Hello from the Memphis Area!


J

johnmiller

New Member
My name is John Miller, and I'm from Olive Branch, Mississippi. It is a suburb of Memphis, just across the Tennessee/Mississippi state line.

I have various model trains of different guages: N, HO, O and G. Because space is limited, and I want to make the most of it, I want to make a nice little N-scale layout. I have some new locomotives, and want to buy a Kato starter set, probably the Kato Commuter Series Metra Starter Set.
 
Hey John,

Welcome to the forum, glad to have you onboard!

I am a Lionel O gauge guy, but I dabble in HO and I have one N scale Christmas train.

Post a picture of some of your trains or a link to the Train set you are looking at, we love to see trains!
 
Thank You!

Louis,

Thank you for the reply! I have been taking photos of freight trains around town recently, and have started posting videos. I will do the same with the model trains once I get things up and running.

I will buy that Kato set and get it going. And, I will get the locomotives I have out of their boxes and run them too. I have a number of the Union Pacific Heritage Locomotives which are very cool!

Also, if you or anyone on the board could help me with DCC Tsunami Sound Locomotives, that would be great! I would like to try them out, but don't know where to start.

It's great to hear from you, Louis!

John
 
hey again John,

You are more then welcome. Where do you post your videos and photos? Who does not like a good train video or photo? Well I know there are some, but I feel bad for them.

What kind of O gauge trains do you have? O gauge is my personal favorite. I like those UP heritage locomotives too. My avatar is a CSX/B&O heritage AC6000, there never was a real prototype but I love it anyway! You have to love a locomotive with a big American flag on it!

I wish I could help you with the Kato and DCC, but I am a novice when it comes to DCC and my entry level Bachmann DCC locomotives compared to your top of the line Kato, its like a basic Chevrolet compared to a fully loaded Cadillac.

What I would suggest is your start another thread in the DCC section of the forum and ask your questions there. You will find experts in almost every aspect of model railroading on here and they are happy to help. One of our resident experts always says "the only dumb question is the one you don't ask" he is so right! You won't find a more knowledgeable, experienced and most important nice group of railroaders anywhere.

Great to hear from you too!
 
Welcome to the forums. You will find a wealth of knowledge here. Post some pics when you get a chance.

Scott
 
Photos, Videos and More!

Louis, Scott and Vic,

Thank you for the replies! It is good to connect with all of you.

I have just finished new photos I took in Downtown Memphis, where trains of all railroads cross the Mississippi Bridge from Arkansas into Tennessee. You can find them in the Trains Set of my flickr page:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jmillerdp/sets/72157604064471991/

I have been recently working on my train videos. You can find them here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9x1-sxvUy0eoa8cQ5t0F4A/videos

I am ordering the Kato N-Scale Starter Set. So, I will have a basic layout set up, probably next week. I will take some photos and post them on flickr!

Louis, I have some O Scale, they are Lionel. Some run, some don't! I have a nice die-cast steam locomotive that is very nice. I have a few cars, but nothing crazy. I will have to go with N Scale since that is what I have room for.

DCC sounds fun! (get it, "sounds" fun?). Anyway, you're ahead of me since I have zero DCC, just saw it and would love to have train sounds. I think Kato is messing around with a system, but it will be analog, where you can trigger sounds from your controller. I am guessing it's tough to get one of those sound boards into a tiny N-Scale locomotive! I will look into a DCC forum here to learn more.

Take care, guys!

John
 
Hey John

Thanks for the links, great pictures especially Grand Central Terminal and is that last station in France? I really liked the video of the coal train and the intermodal, my 2 favorite types of freight trains! I prefer the old trailer on a flat car, but I still like those well cars too. Those bath tub gondolas are nice too, but I prefer the 100 ton hoppers. I am biased because I use to be a coal sampler many years ago and I loved climbing in those hoppers.

DCC is fun, even though I have no sound locomotives, yet! Most of my Lionel locomotives have sound though and they are lots of fun, my grandsons love the "talking trains"

I saw a new speaker from Zimo and it was 8mm X 12mm X 8mm, it sounds great and can fit in N-scale. http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/Zimo-Small-Speaker-Sound-Chamber-p/zmo-ls8x12x8.htm

I does not matter what scale you play with, just have fun with your trains!

see ya around the forum!
 
G'day John....I'm in Australia...Welcome as Louis says to the forum....If you want to know anything about Lionel and O Scale especially , talk to the "guru" , Louis...
I just bought my first Kato HO Scale loco about two weeks ago. I have ten full sound contemporary both EMD and GE locomotives , mainly Athearn Genesis , Intermountain and BLI , all great..One MTH , .as well as numerous RTRs from Athearn , Bachmann Spectrums , and some less expensive Model Power and Lifelike..locos...but not a single Kato until now.
It's DCC on Board but not sound..I put it on my new track that night , fed the power and it was just beautiful to see it's smooth silent operation...A full sound one is now on my bucket list later on , or a real good decoder for this one...Can't go wrong with Tsunami Sound..Several of mine have it loaded as factory sound...You're on the right track there...pun intended...Welcome again...THIS IS A GREAT FORUM for all scales....Cheers Rod..
 
Louis,

Thank you for the compliments! I appreciate them. It took me a while to get the video off my HDV tapes. But, now that I've learned how, I will continue to post past videos, plus new ones.

I've gotten to taken photos around the United States and some of Western Europe, including the Netherlands and France. I was just in Europe this past fall, but didn't get to use rail. I hope to next time, with the possibility of using rail to get around. I do have some video from when I took those photos from France you saw. I took some of the Paris subway and the Amsterdam street cars. I will post some when I get a chance!

I also have video of the Grand Canyon steam train. That should turn out pretty cool!

You'll have to tell me more about your time on the railroad. It would be cool to learn more from someone who's been out there.

That N-scale sound card is pretty wild! I have seen now where there are some N-scale locomotives out there on the market. I'm still shopping for trains, just to make sure I get what would work best for me. I got a three-pack of Peabody Coal N-Scale cars in the mail this weekend.

Take it easy, Louis, and I'll talk to you soon!

John
 
Rod,

Hey! Thank you for the reply. It's great to connect with you too! Okay, so it sounds like I'll send my O-Scale questions to Louis, and my HO-Scale questions to you! (ha ha).

The sound deal sounds like a lot of fun, so I would like to at least dip my toes into it. I will have to see how to go about it.

I don't know how much you or Louis works with Train Simulators. But, I played Train Simulator 2014 for the first time last week. And, I have included three screen caps in my flickr Train set:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmillerdp/sets/72157604064471991/

I'm sure I'll have more questions as I go along. And, I appreciate both of you helping me!

Take care and happy railroading!

John
 
Hey John!

I see you heard from my great friend Rodney, he has an uncanny ability to cut straight to the heart of and issue or problem so if you run into any difficulties with N or HO scale, he is a great person to ask. He has always been a great resource for me.

Not much to tell about being a coal sampler, dig 3 holes, take a shovel full of coal from each and put it in a bag, jump to the next car and do it again and again... Running the mechanical sampler at the Consolidated Coal was more technical, but could be a very boring day if we had hard rock coal or a very busy frustrating day if we had very wet coal. I would much rather be outside with a shovel and a bag. It was a bad time to work for the railroad in my day due to the economy and I soon moved on to a higher paying job. No matter what the economy is doing there is always opportunity for a hard working and reliable man, now I am neither.

Congratulations on your new coal cars. I look forward to your future pictures and movies.

Sorry I took so long to reply, I was under the weather and on the couch for several days. I am back to my usual broken down old self now.
 
John, meant to reply earlier but got diverted. Welcome! We have a really good group of guys on here, and we'll give you any answers we can to the best of our abilities. Now a question. Are you going to the SER, (SouthEastern Region), of the NMRA convention there in Memphis during June? If you weren't aware of it, go to SER-NMRA.org, and there will be details on it. If you're not a member of the NMRA, it's very much worth it to join. Memphis has an active group of modelers there. All information is on the SER website at http://www.ser-nmra.org/

I, unfortunately, will probably have to miss it. At the end of May-first of June, several friends and I are going to the "Streamliner" reunion at Spencer, NC. There is going to be between 15-20 E & F units there for that weekend. We've been planning to go for months as something like this doesn't happen.

I've been thru Olive Branch many times, as my daughter used to live in Little Rock, and we went thru there often.
 
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