Pete the Elaner

There are some questions which need to be asked: Era? Many pre-war stations had a generic goods yard. It looks like you want to give the impression that you have a large terminus because you have a depot & turntable, so running round the train will be pointless because the loco will need to be prepared (& maybe also turned) before its next journey. If you are running in the diesel era, then things are very different. The generic goods yard went around the same time as steam. Any yards left will be dedicated to a company or use like oil, ballast, coal, sand. The locos do not need turning, but turntables were still used to same on long sidings. Running round trains became a thing of the past though: smaller lines were served by units & larger ones justified having an extra loco or 2 ready to haul out the train, then the released one was used to haul the next incoming train. This saved a lot of time compared with running around. Whatever the era, a yard would need some sort of road access unless it is serving a specific business: Royal Mail have a rail head in Chelmsford with road access "off scene". McVities have one near Willesden. If you try to fit too much rail into the space you have, you will end up with something disappointing. Many of us have been there. Double slips are not a short cut to compressing things either. I do my best to avoid them. What do you want to achieve? Something with some realism or a loop on which you want to run trains? What era do you want to model? There are no right & wrong answers. Someone wanting to run a tender loco with 2 wagons is equally as valid as somebody wanting to model a small branch line station correct to the last brick.

Do you know what sound project you have on the decoder? If it is from someone like Legomanbiffo, Jamie Goodman or Coastal DCC, they should be able to explain what they have programmed into their project & which values can be adjusted. It should respond immediately but that does not mean it will move right away. If starting from silent, it should go through engine start-up procedure, which could even begin with a few (quiet) cranks of a fuel pump. The start-up procedure can take from a few seconds to a few minutes to full idle. Once idling, moving off can be delayed too. The project could include brake release, engine revving & other things I have forgotten. A workaround is to start the loco moving before switching on the sound. It will then fade in to running mode. The drawback is that it does something weird like going through startup & shutdown after you've shut it down. In order to adjust any CVs, it is very useful to know what they currently are.

To prevent future burn-outs, consider a CDU: 1. It provides a short, sharp burst of current. Both the motor & the transformer will resist the change of current, which will "soften" the throw. It may seem bizarre that the transformer resists ("reacts") to the current it is supplying, but this is precisely what it does. 2. After the initial burst, the current drops away rapidly. This not only prevents burn out of the motor but also arcing across the switch (which the motor generates when the current is suddenly removed). Arcing wears out the contacts, shortening the life of the switch. 3. If you have anything else running from the transformer, like lighting, then this will not noticeably drop when you throw a point because re-charging the capacitor is a much more gentle load than throwing a motor directly. 1 CDU will power multiple point motors, maybe even your whole layout. As mentioned, a multimeter is very useful. You can test a circuit without having to pull it apart & replace with any similar components. Many only use their multimeter to measure volts, which is often not the most useful. I use mine for resistance (ohms) much more frequently. You can always get help on here for using it to solve a problem.

I see nothing to suggest he is aggressive off track. His driving is a result of what has been permitted. Any competitor will push until something stops them. In F1's case, it would be losing control of the car & with it, lap time, or being penalised. Lack of a penalty for a driving incident/trick/style is effectively an approval to do the same again.

I've not used Lais, but I have used Hornby & Bachmann. Neither of my Bachmann decoders took any notice of CV3 so instead of a nice, smooth acceleration, they hit the set speed instantly. They decelerated according to CV4 though. They were different types too, but of the same era (c2010), but have done enough to make me distrust Bachmann's re-branded stuff unless I know what it really is. These now control lighting in my DVTs. If you are doing DCC on a budget, then this surely extends to other aspects of the hobby like locos? Older & cheaper locos will have rougher motors which need the better control & tunability offered by better decoders. Zimo's MX600 series seem to work well out of the box & have lots of adjustability. If you are looking for used decoders, you may well end up with Hornby's original series. I had one of these (in a 'DCC fitted' loco) but it would only work in 1 direction with my Powercab. It went in the most suitable place for it...the bin. I tries a Lenz silver in 1 loco I had (I think it needed a 6 pin & the shop only had 1 suitable decoder for it). It was a bit jerky at very low speed. A friend of mine swapped his out for a Zimo & was much happier with this.

I have found that you get what you pay for. I tried a Hornby TTS decoder a while back. I was aware of some of its limitations, but I found that they annoyed me so much that I ended up going silent with that model instead. Some have suggested that it would not cost a lot more to add wheel synchronisation but, for my D&E models, I really could not care less about that. What I would prefer is support for advanced consisting. Somebody else may find ABC braking useful. Whichever Hornby could have chosen to make a 'slightly less cheaper than cheap' decoder would upset the other factions. So you could ask yourself what features you really need want?

I also have a strange liking for that rather bizarre livery variation. I don't want to try my hand with a Bachmann one because I have not used my airbrush anywhere near enough to be confident enough, so I was thinking of detailing & re-spraying one of my Hornby ones. If I did that, Bachmann would probably announce theirs the next quarter 🤣

What do you mean 'picks up'? There seems to be a strange quirk with the 90s board which prevents programming the decoder (I think it won't let you read CVs). The way around this is to either put it into a different loco for programming, or use a decoder tester.

I have lost count of how many times I have had to explain this. It is very simple too. A freight line would be fast enough but would not achieve anything. Local services serve all local destinations along the route, so cannot be moved. Freight can run at 75 or 60mph quite comfortably with local services which do 90-0-90-0. They simply catch up a little then the locals accelerate away again. There is no benefit to separating these from the local services. Semi-fast services can veer a little off but these serve intermediate destinations, so they cannot go too far away from the exiting routes. Fast services only need to stop at a few primary destinations. At 125mph, it is difficult to plan these with the others. It could leave London 10 minutes behind a semi fast & hit double yellows before the semi pulls over at Ledburn Jcn (Leighton Buzzard) & if that one is delayed even slightly (which is very common because it has to cross the up fast, so these have to be planned very carefully & any delay to either line would cause a conflict), it would cause all others behind it to stop too. So if there is any 1 class of service which can be moved, then it is the fast ones. That leaves us with a new line for the faster services & in many places, there is no room to just build a new set of tracks beside the existing ones (Birmingham New St is the best example, but there are others). Why build them to yesterday's technology?

Most of us have heard that Coreless motors do not like DC feedback controllers. DCC motors are controlled by the decoder (which is why many often frown when the throttle is called the controller). The decoder can be adjusted to provide a nice smooth voltage, or use feedback. The better decoders have better adjustment for this. It may not be your problem, but it is something worthy of consideration.

I am not convinced of that. When Schumacher was winning at Ferrari, I didn't realise just how much of a "director" Todt was. He built the team & was responsible for hiring Brawn, Byrne, Schumacher & others. They all signed because Todt convinced them he would make his team winners & he did exactly that. Todt was forced out of Ferrari in 2007 because management felt he had too much power. Raikkonen became their last WDC to date in the same year. Horner joined RB in their early days. The company had just bought Jaguar, who were a midfield team. It was Horner who signed Newey & the company is still expanding. How much more does he do behind the scenes? Will they collapse if he goes like Ferrari did when Todt went? I think it is very likely. Verstappen is not crucial at RB. Important, but not crucial. They won 4 consecutive titles before he arrived. His career has paralleled Vettel's very closely too. That leaves Newey. Horner signed him. Is his loyalty to the company or to Horner? McLaren have not been the same force since Ron Dennis stopped leading the team. Lotus slowly fell apart after Colin Chapman died. Renault/Benetton fell away after Flavio Briatore left. I agree about team principals being similar. Like them or not, all the team principals will do absolutely anything to put their team on top, whether it is making their team better, find a way of exploiting some sort of loophole to gain an advantage (even if the rules are obviously written to avoid it), or ensuring a competitor is not doing something illegal. If James Vowles thought he could gain a place or 2 by getting an Alpha Romeo DQ'd, do you think he would do it? He most certainly would, but it would get lesser coverage than Horner or Wolff getting each other's cars penalised.

I have only just seen this. I was thinking about it on Sunday, wondering if it was still there, when I saw one of my model Sharks on the table. I guess it would have been so seized that the easiest way to remove it was to cut it up on site especially as, per a previous comment, it was dumped there in the first place because of a faulty wheel bearing. & also, how long would it take before an untouched, rotting, rusting machine begins to be potentially dangerous?

The functionality we are now accustomed to goes way beyond NMRA standards, which are what define DCC as we know it. Beyond this, designers have different methods of achieving the same result/functions & these may not be compatible with each other.

I remember seeing HEAs at Colchester Hythe in the early 1990s. The place was operated by Charrington's There were anywhere between 2 & 14 hoppers in the yards at both sides of the line. I never saw any deliveries. I believe they used to arrive at Colchester overnight (possibly part of a larger block train) & then station's 08 moved them to Hythe, which is about 2 miles down the branch line.

I have read several times that the GE was well represented in model form. Not for the last 60 years though; it was (one of?) the first major route(s) to be given OLE & services have been dominated by EMUs ever since, none of which have been produced RTR.

You can load such a survey though. If you poll people from places, in particular those in Bedfordshire villages on the line like Stewartby, Ridgmont & Lidlington, asking them first if they would like better access to Cambridge & Oxford, then I am sure you will find many in favour. If you asked only people who will be on the proposed new route but not have access to a station & also ensure you include all those who will have their houses compulsory purchased, then you will get a very different result. Naturally you would not disclose exactly who you polled for the survey.

Or use telephone wiring, which is designed to use 50v to carry a very low signalling current only, not rated for anything like the 1A which a loco can possibly draw when hauling a train.

These start to fill a gaping great hole in the market. As a passenger, I never liked them. The seats were uncomfortable, too small & low. I would always choose the alternative where possible, whether it was the 309s, Intercity Mk2s, Mk3As, Pendolinos or 350s. But as a modeller, this is exactly what I want: An everyday commuter unit which ran through the location I am modelling, a common train which most of us would usually ignore when we saw it. This is from a family of similar units which cover a wide range of areas over a reasonably long time frame.

Included switches have a different problem. I don't know if they had a QC issue at some time, but 3 of the 5 Seep PM1s installed on a layout provided no electrical connection when installed for the first time. Having previously looked at the contact itself (a small washer pressed by a spring against 2 PCB tracks) I decided they looked like a failure waiting to happen & that it would be prudent to buy some micro-switches as a backup plan. With 2 of 5 not working from new, I was glad to have the switches & installed them on all points immediately. As for switches v frog juicers, the above mentioned layout was exhibited on Saturday. One of the other operators told me that he wanted to use juicers on a future layout, pointing out that there were several occasions when the yard operator had failed to throw a point & this had cut off the main line. The other argument in favour of frog juicers is that for complex pointwork like 3-ways, switching requires some electrical understanding which many modellers do not want to learn. A frog juicer will just sort it. I was not a fan of the principal of frog juicers, but having seen how seamlessly they work, I have been converted.

You have made a key point: Never try anything new on a layout. Try it on an off-cut first. I have used Copydex. It is indeed a bit smelly but this does not last very long at all. It has several advantages over PVA: It dries slightly flexible, which has several advantages: There is less tendency for ballast to flake away when you move boards. Once dry, you can cut any unwanted bits away with a scalpel. When you cut the ballast at a board join, it produces a lot neater join than with PVA. It allows for a lot quieter running than with PVA (but still noisier than having no ballast at all). It does not turn ballast green. It dries faster. It also had disadvantages: It is more expensive than PVA It dries very slightly brown, although it taints the colour a lot less than PVA does. Brake dust is brown though. It can wrap itself around a drill bit, which can be relevant if you install gradient posts, signals, OLE at a later date. Smell. I do not claim it is perfect & I am sure there are more suitable products out there. PVA is certainly not one of them though.

Hourly each hour for most of the day too. That is good. IIRC, they used to be about 1 hour & 10 minutes apart, so you could not just remember "x minutes past the hour" because it changed every hour, which made the service a bit annoying & therefore less useable.

The built in switch is effectively like a micro switch, but no alignment is necessary. Once wired in, the frog polarity will switch when the point throws. This provides an advantage that you can wire the frog back to the control panel to show which way the point is set. Frog juicers are reactive. When you throw the point, the frog polarity is unaffected so when a loco straddles the frog section, this causes a short circuit. The juicer detects this & flips the polarity (strictly phase, but polarity is easier to visualise). It does this so quickly that any trains in the section & the command station are unaffected. Being of the mindset that short circuits are bad & should be avoided, I thought it was a complete bodge & a terrible idea. Having seen it in operation, it seems to work well.

From what I have seen you post in the past, I know full well you know how it works, so I guess you are just prompting me to explain? There will be a short, but the the Frog juicer switches the polarity so quickly to rectify it that the command station safety cut out will not detect the issue & any locos moving and/or making sound will also carry on without any interruption. I did not like the idea of using one until I operated a layout which used them. They don't expose errors like switching the frog with the point will do.

Doesn't. But it doesn't stop anything else & that is the idea. If the derailment is in the fiddle yard, anything happening in the scenic section is totally unaffected.

Not quite. Frog juicers are a solution to cope with operator errors (when you forget to throw a point). You could argue that the errors are bad operating practise & we all try to avoid them, but they do happen.