Hello,
here in this thread i describe in a nutshell the converting of 4 D&RGW to running condition in terms of DCC and sound.


The beginning was several years earlier when i purchased this Rio Grande Mikado. No Narrow Gauge, it's Standard Gauge D&RGW class K59.
A nice model mady by Samhongsa an imported by Key, has a simple boiler backhead, but still a open frame motor. It was also affected by the notorious red foam and therefor stained. This was also the reason to get it much cheaper. I thought that red staining does'nt matter because the modell will be painted lateron.





The open frame motor was removed ...





... and replaced by an Faulhaber coreless coil motor. The drive shaft is configured out og NWSL parts.





Electric cable harnesses were made in loco ...





... and tender.





Improved current pick ups.





Tender





The bell was rearward angled. Bell and bellframe were one castpiece. I disliked the angled bell.





The bell was cut out with a thin saw blade in a motor tool.





And resoldered in a normal position.





Front and rear light were cored an equipped with 0603 type LEDs of warm white tone.
In this stage the model remains several years.
Until January this year. At a Fremo meeting the decision was made to put the loco into working condition für the Fremo meeting in Riesa.





The loco hat to be painted therefor. The running gear was disassembled for brush painting by hand.





Loco and tender shell should be painted pro by airbrush.





Back from the paint shop.





The cab was glassed and a crew added.





Even the doghouse was glassed.





As decoder the brand new Econami 100 Steam was elected and paired with this Zimo Speaker. There are 2 Sugar Cubes in a relative 3-d printed box. Initially intended for G-Scale, and the 2 speakers are in series and have an impedance of 16 Ohms. This makes the speaker compatible to the Tsunami which needs speakers with a mimum impedance of 8 Ohms.
After some CV adjusting ( RTFM!) and familiarising with the new decoder and it's functions and thereof resulting possibilities, it sounds and runs simply great.
The notorius lurching when starting can be completely shut down to non-existent. Even with coreless coil motors no jerking und lurching.






The final test running was at the Fremo meeting in Mannheim between the sessions. The police in Clearwater Industries was not interested, they were distracted of chasing the Blues Brothers.

This was the first chapter

Cheers Lutz

It looks like I'm going to be using acrylic paint with my old air brush since I can't find air brush thinner or Diosol around here and I'm not going to Detroit to buy it . Can cheapo craft paints be diluted and used satisfactorily or to you need a premium paint such as Tamiya ?

T

After some attempts by dingbat I had found that it was more of a pain to walk around the design. So after some thought I figured it would be a lot easier to be in the middle of it all, I took some measurements and found that a few extra inches I could do that. Sure I had to check with the wife and agreed to move a dresser and I was in business. About the layout here you can see the blue lines into what will be conrails territory and the green will be owned by the reading & northern as to have a live interchange. All blue lines are ground level and the start of the green is a incline up to 3 inches. I have some structures on there as to what I like so far and perhaps to change???? Any questions or comments are welcome and still need to name it lol.

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First snow cover of the season, and I caught up with WPMA-29 picking up a car at one of the food distribution warehouses at Whiskey Point.

Bruce

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Hi,

I'm looking for HO scale KATO RSC2 trucks for a kitbashing project. I could need as much as 4 pairs, but starting with one is fine.

Best regards,

Matt

To give a brief background , back in about 2003 I joined a local mrr club that was exclusively 4' x 2' modules and used a triple main line system . This din't allow for much variety as essentially trains went round and round . There was much talk about going to a free-mo system with a single main so as to offer more opportunities for more realistic railroading . At the last minute , the powers that be opted for a large permanent layout ( that I did a lot of scenery work on and posted pics in the past ) so there were a number of disgruntled members .

Those members , and several others , formed their own free-mo club about 3 years ago and I was invited to view an op-session last night . There is about 500 running feet of main line assembled and running ( Digitrax DCC ) and although there are a number of stretches of " plywood central " , a lot of progress has been made . Here's a few pics from last night .



   

   

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Its been a while and I want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Leon

I can use some help here as I'm terrible at planning. I have two versions of the same plan here one is a simple Plan A (loop to loop) and the other is something I was working on to get some operations out of the plan , Plan B.
Here's how the story goes, a friend told me that Plan B if I removed the second mainline I would have more room to play with for rails for operations and give more room for structures and scenery, my reply to him was ok I'll remove the second Mainline and make it a Loop to Loop and made a comment that even if I made the plan into a Loop the Loop I would basicly have to add the additional line off the Loop to Loop to gain access to the industries but he disagreed , so I bring the question to you those of the Forum, can Plan A be better made for Operations, scenery and stuctures or would it be the same idea of what I've chicken scratched into Plan B. I would like to do mountains all around, rivers , bridges , a wharf and other structures to switch in and out of.
Ideas, thoughts help?
Thanks
Lynn



Plan A


Plan B

I can't remember if I've asked this before as I was contemplating having my left knee done ........haven't been able to go for walks for a couple of years now , so am looking forward to the procedure . I have a meeting , finally , with the surgeon or whatever he is called , on January 16 , so expect the deal to go down fairly soon after . The guy did knees on my aunt and uncle about 25 years ago !!

Any words of wisdom on this ?

T