There’s something about a Fowler coal rail that attracts me, so I just had to have a Patriot and I fancied smoke as well.

With a smoke unit fitted in the loco I opted to fit the decoder inside the boiler for the Patriot. At the same time I rewired the loco so that the wires from the pickups matched DCC this made things simpler. The tender was made a permanent coupling with a M3 screw.

The picture to the right is of a 9F tender drive, basically the same. Note I have fitted an insulating washer on each terminal screw, this insures isolation of both motor brushes.

Tender drive can be skittish. After about 12 months running fitted a Bachmann Scot chassis inside the Hornby body, while retaining the tender pickups. This combination works very well.