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1 hour ago, SRman said:

When the Heljan 1366 pannier tanks became available at bargain prices at Rails of Sheffield, I grabbed the cheapest one I could, with a view to adding it to my industrial fleet. As it happened, the livery I got was GWR green and it was the class leader, 1366. I checked that it ran properly, then chipped it with a Bachmann (Zimo) 6-pin decoder.

I have now started painting it into a blue scheme to fit in with my other industrials. There's a bit more to do, but I think it looks quite attractive in this BR steam era express passenger blue. At this stage, I have retained the GWR numbering, both with the cabside plates and with the buffer beam numbers. I am undecided as to whether to keep it this way or to renumber in my industrial scheme. It's not that important!

Never mind the number, has it/she got a name yet?

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  • 2 weeks later...

A few projects on my workbench at present, some of which are long-term projects.

I recently purchased a Southern Pride class 310 EMU, and while I don't intend building this unit straight away, I decided it would be easier to store if I put the basic body shells together. This is a composite resin and etched brass kit, with a few white metal components as well.

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P_20200624_220529_vHDR_Auto by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


A project that has been on my workbench for a very long time is this old Triang Railways L1 4-4-0, which I have been detailing up a bit. I replaced the correct sized driving wheels with smaller ones because the correct size meant the whole loco sat a good 2 to 3mm too high. I painted the wheels yesterday, but there are a couple of bits that need going over again. It still has the original Midland style tender, but another modeller with a far more advanced model of the same thing has successfully replaced his with a Bachmann N class tender.

 

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P_20200630_165124_vHDR_Auto by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


In the meantime, for a bit of fun I have put my European-based Christmas train on the tracks for a run (Christmas in July here in Oz makes a little sense because it is cooler and we can enjoy things like hot roast dinners and hot puddings). I put my blue 1366 pannier tank (itself an unfinished project) on the front. I have a few extra coaches bought quite cheaply, although they are of very good quality, with a view to repainting them into more festive (if fictitious) liveries. I made a start on an early 6-wheel 1st class coach, going from an olive drab colour to a two-tone blue scheme, to which I am picturing myself adding some snowflakes or stars. This is very much an experiment, but it looks promising.

 

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1366 PT and Christmas Train in July - cropped 1 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

50060956276_34897b5013_k.jpg
P_20200630_165140_vHDR_Auto by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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I'd wondered what the provenance of the 310 was when I saw your picture on Flickr. Looks to be an excellent kit, the window frames on the etches look particularly effective.

 

The mid blue rather suits the Pannier tank IMHO, quite close I'd think to early BR steam blue from 1949 - 52. Wonder if a bit of LNER style lining would work, the problem is if you start it would be difficult to know where to stop!

 

John.

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3 hours ago, SRman said:

I decided it would be easier to store if I put the basic body shells together.

What a great excuse!

 

3 hours ago, SRman said:

Christmas in July here in Oz makes a little sense because it is cooler and we can enjoy things like hot roast dinners and hot puddings

December too, in Melbourne?

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17 hours ago, John Tomlinson said:

I'd wondered what the provenance of the 310 was when I saw your picture on Flickr. Looks to be an excellent kit, the window frames on the etches look particularly effective.

 

The mid blue rather suits the Pannier tank IMHO, quite close I'd think to early BR steam blue from 1949 - 52. Wonder if a bit of LNER style lining would work, the problem is if you start it would be difficult to know where to stop!

 

John.

 

 

Hi John,

 

The blue I used on the pannier was BR express steam blue (Precision Paints, from memory). It is a rather pleasant shade. The LNER white/black/white lining definitly sets the blue off nicely, and I did a previous pannier tank (57XX type) in a rather garish blue with LNER lining to offset it. I was thinking of lining the tank sides and possibly the forward part of the cabsides with either BR/LNER lining, or with BR mixed traffic lining. Nothing has been decided for sure yet.

 

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IMG_20180209_182245 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

 

The 310 is a very nice kit, and I will eventually finish it in BR blue with small or full yellow panels, as they were in the 1960s,to early 1970s. I was lucky to get it as a bargain including all wheels and bits, and even a Mashima motor.

Edited by SRman
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4 minutes ago, SRman said:

The 310 is a very nice kit, and I will eventually finish it in BR blue with small or full yellow panels, as they were in the 1960s,to early 1970s.

You'll have to call it an AM10 not a 310 then, especially as it has those very nice wrap-around windscreens.

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First attempt at stars and other celestial bodies. It needs a little further work and tidying up, but I think I am on the right track here. The first photo shows one side, the second shows the other side and one of the pre-existing coaches from the train.

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P_20200630_221851_vHDR_Auto by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

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P_20200630_221925_vHDR_Auto by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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Still dabbling with European railways at present, I have been testing and tweaking a Danish IC3 DMU. As I have said before, the Heljan units have known running problems with a tendency to derail due to the powered bogies lifting off the track, but I think I have found a simple fix for them, having applied it to the two units I currently own (with a third unit on its way from Denmark as I type). The fix is simple enough in itself, combined with a little extra weight in the leading and trailing driving cars. What I have done is drilled out the little plastic 'pips' that act as a guide for each of the powered bogies, with their close-coupling action spacing out for curves. I then insert a self-tapping screw of the same diameter as the plastic 'pips' - the screws that Oxford Diecast use to keep ther cars in their packaging are perfect for this, and I have heaps of them.

The screws not only act as the guides for the bogies, they also limit the amount of tilt that seems to be the cause of derailments in the first place. For my own layout, both of my present units run perfectly now, but I wanted to see how robust my solution is by testing on a more challenging layout. We visited our good friend DougN of this parish and his family yesterday, so I took the opportunity to run DSB unit 5003 on his figure-8 layout with its steepish gradients and tighter curves than mine (it looked a little out of place in the midst of Doug's LNER setting!). The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so the unit was placed on Doug's tracks andconnected up. Initially, the trailing driven bogie was tending to lift on a tighter, uphill curve, but after slackening the screw at that end about a quarter turn, the unit ran perfectly from there onwards. It ran so well that we left it running continuously for over an hour with no hesitations or derailments at all. 

The photos show the screws in place, and the video is strung together from shorter clips taken just after the start of the continuous run, and about 45 minutes into the running session.

 

Aj6ufHLB_t.jpg

 

K4z4iaj0_t.jpg

 

SwZsNEQp_t.jpg

 

 

Edited by SRman
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Glad that it all ran SRman... you could have warned me to clean up the layout for the filming.  The layout looks a bit of a disaster area as any flattish surface attracts kits or bits of with me...  as I said on the phone the lead is here for you and I found all the bits that keep making a break for freedom. 

 

You know now you can come over any time to test run any rolling stock. As my layout has 20 inch curves with a 1:30 inclines. 

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10 minutes ago, DougN said:

Glad that it all ran SRman... you could have warned me to clean up the layout for the filming.  The layout looks a bit of a disaster area as any flattish surface attracts kits or bits of with me...  as I said on the phone the lead is here for you and I found all the bits that keep making a break for freedom. 

 

You know now you can come over any time to test run any rolling stock. As my layout has 20 inch curves with a 1:30 inclines. 

Enjoyed the video, your Danish unit seems to run very well indeed.

 

I had to laugh at "any flattish surface attracts kits or bits with me..", when I was a small boy my Dad said just the same of me, and nearly six decades on nothing has changed. Perhaps it goes with the general personality make-up of the kind of folk who do railway modelling.

 

John.

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37 minutes ago, John Tomlinson said:

Enjoyed the video, your Danish unit seems to run very well indeed.

 

I had to laugh at "any flattish surface attracts kits or bits with me..", when I was a small boy my Dad said just the same of me, and nearly six decades on nothing has changed. Perhaps it goes with the general personality make-up of the kind of folk who do railway modelling.

 

John.

Build open-top baseboards. You know it makes sense.

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I agree John, the layout started out open topped.... but when you put scenery on it... the flat and not so flat areas get the treatment on my layout... eventually...

 

saying that tonight i took took off one of the projects a NER cattle wagon as I had figured how to solve a problem! 

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I have several workbenches, one of which is supposed to be temporary. All are flat surfaces, so you can probably guess that none of them have any available space on which I can do some actual work. There are a couple of areas on Newton Broadway that tend to get items of stock 'dumped' on them, one of which is the dirt track running beside the programming track. I usually shift things for photography and videoing, but if you look a few posts back, where I showed the AM10 unit and the Christmas train, there is a strange purple class 57 parked under the lattice bridge on the roadway there. 

:lol:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Some video of a running session this morning, with a bit of a mixture of stock and eras. The upper level ones were all items that have not had much running, so were set running for quite a while continuously, and I thought I may as well do a bit of filming as well.

There are four main running lines on Newton Broadway, two lower level (London Underground lines), and two upper level main lines, with storage loops on both levels. I had five trains running reliable on both levels. Usually when I pull the camera out and start videoing, Murphy's Laws kick in and something will come off the rails somewhere or start playing up. None of that occurred here.

The Heljan DSB IC3 has had my usual modifications applied as per the other two of these units I have and runs perfectly reliably now through any of the points and reverse curves. 

The Hornby Peckett B2 has not had a great deal of running apart form an initial running-in session. It was put to work on the 'just for fun' Christmas train consisting of mostly older German vehicles. This train is not exactly light. I tried a Dapol B4 0-4-0T on it and it just sat there spinning its wheels. The Peckett and the Heljan 1366 pannier (not shown here) both romp away with this train.

Following behind the Christmas train is a New South Wales Government Railways double deck interurban set, known as a V set. This is an Auscision model and is not quite as sophisticated as its price would suggest. I had replaced half of the longer Kadee couplings with shorter ones to close the inter-car gaps a bit, so each has one long and one short coupling. Two short couplings foul on the tightest curves and crossovers.

On the lower level, underground trains from two different eras are seen, with ex-Metropolitan Railways 1920 Bo-Bo electric loco No. 8 'Sherlock Holmes' in 1960s condition on some Farish coaches, and the latest standard 'surface' stock, the S Stock, providing a contrast.
 

 

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My Hornby Stephenson's Rocket train arrived today. A quick test on DC showed it to be a bit of a rocket, but it worked fine. Then I set about finding a decoder for it. 

A DCC Cncepts 6-pin wired harbness decoder was tried and worked fine, but would not fit into the barrel. A rethink was in order. I had a Bachmann direct plug in 36-568 decoder (actually a rebadged Zimo) and I know these work rather nicely in other installations. This decoder has rather long and soft pins, so having tested it and established it worked nicely in Rocket, I very carefully bent the pins over into a 'U' shape, using a metal ruler and a flat file to keep the pins straight and parallel. This allowed me to plug it so it sat straight over the Hornby socket and pcb, becoming so compact that not only did it all fit back into the barrel, I was able to stow the blanking plug in there too so it doesn't get lost.

The first two photos hopefully show this more clearly than my words can. I know the tender is off the rails as I was trying to get a better angle for the decoder view. The third photo shows the whole train in service, after a lot of cursing while trying to couple it all up without accidentally uncoupling the previous vehicle at the same time. Shaky hands didn't help! 

One other observation with mine: the stiff wires between loco and tender have a tendency to lift the leading tender wheels off the track. I'll have to see if I can come up with a reliable fix for that.

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P_20200722_133733_vHDR_Auto by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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P_20200722_133810_vHDR_Auto by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

50138928003_4baf21e488_k.jpg
P_20200722_141053_vHDR_Auto by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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I finally got around to converting a Fleischmann BR 89 0-6-0T locomotve to DCC. This was the locomotive I originally intended for use with the Christmas train. I used an ESU LokPilot v5 Micro decoder, which has enough power handling for this locomotive and fits neatly into the notch at the top of the pancake motor between the motor housing and the metal plate that houses the rear light bulb. I had replaced the motor front plate with a fully isolated one to make the conversion easier.

 

I have not wired the lights at this stage as I have to be careful with the live chassis, but the front light is still wired directly to the track (through the right-hand pickups and return through the chassis). This means that at present, the front lights are permanently on while the rear ones are not operational at all. I will rewire them eventually, maybe even substituting some 5mm LEDs to reduce the potential power strain on the decoder.

 

I also found a solution for replacing the Fleischmann couplings and setting the replacement Kadees at a perfect height for coupling to adjacent vehicles - those Oxford Diecast self-tapping securing screws are very useful for a lot of things. Eventually I want to put the continental loop type couplers, but don't have any suitable ones at present. Using the Kadees means that the adjacent vehicle has to have an NEM pocket so I can just plug in a Kadee (#20 used here).

 

One final thing regarding the running qualities. The BR 89 ran nicely straight off, but tended to jerk on starting. I used the ESU self-tuning facility to good effect. Programming on the main, set CV 54 to 0, then select function 1. The locomotive takes off rapidly for a couple of feet while the decoder sets its parameters. After that, it runs very smoothly and controllably indeed, with only a little 'cogging' evident at speed step 1 (more a characteristic caused by the motor type and gearing).

Also on the workbench is the commencement of ideas on the remaining green coach. I'm not sure if my artistic abilities are up to what I have in mind, but this is a start. There is a little more to do yet. Sorry about the surrounding clutter.

 

50153444237_db61187693_k.jpg
P_20200726_095621_vHDR_Auto by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

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P_20200726_095709_vHDR_Auto by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

50153460112_71b3f488d7_k.jpg
P_20200726_095512_vHDR_Auto by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Edited by SRman
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Christmas in July!

 

27 minutes ago, SRman said:

Programming on the main, set CV 54 to 0, then select function 1.

Would that work on a programming track (rolling road) too Jeff?

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Hi John.
 

I have done this on a rolling road, but ideally it should be done with some rolling resistance so the decoder can get a measure of how the locomotive behaves, therefore on the track is better and more likely to give useful results. It does sometimes take more than one go to get the best results. 

If you do it on the programming track, you would still do it using Programming on the Main, or if necessary, programmed in programming mode, then switched to normal mode to select F1.

This technique works for ESU version 4 and 5 decoders, for both LokPilot and LokSound types.

 

Edited by SRman
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  • 2 weeks later...

Some further work on the last of the Christmas coaches: I am mostly happy with the way it is going, but the reindeer need more work. The one on this side is not too bad, but the one on the other side started off looking like a labrador with antlers. I have improved it, bit both need further work. It's not brilliant, but from viewing distances I think it can pass muster.

Christmas in July has passed, but the whole train, with some added figures, will be complete for December this year.

While I had it in pieces, I took the opportunity to paint the interior as well, although it can barely be seen.

50192125052_5e4c2a3f72_k.jpg
P_20200805_224802_vHDR_Auto by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

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  • 3 weeks later...

Quite by accident, I found a double-tracked steel bridge that looked like it would suit part of the long front viaduct. The kit is from Faller and labelled as a German S-Bahn station. The style of the kiosks on either end reminded me of a couple of London Underground station entrances, although I could see I would have to do some scratchbuilding and modifying to achieve what I wanted. By pure luck, when I tried the bridge for length, it was exactly the same length as the temporary place-holder 3-arch viaduct from Triang. The width was ideal also, although I would have to cut down the pavement sections supplied in the kit - I actually decided to dispense with those as the style was a bit modern, preferring to use some Slaters British style paving slabs. The rear shop/station entrances have to be sealed off or labelled as 'private' with only a narrow path to them beside the LT tracks. The roadway is to be cobbled and styled as a dead-end road that may once have been a level crossing but now just terminates adjacent to the lowered running lines.

Anyway, work on the kit has been proceeding, and the shop at the right will remain as a shop, while that on the left is to be  more open entrance, possibly with the tops of some escalators and/or stairs coming in from the side, leading to subways under the lines and the subway entrance on the LT platforms (already in place).

The first two photos show the basic bridge structure placed over the lines on the viaduct it is to replace, while the next two show it in situ with nothing yet painted, but giving a fair idea of how it will look. The original intention was to have more brick arches along here, but this bridge will open up the view of the LT trains a bit more. The original trackbeds are being filled in a bit so the German wooden platforms become lower wooden walkways on either side of each track. While all of this is only temporarily placed, I have ensured that running of trains is still possible.

EsxlnnRL_t.jpg

 

dWDj3mQP_t.jpg

 

VagfzJy9_t.jpg

 

LdpQZulc_t.jpg

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Seems like a good fit there Jeff.  Not a million miles removed from the ones being installed along the 12" : 1' railway near you either.  The first thing I was reminded of was not an S-Bahn station but the Metro "Skyrail" viaducts!  

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

I recently won two Lima European locomotives from an auction. The one item I really wanted (also a Lima item, a DSB MR DMU) went for more than I was prepared to pay, but these two cost me the princely sum of $AUS129, including their fees. The Swedish T43 had the old style pancake motor but I was the only bidder and got it for $40 plus fees, so can't complain. The BR 127 Eurosprinter has a central can motor with large flywheels and all eight wheels are driven, but it wasn't DCC ready. Both had lights, with the T43 having a primitive set up of two white incandescant bulbs and a pair of diodes, plus a mess of wiring. The 127 had head and tail lights, although one red bulb was broken. Both locos ran perfectly straight from their boxes on DC analogue.

The T43 was first to be converted to DCC through a straight hard-wiring job using a Zimo MX600 with the 8-pin plug cut off. This model has a slightly more modern implementation of the Lima's motor bogie setup, with extra pickups on the non-driven bogie. I determined that there was plenty of room for a decoder at the non-motored end under the long bonnet. The track pickups to brush wiring were easily disposed of and the relevant decoder wires soldered to the necessary points. The blue positive accessory wire had to be extended to reach the light return contacts at both ends, with the white wire to the back of the front-end bulb (long bonnet), and yellow to the trailing end. I cut the clip retaining the front bogie so the bulb holder was entirely separate to keep the circuits apart, and for the present mounted that on a blob of Blu-tack, with another blob holding the decoder to the side of the bonnet. A quick test showed that it all worked perfectly. The paint finish on this loco is very good. I will eventually improve the lighting a bit, but for now it is adequate.

50396138441_7a3c538a37_k.jpg
P_20200929_112500_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

 

The Eurosprinter represents a Siemens/Krauss-Maffei prototype that lead to several variations, including the Austrian Taurus locomotives. The PCB is a fairly simple one-layered affair, allowing me to cut and use the tracks to connect a decoder straight in. The pantographs had the facility to make them live instead of the rail pickup on one side, but for DCC use this is undesirable. I soldered the pivoted link to make it semi-permanently connected to track only. I found that I could just squeeze in a full-size ESU LokPilot v5 decoder, sitting diagonally under the PCB at one end, on top of the bogie tower and directly behind the cab bulkhead. The usual brush and track connections were made, keeping an eye on which end was intended to be the No. 1 end (easily swapped if necessary either by swapping the brush wires or by changing the value in CV29 - neither of which was necessary for me). For the lighting, I wanted to separate the tail lights out to their own functions, so being able to use a 4-function decoder was useful. The white headlights were wired to the white and yellow wires, while the red tail lights were wired to the green and purple wires. The broken red bulb was replaced with a red LED and resistor.

On test, the decoder read properly on the programming track, and the lights worked correctly first go, with the locomotive travelling in the intended directions for forwards and reverse. The body has not quite clipped back properly, hence the light bleed apparent in one of the photos, so I will be tidying the wiring up a little to get any stray bits out of the way. F0 works the directional white headlights, F1 works the tail lights at #1 end, F2 works the tail lights at #2 end. All in all, a successful bit of work.

 

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P_20201001_191729_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

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P_20201001_192148_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

 

50404220907_a915554bb4_k.jpg
P_20201001_192328_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Edited by SRman
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My latest project involved soldering some wires to a small 6-pin decoder to add a stay-alive circuit. By the time I got to that bit, after soldering all the other wires to the tantalum capcitors and the charging circuit (a LifeLink from YouChoos), my hands were getting quite shaky. It can be done! :)

This was an EFE London Transport silver train, some 1959/62 tube stock. I had originally installed the Black Beetle in a red 1938 car, but since Bachmann/EFE are producing a ready to run 1938 train, I swapped the chassis into a silver body. I repainted the seats to suit, but the EFE interiors use the same mouldings. The motor conversion was successful in itself, but the drag from those horrible EFE bogies needed something to be done: Metro Models to the rescue with some new bogie shells with pinpoint axles were added, using the EFE sideframes as overlays. These bogies come with some brass bar etchings that act as couplings, but they are still fiddly to connect, so I looked for an alternative and came up with using Kadee #5 coupling boxes in conjunction with Bachmann E-Z Mate whisker couplings with the dropper arms cut off. The boxes fit upside down over the coupling spigots on the bogies, and are secured with a spot of superglue.

Next was to modify the wiring of the Black Beetle to solder a harness with a 6-pin socket to the brushes and pickups, allowing me to experiment with different decoders. Initially I used a DCC Concepts decoder but wasn't happy with the running, so swapped that for a Zimo decoder. With advice from John at YouChoos, I added three tantalum 470uF capacitors to one of his LifeLink charging circuits, then soldered the wires from that to the pads on the Zimo MX617 decoder. I really didn't want to add any extra drag on the trailing bogies, which is why I have not fitted extra pickups on the one in the motorised car, and chose instead to use the keep-alive idea (the first time I have used this system).

I put together a very short video showing what I have done and the running unit in action.
 

 

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