Well, last night I attempted to install an MRC sound decoder (diesel) into an Athearn F-7 (not DCC ready). Things were moving along fairly well and I had the two power pick up wires and the two motor control wires installed, checked and double checked. The front head light was the only connection left. I also had to figure a way to mount the speaker. At this point I decided to test the decoder on the program track. It checked out fine and I entered the engine number for the address. I then placed it on the track and gave it a try. It immediately sounded off, engine rumble, bell, horn. WOW! Cool, I did it first time. Then I moved the throttle a little and SNAP! When the engine moved forward ever so slightly the blue wire, the hot lead for the headlight, touched something on the frame, sparked, and that was that. It shorted out the entire decoder. All I could hear was a buzz-click, buzz-click. The buzz was the short, the click was the dcc system circuit breaker kicking out. From that moment on the decoder is toast. It gets hot to the touch every time I try to run it. Well, I will salvage the speaker anyway. The $67 decoder is now history.

Lesson learned; if you have any loose wires be sure to cover the end with tape before applying power for testing. Guess I'll install a non-sound decoder for the time being.

Later,

KT

Yep, June 21st... Have a

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

SUMMER SOLSTICE

BIG BLUE STRUCTURE CHALLENGE.

As you may know, I am modeling roughly 1917-1920. In looking though period photographs, I notice nearly all of the men are wearing hats, and all of the women are wearing hats. That means, when placing figures on my layout, they all should be wearing a hat, right? Has anyone done historical etiquette research who could enlighten us when wearing a hat in public became less commonplace in the USA?

The small details... Has anyone ever added a hat to a LPB that didn't come molded with one?

I stuck with the old Gauge for a long time. Guess I don't like change. But now it's finally changed enough that my discomfort exceeds my addiction.

So... I'm back.

Here are some awesome pix of the CNR Northern that was recently moved to the John Street Roundhouse aka Toronto Railway Heritage Centre.

It sure looks good sitting on the turntable!

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Hi All,

Join in the fun here with an N scale structure combining two kits that have been in the box for too long .... i went for WS Baxters Hardware (Corner turret building) & Kitt Transfer (Gripps luggage Mfg) to combine a retail outlet with the warehouse adjoining it the basic walls are up but making decisions on its final look.

I started wiring my layout with cab control to facilitate two trains running simultaneously. I have two controllers (DC) and all the track sections are supplied with dpdt switches, so I could isolate the sections on both sides and wire them with two wires running from each dpdt switch to the track but somewhere I remember reading, that it is enough to isolate only one track which would be connected to the dpdt switch while the other track (in all sections) would be connected to a common wire running back to the controllers. Apparently this would still work with two trains, but I figure it might have some problems which would make the fully separated sections preferable. Does anyone with experience with cab control have any opinions on this subject?

Hopefully this wasn't too confusing...

I decided that my layout could work better with a transfer table as a staging area. While there are some resources available regarding the construction of these, there still are a few things seeming a bit problematic.

The first one is powering the table or rather only the active track (in case I want to use the table for engine storage; if the table is only going to be used for cars it could as well be always fully powered which probably simplifies things). Anyways, which is a good way of getting power to the traverser? I even thought of using a piece of mrr track which could both work as the roller (instead of using a drawer slide mechanism) as well as a power source (wire the track on which the transfer table runs as if it were a part of the layout), but whether it would work adequately is the question.

The second one is whether it might be necessary to hold cars in place on the transfer table (imagining that very smoothly rolling cars might start moving while manipulating the table (currently only considering a manually moved table, not sure how difficult or necessary it would be to power the table.) Or is it enough to make sure the layout is level (which is probably a very good thing in any case.)

Attached is a sketch of the traverser - at the far end of the table there is a track which holds one engine so that it can be moved to the other end of the train for when the train is returning to the layout. Although I'm going to run steam engines, I didn't include a turntable here.