The trouble began a few years ago, at the Syracuse show. I had just dropped a sizeable chunk of pocket change on a new NCE PowerCab, thus hurtling myself headlong into the world of Digital Command Control. With only two decoder-equipped locomotives in my entire fleet at that point, I had some tough choices to make. In order to get more decoders, I had to swear off buying any more locomotives for a while. It was easy at first, but then the GG-1 on the table winked at me. (more…)
Author: Jeff Faust
The Command Project, So Far
Did you know that you don’t actually need a Digital Command Control station to run your decoder-equipped locomotives? Use the power pack you already have. Just turn the speed knob up all the way, and encode the commands manually by flipping the direction switch back and forth, at about 8,000 times per second. If you do the timings precisely enough, your decoder-equipped locomotives will respond appropriately. What could be simpler?
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I’ll miss you, Radio Shack. Kinda. Sorta.
My Radio Shack Free Battery Club card, circa 1982.
Electronics retailer Radio Shack, which has been circling the drain for quite a while now, finally did what everyone expected it to do, and declared bankruptcy this week. If you’ve been in the hobby of model railroading for a while, you’ve almost certainly purchased something there that you needed for your railroad—some solder, a spool of wire, Cinch-Jones connectors. How will we survive in a post-Radio Shack retail landscape?
Handcrafting the Digital Command
For me, it’s back to electronics this week. If you’ve seen my past layout projects, you’ll know that I like built-in throttles. I did it with the GVC ten years ago, and again with Lynn’s railroad. That’s simple enough to do with a homebuilt DC circuit, but will the rise of Digital Command Control change all that?
Fits and Starts
The Bickles Foods factory exemplifies the fits-n-starts pace of progress on my projects. This particular structure is based upon an Art Curren article in the October 1985 Model Railroader, an HO scale kitbash of two Con-Cor (now Heljan) Superior Bakery kits, but I’m doing some things differently. I didn’t want to lower the main walls the way Curren did, and I wanted the rooflines a little less chaotic. These decisions, and some differences between the HO and N scale versions of the kit, left me with two short walls that couldn’t be fashioned from the kit parts. (more…)
The wood-free forest
George’s railroad wasn’t quite finished when I delivered it to him, back in the fall. I made a few trips to his place to tune the track a little, and apply ballast, but it still lacked the trees I had promised him. Making trees is a messy job, especially when my dollar-store can of Aqua-Net blows hairspray in unintended directions. Can you blame me for procrastinating just a wee little bit on this task?
Remembering Bill
My elementary school was housed in a 1903 building with a 1933 addition, by far the most prominent building in a town just large enough to warrant a solitary blinking-yellow traffic light. By the 1970s, when I was enrolled, the school had been merged with an adjacent district, and the building downgraded from K-12 to a K-6 elementary. There was no elevator to the second floor, the third floor had been deemed hazardous and was off-limits entirely, and there was considerable doubt about the building’s compliance with new fire codes. Another addition was constructed to the larger school while I attended 7th grade there, and the old school closed for good the following fall. It still stands today, but abandoned, and in an advanced state of decay.
What, another Arduino throttle already?
Ahh, you’ve noticed that I’ve been on a bit of a throttle jag lately. I just couldn’t help myself on this one. I saw the APDS-9960 RGB and Gesture Sensor in a recent SparkFun new-products announcement, and immediately knew what to do with it.
Furniture Railroads 