jpendle

Or was it a typo?

If you want non-GWR branch lines take a look around Wigan in it's heyday. Branch lines galore, very few of which had a terminus. A small station that could be modeled is Hilton House on the branch from Dobb Brow Junction to the Bolton Preston line at Blackrod. The Man Vic to Blackpool Club trains used this route to avoid Bolton, there were locals from Wigan to Blackrod plus through freights. I think a lot of branches in the North tended to connect two existing routes rather than dead ending somewhere, although there are exceptions. Regards, John P

Just be thankful a Yank didn't write it. Here it would be 'That's a savings (A SAVINGS !!!!!!!!!!!) of 63%' I know that we are two nations divided by a common language, but there are some American English phrases that still feel like fingernails being scraped down a blackboard. I could go on John P

Z21 and others need to see a motor load to read and program CVs. Either program both cars at the same time or put the chip from the dummy into the motor car to program it. Alternatively buy a seperate chip programming gizmo. My brain is dead at the mo but someone else will be able to recommend something Regards, John P

To echo Iain's turnout (sorry I meant point). :) Speed matching and thus consisting on the Z21 is a doddle. Regards, John P

Your choice of point motor will effect the way you do things. E.G. For cosmetic reasons, I use Tortoise slow action motors, I remove the springs from the points and get nice smooth slow moving point blades. BUT this means I can't rely on blade contact to provide an electrical path through the points so I use the built in switch on the Tortoise to switch the polarity of the frog. I would experiment with a single point and some track to see how things behave in your scenario before making any changes to either the points or the wiring. AND remember a lot of the advice on here is for OO Gauge Peco points, which doesn't apply to N Gauge Code 55 Electrofrog points. Regards, John P

Here in the US we can dispose of 'sharps' in a plastic container. A plastic milk container is acceptable. As 'sharps' are a biohazard they aren't recycled. Regards, John P

Just to be pedantic. Helices will work much better then spirals. I’ll leave now. John

You have to be careful once you get to shielded cables, Coax, USB, HDMI, et al. Coax is used for analog and digital signals, its outer layer is a wire mesh sheath that should be grounded at both ends. When we get to USB and HDMI, then it's even more complex, as there are signal wires carrying very fast digital signals, coupled with power wires, (so you can charge things from USB), and shielding. So these cables can be better or worse performing depending on the design. However, I wouldn't spend hundreds of pounds on gold plated digital cables, to get better sound/less bit errors or whatever, bog standard cables bought in bulk should work just fine especially as most digital protocols have built in error detection and correction. For the non technical that means that an HDMI transmitter adds additional info to its signal, so that an HDMI receiver can tell when it hasn't received the correct data, at this point it asks for a retransmit of the original data, all the while doing this much faster than you TV is refreshing the screen. Regards, John P

How about 'directional' speaker wires???? The only directional passive electrical component I know of is a diode. Regards, John P

When will it shrink to N? Regards, John P

Remember this N Gauge, I can't see the numbers when a unit is running. On wagons its even worse, on the Dapol FEA's I couldn't even find the numbers!!! Regards, John P

I think its just the 319's that are being run by Northern with some converted to bi-mode. The 320/321 being done by Revolution isn't being used by Northern AFAIK. Regards, John P

It's even worse here in the US. So what are Swedes called here, no US residents need respond! Regards, John P

Most systems expect to see a motor load before they will program a decoder. For MU's with 2 or 3 chips, it is better to program the non-motorised units with the motor unit present on the same track. It may be that standalone decoder programmers do a better job of this, but I haven't tried one. I'm sure someone will be along shortly with a better answer. Regards, John P

You can get a Zimo Next 18 decoder for 20 quid or less. Of course if you want sound then they are rather more expensive. Regards, John P

He's a Yank. He knows , as do all of his compatriots, that it's perfectly safe to get in front of moving vehicles. In car supermarket car parks all over the US, people happily walk slowly down the middle of the lanes AND let their young children wander about, safe in the knowledge that if a car were to hit them they would make lots of money in a lawsuit. Course that wouldn't be much consolation if you had a dead child. Before we moved to the US I remember adults with young children holding their hands AND pulling them to the side if a car wanted to get past. Regards, John P

DO NOT USE a Dremel with a cutting disk, or anything similar. I tried this on an N Gauge point and I had melted the tie bar before I had cut through the piano wire. Regards, John P

Currently 0% duty on model trains imported from anywhere to the USA John P

I’ve been reading these posts with some interest. Here’s my tuppence worth. 4 years ago I really wanted an N Gauge Pendolino, but nobody was making one. We tried a Kickstarter with Revolution Trains and it failed. But there was enough interest garnered for Rapido to step in and offer to produce the model. As I live in the US I gave Rapido a 50% deposit for each model, But this was 50% of the cost of the model, not its retail value We got very regular updates on progress and eventually I received my models in April this year. Rapido have indicated that they may do another run with revised liveries and these models will be significanly more expensive as there will now be the usual retail uplifts. I don’t care what Rapido or Revolution do as far as a rerun is concerned. I have my 4 Pendolinos, if it weren’t for “Crowdfunding” I would probably still be waiting for some manufacturer to produce it. That’s the benefit of crowdfunding. Regards, John P

I just got charged by Rapido for my balances. Looks like they will be shipping from Canada soon. Regards, John P

Is the ‘dominant’ power car always the one pushing? This behavior has been reported by others. If you were to split the train in two would the back end catch up to the front or would the 2 halves stay a fixed distance apart? I have been told that the 2 motorised cars can be run on the same DCC address without any need for speed matching, but perhaps you could get better performance by setting 2 seperate addresses and then creating a consist. I’m still waiting for my Pendo’s to arrive, so I can’t offer any real world experience. Regards John P

I just went to the Revolution trains website, if you click on projects the IZA is right at the bottom. Regards, John P

When adding a sound decoder, is a speaker already fitted to the loco or is that something which needs to be added? Thanks, John P

I think they are assuming that you don't need to see the turnout numbers on the main control panel, once the numbers are assigned you can forget about them, as you just touch the relevant icon to change the point. Routes on the other hand ..... Regards, John P