Suzie

If you use good quality connectors and good wiring then link the boards with plugs and sockets. I would recommend the use of 'Speakon' connectors which are quite inexpensive and very good quality. You can get matching 2.5mm^2 speaker cable in 2-core and 4-core to make the jumper cables and underboard wiring. They are available in 4-pin and 2-pin variants so you can have your DCC track bus and an auxiliary supply as well. I have used bothe methods and there is probably just as much work doing it either way, but the simple jumper cables between boards is a lot neater.

I changed to a new tarrif with EON that required me to have a smart meter. Not a problem for me as the although the gas meter is outside the electricity meter is very hard to read and I was fed up of having to read it. Of course they kept nagging me to arrange an installation, which was tricky because I had to arrange a day off of work so that I could empty out the garage so that they could get to it and I needed a van to put all the stuff from the garage in in case it rained! So, I got it all arranged and booked to appointment. On the alloted day I duly emptied out the garage in anticipation of the meters arriving, and I waited until four in the afternoon. By that time I thought it was getting a bit late so I telephoned to see what was happening. "Oh, if they are not there yet they won't be coming today. Did they not telephone to tell you why they are late?" Of course no one had telephoned. No one came, so I put all the stuff back in the garage. Next day I telephoned to see what had gone wrong. "Why did no one come?" "Oh, we are very sorry. I don't know what happened." "How do I get my £30 compensation for you not turning up?" "Don't worry that is automatic." Very irritating but I waited a week and no compensation, so I phoned again. "You failed to arrive at the appointed time to fit my smart meters, and I have still not got my £30 compensation, so how do I get it and the additional £30 compensation for net compensating me within seven days?" "Oh, very sorry about that. I will look in to it." lots of hold music... "I will have to pass you over to the manager." "Oh. Very sorry. The compensation will be paid automatically." I wait until the next bill, and in the mean time receive another harressing e-mail to have a smart meter installed. The bill comes, no mention of compensation, and no money in my bank. I phone again. "Oh. Very sorry. I will have a look to see what has happened. Oh. I see you did book an appointment, but we had to cancel it as we do not have a smart gas meter suitable for your medium pressure supply." "I have several questions. 1. Why are you harrassing me to have a smart meter installed when you cannot supply one, 2. Why did you not tell me you had cancelled the appointment, 3. Wh when I telephoned did no one know that no one was going to turn up or that the appointment had been cancelled. 4. Why did you not just install the electricity meter when I don't care about the gas meter as it is outside and you can read it any time you like." "You can book an appointment to just have an electricity smart meter - would you like me to book one for you?" "No. I don't have any holiday left. I have already wasted one day waiting for you to come.... < extended rant here> and why did you not tell me it was cancelled?" "We sent you a text message to cancel the appointment." "No you didn't. I have my phone here, and there are no text messages from you." "Yes we did." "But I want my compensation" "We cancelled the appointment so there is no compensation." "But you did not notify me. I got no e-mail, no leter, and definitely no text message." I was clearly getting nowhere, but at least someone knew what was going on. ...Three months later I had to test a new phone so I put my SIM card in the new phone, and then put it back in my phone. Beep. Beep... lo and behold 37 text messages come through all at once including one from EON telling me I had booked an appointment to have a smart meter fitted, and one sent an hour later cancelling the appointment! There is no rhyme or reason why these messages had been delayed since I had recieved other messages in the mean time. They keep harassing me with telephone calls and e-mails - but I have no confidence that anyone will turn up and I know they will not pay the stated compensation for not turning up, and customer service is utterly useless, and communication is non existent unless it is for harrasment purposes. How can you run a business relying on text messages as the primary and only means of communication - A lot of people don't use text messaging at all, and it is clearly not anything like reliable. They can send e-mails for harrasment purposes but not for meaningful communication - they can make harrassing phone calls but cannot make critical phone calls. They can send you a confirmation that they are coming on the website even though they know that they have not got suitable equipment to install. They have call centre staff who have no access to any information whatsoever! Probably the most incompetent organisation I know of.

As others have said my 86s run fine on Peco code 75 track. I have re-wheeled some of them with Ultrascale but the pulling power is considerably reduced - they need a lot of weight.

If you put 12V on the 'L' and 'M' terminals ('L' = '+' and 'M' = '-') the LED will light, and whatever colour you see is the colour of the LED that is fitted to the panel. It does not change colour.

So, do we have a modelling compatible estate car yet like an electric Volvo 960? Any car with a nice 6' x 4' x 2' load space that we can put a packed up layout in would be jolly handy. I had to get rid of the Volvo because it was petrol/LPG and only did twenty to the gallon (and the LPG was useless - you think finding a working charger is hard - try finding a working LPG pump!), I now have a Mercedes E-class estate that does around fifty five to the gallon on a long run, but it is a bit diddy by comparison to the Volvo with about half the load space (4' x 3' x 2'). I am thinking that a Tesla Model X might have a bit of room, but I am not sure how the space works, turning up at the showroom with a van full of layout might not go down well. I think my budget is really only going to run to second hand, so that will cut down my choice a bit more I guess.

I am often puzzled by this short run of pylons in Colchester, probably about half a mile from the substation (close to the former power station site) to where it goes underground. It starts at the 132KV substation with five insulators. Then in the middle of the run goes down to four insulators And at the end only has three insulators. Is the current so high that the voltage drops from 55kV at the start to 33kV at the end? I suspect these structures date back to the 1930s because there are similar structures nearby that appear to have been built to take a section under an airfield built during the war.

Leicester had semaphores in 1982 which surprised me at the time.

I don't think that you will find many junctions where a position 1 feather (one divergence) will indicate a route faster than no feather (no divergence), and similarly a position 2 feather (two divergences) will be unlikely to be for a route faster than a position 1 feather. I am merely noting this for modelling purposes, not to tell a driver how to do his job!

I think that the simple differentiation is that in speed signalling the aspect tells you definitively what the maximum speed is after the signal, whereas in route signalling the aspect gives you a reference to your route knowledge/appendix to find out what speed you should be going. A lot of subtle speed information can be gained from route signalling, as in the UK where the angle of the feathers tend to indicate slower routes the further the feather angle deviates from the upright, but you still need to know what the indication means - it is not an absolute speed indication - but does refer to some documentation which will tell you the speed for that particular location. Some North American systems like Union Pacific where companies have been amalgamated have both route and speed aspects.

You can see them from the M5 now.

47406 shows how to do it in the most space saving way. You really will be best using Streamline or similar and put the crossover in the transition part of the curve where the very large radius will not cause a sudden change in radius.

Probably was not worth the effort.

You could use a PL15, it will be a lot more reliable than two PL13s

There must be some pictures, because they were very noticeable. It seemed like they ran like this for years!

Trucks on trains does not make much sense over short distances, but shipping containers to inland ports does, and there must be lots of scope for moving containers across the Pennines both east from Liverpool and west from the Humber and Felixstowe. Lack of infrastructure is all that is stifling this, all the government needs to do is increase capacity and be believed when it makes a plan that it will actually be done. Shortage and cost of truck drivers is very motivational to freight operators - and that motivation is already there if an alternative can be made available.

Looks like someone did the sums and found that even with the eastern leg and the increased 33 minute Leeds Manchester time the fastest route south from Leeds to Birmingham was still via Manchester and the western leg, rather makes the full eastern leg seem a bit pointless. All the proposed work would need to be done anyway at some point, so best to get it done first, and finish off the high speed Yorkshire section when the capacity improvement is required - when passenger numbers pick up sufficiently to fill 12-car EMUs. What is currently upsetting passengers is overcrowding on very short 2-car and 4-car diesel trains, all a bit unnecessary when perfectly good EMUs are going for scrap because electrification has not been done.

It is Deja vu like the Blair years - lets cancel all infrastructure investment and waste more money in a big hole like the NHS etc. Stupid thing is there has never been a cheaper time to borrow money, which makes the investment payback so much quicker. I guess it would have helped if Covid had not destroyed ridership on the trains reducing the urgency of capacity improvements which is what they are really canning.

Winter tyres are optimised for temperatures way below what we experience in the southern UK. While they might start working well below 7C, good summer tyres will out perform them in the wet which is the prevailing winter situation. Just use good summer tyres all year round, and stay at home when there is snow packed on to the road (about two days a year on average!) Look at the tests for Goodyear Eagle F1 summer tyres and you will see that they outperform most (if not all) winter tyres in typical southern UK winter conditions. If you are really worried about driving in severe winter weather probably best to keep an old Landrover in the garage...

Look at post 2 of this thread which has a link to some diagrams of how to make BM1 style braking modules on stripboard. I would recommend that you use UF4001 diodes (suitable for trains drawing up to 2A) or UF5400 (bigger and suitable for up to 6A), but any fast diode will do. 1N4001 diodes are often mentioned but they are not really suitable because they are not fast enough and they mess up the DCC waveform possibly creating some poor response and reliability issues. These BM1 modules just connect in line to the feed of an isolated section of track. Convention is to connect it in line with the left rail, but you can use the right rail just by connecting it the other way round.

Surely if both the Southport and Kirkby lines can justify being double track they must be able to justify electrification, it is not like they are small single track branch lines...

Perhaps reinstate the 3rd rail to Moels Cop and charge up from DC on the way in and out...

Could Merseyrail not be cajoled in to extending their 3rd rail to Upholland, then Wigan to Upholland would be an easy 25KV shoe-in with no need for a substation for such a short distance. Upholland could then become Skelmersdale Parkway! It would be a much better place to run the busses to rather than Wigan and Ormskirk. It is not like Kirkby is a meaningful destination from either Manchester or Liverpool - it just happens to be at some municipal boundary I guess. I would guess that Preston to Ormskirk would not need a substation either for 25KV. At Wigan moving the Wallgate platforms to be adjacent to Northwestern would offer some scope for lowering the track under the bridge at the same time and make a much more sensible interchange station out of the sorry mess. Making the Wallgate lines accessible by simple cross-platform interchange at Wigan, a bus connection to Skelmersdale from Upholland, and extending the Merseyrail to Upholland would significantly increase the ridership all round by providing facilities that are actually useable. Walking half way round Wigan, changing trains at Kirkby, and the mile or so walk from Upholland station to anywhere (including Upholland!) are all the sort of things that put people off. I suspect that the Southport line will be able to justify electrification if destinations other than just Manchester Victoria can be found, and EMUs with smarter acceleration can reduce the journey time a bit on all-stopping services.

Just Remember that you need to connect the negative to the 'T' terminal and the positive to both the 'U' and 'V' terminals otherwise you will overload the bridge rectifier.

Now, to try and add something. DCC concepts are trying to market their PSU offerings by casting doubt in people's minds that what they currently have is inadequate. I think it is only Lenz that currently market a transformer with a DCC system, and therefore only Lenz that would benefit from a PSU upgrade (note special wiring of the PSU required with Lenz - don't just wire DC to the U and V terminals!). All the rest will come with a perfectly good regulated switchmode PSU, the only upgrade needed might be to get a bigger PSU to get full benefit from the capability of the built in booster. I would never use a transformer nowadays for several reasons (weight, poor regulation, inefficiency and cost), but I would have no problem using the switchmode PSU supplied with most DCC systems. Transformers are transformers, they don't really come in smooth and not smooth varieties. There is such a thing as an unsmoothed DC power supply, but you are unlikely to have seen one of these in the last twenty years! I don't think any have ever been supplied with DCC systems. In reality there is very little to worry about.

Melvin's question is all in bold, a little bit shouty to start with. Melvin has asked for comment, and implies that he is welcoming comment, so there should be no surprise that people have commented. This is a very clear invitation.