Barry-350851

Correct. Green into the 3rd one down, red and black in the top two as ntpntpntp said. Separately, If you are using the wiring you have shown for LED position indicators AND using on-off-on switches, the LEDs will only light when the switch is in an "on" position. There's no problem leaving them on though as the MP1 cuts power completely at the end of its travel.

On the wire thickness, my understanding is: Voltage drops and DCC signal degrades over distance Thicker wire means the signal and voltage degrades less fewer joins in the wire is better short lengths of thin wire are fine So on a typical longer layout, people use a thicker wire for their "bus" that goes around under the track and then the thinner wire is used for the "droppers" that attach the track to the bus. The thinner wire being easier to work with and hide when attached to the track. The droppers are usually kept quite short. The thin frog wire on the point is OK for what it needs to do but you wouldn't use it for any more than the few inches of length that it comes with. On the point wiring, it depends where you want to go with the layout. If you want to paint and ballast the track in the future or if you are happy with it bare. If you are leaving it bare then you can stick the insulated rail joiners on the V and leave it as it is. If in the future it stops working all you need to do is clean and adjust the contact between stock rail and switch blade. That way you can use the switch on the MP1 for your route indicator. If you are painting and/or ballasting then that can cause problems and it is better to modify the point so it is powered by the switch on the MP1. But then you won't have the switch on the MP1 free to use as a route indicator.

If Hornby was manufacturing or assembling models in the UK (they wouldn't have to manufacture everything or even every part) then, provided it wasn't substandard and of competitive detail/quality, I would be prepared to pay a premium for it. However, I'm not sure how many people would given historically people haven't supported British manufacturing despite having the choice to (then complained when it disappeared). I'm also, only now buying a small amount of rolling stock of what I really want rather than buying stuff I don't have the space for.

If you are able to solder to track, you definitely want to distribute power to a number of locations around the track rather than just one.

If you are using a bus and droppers, why do you have the clips in place?

I thought that was on the cards. I don't think the owner was in the greatest health, he was well beyond retirement age The opening hours had been getting shorter, the last few times I tried going it had closed early, well before the already shortened opening hours. TBH I gave up trying. He didn't have an online presence and didn't even take card payments. I'm surprised he lasted that long.

I thought politics wasn't allowed? I won't, other than to say that isn't a universally held opinion. But on the geo-political state at the moment, I think we will see a lot more production move back to being regionally produced. Most experts think that and it is essential for national security. UK outline modelling (railways, military models etc.) that only has a very small export market would be a reasonable thing to bring back. It would need a degree of protectionism though.

Railway modelling will never die as long as we have railways, but it will change. Undoubtedly, boomers have been the biggest generation in terms of numbers (absolute &) of modellers. Boomers also have greater disposable income in retirement than any generation that follow them will have. (observation, not criticism) There will still be modellers in the following generations, but they won't be as numerous nor affluent, manufacturers will have to adapt to this. They will have to make a model platform last longer before a revamp so the regularity and progress of new models will be a lot slower. We'll probably see a lot of the top models now hanging on for decades. I'd say we've been in a golden age of progress for model railways for the 20 years. Competition is strong, Hattons were once the only -10% box shifter and got a lot of criticism for taking business away from local model shops. Now I can name several so things are bound to be tougher. They've also made a couple of mistakes along the way too (observation, not criticism). There will probably be changes to the exhibition circuit, Warley was fairly unique in being a big venue event arranged by a single club. ModelRail Scotland is arranged by an association of many clubs so more likely to find the human resources. That may not be a bad thing, some of the small and mid-size exhibitions are better than the huge ones.

We're using 2-digit addressing as I don't think we'll ever get to filling the roster with locos or stock with decoders. We copied BR numbering to a certain extent. 0-9 Miscellaneous (currently contains our only kettle) 11-19 DMUs 20-29 type 1 and type 2 diesels 30-39 type 3 diesels 40-49 type 4 diesels 50-59 type 5 diesels 60-69 not yet used 70-79 EMUs 80-89 electric locos 90-99 coaches and DVTs with decoders Generally within a type the locos are in ascending order, since we aren't close to 10 locos of any type, there is still space for adding more.

Your "dead" section at either end couldn't have metal rail though, otherwise it would be possible for wheels to bridge the two IRJs at the same time as they pass. Simon, do you have any area that will be non-scenic? If so and you have space for two sidings alongside each other, you could create a cassette system where one siding runs on to a moveable cassette that you can then slide across to line up with the other siding. If you go to exhibitions, have a look at some of the fiddle yards, especially on the shorter end-to-end layouts.

Hi, do you mean a track plan? I would recommend as a first railway, to use a plan from a book like the Hornby Track Plans book or there are other people that have published plans as well. There are also some free track plans can be found online. With the published plans, someone has done the thinking about what makes something fun already. Take a look at some and imagine what you could do, shunting, running around etc.

Simon, I can understand not wanting to have to separate and lift everything over, its a pain. If you were to make a piece of plastic track that is longer than your longest loco or electrically conductive stock (bear in mind some modern DMUs might be interconnected). It has been done before on a straight by someone who used plastic extrusion to make the rails. You have to be accurate with where you glue your track so it isn't out of gauge. Curving the track would be very difficult. The hardest bit would probably be getting the metal to plastic railhead transitions smooth so the stock doesn't derail. The plastic can be painted so it looks OK but it'll never look as good as proper track. Stock would have to be pushed in on one side to be hauled out on the other.

Though ebay is a fairly poor way of selling. By the time ebay take their 12.8% plus £0.30 out of the total including postage, then the postage and packaging costs and time. Sometimes it isn't worth the bother.

I've used a Mobius too and had good results. Its slightly too big to fit in a standard wagon but I butchered an old one to make it fit and it works well. Still within OO loading guage though. Make sure you have the correct spec memory card for whatever camera as many poor outcomes are due to the write speed of the memory card not being high enough.

If you are working with flexible track, there are things called tracksettas that you can use to create a constant radius curve. I'd be another one to vote for using track planning software.

The ST240 and ST241 are standard sectional track geometry. Peco's name for this is Setrack. All Hornby track is sectional. Sectional track has standard lengths of straight track e.g. R600/ST200 is 168mm long with others being multiples of this. (e.g. a double straight R601 is twice the length of an R600) Standard sectional track works on a 4 standard radii of track starting at 371mm radius for 1st radius curve and going up 67mm for each subsequent radius. So the tracks are always 67mm apart. A lot of modern rolling stock won't go around 1st radius so in practical terms 2nd radius is now the recommended minimum. Sectional track is also based on curves of 22.5degrees for a standard curve (11.25 degrees is a half curve, 45 degrees is a double). So the standard points R8072 and R8073 (Peco ST240&241) are the equivalent of a standard straight in length and a standard second radius curve for the diverging line. Peco Streamline doesn't have any sectional track that works with it, you make your own from flexi track. It is based on track centres of 51mm and divergence on the points of 12 degrees. The two are not easily combined!

The French use a few cheats when setting speed records, modifying trains with bigger wheels and bumping up the voltage of the overhead lines.

If it is a new Mk4 DVT with lights, I'm not sure what will happen, both sets of lights (head and tail + cab) might come on at the same time. If you don't get a decoder at some point then the lights on the DVT will burn out sooner than if they have a decoder, but that could be well down the line. I can't see anything on the Hornby website page but the Hornby Magazine review suggests a 21-pin socket. I'd aim to put a decoder in at some point.

Hi Nigel, I've done my old 'Frank Hornby' class 86. I'd have to have a look at what is in it decoder wise, I think a LAISDCC decoder from memory. I know I used a 12v CD motor for the conversion on Frank and it runs fine. From memory again, you can get a 12v for the Bo-Bo (2-axle bogie) motors both Lima and Hornby ringfields, but only a 6v motor is slim enough to fit the Co-Co (3-axle bogie). I haven't had any problem with the 6v in a Lima cl37 on DCC either. Fairly smooth, maybe lacking top speed and a little noisy, but not what you described. I'd try a different type of decoder, but could be you've got a duff motor.

@ Going Spare, I did an image search, it says 0-12v 10watts. At 12 volts, 10watts would be 0.833amps. What happens below that? Is it still 10watts when the controller is at lower volts and so has greater amps?

The A3 controller is only 1/2 amp isn't it?

Who could possibly get bored of or not want to be deafened by a Valenta on full power? lol

On my own LED light projects, I'm running various LEDs from a couple of 1amp variable voltage regulated power supplies. The yard lamps were sold as 3v, the street lamps were 12v and a 12v LED strip that came on a reel and were stuck to the ceiling of the diesel depot. The yard lamps have 1k ohm resistors on them, the street lamps already had resistors on. Even at that, the light intensity was quite bright so I turned the variable voltage on the power supply down to 9v and am happy with the result. My hope was that running a lower global voltage would prolong the life of the lights.

Even though it is an old topic, there is some useful info within. I think Mr Lambert's contribution was under appreciated, I used his website for reference quite a bit early on. Make sure it isn't a short cutting the power rather than a stall. Identifying the actual problem makes solving it potentially much easier. To that end, even a simple, cheap, auto-ranging multimeter is a very useful tool. An audible continuity tester is an essential function on one. With the track power off, having a prod around with a multimeter can be quite revealing. If you hold one lead against a known working bit of rail and move the other over the point and all of the rails that should be live you will identify a dead-spot if there is one. It can happen if the contact between the switch rail and the stock rail becomes dirty for example. On the Hornby and Peco points choice, I will say that Hornby points have a bigger dead spot at the "frog" which is better for older stock with course wheels that can short across the frog on the Peco points. This is more of a problem if you use point clips or feed power from all three ends of the point. The both have their pros and cons.

If you mean through one power clip location then, reliably, a single loop with a couple of sidings. If you go to mutiple loops then you're best to use an extra power clip to each loop. You can use point clips but they have their drawbacks, so a proper feed to each major section is better. It all depends on the layout and what it is built on, what base you use, how secured the track is and if you paint or ballast the track. Don't rule out better wiring, it isn't as hard as it seems. Your local model shop should be able to sell you things to make it easier.