Dungrange

Personally, I've never used them, and I've seen both positive and negative comments, but some people on here whose advice I trust (despite having never met them) highlight the importance of using the correct joiner for the size of wire that you are using - I think they are all colour coded. If the diameter of your wire is less than the connector is designed for, then it won't cut through the insulation properly. Conversely, if the diameter of your wire is more than the connector is designed for, then it will cut through both the insulation and some of the strands of wire. Therefore, I think some of the negative comments relate to people who have just bought one size of connector and use it with various wire sizes. The positive comments come from those who check the compatibility of their particular wire and connector combination. For my own layout, I've chosen to go with Wago 221 connectors, which were highlighted by several people on here. They come in 2-way, 3-way and 5-way variants. (https://www.screwfix.com/p/wago-221-413-32a-3-way-lever-connector-50-pack/2803R?tc=CT8&ds_kid=92700055281954475&ds_rl=1249401&gclid=CjwKCAjwx6WDBhBQEiwA_dP8rc-3vxyPtO9vnZWzxBS75MVoSQPpg_2rwt4ht4KMcTmSMbkZ_PYUtBoCOegQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds) Of course all of our club layouts just use soldered joints, but that depends on how good your soldering skills are.

It's worth highlighting that the 6 ft between adjacent line is appropriate where your track is laid to prototypical radii. Once you get down to using curves as tight as about 3ft in N gauge, you're probably going to need to start thinking about widening the separation a little on the curves, although the extent to which widening is necessary depends on the stock that you plan to operate. Increasing the separation distance is more important if you plan on running large bogie wagons or Mark 3 coaching stock than it is if you plan on running 0-6-0 tank locomotives with 10ft wheelbase wagons.

I appreciate the potential change in direction from DC to DCC, but it's perhaps worth highlighting that if you intend buying locomotives that are not DCC Fitted and plan on fitting decoders yourself, the best advice would be to test the locomotive on DC before fitting a decoder, so if it doesn't work you know whether the issue is with the locomotive or the decoder. As such, you may wish to keep one of your DC controllers, probably the Combi, so that you can test on a DC set up. You certainly don't want to sell everything you've bought and then end up wishing you had a DC controller for testing purposes (although there is always a 9 volt battery!). As for the choice of DCC Command Station, I've read lots of positive comments about the NCE Powercab and if you only plan on having two or three locomotives running at a time, I'd think the starter set should be adequate for your needs. However, I think the principal deciding factor is the user interface and how easy you would find it to do everything that you want to do. What attracted me to DCC is DCC Sound and lights: I model the post-privatisation era. Therefore my choice of Command Station (the Sig-na-Track ACE2) was influenced by ease of access to the higher functions. I didn't like those that involved multiple button presses to access F28: the Sig-na-Track ACE2 gives me all functions on a single touch screen and I can rename them. However, a predominantly steam era layout may have little need for the higher numbered functions, in which case it's important to decide whether you want something that has a knob, a slider or a touch screen and whether you want something that is fixed or handheld. It would be good if you could physically hold the NCE unit in your hand to decide whether you would find it comfortable to operate. The other consideration is operation of the points. As has been highlighted earlier, these can be operated manually; as a separate DC system; or be part of the DCC set up. If part of the DCC set up, then you can either operate these from the Command Station, or by creating a panel (either switches or a touch screen). Obviously operating the points from the DCC Command Station would be the cheaper option, but if that is the one you want to take, then it's important that you choose a DCC Command Station where the operation of accessories is straightforward. However, if you're choosing either manual or panel operation, then how you would access the accessories on the Command Station is largely irrelevant. I won't say that I think a switch from DC to DCC is the wrong move, but since you've said that funds are limited, I think it's important to consider the higher cost of DCC, particularly if you want to operate the points using DCC, as you'll need an accessory decoder for each point or crossover in addition to the need to fit decoders into all locomotives. Make sure that you cost everything that you need before making a final decision to switch over to DCC. There will be a learning curve whichever way you jump.

The problem with that is it could get complicated. As an example, I have acquired numerous Bachmann PNA wagons (the green spoil wagons with 'Railtrack' branding). The bodies are mounted on the Bachmann TTA chassis. This means that all of the older releases have the 'NEM' coupling pocket at the wrong height (it's too high). However, the more recent versions of this same wagon have the NEM coupling pocket at the correct height - ie Bachmann have retooled the chassis to correct their earlier sloppy interpretation of the NEM standard, so this wagon would sit in both the 'good' and the 'bad' categories depending on the catalogue number. I think they've done the same with their MFA wagons as well.

That's a relatively simple track plan, so shouldn't be that difficult to wire up as either DC or DCC. The principles of wiring a DC layout haven't changed in 40 years. You have an outer circuit that doesn't seem to be connected to the rest of the layout. In theory, all you need is two wires to that track circuit (DC or DCC). The fishplates then distribute the power around the whole circuit. The issue is that the fishplates can become loose over time, and therefore you end up with the circuit being broken by dirt between the rail and the fishplate. For those who crave reliability, the best way to overcome this is to ensure that every piece of track has it's own feed soldered directly the bottom of the rail, as that builds in redundancy. DCC users are more likely to run a 'power bus' and connect a dropper wire to that from every piece of track, but the same practise is just as valid with DC. However, it is not essential: just good practise for reliable running. If you don't do that and you get a problem later, the problem can be sorted then: it's just not so easy to hide the new wire that you solder in place to bypass the loose fishplate. On that outer circuit, do you want to just run one train, or do you want to run more than one train? If you are only going to be running one train, then you only need one section. If however you want to control two trains on the same circuit, then you need to split the circuit up into sections. Cab control is just the name given to the switches that you use to decide which controller you will use to supply power to each section. These can either be Double Pole Double Throw (DPDT) (or Single Pole Double Throw (SPDT) if you are using common return wiring) if you want to choose between two controllers, or rotary switches if you want to choose between all three of the controllers that you have. The common terminals on the switch are connected to the track section and the terminals on either side of the switch are connected to your controllers, so that when the switch is to the left, power is supplied from controller A and when the switch is to the right, power is supplied from controller B. Cab control is no more complicated than that. For your inner circuits, the wiring is marginally more complicated, but the key point to remember is that you should always be feeding a track section from the 'toe' or switch end of a turnout. You'll likely need insulated (plastic) rail joiners between the turnouts that make up your crossovers, so that your inner two circuits are electrically separate. The same would apply between the inner circuit and the sidings that you have to the right of the station. How many sections you divide the inner circuits up into depends on how you intend to operate the layout. If you're just letting trains run round and round, then one or two sections per circuit plus one for the sidings to the right of the station is probably all you need. However, if you plan on changing locos in the station or adding a banker (probably not in your location), then you'd want additional sections in the station to facilitate these sort of moves. One comment on your track plan is that you don't seem to have anywhere to store the trains that you are not running - ie you don't have a fiddle yard. That may be intentional, but without a fiddle yard, you're probably limited to having about three or four locomotives on the layout at the same time.

The 'Yanks' don't do NEM specs. NEM is a European specification. The pocket size, height and position are all specified for European H0. Kadee only produce #17, #18, #19 and #20 to try and sell their product into the European market. American modellers will have little use for these particular couplings. Unfortunately manufacturers of UK outline stock have been rather poor at complying with all aspects of the NEM standard, particularly in relation to height. There are some models that have the NEM box of the correct size, height and position, but there are many where the box is too high. I think that probably stems from the fact that it's an H0 standard, so they don't think they have to necessarily fully comply with it and can adjust some of the dimensions such as height as they see fit. Probably the best advice would be to buy the Kadee height gauge and use the NEM couplings in the models where the pockets are at the right height and then find an alternative solution for all of the models which don't comply with the standard. Obviously it would be preferable if all manufacturers adopted the correct size, height and position of the box, but alas, that's not reality.

If the solution is to produce new scale-length bodies, that presumably means that the bogies on the initial batch were correctly scaled - ie the problem was only with the deck moulding. If new decks are being provided to existing purchasers, then it would seem to me to make sense to fit the same new tooled deck to the bogies of returned stock and sell these as corrected wagons. However, that would then mean that the shorter deck wagons would then be without bogies and I'm not sure what market there would be for an under-scale wagon with no bogies. Anyway, as others have said, I'm pleased to hear that a solution has been found and if the new decks are the correct length and look as good as the photographs of the incorrect version, then I'll still be in the market for the ASF bogie variant when it becomes available at a future date.

You can have a YouTube login, which when you sign up will normally be linked to a Google e-mail account. You should be able to log in, or set up a YouTube account if you don't have one up in the top right of the screen. I think your YouTube account name should then appear when you comment on a video.

I believe the issue is most likely the weight of the wagons, which would preclude their use. Although TTA tanks previously worked to Lairg, I understand that these were not fully loaded. http://www.fofnl.org.uk/newsletters/17May/17may15.php refers to the wagons (TTA) being only 75% of full loading capability. As such, I think it's definitely Rule 1.

If you didn't want to paint the panels, Railtec do blank out transfers https://www.railtec-models.com/showitem.php?id=1817 I haven't used these, as they still carried the Railtrack name in my period, but I'm aware they are available.

These type of connectors are available on Amazon UK - eg https://www.amazon.co.uk/Qishare-Position-Terminal-Postions-Insulated/dp/B076BR7RSH/ref=asc_df_B076BR7RSH/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=232004003187&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=17082043765133225302&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1007326&hvtargid=pla-440987953144&psc=1 But like you, I've not seen them in other UK vendors catalogues. Others on here have indicated that they use these, but I've not got around to trying them yet.

I agree that a date range would be preferable to an Era, but I've nothing against the Era system. I used to find it quite helpful before Bachmann 'improved' their website, as it was possible to sort their catalogue by Era. I could then just look at new products, especially wagons, for Eras 8 and 9 and then research further as required. That is, it was a way of sifting out products that I'm unlikely to be interested in, like Private Owner coal wagons or vacuum braked stock. However, I'm not so sure about a regional system. Do you include something that may have made an occasional appearance or restrict the qualifying criteria to stock that was common? Also, some stock may be limited to a single line within the region, so is not really representative of the region as a whole. That said, manufacturer's often announce wagons and I find myself asking if that wagon would ever have appeared in central Scotland, so if there was a regional classification applied, it may answer that question for me. That said, it's not really a big issue trying to find the answer to whether or not I could justify a purchase.

But point 9 in that article is just highlighting that the current flows from the command station along the red bus wire to the furthest part of the layout and then back to the command station station via the black bus wire, so when calculating the resistance of the wiring and therefore voltage drop, you need to remember to sum the resistance of both the red and black wires, but of course your bus length is the length of either or these (ie your red and black wires should be roughly the same length). That is where his dividing by two factor comes from. It has nothing to do with the length of track, droppers or parallel wiring. In fact the author has deliberately ignored the fact that parallel track resistance would reduce the effective track bus resistance, as can be seen by footnote 1 in that article. This would surely make the 30 foot limit less of an issue.

It does indeed look like the first two digits of the phone number have been transposed, but the rest of the phone number and the emergency one seem to be correct. However, I think most of us would struggle to notice, as presumably the text in that photograph is larger than it is on the model.

The issue is that you're really looking for somewhere local to you. My own club does accumulate things that we no longer need and in the past we've tried to sell these at what used to be a regular swap-meet in Falkirk, as a way of raising funds for future layouts. However, we also accept donations from locals who are clearing out their attic and disposing of "stuff" that would otherwise be going to "the tip". I accepted a 1950s clockwork train set last month from a gentleman who, as it happens, lives less than five minutes from me. It's of no interest to me personally, or any of our club members, but I'm hopeful we will find a home for it when things return to normal and hopefully get a donation to club funds in the process. I'll point out that your local model railway club is a registered charity, albeit it may not be what you have in mind (https://smet.org.uk/pmrc). There was a model railway club in my old school, which was run by my geography teacher, but that was the 1980s. Such after school activities are very much dependent on whether there is a teacher with an interest in model railways, who wants to share that with a group of children. I think the same could be said of the Scouts, who I understand have a 'model making' badge, but again, what's done in terms of model making activities will depend very much on the local Scout master. There are however charitable bodies on the lookout for "stuff" from time to time - an example being the Scottish War Blinded charity at Linburn in West Lothian, where one of the ex-servicemen wanted to create a model railway as an Art project back in 2016 - http://www.elmrc.org.uk/linburn.php. What you are really looking for is something similar near to you and unfortunately, I'm not aware of any particular group that I can highlight.

Presumably 'contrast' is for the purposes of making the platform edge more obvious to the visually impaired and the assumption is that the station is well lit. The older requirement for 'white' was probably because that gives the best contrast in poor lighting. I agree that there are other threads on here covering this topic, one within the last year which also highlighted instances from the pre-grouping era, but that it became widespread during the second world war.

The problem is that it's not the rate of general price inflation in the UK that's relevant, but wage inflation in China, where the models are produced and assembled. Production was originally moved to China because wages there are so much lower there than they are here. Understandably, these Chinese workers want to earn something closer to the minimum UK wage and as wages rise in China, so to does the cost of Chinese production. After all, if UK staff don't want to work for £2 per hour, why should the Chinese? However, I do agree that £55 for a coach that a few years ago could be had for half that does seem a bit steep, especially when it's not lit. I'd quite like a few of these, but I already have too much stock, so if the price isn't right, I'll probably just give them a miss.

https://www.z21.eu/en/faqs-support/questions-answers Indicates that the Z21 supplies 3 Amps to the track.

I'm not sure that I understand how you intend to implement this idea, but as others have said, it doesn't sound like a good idea. How do you ensure that the DCC and DC power are ALWAYS separate? I know you could feed the uphill section through a Double Pole Double Throw (DPDT) switch, so the section itself can only be either DC or DCC, but how do you ensure that nothing (like a lit coach) is bridging the isolation gaps at either end when you throw the switch? As has been stated, most modern DCC controllers do not have a 'single DC address' because it was never a good idea. Those older DCC controllers that do have a 'loco 0' control the DC locomotive by altering the DCC output so that there is a potential difference between the rails, which the DC loco will respond to, but it's still being supplied with a DCC waveform, which isn't good for the motor. There is then the issue that a DCC decoder needs a higher starting voltage than an unfitted DC locomotive would. It would therefore make it rather difficult to speed match your DCC fitted locomotive and your unfitted DC locomotive. At 6 Volts, the DC locomotive is likely to want to start moving, whereas that's probably not enough to power the DCC decoder: it typically requires about 7 Volts to power the decoder. I guess my question is, if you're happy with DC, why would you want to buy a DCC controller just for banking and risk destroying it if you accidently short the DC and DCC sections. One of our club layouts, which is DC, uses a banker on some trains. The train to be banked, stops at the signal, and power to the section is turned off. The banker is then driven onto the rear of the stationary train. Power is then restored to the section in which the lead locomotive sits and the whole train driven as one into the fiddle yard, where the banker is detached and later returns in the downhill direction as a light engine movement. It only works with certain combinations of lead locomotive and banker, but operation is quite simple. If what you are trying to achieve is the uncoupling of the banker at the top on the hill, then I'd have thought that the best way to achieve that would simply be to use DC cab control. When the train reaches the point at which you want the banker to pull back arrange your sections such that the lead locomotive is in one section and the banker in a second section and simply switch in a second DC controller set at a slightly lower speed and turn that down so that the banker stops before it enters the section that the lead locomotive was in. I'm sure that it would take a bit of practice to get right and there is the risk that you switch in a controller that is set wrongly (direction or speed), but that would be much safer than trying to mix DC and DCC.

I don't see anything wrong with running two or more units using the same address on each decoder, provided you don't want to split and re-marshal the train. I have a Realtrack Class 156 unit, which has two decoders (one in each car) and these are both set up with the same address. As has been said, you can adjust the top speed and speed curve on most decoders to allow two units to run together. The most basic adjustments would be CV2 (the starting voltage), CV5 (the maximum voltage) and CV6 (the mid voltage). If you one unit is appreciably faster than the other, then reduce the values in CV5 and CV6. However, if you are using the speed tables set up in CV67-94, then you're probably going to need something that will allow you to see the curve graphically.

From the initial description, I actually thought you'd want something along the lines of the Neleveator (https://www.nelevation.com/). However looking at the website, the main issue is that the trains are loaded centrally, which means that half of the height of the unit is above the rail deck, which means that it wouldn't fit in the ship (or at least the standard 00 version, which takes 12 trains wouldn't. I'm sure that the same principles could be used to design a less tall version, but I suspect that a horizontal deck as your proposing is possibly the best way forward.

I'm not particularly familiar with this controller, but I would have expected the output voltage to be about 12 Volts. Have you tried measuring the potential difference across the rails using a multi-meter? Does it show around 12V DC when the controller is turned up? The HM2000 manual doesn't make any reference to 17 Volts - the outputs are just described as controlled DC. https://www.islandrailways.co.uk/pdf/R8012-HM2000-Controller-Multilingual.pdf Power is measured in Watts, which is the product of the potential difference across the rails (measured in Volts) and the current flowing through the motor (measured in Amps). Therefore the power output of a controller can be expressed as either W (Watts) or VA (Volt Amps). A 12V power supply rated at 12VA means that it will deliver a current of 1 Amp at 12 Volts. A 12V power supply rated at 9.6VA means that it will deliver just 0.8 Amps (or 800 milliamps) at 12 Volts (ie 9.6 VA / 12 V = 0.8 A) Most motors will draw less than 0.5 Amps, so either should be fine for most models. However, older motors do tend to draw more current than their more modern counterparts. That said, I note that the Hornby HM2000 refers to being able to supply up to 550 mA (ie 0.55 Amps) from each of the two controlled DC outputs. What I'm not sure when you are referring to the power output from the Gaugemaster models is whether that is the power output per track or total. The model railway club that I am a member of use Gaugemaster controllers for all of our DC layouts - the handheld variants. These have given many years of service, although some have had to be replaced.

I don't think you'll find this information in the Working Time Table. I think all the WTT does is define that a service of that description has been allocated a path over the network at the times stated. It may be that the precise formation of a train (particularly freight) would vary from day to day, but the WTT won't show that variation - just that there is a daily path (or whatever the frequency was). To answer your question, you'll probably need photographs, but since it's your railway and it doesn't represent an actual location, I think you can just use what you want. I've no idea why Empty Coaching Stock had a scheduled stop at Margate. Could it have been to pick up crew to start their work in Portsmouth, or alternatively returning crew back to their home depot in Margate?

No What is this 'external power to the track'? Power to the track should only be coming from the Select (or a separate Booster if the system is capable of expansion, which I don't think the Select is). My understanding is that the Select comes with a 1 Amp power supply, but that this can be replaced with a 4 Amp supply if more power is required, but I think this would just replace the 1 Amp supply that you are using at the moment. That is, you plug the higher current transformer into the Select and then connect the Select to the track as before.

My understanding is that the R965 doesn't actually have a transformer and therefore isn't the actual power supply. It simply has a 16V AC input and it rectifies that to provide a variable 12V DC output to the track, plus there are terminals that allow the input power source to be passed straight through as 16V AC for 'accessories'. What is more relevant is what is providing power to the R965. If it's a C912, then that provides less than one Amp, whereas if it's an R964, that provides five Amps. Neither are equivalent to the Lenz TR100, which is what the LS150 is supposed to be used with. The C912 may not supply enough power to throw the solenoid, while there is a risk that the R964 would damage the LS150 if there were a short, as the current would exceed what the LS150 is designed to accommodate.