Not A Happy Camper

The TCS decoders arrived for the Atlas GP-7 locos that I acquired last post. I put them in and...

The redbird is slow to respond to the throttle, it starts to move a few seconds after it is throttled up. After it runs for a while it gets better, but there is still a delay between rolling the throttle on and a change in speed. The lights come on immediately. CV3 and CV4 are both set to zero.

The blackbird, on the other hand, does not move at all nor do the lights come on.

Both decoders have been removed and sent to TCS for repair or replacement and the motors have been hardwired to the light boards, so once again the GPs are DC only.

So for now a LifeLike GP-20 handles the southbound train and the black SD is back on point for the northbound train. The GP-20 is in red, I really wish LifeLike would have released the GP-20 in the black paint scheme so I could have GPs on both trains, because like I said the SDs really don't like the curves.

Maybe I'll have the decoders back after Christmas and the GP-7's can be back on the job.

In other news TCS has shipped the new style connectors for the HO locos and Micro Mark has shipped the SDXH166 decoder. My plan is to install it in the Mikado so it will have a slightly different sound than the Consolidations and I will then install the Mikado's SDH166 decoder into the Mehano GP9 that I got from Mrs Hade's uncle. It has a GP-38 sound scheme loaded into it, but all diesels sound alike to me anyway.

And that's the state of the railroad for now.