With the point motors attached, it's time to play with this little model railway. Sorry, I mean start a comprehensive testing programme to make sure everything is set up correctly.
At this stage I dont' have any wiring in place so frog polarity is arranged with long fly leads. Obviously this limits things a little but not enough to stop me playing. At least I know all the track is gaped correctly.
The test loco is "Billy" from the Bachmann Junior range. These locos are ideal for this job if you are a OO modeller. The wheel standards are the same as the "proper" range but here is no extraneous detail to get knocked off when the model finds a duff bit of track and falls off. Slow running is adequate and the wheelbase is short enough to show up dead sections. Best of all the models are cheap - this one was well under 20 quid from Howes a couple of years ago - so if you do damage anything it won't be some hundred quid beast you saved up for.
And if you are thinking "That loco looks like a certain blue engine normally seen with a number 1 on the side" you'd be right. It's just that Hornby has the rights for that range in the UK whereas Bachmann can produce them in HO abroad...
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