Suzie

I did not know much about American railways when I visited there so it was all a bit alien, but now I realise how much attention to detail there was not just in the trains but the landscape too. It really was rather special and a sad loss.

There was a transition from loco hauled to DBSO operation on the Great Eastern, and trains would often be seen with an 86 at each end I guess when DBSO was not available.

Best I don't use Hatton's as a reliable source of info any more! https://www.hattons.co.uk/432172/graham_farish_371_184_class_40_40012_aureol_in_br_blue/stockdetail.aspx They are saying 6-pin socket.

The 40 has a NEM651 6-pin socket so not such an easy installation unfortunately, but the 31 is Next-18 so easier, especially if you buy the sound fitted one!

Get a loco with a PluX-16 or Next18-S socket and you should be able to just plug in a sound decoder. You possibly might need to add a speaker too, but it will make for a simple sound installation.

The three way point is a bit tricky. You really need to switch the frogs because you cannot connect the dark green frog to the light green frogs - they are at opposite polarity when using the central route through the point.

Not melting stuff is all about using an iron that is hot enough to do the job. With modern 4% silver lead free solder you will need an iron at least 25W, a 40W iron will be a good starting point, and a temperature controlled iron is of course ideal. It takes a lot of skill to do a good job with a cold iron!

I got the plain brick wagon in a set with a blue clockwork steam loco, a bolster wagon (without bolster) with a minic car load, and a second bolster wagon without bolster but with a plain orange container (the type with central lifting eye) and a circle of Super-4 track. These wagons all came without a weight so did not always stay on the track until I added extra loads.

Not really, a 25V DC switchmode power supply is best (cheapest, smallest,more efficient), but you can use a 16V AC transformer if you have one.

These diagrams are excellent!

Brian Please accept that there is an interesting solution to this thread. I would not do it this way, and you would not do it this way, but it is a solution for someone that wants to lay their track and try operating their points without an auxiliary switch that is reversible without having to take up the track. The OP has understood the solution, so please stop telling him that it won't work - it will!

You have got it.

1. Yes. The switch rails are floating so will not be connected anywhere until one of them (and only one) contacts to a stock rail. 2. The switch rails are the moving rails. The stock rails are the fixed rails. 3. Yes it does, that is why it will be a good idea to fit a frog switch at some point if you are not going to do it when you lay the point. The point of this process is that you can lay the point and fit the frog switch later, everyone else will either not bother and put up with poor running or fit the frog switch in the first place. There is no magic solution!

Yes, this bit is key:- "you can just wire the two switch rail droppers to the frog dropper"

On American sound projects the traditional norm is to use the F1 button for the horn, so this will usually be set to 'momentary' mode to activate the horn when pressed. You should be able to change this to toggle mode to suit your sound projects and set whichever button you use for the horn or whistle to momentary instead. On Lenz you should be able to set this individually for each loco to match whichever sound project you have.

The Rowntree building is on new street, and the siding ran in to the back of the building. It was a tyre factory (or something similar) last time I was in Chelmsford.

I got a 315 from Liverpool St to Chelmsford that terminated there at about four in the morning once. I had to continue by taxi from there - it was as far as you could get in the middle of the night. 315s used to operate the Southend Victoria line and to Southminster during the day at one time before the metro service got busy enough to need all of them I guess.

Close coupling mechanisms have to be used with rigid couplers or they are prone to move to the side in the 'wide' position when pulling a heavy load. If they pull to the wrong side before a corner they will derail. I don't understand why most stock that comes with close couplers only has tension lock couplers in the box, Bachmann are better in this regard supplying solid coupler bars fortunately.

The building in the background is the mental hospital (Essex Hall?) which was built as the station hotel. Interesting that a Walton service is in that platform - it would normally be going the other way - or is that the back? (Edit, red lamp gives it away!)

So no 90+DVT sets yet. I would have thought that there would be somewhere that is all under the wires by now.

Which Peco points? If you have the new Unifrog points you will not need insulated joiners, but for Electrofrog you will. The frogs will need to be switched and the frogs will be of opposite polarity, so if operating the two motors together you can use a single DPDT frog switch to switch both frogs at once.

I don't think any UK loco manufacturer has released a decoder without 126 speed steps, even though some have had pretty rotten decoders. The Roco crane is I think the only RTR decoder fitted item that came with a 14-step decoder, and that was decades ago. The 28-step spec and 126-step spec came at about the same time, so there are very few, if any 28-step decoders that don't also support 126-steps.

When I tried to use my triang track the gauge had reduce to 13.5mm in places. It would need widening for TT-fine scale! I am loathe to put something so old in the skip that gave me a lot of enjoyment many years ago, but I think that is where it belongs.

In i-train it is reasonable to assume that all locos are 126 speed steps, since this is most likely the case. If you have a decoder so old that it does not support 126 speed steps you will most likely know about it - there are not many of them around and you would not use one unless you really, really had to. You will need to ensure that CV29 is set correctly in all locos to make sure that the directional lighting works correctly too. In the unlikely event you find a loco not responding to i-train then you will need to investigate whether it supports 28-steps instead, or maybe 14/27-steps (most 14-step modes are actually 27-steps in practice - they are fully compatible with one another and generally you will find performance very similar to 28-step). All sound decoders are 126-steps. This mode was around long before sound decoders appeared.

Insulfrog is Peco's trademark for their particular brand of dead frog points. Only Peco make them. Any other dead frog point is not Insulfrog. Fortunately Insulfrog is being phased out in favour of Unifrog which does not have the same problem.