Model Railway Forum

Looks like you've got the whole "mess room" there Steve - Hardys or Modelu? Barry

Hardy’s Barry, their bulk packs are excellent value.

There has been some debate on another forum about how to fit TTS to Hornby’s new Prairie- the general consensus was to fit a speaker in the provided space in the bunker and stand the decoder on its edge in one of the side tanks.

Never being one to ‘follow the herd’, I have taken a different route. The decoder fits easily in the bunker although the wiring loom is a snug fit in the channel under the cab floor - all held in place with black-tac.

Extend the speaker wires to a 5mm sugarcube speaker that sits directly under the chimney - anything deeper won’t fit. Secure the speaker wires alongside the motor with more black-tac.

2020-11-06_12-32-58 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

It looks a very neat and tidy job Steve - I see you have left the capacitor(?) in place? I have never taken any out, but some say do and some say don't bother. Barry

I’ve never bothered Barry and not had an issue with any of them either.

Ahead of some serious track cleaning after no running for months, I thought it best to move all my locos onto the shelves in the shed.
I had to add an extra shelf. I suspect I may have collected too much.
I must not let the memsahib see how many are now stored in the shed, she will quickly work out how much has been spent.

That’s every inch of track cleaned.
Vacuum to start, track rubber and fibreglass pen, vacuum again and finally wiped with IPA. But I swear I could see the clean track tarnishing as I watched it.
And now I have two completely dead boards and possibly a bent point blade.

Multimeter time
Good luck, hope you have a wiring diagram or crib sheet of wiring?

I think it’s the plug between the two boards so only a couple of wires to trace - access is the issue as it’s the largest board in a corner. It is removable but a PITA nonetheless.
And did I mention that the track at the board joints are a bit squiffy?

The dead section conundrum is solved. Fundamental operator error.
At the end of my fiddleyard is a fold down flap. I fitted a microswitch to cut power when the flap was down to stop locos running off the end.
Yes, that’s right, the flap was down.
What an absolute prat.

The ‘bent’ point blade only seems to affect one loco, the new Hornby Prairie. Which, curiously enough is also the only one that seems to dislike my board joints. Time to investigate back to backs etc.
I will have to replace that point in time but for now it can stay where it is.

Steve I used to have the Mainline (I think) prairie and it was the only loco I had didn’t like anything.