Signalist

Quite a lot of Eastenders references went in to our Walford inspired layout for the Great Model Railway Challenge. Thread here:- https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/138423-walford-towers/#comment-3332091 Walford East station, Albert Square, well known businesses under tha arches, the Queen Vic pub with animated customer being ejected, bus crashing in to the market, dirty den's body floating in the canal while Rowley the dog looks on, the caff and minimart, Doctor Leg's surgery and a completely to scale 'Walford Towers' tower block and lots more. The research was hard enough - but getting hold of an undergound train in the timescale was real hell. I think that the team did well to capture the spirit. p.s. the tower block appears in 'Auf Weidersehn Pet' and 'A Clockwork Orange' too, perhaps an idea for another day...

The Z21 is sending a reset packet, you will probably notice that if you turn your Z21 off with trains running, when you turn it back on again the trains will stop because they respond to the reset packet. It is quite a small issue, but if the Z21 sends a reset packet it should also reset its internal state to match. There are a lot of decoders that ignore the reset packet, and if you have some of these you will not see the effect. The Signalist SC1 decoder allows you to set a default state so you know what state your signals will be when your system is reset. A simple power down will not reset the signals - they will come back on in the state they were left in so that a simple glitch will not upset anything.

The SC1 should be available from CR Signals, and will drive common positive and common negative, or a mixture.

It appears that when the Z21 is powered on it is sending a decoder reset packet (hard reset in NMRA speak) and the decoder is responding to this and resetting to a known value as the NMRA spec requires when a decoder recieves this packet. Other command stations notably Lenz do this as well. The issue here is that while the Z21 sends the reset packet to reset the decoders, it does not reset its own internal state to match. I don't unfortunately have a Z21 here to see how it displays signal states on the command station. The simple workaround is to disconnect the track feed to the layout with a switch before power on and reconnect it after the command station has sent its reset packet, that way the decoder will retain its previous state when it was powered off and not be reset.

Hi OliverSR You are correct in that you will need to replace the grain of wheat bulbs with LEDs. You should have little trouble finding some that fit. Get true green LEDs for the green as they are a better colour than the ordinary green ones supplied in many signals. You will not need any resistors. The SC1 controls the LED current, you program individual CV values to adjust the brightness of each LED.

There is more than one site hosted on the same place, and I think there must be some interaction that has replaced the static homepage (index.html) with something dynamic. I don't have access to the hosting so the stock levels have not been updated for years.

Sorry, I had not realised that the site had stopped working, I will get on to the webmaster and see what has gone wrong. The forum is hosted seperately. Glad that you are finding the resource useful.

My layouts are exhibition only, I would not really be interested in operating a layout that was small enough to set up at home. Even the modular club layout can only be set up in 'small' format in the clubroom so exhibitions are really important to me! It is the only time that proper operation is possible.

Nice to see the Signalist searchlight heads on 'Minories' made it in to the book.

It is a shame that the 350 did not appear to be a success. I have a couple that were shown quite prominently on GMRC last year and people keep asking me where I got them, but alas they are like rocking horse manure now. I would love a couple of Dustys and 315s and maybe a 360. I will just have to start modelling in N...

Looking forward to exhibiting the Essex Belt lines tomorrow with the rest of the Thamesiders (who are mostly busy on site setting up now!). I'll be operating the Central Traffic Control panel for a couple of sessions so come and say Hi and see how the signals were controlled in the 1940s.

Hi The S-Stock is not tube - it is the larger sub-surface stock. The trains modelled as far as I can tell are all 8-car Aldgate Metropolitan trains rather than 8-car District or 7-car Circle/Hammersmith and City. Not all the cars are listed on the website, but all appear to be available from the shop. If you only want a 4-car half-length set you should not have a problem. They did have a sale on, suspect that might still be the case from the e-mails I have been getting. There is a choice of three different trains offered but all Metropolitan Aldgate trains. I rather like the look of the S-Stock. I am not a regular traveller on the prototype so not really an expert on their fidelity - but they do appear to give the right impression and people like the train. As to running they are a bit of a nightmare. You get two power cars in each train regardless of length. Unfortunately there is no through wiring (through power couplings have been fitted - but not wired!), and drive is just from both axles on one bogie of each power car (rather than a central motor driving all four axles as would be sensible). Pulling power is somewhat limited so the traction tyres are required for anything other than a billiard table flat layout. When fitted with DCC the power pickups are sufficiently inadequate that power loss from one end or the other happens rather too frequently and the train will stop if one of the power cars is not running. As has been mentioned there is no lighting provided in the intermediate cars - but pickups are fitted! Realistically it is required to arrange some sort of through wiring from the power cars to the adjacent vehicle for adequate pickup if you want performance better than a double headed Lima!. If you are going to run on track with 3rd and 4th rails fitted you will have to modify the bottom of the bogies to clear the conductor rails. Bit of a cock up really this one. Provision for fitting MTC-21 decoders has been made and there is space to fit speakers in each of the power cars. Sound is available from Coastal DCC. On the whole I like the S-stock. Any review like this is going to look a bit negative, but if you can sort the through wiring and the bogie undersides you will have a nice train.

There is an article on page 50 of the latest MERG journal (vol 52 No4) I wrote about the electronics used on Walford Towers.

We are seeing some quite nicely turned out EMUs nowadays too. The refurbed 321s are quite striking, and like the 350s make an attractive train that might work well in a train set which is where many start of course. I am just hoping that the (nearly) empty shelves is because they have all ended up in Christmas stockings!