Meets: April 2017 York TCA Show Part 1 - Scale Models

Usually I don't just post a photo essay of things, but with the York TCA Show, IMHO, continuing to wind down from its former glory, I figured I'd just post a ton of photos I took at the show last month.

For those of you in the scale world, this is a 3-Rail paradise.  Has everything from new to old. I came from 3R, so while I am much pickier now than I used to be, I can still appreciate what this show has to offer.  It's a good weekend to spend with my dad as well. And to get in some funnel cake.

I have decided to break up the photos into two posts...one more scale-oriented (like I would traditionally do), and the other, a posting of layouts.

Koh's Table in the Orange Hall...wow that's a lot of paint variations for that hack...

TW Trainworx

They make some amazing buildings.  Extremely pricey, but I suppose if they actually made something I could use, I would buy it.  Museum quality, precise-fit stuff. Great staff.

The overpasses are extremely nice, but I could not find a price.  Probably at least $70/section as a kit...perhaps a little too steep for me, especially for something I think I can do more easily myself.

Lionel Booth:

For the S-scale guys...

A ton of new tooling on these shelves, including the broadway limited:

For the SOU fan...SD40's...Lionel is probably doing these better than AtlasO, but only AtlasO does them with fixed pilots, so I will stick with the AtlasO, whenever they make it to America.

Brand new engine, The NW2.  Definitely looks worth 2-railing once they do these in Southern paint.  The motor is in the fuel tank, so they can fit electronics and a smoke unit in the hood...will be interesting to see the performance.

New tooling. The modern....65'? Gon they're doing. 

 Unfortunately, cast-in brake rigging...

I think this is part of the UP Excursion set...and this is how they start their domes...they will paint the clear plastic to match the shell.

Top car is part of the broadway limited...pretty jealous that everyone is getting new tooling while Southern was only made with NYC ESE tooling.

Better looking ride height.

 So Lionel is hyping up that they're doing Brass and Diecast "hybrid locomotives"  I don't know why they just don't do the whole thing in brass, but whatever.  This is a Santa Fe Mikado I believe.

You can order it direct from Lionel if you want, which is interesting that they're skipping their dealers for this one.  Maybe the costs are too high?  In any case, this has raised some eyebrows.

3R guys are used to getting their steam in all-diecast boilers, but that is cost-prohibitive on unique models with lower quantities.  Looked alright to me.  Hopefully a guy on the OGR Forum that noted that Brass and Die-cast have issues being together (one corrodes the other?) has brought enough attention to Lionel to address that chemistry problem.

AtlasO Santa Fe F7's...what they should have looked like when they came from China...and yes there is plastic over the stainless portion to protect it...

Rare to see SCL cars from AtlasO...too bad the car is a Trainman car.  The ladders and running boards are atrocious. No thanks.

 And WBB is releasing the end-cab 70 tonner in 4 roads (CN, Tropicana, Rutland, and SP). Yes Tropicana really had one and it was similar to Phase1.  All artwork showed Phase 2 tooling...but they haven't even started the tooling yet.  I provided them info on the two general phases of the carbodies, so I'm hoping it isn't cost prohibitive to do both.  Half of their offered road schemes were Phase 1, so I am hoping it is enough to convince them.  Though as Larry Harrington said to me...the bulk of their market doesn't really care, so they will probably just do whatever is economical to them. Let's hope its economical to do both. This will make it easy for those who don't own a Rich Yoder Model to get one of these.

Modeling: The 2017 Railroad Decal Arena

I recently found myself with enough decal artwork I needed to fill a page.  Thus the search began to figure out who could print these for me. I draw my vector artwork in Coreldraw 12.  Yes it takes hours and hours of work to draw this stuff to make it as close as possible to the prototype.

I needed a company that could do one-off sheets, not have 1000 confusing rules about colors I can use, and not charge a fortune (ie - no silk screen), so that limited down my choices quite a bit.

Many decal companies exist:
-Highball Graphics (Kodak/ALPS, 1-off, one price per sheet)
-Kadee (ALPS/Silkscreen/confusing rules/warranties)
-Tichy (UV-cured resin Printer, 1-off, one price per sheet)
-Railgraphics (silk screen, high minimum, high cost, confusing rules)
-Microscale (silk screen, high minimum, high cost)
-and a host of others you can find on Google (mostly ALPS, with varying degrees of rules and costs)

That brought me to Tichy and to Highball, where Highball uses Kodak/ALPS Toner technology and Tichy uses some sort of UV-cured light printer technology, both of OKI branded printers. Both of these firms were easy to reach, easy to talk to make sure my artwork was printer ready (ie - they do basically nothing but just print the artwork, saving time and cost), each charged roughly $40 to print a sheet of decals and each shipped to me fast.

Here's a quick comparison of setting up the artwork due to different printer technologies:
1. Tichy's margins of unprintable area are .1" all around.  HBG's is .25" all around. Tehnically you can print more with Tichy.
2. Tichy (and now HBG) want all CMYK colors in the same layer with color desired.
3. Tichy uses Micromark decal paper while HBG uses Microscale paper, which just introduces a different method of decal prep work when using the decals (different water dunking procedures, solvasets, etc.). Tichy should supply the directions to their customers.  They are not on micromark's website.

After having received their final products to me, I researched more on the various types of printers, spoke to a few other professionals in the biz, and came to a few conclusions...

1. I am glad we have businesses in the hobby that provide us this service at all.  Also, the resolution of both technologies is great, though dependent on good artwork.

2. ALPS/Kodak/etc. type printers are able to handle the abundance of work in most colors other than yellows, oranges, grays, and perhaps other shades of various colors.  ALPS is great for at minimum white, black, red, and greens. However, even the spot yellow and oranges, which were not overly close in shade to what I needed, had significant edge bleeding and are unusable. Just a limitation of the technology. I have no experience with metallic gold or silvers.

3. UV-resin based printers have amazing capacity to match any shade of color, but the thickness of the resin keeps these decals from being a contender for those with higher fidelity standards or who model smaller scales.  In O, these may be tolerable to some, despite the braille-like finish.  I have yet to test how well these decals with thick lettering material conform to carbody objects like rivets.  I have read elsewhere that folks may be concerned that lettering could flake off from handling, but I'm not so sure that's a real concern.  These also won't fade or yellow from what Tichy told me on the phone.

4. Outside expensive silk-screening, it is possible to still get really good decals of any color, but you have to find a professional graphics company that is willing to work with a hobbyist like you for small change, making it highly unlikely that this is really a logical solution. These guys have printers that cost in the $50,000 range, and can print some sort of "silkscreen ink" with amazing resolution and Pantone color accuracy while having a thickness that is barely more than what ALPS decals have.


Overall, I was extremely impressed with Tichy's decals, but the thickness makes them unusable to me, though without any other apparent options, I might have to concede to using the yellow portions because they don't have color bleed and are exact color matches.  I will seek out a professional place first, though I doubt I will be able to bring them enough money to make it worth it to them.  I also had headbanding issues on my HBG decals and Jim replaced them no questions-asked. He bought a new OKI printer to get rid of these issues. Yay for modelers. I plan to use his for everything but the yellows.

Below are some photos that some may find of use.  Click on them for higher resolution.

 

Decals from Tichy. 

Extremely stiff Cardboard envelope and decals protected with layers of tissue paper.

Decals From Highball.

Envelope not as stiff, but decals protected in a sealed bag. 

Doesn't matter how many times it says to not bend the envelope, post office doesn't listen. Luckily the decals were not overly creased inside.

Color comparison of the yellows. 

Tichy exact match on left.  HBG Spot colors on right.

Spot Color bleeding

Note the edges have pink bleeding through.  Just a limitation of the technology from what I gather. No good.

This is what Headbanding issues look like.  

Its more evident in the black ink, as there are vertical bands of ink missing from the decal.  The rest of the page has bands dug into the ink, but not all the way through to the decal paper, which is noticeable at various angles.

The rest of the photos below are just my attempt to show you the thickness of the ink on Tichy's decals. You can see the shadows cast by the ink. Run your hand across these and its similar to braille.  Not the end of the world if you can't find or afford another way to get the exact color matching you need.

Modeling: The 117 horns of QSI Hornmaster

Change your horn to one of 117 options.  One CV.

Use the QSI Programmer and you can do it with the press of the down arrow....see the video.

Hear all horns in less than 3 minutes.

Super cool.  Wanna superdetail your horn by changing individual trumpets and detunes? Yea, thats possible too in another screen.

I don't think anyone else has this ability, but maybe they don't know it exists...

Modeling: QSI Q2 vs. Q3 Soundset Comparison in Sunset O-scale SD9's

Just wanted to post a quick QSI Titan decoder firmware comparison of the recently released Southern SD9's.  Both are pretty much stock files.

The Q3 sounds are miles above the the Q2 soundsets, so please do upgrade yours.

Shot on a GoPro in 1080p-30 settings in my kitchen.  Pardon the poor locale, probably won't have any benchwork for a few more months.

Enjoy.

Modeling: Last project of 2016: Upgrade a 2R MTH SD45 to QSI DCC

Happy New Year in T-minus 4.5 hours.

Haven't done much with trains in 2016, but had a few hours to take a QSI Titan decoder I traded for and slipped it into an MTH SD45 chassis that once had PS2 electronics (not-DCC compatible).

I took a GoPro 1080P-60 video of the first basic test...did the Q3 software upgrade work? Did I wire the motors correctly?  Did I wire the speakers right?  Seems good to go.

Note...no lighting yet...waiting for the 3mm LEDs.

The decoder itself is running a stock QSIS 645 Q3 large-scale file.  Horn is an un-adjusted Nathan P5.  I'll adjust everything to taste after I install the lighting.

The track is a few pieces of AtlasO 36" Curves.

Not much, but enjoy.