I spent some time taking a video of operating the industrial park on my little 4x8. The video says it is just over 14 minutes long, but thats after I stitched all the clips together! It just goes to show, that even a small layout can have a lot of operations.
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A short summary- my 44 ton industrial switcher sets out the cars, and a conrail local arrives to interchange with the industrial switcher. The industrial switcher goes ahead and sets the arriving cars in their place.
I narrate it a little, but I didn't use any sound locomotives (the noise would drive you nuts after a while!)
the only major issue I had was some of the locomotives were a little unresponsive, but I can adjust the CVs until they become so.
I can say that it looks like the track rebuilding really has done wonders to increase reliability. only sectional track left now are on the outside ovals and in the industrial park, everything else is flex track now, so I've been getting much better conductivity.
A very good idea to show a complete operating session in a video. That provides a very good impression about your layout.
I can't say enough good about that video. Even though I'm on dial up, I watched the whole thing and replayed it several times. It shows, among other things, that there's an ISL hiding in a great many layout designs. You're certainly a lot farther along with a good layout and equipment than I was at 21 or 22 or whatever you are. I would just keep on refining what it is.
More, more!
GEC,
Great job on the video. Thanks for taking the time to make it and posting it for us to see.
I have two questions for you.
1. Is the outgoing Wonder Bread hopper (not the Airslide) a old Walthers pressure differential covered hopper?
2. Is the 44 tonner one of the older Spectrum models with the dual motors (one on each truck)?
Thanks for your help.
Mark
Excellent video..
Thanks for sharing.
nice vid,
thanks for the responses guys!
gonna have to do more of these.
Southern Tuxedo Wrote:GEC,
Great job on the video. Thanks for taking the time to make it and posting it for us to see.
I have two questions for you.
1. Is the outgoing Wonder Bread hopper (not the Airslide) a old Walthers pressure differential covered hopper?
2. Is the 44 tonner one of the older Spectrum models with the dual motors (one on each truck)?
Thanks for your help.
Mark
1. Yup, that it is. Its a little "modern" for my time period, but it looked cool and it was cheap, so I picked it up.
2. Nah, its the single motor type. I'm not sure i've ever seen a double motor truck type, I understand they were an earlier and somewhat less reliable run. People really love those powered trucks though.
GEC,
Thanks for the reply. Your 44 Tonner got me thinking about 2-44 Tonners and 2-70 Tonners (all Spectrum with two motors) that I have in my collection. Most of them were marked for eBay, but now I have a renewed interest in them. I test ran all of them yesterday on DC and most ran pretty good considering they haven’t been out of their boxes in years and were never really broken in when I got them. There were no issues that I could see except some jerkiness between the trucks at very slow speeds and I read on the net that DCC will solve that.
Great another project to look forward to……
Mark
Mark wrote...
"Thanks for the reply. Your 44 Tonner got me thinking about 2-44 Tonners and 2-70 Tonners (all Spectrum with two motors) that I have in my collection. Most of them were marked for eBay, but now I have a renewed interest in them. I test ran all of them yesterday on DC and most ran pretty good considering they haven’t been out of their boxes in years and were never really broken in when I got them. There were no issues that I could see except some jerkiness between the trucks at very slow speeds and I read on the net that DCC will solve that."
DCC has its limitations...If the problem is mechanical or electrical pick up, it'll still be there...Make sure the engines run perfectly (or as near to...) on DC, then DCC will work its magic....
Southern Tuxedo Wrote:GEC,
Thanks for the reply. Your 44 Tonner got me thinking about 2-44 Tonners and 2-70 Tonners (all Spectrum with two motors) that I have in my collection. Most of them were marked for eBay, but now I have a renewed interest in them. I test ran all of them yesterday on DC and most ran pretty good considering they haven’t been out of their boxes in years and were never really broken in when I got them. There were no issues that I could see except some jerkiness between the trucks at very slow speeds and I read on the net that DCC will solve that.
Great another project to look forward to……
Mark
Yeah, I haven't been able to cut the jerkiness out of mine. The important thing in this case may be to just totally remove any printed circuit boards (adding in apprpriate resistors for lighting). While I couldn't quite tell you what about the circuit board is flawed, The expirience I've had with bachmann engines (especially some made 5-8 years ago), is that the circuit board saps the juice something awful.
While the locomotive will operate with it's circuit board, nearly every one of them other than the very most recent production runs operate significantly better without the circuit board. Case in point, I have an Amtrak HHP8 by Spectrum, and that thing is supposed to be able to run very quickly. However, even at speed step 28, the engine does not go very fast. When the board was removed and the decoder wired directly in, the locomotive not only ran faster but was pulling larger, heavier trains.
I believer your double motored version is also going to be a major rebuild project to get DCC in there. I remember seeing installation instructions with photos on the web a LONG time ago when i was wiring my 44 tonner, but I couldn't say where that is now.
I reccomend checking out TCS, since they have decoder instructions made by other hobbyists on their site. If you have a model they haven't done, take the pictures, and send it to them, they'll send you a free decoder! Clearly though, it has to be more than just a drop-in installation!
Gus,
The problem seems to be that the two trucks sort of fight each other as the 44 tonner moves down the track. Picture two MU’ed locomotives rolling down the track they sometimes bounce around a little because of speed differences, dirty track, etc. (unless one is always pulling that other). It doesn’t look too bad on large locomotives, but now think about that happening on a locomotive that’s only 4.5” long. My understanding is that the Decoder will feed both motors equally at the same time, thereby smoothing out their operation. (My above comments are based on DC operation. I have no experience with DCC.)
Overall, all of them run really good at slow speeds which surprised me.
GEC,
Sorry for taking your thread off topic.
Here are the links that I found…
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and here is the same locomotive on YouTube running really slow with no jerkiness...It's just too cool.
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Mark
Mark wrote:
GEC,
Sorry for taking your thread off topic.
Me too.... :oops:
Mark..If you want to continue with this, open up a new thread...Probably get input from different sets of eyes...
Not at all! This topic of conversation is entirely relevant. Assuming you watched the video, you can see that even my single motored version is a little jerky as well. In most videos, its actually running on speed step 1 or 2, and it flies around. Not good for a little 44 tonner! Its going to need some adjusting.
If you find a way to increase the reliability and the smoothness, by all means share it. Like I said, this 44 tonner and my Trackmobile are all I have for the task, so I want them operating perfectly. The only plans I have for supplementing these locos are MAYBE a 45 tonner, because they do have those neat siderods (and I helped work on one once).
It definitely seems like your two motored one will be a worthwhile project.
GEC, it suddenly dawned on me that you said in another thread that your modeling period is 1978-79. That means the Conrail local should have a caboose, doesn't it?