Hello!


T

thadberk

New Member
Hello everyone! I am a new arrival and wanted to introduce myself to everyone :)

My name is Thad and I am new to model railroading (sorta). My father and I had a HO layout when I was a kid way back in the 1970's. We had many fun hours playing with it. It was nothing fancy, but we really loved it.

I live in Ellettsville Indiana which is near Bloomington (Go Hoosiers!). I do photography and web design on the side.

Santa showed up this year and left my son an old HO set from the late 1980's (I think). It is all set up and he really loves it. He just came in and said with a big smile, "I dreamt of trains ALL NIGHT LONG!" While I haven't been dreaming of trains all night long, I have spent a lot of time doing some reading and even bought a couple of magazines.

Currently we have his set on a 4 X 8 sheet of plywood. I do not like the track layout for this set (figure-8 with a bridge in the middle). We are experiencing frequent derailments and the train really struggles to get up the steep hill with all the cars attached. We are headed to the local hobby shop to see what they have and price some new track. The cars show some wear and distress. One of them has a wheel that falls off every once in a while.

We are currently trying to decide what era we want to model and what type of area to create. I would like a city area with a train going to the country to get something. Not sure what my boy wants, so gotta figure out that before I sink any more money into this :)

I measured our "game room" in the basement and found that I am blessed with a large space - 24.5' X 23'. I doubt my wife will let me use all of that, but I can use a considerable portion of it. Right now I'd like to use the 4 X 8 sheet and a smaller sized sheet off to the side. I do not want to go too big, too fast.

When my father and I had our layout, we just moved one locomotive with some cars around the track. Now I see that you can use the DCC stuff to control the trains - looks really cool. Is there one brand that handles the DCC world, or many to choose from?

Love the boards that are set up here and look forward to sharing what we are doing with our layout with you. :)
 
Give a try to cleaning the wheels on the locomotive and cleaning the track, that could help with the traction on the hill, also maybe if you are mechanically inclined open up the locomotive, clean and lubricate the mechanism. There is lots of discussion about this in the forums. If it's over 20 years old that will probably help a lot!
 
Hello, Thad, and welcome aboard. Sounds like an old Tyco set with the bridge with the flashing light at the firuge eight crossover. It's really not worth putting any time or money into that set if you want to build a reliable railroad. Please see the thread at http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15732 for some advice about the next steps to take. Before you spend any money (even though I know you're itching to build something) take some time to read and plan. You'll be way beter off if you do.
 
I have thought about opening it up, but am going to hold off in case I break the only working engine I have.

Jim, I ordered John Armstrong's book Track Planning for Realistic Operation and it should be here next week. I have looked over the Beginner's Guide at the nmra site a couple of days ago. I am going to print it off after my son is done on the other computer :)

The set looks like it is a Bachman set. Since I was a kid there have been so many advances. Would I be better off in the long run with a DCC set-up?
 
If you're serious about model railroading, a more modern engine that either has DCC already installed or a plug that makes it easy to install a decoder would be a good investment. Older Bachmann, Tyco, and AHM engines, with some exceptions, are not worth putting any money into compared to buying a modern engine. Are you primarily interested in steam or diesel? If it's diesel, do you want modern era or something from the 50's and 60's? If it's steam, you can get very nice Bachmann Spectrum 2-8-0 with DCC onboard for $80 at http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/Bachmann_HO_51304_DCC_Equipped_2_8_0_B_O_2784_p/bac-51304.htm. If it's the 50's and 60's, you can get a Bachman DCC equipped GP-9 for $35 at http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/Bachmann_HO_62403_GP7_w_DCC_Chessie_System_B_O_5_p/bac-62403.htm. For a more contemporaty era, you can get a Spectrum Dash 8-40CW with DCC for $60 at http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/product_p/bac-83503.htm. As you can see, there are a lot of nicely detailed, good running engines out there at very reasonable prices compared to spending at least $20 for a decoder and pulling your hair out trying to convert a poorly detailed, poorly running engine to DCC. I'm glad to hear you're delving into the Beginner's Guide and will shortly have a really good book to help you out. You'll still have a lot of questions but you'll be able to be more focused on what you really want out of a layout.
 
YES!! i cant stress it enough, go DCC, its one of the easiest steps you can take towards building a great RR. Your set you mentioned is from the 80's, which means its prolly not DCC, so youll need to shell out about 50-70 bucks for a relatively cheap DCC equipped locomotive, not to mention another +100 dollars for the DCC power pack.

Cleaning your locomotive should really be done, its actually really simple too.
1.) unscrew the screws the hold the shell to the frame, these screws are usually on the fuel tank or coupler box.

2.) Carefully slide the shell off and put it aside.

3.) Ill bet money your locomotive has a can motor so when you take the shell off you should see a small cylinder most likely mounted in the middle of the frame with wires heading towards the trucks

4.) follow these wires, you should see a rather large roundish box that comes through a hole from the truck, there should be somewheres to open this box (usually it splits in half, held together with a screw)

5.) in the roundish box you should see some gears, oil up the gears, not to much though.

Another thing that could be your problem with your locomotive on the grade could be a missing or wore down traction tire. Its just a little rubber ring that slides over the wheel to give it some grip, not all locomotives have this but some do. Heres a link where you can purchase them if your missing it.

traction tires
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/192-505

traction tire tool
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/192-504

gear oil
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/160-99984

Picturs of the set would be great to see, as well as a picture of the layout so we can help assess any other problems/potential problems.
 
After looking at some of the threads here on DCC, I am thinking about this system:
http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/product_p/nce-524025.htm

From the description, I understand it will handle 2 and maybe 3 trains. If I want to control more, it would be a good idea to buy an amp to handle the power needs. I do not think I will need more than 3 trains in the near future :)

This system looks like it would be a good fit for me and looks to be expandable.
 
Looks like a good choice to me. Many NCE users are very happy with that starter set. You can always expand it later if your layout grows.Ccheck e-bay for prices as well. You can sometimes find new or nearly new NCE starter sets for as little as $100.
 
I am thinking of going with Atlas code 83 track. I played around with a track layout program called Anyrail. I am interested in doing a layout that is in Model Railroader magazine. There is a special issue that has 102 layouts. Playing with it for a few hours, I tried to emulate what is in the magazine. Not sure if it will work, but here is the plan I saved:

steel.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.



Back
Top