TREES

There is no question in my mind about the fidelity of Kato HO locomotive shells. The tooling is superb and continues to improve. The downside is the shells are solid so there is little choice in installing a speaker for DCC sound. And on the recent units I modified, the frames were pretty much a road bock to sound routed through the bottom.

Making the Great, Greater

No one will argue the incredible detail and quality of any of the Scale Trains offerings. I have only one so far but that is due to we always seem to be packing and unpacking for a move. And to a smaller house. I think this downsizing thing is un-American, but I digress. I bought the DCC-ready version which incorporates a 21 pin style decoder receptor in the mother board.

More to follow.

In my earliest days as a rail fan, I was around a lot of C&O power in Huntington, WV. It was predestined as I was born in the C&O Hospital there. Huntington also afforded the opportunity was watch trains from the B&O and NW as they also came into town or nearby Ceredo Kenova. The N&W was mainly coal drags out of southern WV going to the barge loading docks of the Ohio River. Of note was the use of steam to switch the cars into the mid-late 50s. They could sometimes block access to the Dreamland Pool from the parking “field”. What a shame, right?

Time to upgrade my CSX fantasy scheme P2K E8 ABA set. The improvements will include new speakers from Scale Sound Systems (SSS), a new Econami 21 PNEM decoder, new LEDs, and an incredible new motherboard from fellow forum member, Nick Santo. As number board and ground lights are being added, the wire control facilitated by Nick’s board is important.

More to follow

I blame this project on Athearn as they created the urge with their SDP40F locomotives.

More content follows

While searching for etched wind deflectors/mirrors for the SP E-units, I found www.kvmodels.com located in NJ. They offer a large and varied selection of etched stainless steel parts for N and HO scales. The web site has a store and you can pay by credit card or use Pay Pal. They also are on eBay as KV Models. Lastly, the owner, Scott, is an honest to goodness real locomotive engineer plying the rails daily between western NJ and Manhattan.

More of the Same, But Different

Time to assign some power to an early 60’s Southern Pacific passenger train. One loco will be a Life Like era Proto 2000 E8 in Black Widow. As on the UP e-units, the Kato motor transplant, drive line upgrades, truck tuning, LED lights, and Tsunami 2 are the same. The choice of speakers and mounting are different. More follows

Older Proto 2000 E-Units Coming Out of The Closet (in a manner of speaking)

These processes have a broad application for whatever older locomotives you might choose to upgrade.

I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company. Well, at least the bottle cap from their plastic bottles. Beneath their boring exterior lurks a very respectable speaker enclosure waiting for its moment in the Sun. And it is free with the purchase of the Coke. Consider it as a 2 for 1.

My previous Proto E conversions were of the Life Like original design with the 5 pound metal weights. Of course, I am exaggerating as they were only 4.5 pounds. And as their design predated high capability DCC sound, there were no accommodations for speakers.