Why did I move to ESU Loksound decoders and some other handy links.

So in the midst of studying for a certification exam I have next week, I had a 3R buddy stop over for an hour and I showed him my 2R layout, my workbench, my small "library", and talked his ear off quite a bit.  I think I answered all of his questions and hopefully he remembers something from the firehose. Perhaps he may down the line become more interested in scale-oriented side of the hobby. He's already trying to add the rope used to blow a steam locomotive whistle, so he's appears to already be on that trajectory.

In any case, while talking to him, I made reference to quite a few things and felt like some of that would also be appropriate to throw up on the blog, in case it can help others learn and grow.

ESU Loksound Full Throttle

So, a little while back, I was introduced to a variety of things, the primary being MRH.  Always thought it was just an HO magazine, and while it is more focused in that scale, there have been many articles that I felt like I learned from, including layout construction, weathering, and quite a bit about ESU Loksound Full Throttle. (They appear to be a prominent sponsor and work a lot with Mike Confalone, an accomplished modeler and bigtime writer for MRH.)

The two YT videos below, sold me on ripping out everything I had (NCE, Soundtraxx, and QSI) and going to Loksound.  Well that and the obvious hobby backing and customer support that ESU American has that extends beyond just a Yahoo group. I only have about 5 locomotives converted and of those, only a few are FT equipped, but the sounds and functions (minus the horn volume) have been spectacular.

Loksound's notching and dynamic breaks on Mike Confalone's really nice HO layout:

Loksound Full Throttle Explained in detail through video:

More on some of my own decoder installs later when I free up on time.

Train Magazines and other online resources

With the potential unfortunate demise of O Scale Trains magazine (They are no longer publishing and for sale as of this writing), there has been a lot of talk about 3R/2R/etc and the magazine sources that are available to us.  Included in that discussion was whether or not we should be looking outside the scale or at other sources/scales for influence.  Whether or not 2R has enough support to continue having its own hardcopy magazine, etc. It is completely open to the individual, but I personally do look around a little bit, in case there is something I can learn from.  Otherwise I skim through the less interesting stuff and only lost a few minutes of my life. I keep it to model railroading though, since while I am sure I could learn a thing or two from some of those Armor modelers, I only have so much time.

There are two FREE online magazines that I follow in addition to my occasional MR magazine.  I bought a nice collection of RMC magazines from a fellow modeler, including some really recent issues and I was impressed with what I read and how much I was actually interested in techniques being used there.  I am leaning to adding a subscription to that as well to help enhance my modeling.

MRH (multi-scale): http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/

OSR (O scale): http://oscaleresource.com/

While I do not model proto48 personally, I also keep tabs on this site and their groups.io mailing list in case there are new products that I can use and support those manufacturers.
http://proto48.org/

And most recently, I also have stumbled across a Facebook group for 2R/proto48.  Some really nice stuff showing up on there as well, so definitely worth the look from time to time:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2railoscale/


And don't forget, the 2018 National is only months away. Be sure to register early. https://2018oscalenational.com/

Til I find some free time...