Suzie

Would an 86 or 87 not do a good job on an electrified railway? If the wires were down nothing is moving anyway so a diesel is not really at an advantage. Might be a few 91s spare now.

How about this one if you want to go back to NX. Just press an alphabetic button for entry, and a numeric button for exit (or vice versa). B-1, B-2, 1-B and 2-B are obviously invalid routes that will always route to A by default. It can be tweaked a bit such as for example paralleling V2 with V3ab and removing the V2 diodes to provide flank protection, but it might be a bit counter intuitive. The starred diodes could be replaced with links too if you want to economise on diodes.

Two buttons per route will work for NX rather than the single button.

The Mk2 aircons used to have a stack of water in the luggage area since a lot of the time they were not aircon. I guess the new inter-city units don't have luggage space or a van like a DVT, DBSO etc...

You just need to look at this as being a group of (relatively) simple things. The right hand motor of the double slip can just be paralleled with the 'top' motor on the 3-way point to form an effective crossover. This way the double slip will always be set to accept trains from the 3-way when the top route is set through the 3-way point - at all other times the spur siding will be selected instead allowing parallel operations if required. The left hand motor of the double slip should be treated as if you have just added a point to the top loop to add and extra 4th loop. You just need to add the two buttons that provide routes from the spur to the two top loops, these buttons will just set the two motors of the slip (and will provide flank protection because they will operate the parallel motor on the 3-way that is set up as a crossover).

Just be aware that some American decoders are not compatible with Railcom, before you buy any American decoders from the likes of NCE it will be worth checking that they are fully compatible with the latest DCC standards. You might like to look at the DCC Concepts AD-8FX as well.

You could dim the LED further by running the Dapol signal on something like 6V AC via inverse parallel diodes. Just add more diodes in one side to dim the lamp. It will take a bit of experimentation to get the appropriate brightness. The mechanism inside is regulated and rectified, but the LED is not. Alternatively if you don't mind taking the signal apart you could replace the internal 820R resistor with a higher value to suit.

The pins on a trailer plug should be good for twenty amps, in the olden days you would often have had a 10A fridge running as well as the lighting (using what is now the reversing light pin). It is still far too big to be practical for layout use. The new 13-pin versions are a similar size so too big, but a much better connector than the two varieties of 7-pin.

Just use a cheap robust connector designed to do the job:- Speakon - a modern connector with screw terminals good for at least 40A which will take suitable 4-way cable. XLR - good for typical layout requirements (more pins means less current, but the 4-way should be OK for 10A, and the 3-way for 15A). Available in good quality from reputable manufacturers, and cheap and shoddy from others! Different numbers of pins as well as male and female allows the use of multiple connectors for a single baseboard join. Needs to be soldered. 'D' connector - lots of pins and should be good for 5A, but can only fit 16/02 wire or smaller so will usually need parallel wires for power and track bus circuits. Again can be variable in quality so go with a known good manufacturer. There is really no need to go: giant (trailer plug), inadequate (SCART), short operational life (Molex), Dangerous (any mains connector of any type at all), unreliable (jack plug), loose (banana plug), ancient and falling apart (GPO or similar connectors from ye olden days). More expensive options like the Anderson Powerpole and military round connectors can be useful - but can be hard to justify the cost over the three main options listed above that are both good and cheap.

Just have to take a cushion with me next time I take the train.

Last time I saw the Great Yarmouth installation there appeared to be only one of the three circuits connected to anything at the Great Yarmouth end. I was quite surprised to find it gone when I went there recently, I suspect replacement with something else was required with the new South Denes power station that must be a bit bigger than the old oil fired one.

NO THEY COULDN'T These are mains connectors that could be plugged into the mains.

Looks like this post is in the wrong section! An excellent robust and cheap 4-way connector is the Neutrik Speakon connector. It is designed for industrial speaker connections so is roady-proof, and good enough for 40 Amps so you can put nice fat 2.5mm2 4-core flexible speaker wire in the plugs. https://www.rapidonline.com/neutrik-nl4mp-speakon-l-speaker-socket-20-0860 https://www.rapidonline.com/neutrik-speakon-nl4fx-loudspeaker-plug-20-0856 https://www.rapidonline.com/evolution-xpc-prof-425-speaker-cable-black-20m-02-0640

Make sure that anything that might move or come loose is very rigidly attached. The layout will be shaken to extreme. As guide think 'If I drop the layout on the floor what might come loose?' and that will be a good guide as to what will drop of when in the trailer.

They are bi-modes. They should be using electric for part of the time and therefore require less diesel.

Saw a Sibil on the Clacton branch today running on Diesel. Not quite sure why it was there!

The one I saw north of Stansted had the pantograph up. Presumably on purpose!

Is that not why axle counters were invented?

There is no need for a resistor - just read the manual!!!!!

It is well worth looking at the Gaugemaster PM10D instructions that show the LED connected directly to the terminals without any need for a resistor. http://www.gaugemaster.com/instructions/GMC-PM10D Instructions.pdf This will only work for simple LEDs. More complicated accessories that require 12V will need a different solution.

I saw a 'Sybil' on the West Anglia north of Stansted heading towards Cambridge today with the pantograph up.

I think that the track layout would have been rationalised a bit by that date to eliminate the diamond and to remove the need for a shunt signal (crossover to branch and then point in to yard from branch). I would be inclined to put platform starters at the left end of the top and bottom faces, right hand end of top and middle faces, and a yellow shunt ground signal before the yard exit point. Extra starter or just stop signal/board will be required on the left of the middle platform if trains are to be reversed in the middle platform. All the other signals will be off scene, but from the left will be a signal with position 1 feather, and from the right main line will be a signal with and off indication and if the middle platform is for reversing a position 4 feather.

2-car 309621-627 had a pantograph over the cab on the power car, but the 4-car units 309601-608 and 309611-618 (griddle) had the pantograph on a centre power car. They originally tended to run as 10-car units with a 4-car griddle unit in the middle. There was not much scope for units to get turned so I guess the pans would not get closer than about two and a half cars apart in practice. The 2-car units did get extended to 4-car later but retained the pantograph over the cab. These units were main line express and ran at up to 100mph in multiple on Great Eastern, and later on West Coast.

On diesel the 3-car 755 is slightly more power (960KW) than a 170 (945KW for a 3-car), and the 4-car 755 quite a lot more (1920KW) than a comparable 4-car 170 formation (1260KW). Not sure how the loaded weights compare though, might sway the balance a bit.