34theletterbetweenB&D

It's a good plan: local supermarkets usually offer a good free 'first cut' assessment. Go to the DIY checkouts. If you find them near impossible to use because you hear all the user instructions from each of the checkouts in use, your hearing is performing beautifully. And back to model railways, this is just one of the objections to sound effects at exhibitions. The sound doesn't stop neatly within a foot or two of the layout edge...

It doesn't help the case, but the explanation is simple. The DCC system protects against a short on the rails and up to the decoder input, by detection of a large 'instant' rise in current draw. Failing electronics usually don't generate this effect, and the DCC system has necessarily to tolerate current draw variation up to its rated output. Honesty time, I have been very pleasantly suprised at the robustness of DCC decoders and the like: these are low cost consumer electronics. The occasional failure has to be accepted in my opinion. Not long had a Zimo MX 618 go 'phut' pretty spectacularly, my first ever failure from a Zimo decoder after over 15 years using their product. And the DCC system didn't trip out as the magic blue smoke escaped and the loco slid to a halt, while everything else running kept going. As suggested by Kev return to manufacturer for repair is almost certainly uneconomic...

I would suggest that the better signs on this front have been the Bachmann SECR birdcages, Dapol GW toplights and now Ellis Clark's announcement of the GNR/LNER 'Quad Arts'. Let's have 'character' stock true to prototype. There's plenty enough choices to go round all the brands competing in 4mm...

Likewise, lost more than I have produced by 'outdoor exposure' to obtain the silvery grey tones of really long term bleached wood!

I too will be in that position soon enough, but no worries. So long as the TV speakers manage effective solo voice production, that's good enough for news and serious documentary productions. Everything 'entertainment' is routed through the stereo system, the primary role of which is music reproduction. (I tried surround systems years ago; rejected because there were too many weird artefacts, which it appears those involved in production simply cannot resist. The resulting garbage made of what might have been fine theatre and opera perfomance recordings was a great disappointment.)

Useful statement that. We would talk straight past each other in respect of what matters to each of us. My Morley DC gear worked straight out of the box, good DCC decoders likewise worked out of the box. Thus far, no benefit from making the change to DCC What sold me on DCC was the customisation it enabled. Adjustment of system output, motor control characteristics, speed curves and inertia settings enables matching of locos into groups that operate uniformly. Every loco starts with a dead slow creep into motion, and likewise stops smoothly. By matched group all the locos are uniform throughout the speed range up to scale for maximum speed. That was the step forward in control that DC could not deliver when using a mixture of kit and RTR mechanisms from multiple sources.

The first essential in any sound replay system is the ability to reproduce the human voice accurately; because this is the primary function of our auditory system, and it is typically initially 'calibrated' by parental input, mother's typically dominant. In an ideal world we would all possess some good quality recordings of people we know speaking, and for the most effective evaluation among competing voices, as that quickly identifies whether the replay system is good enough. Entertainment is to the fore, the facts can take a running jump! Take another recent film from this era: 'The Imitation Game'. Terminally flawed by the savage misrepresentation of Alastair Denniston; for any that know the scale of what he, with Gubbins and de Wiart - among many nameless others - achieved, in making the deciphering operation possible.

It's heavily dependent on each purchaser's unique interest set. My actual spending over the past 12 months and planned purchases (hopefully in the 12 months to come) is in order of value: Bachmann Hornby/Oxford Heljan Rapido Ellis Clark

But what happens when you adjust the basic motor control CV's? That's what's crucial, does it have a useful adjustment range?

Heljan's regular motor in full body width models was current hungry (and the more so in many of the earlier models with less than free running gear towers). I have zero direct experience of the ViTrains product motors, but don't recall any report of great problems with current draw when these were first on sale. Back then (2007) many, myself included, were still in the habit of performing a stall test on a 12V DC supply, to obtain the peak current draw in order to select a decoder rated for a larger curent output, but after a couple of searches elesewhere I have drawn a blank on a report of any results. If you have a 12V DC supply - ideally from a simple resistance controller - and a meter, you could perform the test, simplest with this type of drive by having the body off and stopping a flywheel turning.

Assuming this is nickel silver rail, it does tarnish, as leaving a length of it outdoors for a couple of years will confirm, typically a mid brown colour. High humidity and the presence of any agent that is slightly acidic will accelerate this process, indoors or out. The best 'cure' is running as noted above. Run sufficiently, and the copper depletion in the rail surface slows the process so that there is no visible tarnishing - only takes about 3 years of daily operation for a couple of hours.

It wasn't, as compared to Lenz, when confronted with a mechanism that was 'challenging' - the plenitude of adjustments enabled the performance optimisation that I was looking for. The Lenz decoders I had exclusively used up until that point had been tested against all other brands available when I started in DCC, and had comfortably trounced the lot, and this has continued with everything encountered 'by accident' such as unannounced decoders in s/h purchases, and some decoder choices of friends. (And then there was the CTE range, which were rather wonderful in performance, very small and expensive, until they suddenly went unavailable... Now, since everything currently works to my satisfaction using Lenz (for the economy) if performance is good enough and if not the slightly more expensive Zimo, I have not gone testing the subsequent entrants offering DCC decoders. But time has passed, and there must have been progress, so if there's something cheaper that matches or outperforms Zimo and Lenz, I will be interested.

Tangent warning My own late Pa being an immigrant alien - in his case from The Netherlands - I can assure you that the UK made very effort to lose immigrants. He had the very same immigration documentation that the famed Windrush group had, (and a more appalling piece of documentation on post war austerity paper is hard to imagine). And as for 'the procedure' of reporting fortnightly to the desk sergeant at the local nick, on his third visit he was told "Go away, no one is interested'. And so he did, and nothing ill ever came of it... End tangent.

Use the programme track, it's more sensitive to poor pick up performance than running lines. If like mine the programme track is a dead end piece of track, most locos can be poised with just one pair of wheels on the rails. If the system reads the address, those pick ups are ok.

There's a site that generates randomised deals for bridge, if you don't want to shuffle the cards. http://playbridge.com/ Double the fun, you can use it to both generate the required layout moves, and play a devastating squeeze to obtain a small slam from a game hand.

Only in the contents of our wallets. (Which is fine by me, having spent my career in rude commerce.) But, per earlier replies from modellers: since this model looks encouragingly more like a Black five than anything prior in RTR OO, and they were usually pretty grubby in BR operation; suitable application of filler and filth shall happen. Thus it will look very LMR among Doncaster's finest green liveried beauties, as cared for by Peter Townend.

And how, yesterday's conversation was initiated with a Bach 9F (mine, purchased 2006) which I had brought alone to show a typical example of what is now available, and then mentioned that Hornby had their own fully competitive version. To which the response was 'Why didn't you buy that? Tedious explanation about the 17 year delay while Hornby 'caught up'. Rapido Stirling single next...

But what perception of 'identical' : cheaper from an outfit I have not heard of, or more expensive from a well established brand that has been around for thirty years and which I can look at in my local model shop? Hopefully the pricing decisions reflect a competent marketing approach. There's still folk out there that only want 'Hornby' on the box, and I reduced the count of those that didn't know Hattons had shut down by two, in a conversation yesterday.Different world outside the online hothouse...

Any change in mechanism noise, other than directly related to motor shaft speed? Might be a motor bearing running dry and heating, or could be some protection kicking in on the decoder (assuming one is present as sound is mentioned). Disconnect decoder and run on DC to see if the problem occurs, in which case it is mechanism, if not, decoder is suspect.

Oh yes. Then again it's worked well for me. Once the 'inspirational eejit' has been found out and ejected, there's often an opening for someone with their head screwed on right.

The other factor with Mainline of advanced years is 'gently does it'. I have seen a number of Mainline split chassis mechanisms from locos of smart exterior appearance 'internally deranged' by attempts to get it moving by applying force. Internally gummed up and with poor conduction due to dried lubricant is a commonplace, and if present is typically best tackled by dismantling, cleaning up with IPA and light relubrication when reassembled.

I see DCC as a utility, so want to pay the least cash for the desired performance. For me that's Lenz and Zimo, because I want truly smooth transitions in and out of movement, and accurate speed matching to meet my operational requirements, and it's mostly steam models they are fitted in. Truly, as some of the earlier replies suggest, you need to 'suck it and see' to determine which decoders deliver your requirements when used in combination with the traction you own. Do tell what you find with your latest purchase, from a brand which I have never heard of.

If tender pick ups were truly essential then no total adhesion tank loco would work reliably. Since 0-6-0 tank locos in particular are essential for steam era modeling, the best design principle is to develop expertise in obtaining the necessary pick up from the driven wheels. Bachmann's early wiper pick up steam loco product exemplified this, a very neat short wiper (nearly concealed behind the wheel) reliably delivering effective contact pressure, and the provision of at least one sprung driven axle. (And because the wheels are metal castings there is also conduction between the wheels by the coupling rods, which enables the party trick of their 9F which will run given power to the flangeless wheelset, which has no pick up wipers.) The sole justification for tender pick up is set track points with way oversize dead crossings - but this is a bodge to mitigate the effect of a poor track system.Personally I do away with tender wiper pick ups to reduce the drag these cause: Rapido made a good job of the Stirling single with pick up through the bearings on the tender split axle ends for no incremental drag: that's the superior method that should be employed.

All previous evidence suggests usage defeats 'correctness'. There are no rules for English; slong aswe unnerstan thass gud nuff.

The GPO's 'London Postal Railway' was a practical freight demonstration; and there are now defined routes specifically constructed for driverless passenger rail operation in the UK, starting with the Victoria line. And that's just the UK, bound to be many more. I recall DB proposing wagonfreight distribution by this method, freight terminal to rail served customer location.