You're right, it does irritate me! I'll learn to live with it though - I can mix mine in with a pre-chessie paint consist. Maybe one of those ones where they threw just about any random units together - it is amazing to see what they ran sometimes. My first (and probably last) pre-order. I couldn't specify the road number, so I took what I got. Overall pretty happy, although the quality of the paint job on mine is not the best. Meanwhile I now wait on the decoder equipped S4.
I took a drive to my nearest train store and bought some track and a second power pack so I could run 2 trains on my temporary layout. I also brought home these two Maxi-IV sets
Yep, that's how Unitrack addiction usually starts... "Just a little Unitrack loop to run trains while I figure out the real railroad I want to build." "Well, okay, I just need another loop of Unitrack, and another power pack, so I can run two trains, while I figure out the real railroad I want to build." Hello, my name is Andy, and I'm a Unitrack addict.
We are on the same grid as the local hospital, so our power only goes out when they are actually repairing or improving the power delivery. Never have the rolling blackouts.
I'm in a similar situation, with a large municipal water tower. We lost water during the last deep freeze, but not power! Thousands of homes lost power and froze their water pipes (most houses are on slabs, no basements, and pipes run uninsulated through the walls, or between the floors); when the thaw started, there was too much draw from all the broken pipes, and the water pressure dropped to unsafe levels (potentially allowing ingress of contaminants), so the water department just shut it all off for a while. We had bottled water for drinking, cooking, etc., and flushed toilets with buckets drawn from our swimming pool. Our neighbors also drew buckets from our pool.
An oldie but goodie arrived today. Released in March 1975 (!) it's "vintage" enough to have the original Kadee Catalog Number 42191... and ribbed wheels. It was considered "rare" in hard copy collector guides. The price point in my beat up Sootsman Guide was not exactly what I paid
That is what I like about THERR RV. IT has an Onan generator under the floor. Just unplug from the power box and plug it back into the RV and fire it up !
Many years ago our Ntrak club did a show at a shopping mall. The power went out but one of the members happened to have driven his class C motorhome and connected it to the layout. It worked OK but the DCC system did not seem to like the power from his generator so we just ran on DC until the mall's power was restored.
Yup. If an RV has a lot of other things running off the generator (Heaters, AC units, water heater, etc,) it 'pulses' RPM wise and it could confuse a DCC command station. The only thing that runs if I use the generator is the led lighting on the layout and the command station. The generator never comes off idle so the DCC command station is happy.
A dozen lightboards from Lowell Smith arrived this week. Hopefully I will get the chance to install and test a few this weekend. Stay safe,
I just got a box of sugar cube speakers from DigiKey. Only about a buck each... So, on to the sound upgrades in some diesels.
