The Norwegian NSB Di6 was never a great success. The order was delivered late and the locomotives always had problems. In the end the locomotives went back to their builder (Siemens). The 12 locomotives have only been in Norway for a few years and most of the time they were standing still because of various reasons. So with that in mind it is interesting that Hobbytrade decided to make a HO model of the NSB Di6.

The Hobbytrade Di6 is the first locomotive in my collection with the new 21 pole DCC interface. This interface is not a standard yet (the NMRA DCC working group is discussing a 21 or 22 pole interface). So decoders are not available for many manufactures (only Zimo and ESU as this moment). I bought a ESU LokPilot for this locomotive. This is a multi-protocol decoder which has many great DCC features.

With the shell removed you can see the printed circuit board. The new 21 pole connector is on the left. Hobbytrade also offers the locomotive with a sound decoder, in that version the speakers are mounted in the round openings to the left and right.

The dummy plug is removed from the new 21 pole connector. Be careful when removing the plug because it is quite easy to bend the connector.

The ESU LokPilot decoder has been mounted. The installation was simple. The locmotive runs great with this decoder. The light provisions are also interesting. Only the headlights are directional (using F0). F1 enables the red lights in cab2 and F2 enables them in cab1.