65da4c4.jpg