Thanks one and all for the comments made - very helpful and should allow me to progress further.
With regard the comment about soldering to the rail, yes this was indeed another area of concern and I had been advised to use pre-wired fishplates - but some people then said these were not reliable enough.
The next suggestion was to use the Hornby Powertracks R8206, these looked a good solution however the problem I have found here is the cost of the connectors to push into them - can anyone give any pointers on this for me
regards
Andrew