Pete the Elaner

Not true but I can understand where that comes from. Good wiring is good wiring whether DC or DCC. The difference is the way the systems react to a short circuit. DC will give a brief hesitation & probably a spark too, so you will get away with the short, but ideally you can wire to protect against this. DCC will react much more quickly, cutting power for the whole layout (or the affected power district if you have separate power breakers) so you it is more important to protect against this. If you've seen Brian's web site by now, you hopefully won't be intimidated by the extra wiring involved. As previously mentioned, if you wire it up for DC with all track sections switched, you can turn them all on & connect a DCC system. The only extra thing to consider is the total current load if you wanted to have several locos running at the same time, but this is unlikely to be a problem on a small layout.

When I tried making OHLE, I found that the contact wire needed to be very over scale in order to prevent being broken by pantographs. A subsequent chat with Dagworth revealed that he reduces pantograph spring tension in order to reduce the size of the contact wire. The more upward force exerted, the better the pan cleans the wire, so it needs to be stronger & thicker. Reduce this force & you can make the wire look more realistic, but you will make it less reliable for contact. This is a problem fr Bachmann & they are not going to come up with a solution which pleases all of us.

I am intrigued as to what you mean by 'brushed under the carpet'. What exactly? From what I have read, the sound functions quite well on DC so do you want more or less? If more, then how? DC just can't achieve the same control as DCC because you can't send signals to turn things on & off at will. As for the APT-P, the market for it is more complicated? E-train's advantage was that the prototype train was only 4 coaches long, so although some have bought more trailing cars, the basic set was the same. The P train is different. A small layout will be served by a 5 coach like Hornby's old one quite nicely. Others may want to model it as a 6-carriage train as preserved. Others may want a proposed APT-S http://www.apt-p.com/APTConfigurations.htm with combined power/driving cars. Others may want the full 12+2 which ran in service on the WCML . I believe Kit mentioned it ran as an 8+2 which is not even mentioned on that site. 8+2 would fit perfectly on my layout but would I prefer instead to drown it with a full 12+2? I don't even know the answer to that. Maybe it would come down to cost? I would very much like a more modern P train too but it is a more complicated offering. The options would make this a more expensive product but would it drive costs up too far for many of us? These are all questions which need to be answered by anyone considering it. I am sure there are models which all of us would like to see introduced but it needs to be worthwhile for the manufacturer. Like many, I am amazed that the E train proved to be more than a wish on somebody's list.

This would be nice, but sadly it is impractical. Reducing the gap between stock rails & point blades can only be reduced when back to backs are adjusted accurately. If a manufacturer like Peco starts to produce pointwork as accurate as stated tolerances will allow, it will become necessary to set back to backs on nearly all new models before you can run them (because they are invariably out). Many people will find this unacceptable.

Back to backs are well worth checking. They are often badly out on brand new models & curved points will highlight the issues more than straight ones.

That's really good news. No product will be completely fault free. No matter how hard a company tries, a few faulty items in a large batch are always likely to occur. The fact that it was dealt with quickly & with minimal fuss is reassuring.

Mine was on DCC.

I don't think mine does 155. It is controllable though. I've not looked at speed mappings. Maybe the maximum has been throttled in the factory defaults?

Peco announced this several years ago. Has it really taken them that long to re-badge an existing product? It looks like we will never get an accurate model of British OHLE. We could have bought the nearest alternative years ago & modified it.

Don't start me off. 12 inches to a foot 3 feet to a yard 22 yards to a chain 10 chains to a furlong 8 furlongs to a mile. = 1760 yards in a mile (& I am amazed at the number of people who use imperial & don't know this one). & how about this one... 16 ounces to a pound so obvoiusly 20 fluid ounces to a pint 8 pints to a gallon. 2240 pounds in a long ton (14 pounds to a stone, 160 stone to a ton) (2000 pounds in a short ton is a US imperial measurement). & working in 'nonsense metric': 1000 millimetres to a metre 1000 metres to a kilometre & 1000 millilitres to a litre & 1000 kg to a tonne 1 cubic metre of pure water has a mass of 1 tonne....this makes 1 litre = 1 kg. I was brought up to use both. I can work with imperial but it is very silly. It belongs in a Python skit. Metric is only nonsense to those who have never tried working with it. We are only stuck with it because dimensions like track gauges, football pitches, billiard tables etc have been defined in imperial. We could convert them to metric but they would be hard to remember numbers.

DOGA does indeed still sell them. It has solved many running problems for me, even with brand new locos. You should be a DOGA stand at a few more shows from now on.

It will certainly take some beating. ...unless the awards are like the Oscars where an average movie released 3 weeks before the awards beats last summer's blockbuster.

Don't give up. Contact them.Can you imagine what it is like to have 2000 boxes which need to go out to various different locations? No company gets everything right all the time so give them a chance to put it right. It sounds like they are being bombarded with queries of 'where is my model' which are pointless & just slowing down things for everyone else. You have a genuine query & I expect they will put a sound fitted model aside for you if they have one spare from a cancelled order.

I tried my Hornby APT yesterday. It hobbled along with a squeal in 1 direction & refused to move in the other. It took several attempts for me to connect TC1 & TC2 together properly but they have been running in fine for the last 90 minutes or so. This is the first time I had heard Legomanbiffo's chips outside of a show or youtube. I think it is a good advert. I ran mine properly for the first time tonight. It looks great, runs nicely & sounds good too. I felt that £325 was a fair chunk of money when I placed my order but now I have seen the unit running, I am very happy I bought it.

I set myself a target of getting my layout wired before mine arrived, so I could set it up & run it straight away. I've been working hard on over the last few weeks but I've just lost. My APT-E has just arrived & I have about a week's worth of work left before the layout is ready for it. I'm not complaining though.

Me too. Track is already down but I need to ensure the tunnels give enough clearance.

That's mentioned a page or 2 ago in this thread. There will be 2 DCC sound shipments before the DCC ready ones. It sounds like it will take time to distribute them from Shildon too. We have waited patiently for long enough for Rapido to get these right (which we all seem to have preferred to them rushing a bad model out). I don't see how a few more weeks is going to make a great deal of difference.

Overhang was always going to be an issue because of how far back the leading bogie is on the real one. I'm sure you'll be able to fit DCC sound at a later date.

7 years is not much when you are developing new technology such as tilting & a new method of braking. The HST was not really done from scratch, it was an evolution of proven technology. The APT project started in the 1960s.

That's not quite what I read. ETR 401 was an experimental development, much like the E-train & it first ran in 1976, 4 years after the E-train. The first service train the E450 was introduced in 1988. If the APT project had been seen through, it would probably have been in service before then. I know its only wikipedia, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FS_Class_ETR_450 So it appears the Italian tilting train was later than the British one but not by enough to be a complete re-package.

I remember reading that they will ask for the balance to be paid once the models were ready to ship. I am happy to not be a part of the first 500 because my layout will not be ready in time. My target is to get it ready for when this arrives

I understand the way you feel. I have just dismantled my old layout because I have wanted to do something else for a long time (model a real location). What I was working on was just not giving me much satisfaction. There are lots of things I would like to model but would look silly all on the same layout. I had to accept that I cannot do them all & decided to concentrate on what I wanted most. I thought hard about it the decided that the only way forward for me was to dismantle the old layout & start from fresh. Each layout is a learning experience. There is always something 'I will do differently next time' & sometimes starting from scratch is the only way. Your layout looks great & you have obviously put in a lot of effort, but if you want to do something else then you must move on. It doesn't really matter about other people's opinions. It is there for your enjoyment so while others can make suggestions, the decision is ultimately yours. Before touching your old layout, make some detailed plans of what you want. Enjoy the planning process. It can be fun just to visualise it. Think about it & be certain you want to start again before touching the old layout. Make sure you take loads of photos/videos of your existing layout. You can't have too many. Once it is gone you will have something to remember it by & you will look back on it with fond memories but you will not have any regrets if you've thought it through. If you do decide to build a new layout, then your enthusiasm will return once you get started. I barely touched the hobby for years but now I look forward to getting home from work so I can lay some more track.

I have never been keen on PVA for ballasting. It gives the ballast a slight green hue (although this is not a problem if you are going to weather it very heavily) but my biggest gripe is that it is a resin so it makes the track base rock hard.

Thanks for the advice. I'll get in touch with Hattons & ask politely if they can arrange a replacement.

Received my LMS one yesterday. I have a few issues with it though: The filler cap fell off after a run-in session on the rolling road. Easily sorted. There is a pipe of some sort loose underneath the bolier. No problem on thr rolling road but it would have broken off if running the loco on a layout. The pony brake rigging is fine at one end, but at the other, it is bent far away from the wheel. Probably a scale 12"! Worst of all, the bunker-end chassis is not straight. It rocks on the centre axle so all 6 wheels can never be in contact with the rail. I'm not sure if I should or even can fix this??