Welcome poppachris

Hi guys thanks for the welcome my reply a long time coming. I am really a newbie with trains even though it has been my dream for many years. Life has been VERY hectic at my end of the world lately thus why I haven't been around . I have a starter kit being the Flying Scotsman & two of my many grandchildren in particular love trains as much as I do . As they are 5 & 4 at the moment they are all about Thomas & Chuggington. I spoke to Gary I think at Castle Hill Show he said to ask for help any time Iam going to research the posts about starting from scratch ..but I need advice on buying some trains .. Gary told me about Hattons in UK & I have found some Thomas trains I am interested in not all are DCC ready but the info says can be hardwired what I need to know is that a good idea or is it more costly as I have to watch my dollars ..The Chuggington trains seem to be all Bachman can you give me an opion on these trains as I have heard conflicting stories. Also is HO the same as OO..I will leave it at that for now I have really made up for lost time .Thank you all for reading my tale I will wait to hear some advice ..Chris

Alone we can do so little;together we can do so much..
Helen Keller

 

to the forum poppachris

 

00 is 4mm to the foot on 16.5mm gauge track while H0 is 3.5mmm to the foot also on 16.5mmm track.
Ho scale is correct for 16.5mm track .
Genuine 4mm / ft is called P4 and runs on 18.83mm track.

http://www.doubleogauge.com/ talks about 00 and the history of it http://www.doubleogauge.com/history/history.htm

 

Thank you for your reply Sol all advice is taken & stored for later use.I hope that won't be too long looking forward to putting a new plan into action.

Chris

 

Paul the night is running away from me so I will come back & check out your video
maybe tmw if I can find some time in hectic days we spend lots of days babysitting & helping one of our daughters ...trying to learn how to make the day spread out so I can learn more about my latest hobby .
catch you around more chats i'm sure.
Chris

 

Hi Chris,
Think I know a thing or two about hectic. I only have one 5 year old, but he is very full on, all he wants to do is play, play, play, and that always involves us, not so much on his own.
He is into Thomas, he likes Chuggington, but not enough to want models, just the books and some other merch. like games.
I haven't gone down the rabbit hole of DCC, if you were wanting to keep your costs down I would recommend you don't for a while either. I'm just concentrating on getting everything else right. Having DC only I can limit operation to one train per track at a time, no big collisions!
The Bachmann Chuggington probably comes from their US style HO range, there certainly have been issues with regards to quality and longevity of those units in the past, most were pretty woeful with cheap pancake motors driving just one bogie with gears that tend to spilt easily. Later ones had better motors and all wheel drive, hope yours fit this category.
Enjoy your time here, there is so much useful stuff around.
Cheers
Tony

 

Thanks for your comments Tony Iam also thinking i will wait a bit for DCC . I found some Hornby Thomas trains at a good price it says they are DCC compatible but no socket Scalextric -Type motor . Do you know anything about Scalextric motors are they ok I am new to all this so just trying to find out what is the best way to go..not woried about socket as can be hardwired later if I wish to go down that path.. I can always run a couple of DC controllers or as I have been told can connect tracks with a wire ...not sure how that works .
My Grandsons have just about everything about Thomas you could think of . My 6 yr old G/son has Autism & I cant believe how much he has learnt about trains can tell you about the flying Scotsman which I have. He gets upset his Thomas trains wont work on my tracks so that is why I would like to get some Thomas trains.
Can you or anyone out there let me know if these trains with this motor are ok ?
Thanks in advance
Chris

 

Hi Chris,
Not much experience with DCC, but from what you say you would have to hard-wire your decoder. This will involve wire cutters and a soldering iron at least. I believe you will have to determine the stall current of the motor in the loco with a multimeter and choose a decoder based on that to suit. There is much more detail out there about this than i can provide. There is plenty out there on the topic, just search fitting dcc to Hornby Thomas and you should get plenty of hits.
For now one engine at a time on one track with the DC controller is your best bet.
Mixing two Thomas engines on one track or multiple tracks with crossing in the hands of little ones is likely to involve a big accident. I keep my two tracks separate and there is good interlock between the two so they should never collide unless the hand of a little boy intervenes.
Cheers
Tony

 

Hi Tony , what you are saying is true paul_l has put up a video about hard wiring so I'm not too worried when & if I get to that point. I just need someone to tell if Scalextric motors in Hornby Thomas trains is the norm & are good motors I just don't know why they had to say in the info about the trains it has scalextric motors ..so is there an issue or not ? Do you see what I mean ?
Maybe someone will know what I'm asking .
Thanks again Tony
Chris