Hi Guys,

I have two Atlas Nscale SD60 units, both are "Decoder Ready" as listed on their box. I bought two new Digitrax DN163A1 decoders that are listed as the correct choice - according to Digitrax.

I installed a Digitrax DN163A1 decoder in an Atlas Nscale SD60 and things didn't go well. The installation was straight forward, good electrical contacts made, and the decoder programmed on the programming track.

The fun started when I placed it on the layout. Nothing. No motor control, no lights. I double checked the engine connections, made sure the decoder was seated correctly between the frame halves, but still nothing. No movement, no light control, nothing except a quick rear light flash when the engine was first placed on the rails.

So I removed the dcc board and reinstalled the dc board...thinking it might be a bad board. When I placed the engine back on the tracks with address 00, the engine burst to life and surged forward and abruptly stopped, then surged again, then stopped. All the while, my Digitrax Zephyr controller was showing a short circuit indication. When I deselected the "Power" button to remove power from the rails (I thought), the engine surged forward at a high speed and without any control from the Zephyr. I lifted it off the rails. Since I've never seen this problem before, I repeated the procedure to see if it would do it again, and it did exactly the same thing. I tried the other Atlas SD60 unit (with its dc board still installed from the factory) and it did exactly the same thing.

I next tried to determine whether the Zephyr was bad, or there's something with these engines. I removed the strange acting SD60 engine, and placed a decoder equipped engine back on the rails, and it worked fine. No problems, no shorts. I chose another Atlas dc engine (no dcc circuit board installed - just the standard factory dc board), one that I bought about five years ago, and it worked in the basic dc mode on address "00" without any problems.

I checked the track, there are no pieces of metal "shorting" the rails. I removed all the other engines from the rails and tested only the SD60 unit, and it still had the same crazy problem. I don't have any other throttles hooked in the "jump" port of the Zephyr, just the basic unit by itself is supplying power and running the dcc operation. There's absolutely no problems running any other dcc equipped engine, or mixture of dc and dcc engines.

My only guess is there's something with these SD60 units. They were bought in different stores, in different states, but both have "1998" stamped into the frame. It is a split frame, with plastic inserts dividing the frame at each end where the frame screw is inserted to the nut. The motor's electrical leads touch the dc and dcc board at the correct spot.

I suppose there could be a problem with the Zephyr dealing with these particular units, but find that hard to believe. I had been running the unit for about 30 minutes without any problems just prior to this decoder install. And it runs other dc-only engines without problems.

Anyone have clue what's going on here? I'm stumped. I've tried to place the problem engine back on the rails this morning, and it did exactly the same thing as last night when I first encountered the problem. I don't know what's going on, but my guess is there's something short between the frames that I haven't discovered yet...though...I'm still in the "learning mode" of dcc theory and operation, so maybe there's a bigger problem here with the Zephyr that I don't understand.

Thanks for the help guys!

Well guys for along time I've been slowly working on this layout. All of you that where on the Znet have seen the early pics from the start of the addition to the beginings of the bench work. We have since progressed quite a bit.

About the layout; its Penn Central in Nscale era 1965-1975 I built what I grew up with (guess I'm showing my age) Its based on diffrent buildings and ares in which I always found interesting thoughout NJ.

The B&NE is a fictisous short line built and created by myself and a longtime friend butit adds some nice interests.

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Hey guys,

7 of the 9 Bachmann 70-Toners arrived this afternoon for my Modesto & Empire Traction Company Engine Project (which is in the Blogs forum, see thread The Motive Power of the Modesto & Empire Traction Company). I ordered 9 of the green ones since Bachmann doesnt offer them in undecorated gray plastic. These ones are painted green with yellow handrails and black frames

I need to strip these down to the plastic, and i wanna hear what you guys use and do when you have to strip something. I want this to be as easy and painless as possible lol. I dont mind them sitting for a day or 2 in a solution, as long as i dont have to sit there and scrub the paint off of them. I have 9 of these to do, so im looking for something fairly easy and painless. I know im probably going to have to do some scrubbing, but i wanna get some stuff that does most of the work for me if you know what i mean LOL

So what do you guys use to strip paint?

I took a few pics of the 70-Toners, i couldnt resist, i opened the box and saw the 7 of them sitting there, i just had to pull 2 of them out, set up a few coalporters and make a small train on my photo diorama LOL

VIA Rail sent me a note today with a link to passenger car interiors. There are plans and 360 degree views -- sometimes several of the same car.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.viarail.ca/en/trains?WT.mc_id=_bulcomm_bulaine_lnk_360_en_090916">http://www.viarail.ca/en/trains?WT.mc_i ... _en_090916</a><!-- m -->
you have to select the train and then there's a heading "Train Cars".

In most of the forums, a newer post goes to the top of the list as older posts move down. The exception is if a moderator puts a "sticky" at the top of a forum. There is an exception in the US Rails forum. The thread that Brakie started titled "Construction Of The New NS Ft Wayne Connector" has stayed at the top of the page even though the last post on it is dated Aug 27, while a bunch of posts below it have been added in Sept. I don't see this as a problem, although if all of the post started doing this it could make looking for new posts on the various forums rather than going to the "View new posts" link a bit more difficult. I'm just curious as to what happened?

Well guys bit the bullet and bought a DCC system.
I'm looking for blue prints or install guids for milling Nscale frames for decoders and a decoder guide.

Any help would be great.
Thanks all

Hey guys, I just finished my refinery and I also got this other structure to compliment it. On the box it's labeled as Green Max. Everything else is written in characters. Not knowing much about refineries, I'm at a bit of a loss as to what colors I should use to paint this structure. I did a lot of searching on the net but couldn't seem to find anything that looked like this structure. I was thinking of going with a silver type metallic color for the walls and an aluminum type for the roof.... that just seems like an awful lot of silver to me. My refinery has a lot of silver, yellow and white so perhaps it would match. Any advice?
Existing refinery...

Front of kit box...

Back of kit box...

Wall parts...

Roof parts...

I have a B'mann Spectrum 2-8-0 w/DCC, that has a quirk I've never been able to eliminate. At start up, it begins to accelerate nicely, but then "jumps" as it reaches the mid-range, and proceeds to accelerate OK. Everything is fine, except for that little jump. I've tried every which setting that could affect this, but have been unable to eliminate it. Here's the configuration as it currently stands:

D'trax Zephyr, DH163 decoder, CV values: CV2=20, CV5=100, CV6=50, CV3=17.

Anybody have any idea how I might correct the situation..??

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VgP4qJrCWw">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VgP4qJrCWw</a><!-- m -->

Story
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.firegeezer.com/2009/09/15/steam-trains-collide/comment-page-1/">http://www.firegeezer.com/2009/09/15/st ... nt-page-1/</a><!-- m -->

I was watching a CNR freight train thunder through at a grade crossing today and I couldn't help but notice how much the track was moving up and down under the weight of the freight cars! I've actually seen this before in one of my other favourite train-watching locations.

It wasn't a whole lot different from how my track on my HO layout moves up and down (under the weight of my model trains) when it's not properly glued down or ballasted! This got me thinking, how common is this and how safe is this extra movement or play?

In June, I spent a day helping at one of the heritage railways that I visit. Staff there said they're out doing track maintenance work every week, and have to adjust/fix the ballast, gauge and positioning of the rails, etc. I suspect that this location (near the grade crossing) might need some maintenance?

Thanks,
Rob