You don't have to read around much on line to find people struggling with fitting decoders to their locos. Why is body removal necessary?
Any steam loco that has a tender is equipped with a vacant space just crying out to be utilised. Make a void accessible from the underside, or from the bottom of the coal space, with the socket in place, and a four pin plug connection to the loco, and fitting a decoder need involve no difficult wrestling with a very detailed loco body to get at the interior. This way the loco body is freed to be full of weight too. Tank engines may be more of a test of ingenuity, but at least plain tank sides usually confer a decent area to hold on to when removing a loco body.
As for anything twin bogie diesel or electric, the usual centre 'box' between the bogies need only have an opening in its' base giving access to a void with a socket in it, and decoder fitting would be the work of moments. For those models where that feature is not present a removeable body panel (following panel joins of the prototype) again covering a suitable void should not be impossible.
Anyone else feel the same? And if so, how can this be communicated effectively to the manufacturers?
Any steam loco that has a tender is equipped with a vacant space just crying out to be utilised. Make a void accessible from the underside, or from the bottom of the coal space, with the socket in place, and a four pin plug connection to the loco, and fitting a decoder need involve no difficult wrestling with a very detailed loco body to get at the interior. This way the loco body is freed to be full of weight too. Tank engines may be more of a test of ingenuity, but at least plain tank sides usually confer a decent area to hold on to when removing a loco body.
As for anything twin bogie diesel or electric, the usual centre 'box' between the bogies need only have an opening in its' base giving access to a void with a socket in it, and decoder fitting would be the work of moments. For those models where that feature is not present a removeable body panel (following panel joins of the prototype) again covering a suitable void should not be impossible.
Anyone else feel the same? And if so, how can this be communicated effectively to the manufacturers?
