Introduce Yourself...

[TwinStar]

Bill,

My name is Kevin Leddy and I've just joined.  My primary modeling interest is the Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo Railway.  Currently under construction are two Free-mo modules that hopefully will be operational soon.  Also just recently acquired my first RailPro throttle.  I have much to learn but am looking forward to it.

Welcome Kevin! I've added you to the user map:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1YT5ly1cHgxnzDfFRXGn3sizmlP4&ll=33.704964179505815%2C-101.18084268718133&z=4

[HBW1412]

Hello Everyone,
My name is Heath and I live close to Roanoke, VA.  I have been playing with trains since I was a child – I have a picture somewhere that shows me opening an HO Bachmann set on Christmas when I was 5yo.  Now that I’m older I model Norfolk Southern in HO scale.  My layout is in the top floor of my barn.  All my current engines are made by Kato.  When I was younger I dabbled in N scale, but my eyesight simply would not allow me to continue doing so due to cornea damage when I was 13yo.
   
In real life I’m a full-time, in-home caregiver and farmer.  I still live on the farm I grew up on and currently raise sheep, ducks and chickens listed by The Livestock Conservancy as endangered.  I also grow Orchardgrass/Clover hay.  I stay very busy most of the time, but when the weather gets cold I really enjoy working on my trains.

All these years I’ve been a staunch supporter of DC operation.  I’ve never had even the slightest inkling to give DCC a chance.  Several years ago I saw KPack’s YouTube videos and I thought RailPro was the neatest thing I’d seen come along in model railroading in many years.  I knew RailPro or something similar was the future of model railroading.

I thought I’d give it a few years and see how Ring Engineering’s Railpro system faired.  So, here I am very much ready to install RailPro in all my engines this winter.  Unfortunately, I and everyone I know has Hughesnet as an internet service provider and they use NAT444.  Thanks to the fantastic UDP Test program provided on these forums for helping me figure that out.  Thus far, I have been unable to download any software from Ring Engineering.

Until I joined this forum and used the UDP Test Program I had become so frustrated that I was going to give up on RailPro and stick to DC.  Seriously, I had gotten so frustrated that if I had hair it would be on the floor around my computer chair. 

Anyway, I’m glad I found these forums.  I’ll have to figure out some other way to get the software from Ring, but now that I know that I have the NAT444 issue I feel much better about being able to use RailPro in the future.

Thanks,
Heath   

[TwinStar]

Welcome Heath! Your life sounds interesting on the farm. I grew up in a rural community and know the hard work a farm requires.

I don't for the life of me understand why Tim Ring doesn't leverage this website and the members here. We have some of the smartest guys here and their willingness to help and assist is beyond comparison. Each RailPro product should come with a link to RPUG.

[William Brillinger]

I’m glad I found these forums.  I’ll have to figure out some other way to get the software from Ring, but now that I know that I have the NAT444 issue I feel much better about being able to use RailPro in the future.

Welcome to the group Heath, I'm glad you have found some assistance here!

I think the single most important thing anyone having connection issues can do is to call Ring Engineering, and tell them about the problem, and then report back here as to what if anything Ring was able to do about it. Ultimately Tim Ring will be the one to put in place a proper solution to these kinds of issues.

[G8B4Life]

Welcome Heath.

I'm glad you found use in the Test tool. Hughesnet is as far as I know a CGNat/NAT444 ISP. I'd love to see the results of the tests you ran to determine that you are behind NAT444.

and then report back here as to what if anything Ring was able to do about it. Ultimately Tim Ring will be the one to put in place a proper solution to these kinds of issues.

At this stage if Health is truly on a NAT444 connection with Hughesnet there is nothing he can do to get the software until Tim Ring fixes his software and server (I believe Hughesnet will not ever give public IP addresses to subscribers connections). The only thing Tim Ring can do is fix his software and server. Plain and simple.

- Tim

[HBW1412]

Thanks for the Welcome.  I have Emailed Ring Engineering about my NAT444 issues with Hughesnet and my inability to use Ring’s server.  I will post his response on the forum.

I also asked him if he has any plans to direct customers to this forum.  I’ll post his response to that as well.

I don’t know who all was involved with the programming for the UDP Test for RailPro, but I must tip my hat to you.  It is a fantastic resource and saved me a tremendous amount of frustration.  I first realized my NAT444 issue when reading the traceroute results.  It shows the second hop ISP address to be 100.65.

Also, on the Third and Fourth Test the local port and Client port did not match, but a response was received by the Test tool.  If I’m reading the response matrix correctly, that means that NAT444 is in effect.

G8B4Life – I contacted Hughesnet and confirmed with Level 2 Tech support that Hughesnet is in fact a NAT444 ISP.  Basic customer service did not know the answer to this question.  I did not ask them about a public IP address for my connection.  I suspect you are correct in thinking they will not give me a public IP address for my connection so I can use RailPro.

As far as living on a rural farm like mine goes - it would probably be seen by most as unacceptable.  I have no cell phone coverage.  My only internet access is thru satellite and my power and landline phone go out all the time.  With all that said, I love living here and wouldn’t change a thing.

Glad to be part of the forum.

[Alan]

As far as living on a rural farm like mine goes - it would probably be seen by most as unacceptable.  I have no cell phone coverage.  My only internet access is thru satellite and my power and landline phone go out all the time.  With all that said, I love living here and wouldn’t change a thing.

Glad to be part of the forum.

NOT living on a farm, or in our case a small ranch, would be unacceptable to my wife and I. Yeah, cell service is one bar on a good day, we often rely on a generator when bad weather comes, and sometimes we are trapped until I plow a mile and a half of snow from the house to the highway but like you, we wouldn't trade it for any place else. We lived in both city and suburbia for the first 40 years. Never again.

Welcome to the forum.

[LSRR]

Hi
New to this fourm and new to getting started with a HO layout. I will be building shortly from scratch with mostly hand me down stuff from my dad and my wide's dad. Going to be using RP and would like to further investigate dead rail use.

My back ground is 36 years with CPR , all in mechanical from being an apprentice mechanic to locomotive shop manager. Currently working for Cando Rail out of Winnipeg Manitoba.

Looking forward to interactions with the group

LSRR stands for the Lockport Selirk Rail Road the name that I will use on my freelance layout.

Thanks Rick P.

[Shirwin]

Hello!
Thanks for the add.
I'm Shawn and my younger son is Jase, he's five and really getting into trains now! I've had several different scale layouts. We are mainly focused on G scale at this time. We just purchased our railpro system and installing it as we type.
I'm a master chiller tech who started York International in 2000. I currently work for a local contractor performing chiller maintenance and repairs.
Thanks again for all the great info so far! Hope I can contribute some knowledge as well.

[DTSe42]

Hi everyone, my name is Brian DeBord and I live in southeast Texas and retired a few years ago.   I’ve been fascinated with model railroading for many years, but now am now finally starting to design and build a HO layout.  The house I live in has an open floor plan that has the living room, kitchen, dining room as one big room (40x25) and my plan is to build a double track shelf train that runs around the entire area including over the kitchen cabinets and into the dining room etc.  I still can’t believe my wife is letting me do this!
I picked up the Railpro system last year and built a small oval test track on a 4x8 sheet of plywood to get a complete understanding of how the system operates.  I’ve converted 2 Athearn engines so far and ran them for hours around the test track playing with all the settings and now it’s time to graduate to building the permanent layout. 

Brian D.

[TwinStar]

Welcome Brian. How far SE Texas? I used to live in Lumberton and worked out of BPT Airport.

[DTSe42]

Hi Jacob.  I live about 50 miles north of Houston.  I also worked at BPT airport from 2000-2003.  Small world!

[TwinStar]

Hi Jacob.  I live about 50 miles north of Houston.  I also worked at BPT airport from 2000-2003.  Small world!

I was in BPT and BMT from 2002-2007. We may have crossed paths. I was in Navajo N27467, King Air N350TJ, Bonanza N6340Y, and assorted Piper and Cessna's. I'm in North Ft. Worth/Keller now. Let me know if you make it up this way.

[DTSe42]

Jacob..we probably talked to each other at some point.  I worked at BPT in the air traffic control tower.  Spent my last 12 years in the FAA at Houston approach.  It would be fun to get together some time and compare notes.  I do drive through the DFW area occasionally will look you up next time.

[TwinStar]

That's awesome and I'm sure we did. I really wanted to land a 172 on the Oriskany before they towed her to Florida and sunk her but I didn't figure it would be a good start to my career. Fortunately Facebook and Snapchat didn't exist with the other stuff we did pull off.

We've got a handful of RailPro users around DFW with several Free-mo modules under construction. I don't know if trains will be running but there's always plenty of BS to tell.