Author Topic: Is MRH anti RailPro?  (Read 26478 times)

G8B4Life

  • Signalman (Global Mod)
  • Conductor
  • *****
  • Posts: 1236
  • I'll think of a catchy tag line one day
Is MRH anti RailPro?
« on: June 18, 2021, 10:01:14 AM »
Is MRH anti RailPro? It seems every time the publisher has something to say about it he has to put it down just because it's "proprietary". I can't recall ever seeing anything positive about RP from him. He sure seems happy to take the advertising dollars though.

Why am I asking such a useless question? those that read the MRH forums will no doubt have seen the "Train control IS going wireless. DCC will fade away" thread which contained the usual RP bashing when it was bought up. Well the premise of that thread is the basis for the Publisher's musings column for the June '21 issue of MRH, in which the publisher is "going to ignore RailPro because it's a proprietary system that's not DCC" (he also ignored the various BlueTooth offerings but not because they are not DCC but because of feature set) yet he then by example adds a proprietary wireless system to a proprietary DCC system. Do I start laughing now?

Given that RailPro has an equal or better feature set to DCC, is already wireless and is no more proprietary than a DCC system in itself and no more proprietary than the wireless transmitters and receivers to make wireless DCC happen it is just anti RailPro sentiment or is it not allowed to upset the DCC fanboys that might pay for the non free products?

- Tim

GMM6809

  • Engineer
  • ***
  • Posts: 54
  • Glenn M.
Re: Is MRH anti RailPro?
« Reply #1 on: June 18, 2021, 10:34:02 AM »
I do think they are anti-RailPro. The guys at the club I’m in have never heard of it before, and when I brought my two engines in they were pretty impressed.
They liked how setting can be adjusted on the fly and that they communicate to each other to consist easily. But they didn’t really understand what I was talking about before I brought them in.

My one friend bought a TCS wi throttle to use at the club layout, but because that system and the NCE system don’t talk to each other regarding consists he won’t be able to use his throttle during operations. Because consists made by the NCE don’t transfer to TCS. So the person running the yard and building trains making consists can’t ‘hand it off’ to him using his new throttle because the lead engine doesn’t respond. Lol

But I’ll try today with my RailPro stuff, to see if while they’re consisted of the NCE system can retain that or if it has to be re-done too..
Glenn M.

Staff Sergeant in the Marine Corps.

William Brillinger

  • Dispatcher (Admin)
  • Conductor
  • *****
  • Posts: 1342
    • Precision Design Co.
Re: Is MRH anti RailPro?
« Reply #2 on: June 18, 2021, 12:40:21 PM »
MRH has indicated to me that they would be very happy to publish articles about RailPro. I would love to see that also, but I don;t have time to make said articles. If anybody wants to write articles about installing and using RailPro, MRH would like to pay you for it!
- Bill Brillinger, RPUG Admin

Modeling the BNML in HO Scale, owner of Precision Design Co., and RailPro Dealer.


GMM6809

  • Engineer
  • ***
  • Posts: 54
  • Glenn M.
Re: Is MRH anti RailPro?
« Reply #3 on: June 18, 2021, 07:19:09 PM »
MRH has indicated to me that they would be very happy to publish articles about RailPro. I would love to see that also, but I don;t have time to make said articles. If anybody wants to write articles about installing and using RailPro, MRH would like to pay you for it!

Oh man, I may have to eat my words!

And also purchase another engine and module to do a well documented install and write an article!

Then we can gain some traction with to masses!
Glenn M.

Staff Sergeant in the Marine Corps.

G8B4Life

  • Signalman (Global Mod)
  • Conductor
  • *****
  • Posts: 1236
  • I'll think of a catchy tag line one day
Re: Is MRH anti RailPro?
« Reply #4 on: June 18, 2021, 08:39:25 PM »
MRH has indicated to me that they would be very happy to publish articles about RailPro. I would love to see that also, but I don;t have time to make said articles. If anybody wants to write articles about installing and using RailPro, MRH would like to pay you for it!

If I remember that thread correctly it was asked what does he want to see. Crickets. I would love to see articles too but I don't have the resources to document said articles and I don't have anything US based to put RP into for an article anyway.

But I’ll try today with my RailPro stuff, to see if while they’re consisted of the NCE system can retain that or if it has to be re-done too..

For some reason LM's do not work as a consist on NCE. I think this has something to do with speed steps, LM's require the DCC system to be in 128 speed step mode and NCE only does 28 speed steps in a consist.  Give it a try anyway, I'd love to see LM's consisted under NCE but it's never worked for me.

- Tim

William Brillinger

  • Dispatcher (Admin)
  • Conductor
  • *****
  • Posts: 1342
    • Precision Design Co.
Re: Is MRH anti RailPro?
« Reply #5 on: June 19, 2021, 06:05:22 AM »
Quote
If I remember that thread correctly it was asked what does he want to see. Crickets. I would love to see articles too but I don't have the resources to document said articles and I don't have anything US based to put RP into for an article anyway.

Anything on Railpro is welcome, from detailed installs to how-to's and usage, and layout tours featuring RP (all of this in ANY SCALE). Contact MRH directly with your idea and get the ball rolling. Also I expect articles based on non US prototypes would also be welcome, don;t let that stop you.
- Bill Brillinger, RPUG Admin

Modeling the BNML in HO Scale, owner of Precision Design Co., and RailPro Dealer.


craig3

  • Fireman
  • **
  • Posts: 3
Re: Is MRH anti RailPro?
« Reply #6 on: June 28, 2021, 12:16:21 PM »
Actually Joe Fugate and Eric Schultz who manage the MRH Forum/Magazines posted a Railpro Demo several years ago and gave it a good review for simplicity and noted the ease of consisting. 


G8B4Life

  • Signalman (Global Mod)
  • Conductor
  • *****
  • Posts: 1236
  • I'll think of a catchy tag line one day
Re: Is MRH anti RailPro?
« Reply #7 on: June 29, 2021, 02:32:26 AM »
That would be Jeff Schultz and Joe Fugate wasn't a part of the video; just his layout. That video is now only half a year shy of being 10 years old and was also a sponsored video by one of their advertisers who is a dealer for RailPro. To be fair I can't say I've read every issue of MRH but I can say bar two exceptions I've not seen anything paying good to RailPro from MRH media since that video came out, only negativity because "it's not DCC".

The first exception was one of Bruce Pectras DCC impulses columns where he went over RP and the negative tones weren't there. Unfortunately his article was just before a whole lot of major upgrades happened to RP.

The second exception was the article on Lee's layout which was two years ago now (time flies!) but it didn't really delve into RP much more than "so you started with this and changed to this, why?"

Anything on Railpro is welcome, from detailed installs to how-to's and usage, and layout tours featuring RP (all of this in ANY SCALE). Contact MRH directly with your idea and get the ball rolling. Also I expect articles based on non US prototypes would also be welcome, don;t let that stop you.

Bill, I get what you are saying. Unfortunately as stated before I have not the necessary resources to properly document an article (photo's etc, not words) and to be honest (and this is not a good thing) I find RP so simple and intuitive that I can't think of a single thing about RP that needs a published article to explain it!

- Tim

William Brillinger

  • Dispatcher (Admin)
  • Conductor
  • *****
  • Posts: 1342
    • Precision Design Co.
Re: Is MRH anti RailPro?
« Reply #8 on: June 29, 2021, 05:56:01 AM »
Quote
That would be Jeff Schultz and Joe Fugate wasn't a part of the video; just his layout.

Tim you are incorrect about Joe's involvement in that video. the narration was done by Jeff Schultz, but the operators were Joe's grandchildren, and Joe did the video work.
- Bill Brillinger, RPUG Admin

Modeling the BNML in HO Scale, owner of Precision Design Co., and RailPro Dealer.


G8B4Life

  • Signalman (Global Mod)
  • Conductor
  • *****
  • Posts: 1236
  • I'll think of a catchy tag line one day
Re: Is MRH anti RailPro?
« Reply #9 on: June 29, 2021, 06:10:36 AM »
What I was meaning was Joe was not presenting in the video but I stand corrected on what I did say, he was a part of it, he was just not in it.

- Tim

TwinStar

  • Conductor
  • ****
  • Posts: 513
  • Modeling a 1961 Rock Island Twin Star Rocket
Re: Is MRH anti RailPro?
« Reply #10 on: October 18, 2021, 08:45:56 AM »
The guys at the club I’m in have never heard of it before, ... But they didn’t really understand what I was talking about before I brought them in.



Imagine trying to explain the iPhone to someone who only knows a rotary phone.
Jacob Damron
Modeling late 1950's Dallas Union Terminal in Free-mo+ modules

Texas Railway Modeling and Historical Society trmhs.org
trmhs.org

AlexW

  • Fireman
  • **
  • Posts: 11
Re: Is MRH anti RailPro?
« Reply #11 on: December 04, 2021, 09:08:59 PM »
I stumbled across this thread while searching for something entirely different. As a contributor to the MRH thread in question, I found this whole discussion rather amusing. First off, while I 100% stand behind my well-deserved criticisms of RP in the thread in question, most of the posters in the thread, myself included, do not represent MRH itself. MRH is quite open to all sorts of things, and as a magazine don't seem critical of RP at all.

Joe's column was interesting in his musings about power on board. I think part of the problem stems from the confusion between direct radio using track power, dead rail, and whatever lies in the middle. Joe was looking for a wireless DCC solution, which IMO is misguided, as DCC as a protocol isn't well suited to direct radio applications, and taking a DCC system output, reading it, transmitting that wirelessly, and then turning it back into DCC seems like an epic kludge. That being said, requiring compatibility with existing DCC decoders on the locomotive end like CVP's AirWire does is perfectly reasonable, and not something that RP does, making RP more proprietary than the Tam Valley system. Using existing DCC decoders doesn't really make the system any more complex like the Tam Valley system, it simply moves the radio receiver and command station onboard the locomotive.

The constant confusion between direct radio and dead rail continually muddles up discussions, as I have never seen a compelling direct radio system that can do anywhere close to what DCC can do at anywhere close to the price of DCC, whereas dead rail for outdoor applications makes perfect sense in that the huge advantage of not having to clean track outdoors may be a worthwhile trade-off for otherwise losing some of the functionality that DCC offers. That being said, when dealing with large-scale outdoor locomotives, the best approach is to offer a receiver that outputs a DCC signal, so that you can use any DCC sound decoder that you want, and you still benefit from the advantages of the DCC standard, even if the radio transmitter and receiver are proprietary.

Part of the discussion in the thread was whether the NMRA should make a direct radio standard, and I'm sort of torn on the matter. I believe there is a way to use LCC for a direct radio application, but I'm not sure that it's really necessary. As it stands today, if I have a battery powered locomotive in the garden with CVP Airwire, and you have one with RP, they can peacefully co-exist.

Quote
Given that RailPro has an equal or better feature set to DCC, is already wireless and is no more proprietary than a DCC system in itself and no more proprietary than the wireless transmitters and receivers to make wireless DCC happen it is just anti RailPro sentiment or is it not allowed to upset the DCC fanboys that might pay for the non free products?

This is an inaccurate assessment of DCC. The Tam Valley wireless DCC system, while IMO not a good use of the DCC protocol, allows for the use of any NMRA-compliant DCC decoder in the locomotive, making it substantially less proprietary than having a proprietary non-DCC receiver like RP. Further, DCC systems are standards-based in that if Digitrax goes out of business, I can get a DCC system from one of more than a dozen different manufacturers, or even make one myself out of an Arduino, and all my locomotives will continue to work just fine. To go even further, while the throttle networks are semi-proprietary from one DCC manufacturer to another, JMRI can send commands via LocoNet or Serial to DCC command stations, opening up an open protocol for connecting other throttles through WiThrottle.

Quote
My one friend bought a TCS wi throttle to use at the club layout, but because that system and the NCE system don’t talk to each other regarding consists he won’t be able to use his throttle during operations. Because consists made by the NCE don’t transfer to TCS. So the person running the yard and building trains making consists can’t ‘hand it off’ to him using his new throttle because the lead engine doesn’t respond. Lol

That is just plain wrong. You select the lead unit in an NCE consist on the TCS throttle and you have acquired that end of the consist. When used with NCE consists, the TCS throttles have similar functionality to the NCE knobby throttles, plus turnout controls and the ability to make in-throttle consists, including the ability to consist two NCE consists. I'm no fan of NCE, but the functionality that the NCE/TCS combo offers through JMRI is pretty darn cool.

Quote
Imagine trying to explain the iPhone to someone who only knows a rotary phone.

I've met a number of people who are all excited about RP. When I actually present them with the stuff I do with DCC.... yeah RP can't do any of it. The future for indoor model railroads is modern DCC with RailCom, Wi-Fi, and multi-bus support. Outdoor dead rail is a small niche, as evidenced by the relatively small number of systems for such applications.

ON28

  • Conductor
  • ****
  • Posts: 260
Re: Is MRH anti RailPro?
« Reply #12 on: December 05, 2021, 09:09:24 PM »
Duncan a number of years ago sold the Tam Valley control system to another company. At the time I was dabbling in deadrail for HO, but that told me all I needed to know about what he thought of the potential for his system, at least in HO.