Shelf Layout

[Bandit Mick]

Very very nice indeed - keep up the good work. Looking forward to seeing what happens next.

[Walkingthedog]

Looks very good.

[Chrishans]

Afternoon guys,

Not been on here for a while now. I’ve had a lot on at work, plus my mum is moving house so I’ve been getting stuff sorted for that. Anyway, I’ve made a little bit of progress this week where I’ve now built an inspection pit/ash pit using ash sourced from the BBQ. Annoyingly it’s at a slight angle but unless you’re looking at it from a certain perspective, you’re not really going to notice it.

Anyway, I’ve attached a couple of pics below for your interest, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Chris

[Walkingthedog]

Looks good to me Chris.

[Bandit Mick]

Steady progress and quality modelling - I like that.

[Chrishans]

Hey everyone,

Been a fair few months since my last post, but have been incredibly with stuff at work and at home. Anyway, I’m back into the swing of things and have made a little bit more progress. The layout is now converted to DCC with two models having TTS chips installed, the West Country and black 5. Both sound great but I had to take the weight out of the tender to the black 5 otherwise the speaker wouldn’t fit. Something which wasn’t considered by Hornby. I’ve also noticed some Bachmann models don’t easily cater for dcc sound either. Could anyone advise how you could put DCC sound into a loco which doesn’t have a cable running from tender to loco?

Over the coming months I’m looking to send the odd loco to Olivias trains for chipping. They seem to have a great range of sounds for various locos. It’s going to take some time of course, but steady progress is still progress.

[Rog (RJ)]

For loco to tender connections you can use thin wire. Decoder wire is pretty good but whatever you use it needs to be flexible so that it doesn't cause derailments. Some people use miniature connectors to allow tender and loco to be separated easily.

[Steve M]

The Hornby 4 pin connectors are available as a spare part from both Hornby and the likes of Peters Spares. Many tenders have the locating hole moulded in to the chassis and can easily be retrofitted.
It maybe possible to use a later replacement tender chassis as well.

Don’t give up on fitting it all in the loco though - assuming that there is space for the decoder, the speaker can, and in my opinion should be, replaced by a sugarcube speaker which can sometimes be hidden in the smokebox.

[bulleidboy]

Hi Chrishans - If you haven't already found it, you might find this site helpful - not too many sound installations, but does give some help. BB
http://www.bromsgrovemodels.co.uk/decod ... ion4mm.htm

[Steve M]

I should have paid more attention to the original post - all my warbling on about Hornby plugs is irrelevant for Bachmann locos.
But similar micro plugs are available on eBay assuming you want to be able to completely detach the tender. If not then decoder wire between loco and tender should be ok.

These days Bachmann tend to favour 21 pin decoders (I think) so that rules out TTS decoders unless you use, and have space for, adaptors.