Model Railway Forum

I'll fit it with a 21-pin TXS sound decoder (I have one), and I might see if the/a speaker will fit up front in the loco - with an extended wire? The tender has the usual 28mm round speaker enclosure, which is fine, and easy to fit, but I found on a M/N Class with the same set-up, it was fairly obvious the sound was all coming from the tender.

I have fitted the Hornby R2438 (D3986) Diesel Shunter with a new Hornby 8pin TXS sound decoder and speaker - a tight fit I have also on the branchline, fitted a DCC Concepts ABC Shuttle Module. This enables the loco to enter the station, wait for up to four minutes and then head back up the line to the station at the other end of the layout, where it waits before coming back, I have yet to try the "four minute" delay, and for the purposes of this video I set the delay at ten seconds. The Shuttle module can be fitted in a few minutes, the main work required is cutting a gap in a one rail (Dremel) and some very easy wiring - the same set-up at the other end, although you can use one module for both ends. The benefit of this module on an end-to-end layout, is that you can operate another loco, while one just keeps going back and forth. I now need to fit one of these decoders into a steam loco - preferably a tank engine. One or two CV's need changing, but the beauty of the new HM7000 system is that you just call them up and change them - I'm currently using an Apple iPhone.

IMG_1560 by Barry Clayton, on Flickr

A new delivery of 3-D loco crew and platform passengers from Hardy's Hobbies.
Sadly they (Andy & Steve Hardy) are winding-up the business, but still have a great deal of stock in most gauges. So if you need "people" look them up - https://hardyshobbies.co.uk/

IMG_1565 by Barry Clayton, on Flickr

I have been sorting (tidying-up ) out the ABC Shuttle module today. When you set it up with the new Hornby TXS decoder, by adjusting a couple of CV's in the App (in my case on my iPhone), you can set the time stopped, and the distance it takes for the loco to stop. For the module to work, you need a "gapped" section of track (Two gaps required but on one rail only) a wire/dropper from that section of gapped rail goes to the module, and a second wire from the other rail to the module, as the other end of the layout from Wykeham Station has the "lift-up" section, I had one gap in the track, but I made the next gap a little too close. So the loco ran into the gapped section, but over ran, back onto a section of normal powered track, and kept going rather than stopping. This has all now been rectified. It appears to be working well - I have yet to set the stop time to four minutes (max.), and I also need to get a TXS decoder and speaker into a Hornby M7 tank engine. One of the sound options with the TXS decoder, is that you can set it to give a number of random sounds, so for example, before the loco moves off, the air brakes are released and the horn sounds (it's a Class 08 Shunter) and the diesel engine is ticking over while all of this goes on - it's very realistic.

As I could not get the TXS Decoder and speaker into the Hornby M7 tank engine, I fitted it to the Bachmann Class 3MT. It went in quite easily. I have not as yet fitted the stay alive - the loco is very heavy with a large weight under the coal bunker, I have not tried to remove it, so that could be space for the stay-alive?

IMG_1569 by Barry Clayton, on Flickr

I did the same conversion Barry. I stuffed the PB in the cab - with the crew fitted you can’t see it.

A quiet Sunday at Wykeham shed.
IMG_1572 by Barry Clayton, on Flickr

That is a very nice picture Barry.

Thanks Brian. I need to get some modelling done - not much done for some time.

Todays job is to fit a 21pin TXS sound decoder, speaker and stay-alive (Power Bank) into the new Hornby Coronation Class 46220 "Coronation". Normally with this installation everything would go in the tender - the tender has a 21-pin socket and a cut-out under the weight for a 28mm round speaker. The slight downside to this, is that it is very obvious that all the sound is coming from the tender and not the loco - I have experienced this in a Merchant Navy Class already converted with the speaker in the tender . I have removed both loco and tender bodies, and the stay-alive will fit in the space where the speaker should be, and with the speaker wires lengthened, the speaker will fit into the loco - there is a slot in the chassis, near the front, that will take the speaker and the smallest speaker housing provided in the decoder package. I will have to drill a small hole in the tender to take the wires from the speaker to the docoder, but hopefully that will be very straightforward. If you were to fit a round speaker in the space provided, I am pretty certain the speaker would touch the tender wheels, which protrude into the speaker space - you can see in the picture that the centre tender wheels come into the speaker cut-out.

IMG_1573 by Barry Clayton, on Flickr