Pete M

Sorry, but I put z21 (small z) in every post, I thought that would be clear enough. Sorry.

Hi again and thanks for all your helpful comments. It appears the fault lies within the z21 unit and it has been sent off for the necessaries. Although obviously still a little peeved, I do feel slightly vindicated as it wasn’t me being a plonker (as a lot of you thought - and so did I at times), but something fundamentally not right. Hopefully when it returns it will work as it should and I shall fade from your life...

DThe £300 I quoted was for the fully fitted sound, etc loco - not the z21. A’s usual everything is plagued by jargon. The instructions with the loco were a load of incomprehensible numbers on a bit of A5 paper; absolutely no help, nor was my conversation this morning with him when I was informed it was my fault for not buying a Bachmann unit from him. Last of my pennies he gets. I’ve tried programming, and the loco sits there clicking. Go back to the controller bit, dial in that number - and nothing. Just what am I doing wrong?

The £300 I quoted was for the fully fitted sound, etc loco - not the z21. A’s usual everything is plagued by jargon. The instructions with the loco were a load of incomprehensible numbers on a bit of A5 paper; absolutely no help, nor was my conversation this morning with him when I was informed it was my fault for not buying a Bachmann unit from him. Last of my pennies he gets. I’ve tried programming, and the loco sits there clicking. Go back to the controller bit, dial in that number - and nothing. Just what am I doing wrong?

Thanks for all your quick replies; brand new z21, brand new from £300+ Hornby J15 from Olivias Trains; I only have a test track; I tested the loco on an old DC controller and it works fine. I’m a bit frustrated as all every tutorial shows you is the loco being plonked on a track dialled into the app and everything working like magic, sounds and all - nothing about addresses or all the programming or that you need to do to get everything to work in the first place. This definitely ain’t ‘plug and play’!

After nearly 60 years of DC, I decided it was time to move to DCC with a z21 operated via iPad. After a day getting the WiFi to talk to me I have come to a complete standstill trying to get a loco to do anything other the click and get warm. It’s a brand new item from Olivias trains that works fine on DC. YouTube tutorials gloss over everything and have proved more confusing than help. Getting a bit frustrated as I can usually muddle or struggle through most problems but this really has come to a dead end. Any ideas?

After many years of modelling the GWR, included a few years trailing 'Drefach Felindre' around the exhibition circuit and wallowing in the glory of having it published in 'Model Rail’ back in those dark days of the new millennium (2000). I started to build another layout to show based on West Wales, however, circumstances curtailed this venture. The beautiful boards that had been built (not by me) along with a some track work were consigned to the landfill. I could not exhibit myself any longer(!). I started to build lots of bits and bobs and sold some on eBay, but I felt I needed some sort of goal to keep my alleged sanity, so my 8x8 workshop/ office/ playroom was now to have a layout shoe-horned in. 'Cardigan Town' was born. I used a son to help me construct an ‘upper deck’ around three walls to allow me to construct a proper (if small) layout, rather than just models for no particular reason. I hate to think how long ago this was as progress has been painfully slow, but the whole point is my entertainment, so there we are. Some of the photos of Cardigan turned out looking fairly good, but running, not being my real interest, was non-existent. I started losing momentum. Far Tarsyn was conceived after a week spent in Cornwall in the lovely summer of 2013. I had been modelling the GWR for ages and to be quite honest had become buried in the quantity of models I had built. Bear in mind the limits of my railway empire stretch no further than the limits of an 8x8 room - if I had all the locomotives and stock out I could have covered every inch of track twice over. I had also constructed a few buildings to suit 'Cardigan Town’. After this Cornish epiphany, everything, literally everything, went on eBay to start afresh North Cornwall-style. I liked the simplicity of the suitable stock and the 'big engine in little places' idea. The basic track plan was kept, simplified, and all the point motors ripped out. Most of the original track had been laid using phosphor bronze rail and copper-clad sleepers which made tweaking and adjusting quite easy. It may seem a little dinosaur-like in these digital days, but I changed back to a simple wire-in-tube method for point control. A micro switch to change polarity and Bob's your uncle. Let's face it, standing in the centre of a U-shaped layout in a small room, nothing is far enough away to really make motors necessary anyway! I thought carefully about location, researched books on the North Cornwall line, started working out where a line could have run… and then thought, why? Who am I trying to impress? This layout is just for my fun, not for public consumption. I like the idea that loco types are limited, but if I want an M7, then I shall damn well have one - for that matter, an 02 and a 700! In essence then, the layout is no more than a generic image of somewhere in North Devon/Cornwall area and will just be a backdrop for a collection of Locos and stock that was used in the area. As long as the locos and stock are relevant to the general location, thats all I'm aiming for. I have bought some (far too much) r-t-r stock to get started and have purchased some loco kits for the future dark evenings. As I am builder and not a 'player', I have no doubt that I will end up in the same boat as before with ten times the stock I need. I have made a vow that as I complete a kit, the r-t-r ones will be sold. We shall see. The time period will be set by the road vehicles on scene - I also have a collection of 1/76th vehicles and kits that could fill a model M25 - but that's another story! Dating photos of the area during BR days is almost totally dependant on the vehicles as so little changed from the late 1930’s through the early 1950’s. So far I have made a station building and goods shed from scratch using sheet plasticard, Wills sheets and for the first time, laser-cut windows. Apart from being time-saving, the accuracy and consistency is a real boon; some were slightly modified to suit. The Signal box is a Modelex Swanage kit with a Springside interior and the Engine shed is a lengthened and modified Wills Craftsman series kit - which in hindsight would been easier from scratch! The Cattle dock is based around the few decent photos I could find of one, so possibly isn't really very accurate, but as I said, my idea is to portray an impression of the area in the fifties. The Sally Monella Hotel, Coal Office and the two cottages in the Station approach and a good part of the goods yard were salvaged from the Cardigan land clearances. The Buttercare Dairy, its yard and buildings are also little changed. I don't envisaged there being milk tank traffic, it will be insulated containers on ‘conflats’ for the most part (I bought a job lot of ten). As I mentioned before in regards to road vehicles, the Buttercare Dairy fleet would have taken up half of Bedford's production for a year. If anyone can be bothered there are loads of pictures of the original on Flikr under the 'Cardigan Town' or my Model Road Vehicle albums. The ‘rest of the world’ consists of mdf cassettes. A short loco cassette and longer stock cassette just fit in the ‘fiddle’ space available. The stock cassettes rest on aluminium angle fitted inside my Ikea drawer set, giving two-storey sliding storage. Sometimes I stand back and wonder at my genius - then I look a the drill marks on the laminate flooring. As was the case in real life Southern Region, most of the coaches will be in sets, so I have used the Keen System couplers for the first time. It does entail hacking brand new coaches to bits, but that sort of thing never bothers me much, I'm never very precious about such trivia as destroying ‘collector’s items’. I am satisfied that the results are worth it, especially in the case of a minimum space layout as mine where nearly everything is on a curve (in some cases very curved). I have long been a fan and user of the good old ‘Sprat and Winkle’ couplings that originated from the brain of Derek Mundy, (who kindly advised me on the signalling of ‘Drefach Felindre’ many years ago). I have always fitted stock with the coupling only on one end; it makes them more reliable and saves me money! Locos being turned is not really a problem as long as all the stock couplings face away from the Station. When the Loco is turned it just means that there are two coupling hooks meeting, which is what was originally intended when designed, anyway. One of my projects at present centres around fabricating a working turntable. I ordered an expensive brass kit; after several attempts to chase up my order, it soon became evident that my money was not important to them I gave up and decided to have a go at a scratch-build. It won’t be as beautiful as the kit, but hey-ho. I cheated inasmuch that I haven't cut out a big ‘ole for it, I elevated the track. This was partly my incompetence at woodwork, but also should I wish to change anything at any time I haven't created a crater to work around. Well, that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it. My first attempt at the table employed some 10mm wheels to run on the circular guide rails which, although it worked, seemed a bit fragile and would not last the test of time. My second attempt uses some tiny 5mm miniature ball bearings running on the rails using brass washer guides. The centre pivot is on a larger ball bearing, so it should be smooth-running. I cut the bed of the track from a sheet of copper-faced fibre, with the copper side down it makes everything easy for soldering. The copper is broken along the centre line, as are the guide rails at the position the locos cross on to the table. This will allow the electrical pickup to simply be taken through the bearings to the running rails. The turning motion will be via a plastic worm and gears under the baseboard and turned by a brass handle. I love the action of doing this compared the sound of a motor, it just feels very tactile and steam-age. ----------------------- After looking many times at the available space I have left on the non-railway bits of board, I became more and more uncertain of what buildings to build, and also, what to put where. I made a decision; simply grass every bare piece of board and make things look tidy and a bit 'finished'. This could always be removed like a bit of 'green belt' in real life later. I bought one of *'s Greenscene static 'grassing' machines a while back, so loading it with nylon ammo I proceeded to 'foliate'. Lots and lots of sticky-up grass everywhere, and an instant transformation in appearance. For the price of the flock, it seems well worth the price of destroying it later as necessary. I had a further clear out. I realised I had bought far too much stock as I mentioned earlier. All I have left myself with now as motive power is a Hornby M7 and T9, Bachmann N and an Ivatt 2MT. Coaching stock now consists of a three car set of Bachmann Mk.1's in Blood and Custard, two Hornby Maunsell P-sets, one B/C and one in SR Green, a couple of loose Hornby Maunsells (to be replaced by a kit-built when I get round to it). I have a rebuilt one Bachmann Bulleid with Comet sides in Green, and have three others awaiting their new sides (again, when is get round to it), these will be Blood and Custard. I have some random extra goods stock to build (when, etc., etc.) and the essential PMVs and parcel vans.

Here are a few pictures to 'flesh out' the text. Been doing a bit of scenicking, Brake can and O2 building to ward off the boredom.

A generic North Cornwall Station Building and Goods Shed. My first building constructions for this layout that is rising like a Phoenix from the ashes of 'Cardigan Town'. Made from Wills sheet plastic, 'True Texture' windows, oddments from the 'gash box' and a few bits of skin here and there.