It's a weekday and I have been at work on the model trains. This is very unlike me.

However after posting yesterdays blog I realised that I did not need to buy a new chassis for the X5800, I could just improve the one I have.

To recap, the one I have is a modified Kato tram chassis with two bogies. The chassis has been extended and one of the bogies has been moved onto this extension. What I tried to do on my last attempt was use superglue and brass wire to extend the pickups. This failed and made the unit very unreliable. However, now I am a little bit more confident with the soldering iron I thought a better option would be to use wire instead. So I attached some thin black wire to the pickups on the bogie and then to the brass contacts to the motor. The chassis now runs as good as it did when I bought it.

Here is a picture of the extended chassis.

You may ask, why not purchase an off the shelf design built to that length. My answer is that they all ride too tall. Although I was prepared to sacrifice that for better running, I now do not need to. £30 saved!