Running Bear's Coffee Shoppe LX


WJLI26 said:
Guys

This random thought just struck me, FWIW. If one is converting an old Athearn BB grinder to DCC, specific steps are taken to "isolate" the motor from the frame to prevent "smoking" the new decoder. Most of us have heard of the situation with the supposedly DCC ready Lifelike S1, which under certain circumstance the installed decoder can be "smoked" because the motor is not isolated properly, in spite of having an 8 point DCC adapter plug. What's to say that there isn't a similar issue with some of the BLI (or other, decoder "smokers" we have been discussing? We are all familiar with the "Quality" issues BLI has with their L1 and other Paragon 3 system products. Problem could be in design or assembly.
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All that sounds more like an assembly/installation issue to me. Might even be a simple enough matter of not using enough tape to ensure adequate isolation.
That's just an educated guess however since I've never done one myself. I did watch Carey put a decoder in one of my old engines. Even as many as he's done (probably several hundred), he still got the directional backwards and had to redo part of it.
E
 
NFG, a 6% grade is steeper than the one in Saluda Hill near me. That is the steepest mainline grade in the US, and when run, it required 3 SD60 engines to lug 20 cars up it. I think the official maximum grade there w as more like 5%.
It's good you rethought that before going ahead, it would have ended up a huge source of frustration for you.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs_Hjiak4X8
 
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New roads. Yesterday I decided to cut some test pieces of poster board for some possible crossings to bring in some roads.
This is what I came up. The main pieces are roughly 20' scale feet across and 10' on the narrow pieces.
Once I got across the tracks I got kind of stumped.
Hey, at least it's a start!
E.
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Good morning to all. Starting off at 31 degrees this morning. It actually got up to 48 yesterday afternoon, but it's going t take a long period of warmer weather to melt down the glacers I've built up along the driveway from plowing snow.

Karl - Congrats on the new addition. Another one to spoil. The best part about grand kids is you can give them back to their parents. laugh.gif 31 degrees is a heat wave up here.

Joe - I guess I have been extremely lucky. Under normal operating conditions, I never have a derailment unless some dummy doh.gif forgets to throw a switch. A number of years back I had forgotten about a train I had left running and a few days when I returned to the train room it was still running without any apparent derailments.

Eric - Snow ??? don't look to me for any sympathy.

Toot - Thanks for posting the videos. Very interesting

Garry - The Burlington E units were some really cool looking locomotives.

Willie - 53 cars with a single locomotive isn't bad at all. Many years ago I used to help out the model railroad club in Great Falls during State Fair. The rent for their layout space was (and still is) to have trains running for public display during fair hours. Their main line on the lower level was dead flat and I had my brass Z-5 Yellowstone (2-8-8-4) pulling 120 cars and it didn't even break a sweat. Probably could have pulled more but we ran out of cars because all of the members hadn't arrived yet. With the grades on my layout it's hard to say what a single locomotive can pull. Don't have a level section of track long enough to slow down my old Atlas Alcos. Here's a video of them pulling a train up a 2% grade. The grade inside the hidden staging is over 21/2 % until it meets the main line where it comes out of the tunnel. Posted it before, don't know if you saw it. That's close to the limit for head end power. My curves are super elevated and I noticed that the head end cars were starting to lean in at the top of the grade. If many more care were added, more power would have to be cut in somewhere in the middle of the train.

[video=youtube;wFIIWvaTiIk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFIIWvaTiIk[/video]
 
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bnsf971 said:
NFG, a 6% grade is steeper than the one in Saluda Hill near me. That is the steepest mainline grade in the US, and when run, it required 3 SD60 engines to lug 20 cars up it. I think the official maximum grade there w as more like 5%.
It's good you rethought that before going ahead, it would have ended up a huge source of frustration for you.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs_Hjiak4X8
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Even though these operate with different weight/power ratios than 'real' locos, and could maybe get away with doing things the real ones cannot, it's still a train and has the same limitations. I am a glutton for punishment but there IS a limit! Tearing up a large section of layout is not something I think would be 'fun'. A 'challenge' type of hill of maybe 3-4% will be fun to try but on a 'side line' that is not busy and can be taken down easily if it proves to be too much hassle.

Thanks E! That reminds me, gottra leave room in the plan for some roads! I'm soo 'track centric' I forget there are automobile roads to be put down too. LOL!
 
Tearing up a small section ain't fun. I went through that when I did the little maintenance lines and building.
E.
 
JUST heard on the radio about a head-on train crash in Germany, 8 dead and 150 injured! Time to go pray and light a candle, I'll be back later.
 
Good morning ........ Coffee and a doughnut, please.

montanan said:
Garry - The Burlington E units were some really cool looking locomotives.
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Chet ...... I like your video with the long freight train. Alcos in the Rockies; what's not to like? ...............
........ I agree about CB&Q E-units.

CBQdz_zpsb84d15ac.jpg
 
Regarding my track corrections .......

One thing I have learned is rail height must be uniform in addition to checking the gauge... I do check the gauge first. Next I use a straight edge that has enough flex so I can place on top of the rails. It should be at least a foot long. Placing the straight edge on top of the rail will show you if you have any dips or humps in the rail. ... Usually, these problems are not visible to the naked eye.

My derailments with the BLI E7's were where the rail dipped on one side, and it was on a curve. A very slight variation in rail height will derail my BLI E7's.. The track I just worked on had uneven roadbed, and so I pulled up the track to correct the roadbed.

Most of the time, however, I do not need to remove the track. I start by breaking up the ballast around the ties. Then I raise the height of the rail by prying from under the ties. I place thin shims under the ties, and the problem is corrected. Ballast will have to be replaced.

Curt mentioned kinks. Kinks will occur at rail joiners unless the joiners are soldered in place before flex track is installed. I solder the joiners to the rails while holding the connecting pieces of track so the rails at the joint are straight. Next, the track can be installed, and the rail acts like continuous welded rail on the real railroads.
 
WOW! So much activity and education this morning. Garry: Very pretty photo for the "Q".

Sposed to be about 90 here today, yesterday was 89, - winter seems to be over.

Seems that no one wants to answer my dumb DCC question? Is it not possible to change the decoder to another that is more reliable?
 
Terry - You brought up something very important about keeping the track level in curves. At the top of the grade that the train was going up in the video of course there is a curve, at about a 42" radius. Yours truly went and had to super elevate his curves and I do remember having some derailment problems in the early stages of construction. Before I put in any scenery I want to be sure that the track is perfect (or as close as I can get it) and I had the same issues that you mentioned. It ended up being an easy fix thankfully. The curves was flex track spiked into Homabed roadbed which was excellent to work with. A few shims were cut from an index card and slid under the flextrack was all it took to correct the problem. That is probably one of the oldest parts of my layout, probably 30 or so tears old and still operates fine. Those E units are some fine looking locomotives.

Joe - I have heard about Saluda Hill but have never seen any video of it. Must be fun to watch. Out here the old NP mainline, now run by the MRL goes over Bozeman Pass which is only 1.8%. The old right of ay that crossed the continental divide just east of Butte, MT is also only 1.8%. I can remember riding over both of those passes when I was a kid and can remember how serious my relatives got going over them and how hard the locomotives had to work. The old Milwaukee Road Little Joes didn't huff and puff as bad as the diesels did, but when the Northern Pacific were using their Z-5 Yellowstones as helpers you could hear those locomotives for miles. It was AWSOME !!! Unfortunately, that was the last duties for these giants before they were scrapped.
 
Fellas, as Eric has stated, my enthusiasm for the hobby right now is rock bottom. We all go thru this and I hope it won't last long. The last time I lost my enthusiasm for the hobby, was 15 years ago. Guess it's about time.

The reason for any of you to E-mail me first, is for you to give me your phone number, so I can put it in my address book and know who is calling. I don't answer numbers I don't recognize.

Chet, I made the "pilgrimage" to Saluda many times, and have some real good VHS tape on it. When it was in operation, there was nuthin like it in the world. It really was a sight in steam days. 2-8-8-2's & 2-10-2's pushing and pulling trains up the grade. I have a VHS to DVD recorder and probably should convert it before the tape dies.
 
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Hey Everybody!

Greetings from snowy southeast Baltimore.

All is well here, I hope for the same for everyone.
 
Cjcrescent said:
Fellas, as Eric has stated, my enthusiasm for the hobby right now is rock bottom. We all go thru this and I hope it won't last long. The last time I lost my enthusiasm for the hobby, was 15 years ago. Guess it's about time. ...
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Don't worry Doctor, I think we all have an elliptical orbit around this hobby.

I hope you are doing well otherwise. I am very glad to see your post!
 
Sirfoldalot said:
WOW! So much activity and education this morning. Garry: Very pretty photo for the "Q".

Sposed to be about 90 here today, yesterday was 89, - winter seems to be over.

Seems that no one wants to answer my dumb DCC question? Is it not possible to change the decoder to another that is more reliable?
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Hi Sherrel!

Send some of that warm weather to me, please! It's snowing now and single digit temperatures are forecasted for the weekend.

I did not see your original question, but I will take a stab at an answer. You can change ANY decoder. Some require more work then others. Contact NCE and they will tell you exactly which on to use http://www.ncedcc.com/#!contact-nce/c1ezl. If you don't like NCE try MB Klein http://www.ncedcc.com/#!contact-nce/c1ezl
 
Sirfoldalot said:
WOW! So much activity and education this morning. Garry: Very pretty photo for the "Q".

Sposed to be about 90 here today, yesterday was 89, - winter seems to be over.

Seems that no one wants to answer my dumb DCC question? Is it not possible to change the decoder to another that is more reliable?
Click to expand...

It's not dumb, I can't touch it I have not done anything like that yet.
 
Carey - Great to see you on the forum. I was getting concerned. It would be great to see the videos you're talking about. Sending an email.
 
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