Vendor profile
Customer Support Kudos to Tam Valley Depot
I own eight Tam Valley Depot Hex-Frog juicers and have been very happy with their performance and it has really enhanced the operations on the layout especially with the sound decoder equipped locos. I purchased these directly from the vendor.
The other day while working on the layout my Digitrax DB150 command station started acting erratically and it appeared as though a short was occurring on the layout but the power district circuit breakers from Tony's Train Exchange were not indicating a short.
ALPINE RAILROAD IN NJ-EVOLUTION IN PICS PART VI
Since my last post I had glued hydrocal rock castings to the mountains on the newer section and colored them after having glued the tunnel portals and retaining walls in place. The next set of photos shows the progress.
This is the newest section I mentioned in a previous post with the mountains and portals in place.
ALPINE RAILROAD IN NJ-EVOLUTION IN PICS PART V
Now that I have gone over most of the build for my layout up to present day (I will take pics of the newest table with the mountains and rock faces in place and post them soon), I thought I would show some of the details I have been working on like tunnel portals, bridges and structures. Since I didn't take any before pics of the portals or bridges before I painted/weathered them, I found pics online of what they look like out of the box.
Broadway Limited Quality ?
I am planning a new layout using BLI steam locomotives. I was searching EBAY last night looking for availability of an LI 2-8-2. There was one review, and some guy really took BLI to the woodshed on a decline on quality, specifically mentioning a LI that was replaced by BLI with another defective unit.
ALPINE RAILROAD IN NJ-EVOLUTION IN PICS PART IV
After fixing my problem with getting my locos up a 2% + grade (it was never consistent for the entire run) I then saw another aspect of my original plan that I never really loved. At that point I had my loco run up hill about 4 inches over the course of 8-10 feet or so but coming back down hill was done inside another tunnel on the opposite end of the layout in about 3 feet. Needless to say it was a steep hill downward though a few tests showed that locos would not fly off the track or even move that much faster so it was doable but I didn't love it.
ALPINE RAILROAD IN NJ-EVOLUTION IN PICS PART III
Due to the nature of my job I was unexpectedly out of work from last Christmas until te beginning of May which presented a wonderful opportunity to fill the cold winter days by working on my layout uninterrupted. In that time I feel like I achieved quite a lot on the layout construction itself as well as building structures and whatnot. Like most railroad modelers, I tend to get "on a track" of maybe wiring for a while then when I get bored I shift gears and build a structure or two or maybe work on scenery.
ALPINE RAILROAD IN NJ-EVOLUTION IN PICS CONT'D
I left off with the stage of my railroad development having built the benchwork, added foam risers and platforms, fascia, newspaper and tape to prepare for the addition of Woodland Scenics plaster cloth for the mountains.
ALPINE RAILROAD IN NJ-EVOLUTION IN PICS
As promised I am including some pics showing the evolution of my railroad over the last 3+ years. As stated previously, this is really two layouts in one with a DC elec loco layout and a DCC steam and diesel layout.
St. Louis RPM
Iowa Scaled Engineering will once again be at the St. Louis RPM meet this coming Friday and Saturday. Please stop by our tables and introduce yourself... it's always great to put some faces to the names! Some highlights this year include:
TCS decoders
I just spoke with TCS support and got an immediate resolution to a question I could not find in their documentation. I use their WOW steam systems and nave been extremely satisfied, so suggested they work a little more with MRH to produce videos like we see with ESU. I keep finding new features on my decoders by accident, and could benefit from (and perhaps many could) run-throughs of the many features of their decoders.
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