Today the decoder started to misbehave. The maximum speed in forward was a crawl, in reverse was a headlong rush to the buffers. The specialists who sold the decoder have not known of such a thing. So I have unsoldered the decoder and gone back to DC with no sound. The loco now performs as it should. This situation needs a lot of thinking about so nothing will be done in a hurry.

The problem as I understand it (from the specialists) is that my Digitrax Zephyr cannot access many of the CVs, being "too old", a bit like me. An NCE system has been recommended that will allow full control over all the CVs and also make programming them much easier. This will, of course, cost money! Surprise, surprise.

As I now understand it, I could also un-program the random nature of various sounds, such as safety valves. If I want to pop the safety valves, I want to decide when to do so (they make a startling noise for one thing when going off randomly). I also want to shovel coal when I think the fireman would shovel coal, etc., etc. The whole point of DCC/Sound is, to me, to actually control the locomotive as if I were in the cab. One thing I learned from my Fire and Drive experience is that you don't rush a steam locomotive. An engine shed layout needs this attitude even more than other layouts.

This turn of events means that I may well take the loco back to England and if I do it can be seen at the Hillingdon Model Railway Club open day on December 19th. The white metal crew, supplied by Connoisseur, are currently being painted to play their part.