First Video of the Southern Railway Piedmont Division

Description from the youtube page:
This is the inaugural run of the Southern Railway Piedmont Division.

The video shows a freight train made up of various rolling stock made by MTH, Lionel, AtlasO, and Weaver. Looks like I need to fix one of my curves.

The locomotive is a 3rd Rail/Sunset Models SD9, super-detailed and weathered for roughly 1970. The decoder is a Loksound L V4.0 select running the 16cyl 567C Full Throttle Sound File. A lot of tweaking still needs to be done in regards to headlight intensity, auto-notch increments, and volume control. The horns on this brand really aren't loud enough, when they should be louder than the prime mover.

Track is AtlasO.

DCC is Digitrax. (Though once I start consisting, I may want to move to either NCE or ECoS, since I read Digitrax doesn't do it well.)

Video camera is a GoPro HERO+ set at 1080P60 settings, but apparently the room isn't lit (I'm blaming the lighting, but I am not 100% sure.) enough to get the best quality. The GoPro takes very nice video outside. Somewhat disappointing in that I can't get the same quality inside. I tried a Sony HDR-AS10 and it did worse.

DCC: 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...

Layout Design and Initial Progress Photos - January 2018

I've spent the last month or two on my roughly 30' x13.5' layout, so I have at least a loop to run stuff around and show my friends and coworkers what model trains are like.  I tried to photograph various parts of it along the way to show what I did to build it.

I am unsure how long I will continue to live where I am, so I did not want to have too complex of a layout, but enough to stretch the legs of new and old purchases and tweak some Loksound Full Throttle decoders.

Here is the general layout diagram. It is generally followed, though the industries in the top left are not going to happen, and some curvatures ended up different in reality.

The original concept was to model the Southern Piedmont Division in and around Atlanta, GA.  This allows me the opportunity to model two interesting areas - Pegram Shops and Inman Yard.  Pegram Shops will be the showcase of this layout and allows me to complete two concepts:

1. The first is a standard place for roster shots. A lot of photo's were taken of locomotive power outside the shops over the years, so I will do the same.  
2. The shops allow me to more realistically roster a large variety and amount of the power. Since Atlanta was perhaps the biggest hub on the Southern, and almost everything came through there at some point in time.

Inman Yard is an interesting two-level yard that grew over the years, and even has photo evidence of some sort of icing station for reefers.  Some neat photos out of there.  The bottom two tracks will be elevated for the bi-level aspect and the rest of it will be used as typical classification yard, when completed.

A future layout may contain some sort of version of Terminal Station, but due to the nature of not wanting to make a layout more complex than it needed to be for now, I forego this in my design.

Height - 48" off the floor.
Track - Atlas O
Roadbed - Midwest cork
DCC - Digitrax (DCS200/UR92) w/ DCC Specialities PSX-1 and RRampmeter.
DCC Wiring - 10AWG bus, 18AWG feeders

Initial test train - 3rd Rail SD9 and various equipment from Lionel, Weaver, AtlasO and MTH

Below are some initial photos of the layout in benchwork stage with one loop of track completed.

 The first piece of track being laid on the right.

 Base area for any electronics. You can see the Digitrax Power supply, DCS200, UR92, PSX, RRampmeter.  The bus bars are for the 10AWG bus.

 View of layout down the length of it.

 Hinged area for easy interior access.

Front view of Pegram Shops Trackwork. Sorry for the mess.

Modeling: New O Scale 2R SD9 Fuel Breathers are in!

Got the revised breathers and added them to my models after some paint and weathering.  They are fantastic.  These will get roster shots once I get some sort of layout put together.

Modeling: Quick and Easy 3rd Rail FP7 Side-Step Upgrade

Been busy with weddings, life, and starting to build a layout. I've spent quite a few hours upgrading AtlasO switches and repairing some used ones I bought years ago. Have done a couple of quick side projects like the one below in the time I wait for epoxy to dry...


Ordered some steps from 3rd Rail to upgrade my FP7's from years ago and took an hour or two over a few days to get these put on my unit.

Pretty simple to do. Used my fingers to twist off the truck-mounted steps.  I could have bondo'd over the brass plugs that broke off in the hole, but figured it won't be seen that much, so I just sanded down that area and touched up with paint.

I took the new steps and used one as a guide and glued it onto the frame where I wanted it.  Then used the hole on the backside of it as a guide and drilled/tapped an 0-80 hole.  Did that for each of the 4 steps.

Then primed and painted the the steps black.  Then dull-coted them so I could pan-pastel them to match the existing weathering after installation.

Then installed them with 0-80 screws.  The trucks still have basically their entire range of rotation.  Looks much better.

Here's a before and after...

Fuel Filters Gone Wrong and My Layout Plan

So I have the fuel breathers all ready to go and one was even put on the model and come to find out, there is a mistake neither I nor the CAD designer saw....so while that is being fixed, and shapeways is being worked with, time for some layout work in my spare minutes. Oh well, it happens.

Here is one of a ready filter, that won't make it onto a model:

Below is the layout drawing.  Nothing special since I do not want to put too much effort into a layout that will more than likely not be my last layout.  Need something to show off my power and my rolling stock as well as show my friends what trains are about.

I am aware of the shortcomings of the layout. Don't really care.  What the drawing doesn't show is that the outside loop/back of Inman Yard are elevated.  Pegram Shops has been Selectively reduced...since it would take my whole basement to model that place correctly.  Another revision had Atlanta Terminal Station incorporated, but I rather not fill the entirety of this basement.  It will be on the next layout.

Also pretty much all AtlasO 2R track (with some other brands of flex track too).  Just makes life easier at this time.

Tracks are tentative, at least in the yard area, especially in the lower right.  Will take some time to rehash that later.

Modeling: O Scale 2R CG SD9s Waiting for their Breathers

Quick Photos showing that these guys are basically done, fully weathered, replaced with Loksound decoders and are waiting for their fuel tank pipe breathers...coming soon.  Then a better photoshoot will be taken.

It is possible that these and several other of my projects will make an appearance in a clinic at the O Scale National 2018 on how to take a good base model and take it that extra mile to suit your prototype in a specific era.