Once again the Brute is on my work bench. She will get a Digtrax DZ126 decoder for now until another is selected for her. She will be able to make her next appointments at Altoona and Danville, and then we can worry about it.
But before the decoder gets installed I have to check the stall current on the Sagami can motor that is as old as the locomotive is and fix the lights.
I have two days.
Looks like I'd better get to work.
I just got an email from John Wallis, president of NRail, on location at Grapevine TX for the 50th Anniversary of N-TRAK.
Cotton Brute, which was restored specifically for this event, has suffered a burned-out decoder. Kenny from Yankee Dabbler installed a second decoder, which operated fine on the test track. However, when the loco was put on the track it, too, failed.
So, the star of the show has been sidelined.
When it returns from Texas I will once again diagnose and repair it and get it back into shape for Altoona and for it's return to Danville in September.
In a previous post I mentioned the acquisition of some Atlas/Kato RS parts that I used to refurbish and in one case completely assemble a couple of locomotives. Well, there was one more auction that I lost, for another complete RS-11 shell. Apparently the "buyer" failed to make the payment, so I got it for my last bid price and now I have two complete undecorated Atlas/Kato RS-11's that I have no need for (to go along with the complete undecorated Atlas/LifeLike GP7's; Atlas shells on LifeLike GP-18 chassis).
The refurbishment of the South Hampton Roads NTRAK modules is almost complete. The wiring is done and now the scenery is being refreshed. I'm doing two of them in the hopes that I can build some frames to package them together for transport. There's a good reason no one has 3 foot corners; they're asymmetrical and so they can't easily be packaged like 4 foot corners (which are symmetrical) can be.
And last but not least, when I was on my modern locomotive purchasing spree I was buying and installing decoders to go in them. One of the decoders was an NCE non-sound unit that I fried during installation (my own damn fault, I didn't pay close enough attention to where the motor tabs were and one touched the frame). I sent it in to NCE with the expectation that I would be charged for the repairs.
I just got an email today from stamps.com (the company that NCE uses to ship things) saying I have a package coming. NCE hasn't contacted me with an invoice, so I can only assume at this point that it is my previously fried decoder and that said decoder has been repaired without further cost to me. North Coast Engineering. Great products and a great company that stands behind them, but lousy communications skills. But, all told, I would rather have it that way than the other.
And speaking of modern power, I'm ashamed to say the madness didn't stop with the locos I had posted earlier. I have, in fact, purchased two more since then; both Kato, one in Canadian Pacific paint and the other in Canadian National. I've been kicking around the idea of getting one in Kansas City Southern as well, but so far I've been managing to resist that temptation. But, since I have a newly repaired decoder coming...
When first I got involved in NTRAK I was a nearly-retired Navy man stationed in Virginia Beach, and my "home" club was South Hampton Roads NTRAK. The club met upstairs in a church in Norfolk and made regular appearances at the local train shows. I retired in February 2005 and moved to Raleigh (but didn't join the Raleigh club until January 2016).
Late in 2022 the club lost its space above the church. They reached out to the North Raleigh and Richmond Area NTRAK clubs to adopt their modules. Since they were my first NTRAK home, I wanted to make sure that something of the club survived. I rented a U-Haul and emptied the church out with the help of two NRMRC members and several folks from RANTRAK.
These modules have sat in my shed since December. They are old, heavy and outdated, the wiring is nowhere near where it needs to be for modern operations and the corners are all 3 footers. Because of the work needed to bring them up to spec and all I have going on in other parts of my life, I haven't taken the time to do anything with them. Yet.
Every year in late September the Eastern N Lines Partnership sets up an NTRAK layout in the Pepsi building for the Old 97 Rail Days in Danville VA. This year, due to a concert being given over the festival, we have lost our space in the Pepsi building and will be in the basement of Danville Station right next door. This necessitated a redesign of our layout. The redesign needs a 3 foot corner.
I happen to have five of them...
Looks like one of the 3 footers gets to escape the scrap heap at least.
For Fathers Day, Mrs Hades and I loaded up the pups and drove to see my parents in southwest Iowa.
Our mostly annual trips out to the Midwest always include a shopping day to nearby Omaha NE and Council Bluffs IA for my mother, who doesn't really get out much because Dad doesn't get around so well any more. Mrs Hades says it's to cement her "favored daughter-in-law" position (but not in front of my brother's wife).
As is usual, whenever I am in Omaha I stop by the House of Trains located at 8106 Maple Street. I don't really need anything since my layout is 1300 miles away, and there isn't anything I can get there that I can't get at Nicks in Raleigh, but traditions are traditions and I always like to drop in to see what they have.
This year I found a Micro Trains Father's Day car, a handful of other rolling stock pieces, and a Digitrax non-sound decoder for the new CSX ES44DC that I mentioned at the end of my last post (bringing the total of modern locomotives up to seven). With that done, I then turned my attention to their scrap boxes.
House of Trains takes in quite a bit of used stuff, for trade in and I think for consignment as well. Because of that you can always find something you didn't really know you needed. The last trip it was a box of Kato Unitrack, and this time it was a first-gen Atlas/Kato RS3 in Rio Grande black-and-yellow paint.
Although the photo shows the completed loco, it originally came in kit form (meaning disassembled) in a bag marked "Parts" with a $25 price tag. When I examined the contents of the bag it looked like everything was there. The motor, trucks, driveshafts and body were present, as was the mangled remains of both frame halves, and a mess of something that appeared to be light boards and decoders. The Micro Trains coupler conversion had even been done (although the walkway was broken).
The frame had been hogged out to clear the motor contacts (that's not really the way you're supposed to do it) but it looked like it would bolt together and hold the motor securely. The decoder wires were broken off and disconnected, and upon further examination it appeared that there were two decoders in the bag, one connected to the light board and one not. Both were missing wires.
I took it back to the folks house and tested the motor with a battery, and was ecstatic to see that it actually ran. I assembled what I could of the loco, leaving the gray and orange motor wires attached (they weren't attached to a decoder, though) and once again tested it with a battery. All the running gear worked like it should with no strange noises, and the body fit on the frame with no issues other than the walkway being broken.
Then I took a look on the auction site and found that you can actually get quite a few pieces for this loco. This is somewhat surprising since this is the older pre-China Kato chassis. I found a set of frames that hadn't been butchered and put in a bid, and then I ordered a walkway from an auction site store. I won the bid and had both of them shipped home, expecting them to be there when we got back.
And they were. I assembled the loco with the new walkway, new frames, and a proper TCS CN-GP decoder and it runs just like a brand new one. But wait, there's more! It turns out there was not one, but TWO sets of frame halves in the auction, so with the extra frame in hand and an Atlas/Kato RS11 shell in a box that I had sitting around I thought I might try to build a complete running chassis for it as well (they use the same chassis, the only difference is the fuel tanks).
Motors, worm gears, and U joints can all be had on the same auction site store as the walkways, as can fuel tanks and truck frames. Amazingly enough, the truck halves and gears can be found in the Atlas catalog, as can the body shell headlight inserts and light boards.
In fact, about the only thing that you cannot find new is the screws to hold the frame halves together (although you can get the plastic insulators and nuts, go figure) and the wheel sets. Amazon has screws that I think will work, and I was able to find a guy on one of the mailing lists who had some wheel sets laying around in a parts box.
I've ordered all the parts that I could order from Atlas and the auction site and I'm waiting for the wheel sets to show up. He didn't know how many he had, so I'm hoping at least four. If I can get wheel sets, I'll have a complete running undecorated RS11 that I have no need for (to go along with the two Life-Like GP-18 chassis with undecorated Atlas GP7 shells that I have).
And if there are more than four, maybe I can order the parts to put the mangled chassis back together, too. I won't have a shell for it, but I'll have a running chassis at least.
In my last post I mentioned the possibility of putting sound in the modern Kato diesels. To that end, I did purchase a couple of Digitrax SDNX146K1E decoders, but they have keep-alive capacitors that just don't fit anywhere under the shells. The speakers are the oval type that will fit under the shell tucked under the rear light LED, they will go in without modifying the frame, but those darn caps just won't fit in anywhere.***
A second option is a sound decoder made by XL Systems Inc. I haven't linked them for the simple reason that they are crap. They used to make the sound decoders for MRC, and they were crap then, too. I put one (MRC 1961) in the Hudson I had repainted in Erie fantasy paint and ripped it back out again because I couldn't get the start speed set to move the loco at speed step 1; at speed step 1 the loco would chuff merrily while not moving at all. To date it's the only functional decoder I've ever thrown in the trash. But, the XL's are inexpensive, so I bit the bullet and ordered one for the CSX SD70M.
Yep. Still trash.
The good thing about them...well, three good things I guess...are they are inexpensive, they do work (in that they will make noise and make the locomotive move, mostly at the same time), and they are true drop-in decoders because the motor power clips are already installed (the Digitrax board requires you to remove the clips from the stock Kato DC light board and install them on the decoder board). Another nice thing is the speaker is installed on the board, so no frame modifications needed. It's nice and loud, too, being at the top of the locomotive and not underneath in the fuel tank. If all you want is an operational decoder that makes noise and you don't care about speed matching (or making the loco move at speed step 1) the XL may just fit the bill for you. However, if speed matching and loco movement at speed step 1 is important to you, the XL won't be a good choice.
The problem with these (and the MRC's that preceded them) is they are nigh unto impossible to program the speed effectively with a standard speed table. They don't have a mid range CV (6), and the high speed CV (5) is only adjustable from 0-63 instead of the full 0-255. As with the Hudson, I have never been able to get them to move at speed step 1, either, although (again, as with the Hudson's chuff) the diesel sound notches up at that setting. Unlike with the steam loco chuff, the diesel loco moves before the throttle notches again, so there is that at least.
They do have a full speed table, but that is a pain in the arse to program so I haven't ever tried doing it that way**. Who knows, that might work fine, but (yeah, not so much, see footnote) it was enough of an irritation that I pulled the XL back out of the Kato and replaced it with a non-sound TCS that programs easily with a standard speed table (CV's 2, 5 and 6 for start, full and mid speeds respectively). All of my modern locos will run the exact same speeds now, and only the NS loco has sound (but that's something I'm fine with).
I do have three XL 0001955 sound decoders for Atlas GP7's that I believe can be modified for my triple set of Bachmann GP7's. The Bachmann GP7s, like so many other Bachmann non-sound DCC equipped locos, have crippled Lenz decoders that have a non-programmable speed table (their sound decoders are downgraded Soundtraxx units). IIRC you can program the start speed (CV2) but not the mid or top speeds. That means no speed matching, but they do run close enough to each other that they can be run as a single unit. However, they are enough different that I don't dare use one as a DPU.
So if I ever want to run them with other units, or use one as a DPU, the choice is semi-programmable XL crap that I might be able to program with the full speed table using CV's 67-94, or maybe - just maybe - the more expensive but easily programmable silent drop in decoders from Digitrax, TCS or NCE with the same installation caveats as the XL. I have seen an installation of the MRC 1955 sound decoder (made by XL, therefore identical to the XL 0001955), so I know that one will work, and I assume the others would as well following the same installation tricks. The sound is a bonus, but they have to be wired to the motor and the contact springs have to be removed from the Bachmann/Lenz decoders and soldered onto the XL's (and I assume the Digitrax, TCS and NCE drop-ins) for installation. That's why I haven't put them in yet.
UPDATE: I just pulled the XL decoders out of the bag and pulled the top off of a Bachmann GP7. They won't fit. I'll either have to hard-wire a decoder or live with what I have.
And speaking of modern locos...I have acquired yet another one, this one in BNSF livery like the one above (except mine is number 5953). It is a Kato ES44AC and it, too, has been equipped with a TCS non-noise decoder. So now I have a Kato Norfolk Southern SD70ACE with Digitrax sound decoder, a Fox Valley Models Erie heritage SD70ACE with a six pin something (TCS, I think) decoder, a Kato CSX SD70M with TCS decoder, a Fox Valley Models PRR heritage ES44 with 6 pin Digitrax decoder, and a Kato BNSF ES44AC with TCS decoder.
All I need now is a modern loco in UP livery to round out the collection.*
*EDIT: It's on order, I couldn't resist. I'm trying out an NCE decoder on this one. UPDATE: It has arrived, and the NCE decoders work fine with the special NCE kick programming to get them to move at speed step 1. I also ordered an ES44DC in CSX paint because the flat-radiator SD70M just didn't look right to me, but for some reason I didn't order a decoder for it at the same time like I usually do. I'll have to get one when it gets here.
**I tried programming an XL with the 28 step speed table. It's even more frustrating than attempting to do so with a three step table.
***The answer to this problem was found in this video. Long story short, replace the cap with a surface mount one with longer wires. It works, and the oval speaker fits fine under the shell, but it doesn't make a lot of prime mover noise. That may be a good thing, though.
My interests are mostly in the early to mid transition era, from post-war to about 1965 or so, and for that reason I don't have a lot of modern diesel power. However, when I was watching the videos about the ferry move of N&W 611 to Strasburg a couple of years ago I purchased a Kato Norfolk Southern SD70ACE so that I could duplicate that train.
Some time later I decided that I wanted another SD70 in the Erie heritage paint scheme, so I went online and found out that they were completely sold out everywhere. Kato made one and so did Fox Valley Models. I was fortunate enough to find one of each, already DCC equipped, on that online auction site. I put a bid in for the Kato because it was cheaper, lost the auction, and purchased the FVM outright.
I was watching some YouTube videos recently and found that there is also a PRR heritage unit, this one an ES-44AC and not an SD70. Fox Valley makes a model of it, it is likewise sold out everywhere, but one popped up on one of the mailing lists I belong to for a not-horrible price, so I went ahead and bought it. I also found another Kato SD70, this one an M, with the straight radiators, on Amazon for a not-horrible price and bought it as well. It's in CSX livery, so it will be the first non-NS modern loco in the roster. I have seen foreign power on NS trains, and CSX runs with NS in my area (Raleigh NC), so it fits in with the overall scheme of things.
But lest you despair that I am wandering down the path to the Dark Side, I've also picked up a couple of Kato Mikados with accompanying GHQ L1 kits to put on them, so the steam program on the PVRR is alive and well. I'll work on documenting at least one of these builds as well as the decoder installs.
