Over the past year as part of me going digital, I've chipped many locos fitted with DCC sockets, and also giving me the opportunity to sort out what I really wanted to keep. As part of that process I've invested in new locos at the same time and replacement chassis for ex-Lima 37s, 47s, 73s and DMUs.

The situation is now what to do with my remaining non-chipped, non-DCC fitted locos, for which there are no current state of the art replacements planned, the biggest group being my 86s, 87s, 92 and my Triang's EM2.

I'm considering several options:

1. Chip all those remaining by hard wiring them, as they have no DCC ready sockets.

2. Spend at least £95 each on new Heljan 86s, as liveries and versions become available, pre-order a new Heljan EM2 for £150 and buy replacement chassis for my Lima 87s for around £50 each.

3. Keep and run them as a discrete fleet of DC (analogue) locos, to show myself and other modellers the sort of technology what we had to put up with in the past. These locos can traverse first radius curves and generally have few fragile parts and I bet over the long term, subject to availability of spares, that they'll be more easily serviceable than today's offerings.