Open House

[Ken Z]

I am hosting an annual open-house on December 29th from 3:00 until 8:00 ~.  It is a good time to see the progress on the layout, one of the highlights will be running the "nord-east" job using Rail Pro.  You are welcome to come and run any Rail Pro equipment on the layout if you like.  Well, it would need to be S Scale.....
I am also happy to have one more Rail Pro layout in the area!
Final note, the open house in in Plymouth, Minnesota.

Ken Zieska

[Alan]

Post some pics afterward please.

[Ken Z]

It was terrible weather so there were few visitors.  While it would have been nice to see a crowd, what is great is that the layout rooms and the layout are cleaned up and everything is running.  I still have a number of engines with DCC installed , I had a "through" freight running DCC.  This was a train constantly moving around the outside of the layout for show.  I ran the jobs in the NE industrial area using the RailPro.  Here are a couple shots.  The first job each day is to spot the inbound freighthouse.  The schedule is set up so the CB&Q can deliver hots off it fast freight overnight from Chicago.  In the first shot the Q is backing their cars onto the interchange track.  The NP is spotting some Q empties which the Q will pick up when they leave.  The NP picks up the cars delivered by the Q, spots the hot reefer on the departure track where the rest of the freighthouse cars wait, sluffs off the rest of the cars into the yard and departs with five cars to spot for morning deliveries.  After the morning freighthouse job, the NP switcher will return with empties and pick up cars to be spotted on other industries on the NE line.  It is a busy industrial section so the NP will run at least two sweeps each day, coal deliveries are made every couple of days.

Ken Z

[Alan]

Sad to hear the weather didn't cooperate. It has been bitter cold here as well. At least there were trains moving at your place!

[TwinStar]

Ken,

Do you ever host such in the spring/summer/fall?

[Ken Z]

With a little advance notice, I welcome visitors.  This spring the Railroad Modelers Retreat (and RPM event) will be one mile from my house.  April 6-7.  Next September the National Narrow Gauge Convention is in Bloomington about 20 miles across town.   I always invite folks to bring something to run.  That invitation is open..... of course I have S Scale rails.

Ken Z.

[Ken Z]

Good Weekend folks,
I hosted another great group of model railroaders this afternoon.  Part of the event was "screening" to see if the layout will be on the layout tour program for the National Narrow Gauge Convention this fall.  I hope an S Standard Gauge might be of interest.  I ran some scheduled trains, DCC and RailPro.  The one with the railPro, that attracted a great deal of attention.  The job did get run however only after we changed sounds, volume, demonstrated the load function and consisting.   I still have some "techniques and features" to learn and there were a couple of questions I could not answer but will need to experiment.  Such as if you consist two locomotives and one has a higher "load" setting, which load setting is applied to the consist?  I do not have any modules installed into brass locomotives,  I was asked if a brass locomotive will block the radio connection.  I also could not tell if both horns sounded or if only one unit did.   

Ken Zieska

[Dean]

From the testing I have done, any changes you make to the 'lead' engine will be sent to the following engines, automatically. I have a 5 unit consist of 3 engines on the front and 2 engines in the middle of a 26 car train. Changing the load setting on the 'lead' engine is automatically sent to the following engines. It's amazing and smooth! Even putting a custom speed chart in the 'lead' engine is sent to the following engines.
As soon as you break the consist ( unlink ) all the settings go back to where they were set on the individual engines.
[ my layout has 2% and 2.5% grades and the consist performed perfectly ]

[KPack]

Ken - Dean answered the one question already, the consist does whatever the lead locomotive is set to automatically.  No need to change anything on any follower locomotive.

Second question - Ring thinks that brass locomotives may attenuate the signal some, but how much I don't know.  I haven't installed in brass myself, but I do have a couple of locomotives that I'll be doing for a friend.  I'm interested to test the results.  I imagine it may attenuate the signal to some extent but without testing I can't say for certain.

Third question - the horn only sounds on the lead locomotive (or which ever locomotive you are currently selected on).  You can select any locomotive in a consist and control it's own function directly if you choose.  However, when you are controlling a consist you will normally be controlling the lead locomotive and therefore only it will play sounds like the horn, bell, brake, coupler, etc.

-Kevin

[TwinStar]

If someone is blowing the horn on a trailing unit you've either got a big problem or a stowaway!

[Dean]

I don't have any engines with sound in them. But I would bet that none of the 'accessories' in the lead engine have any effect on any other engine.

[William Brillinger]

I would bet that none of the 'accessories' in the lead engine have any effect on any other engine.

Correct. Only motion control and engine sound is affected on following locos.

[Alan]

Second question - Ring thinks that brass locomotives may attenuate the signal some, but how much I don't know.  I haven't installed in brass myself, but I do have a couple of locomotives that I'll be doing for a friend.  I'm interested to test the results.  I imagine it may attenuate the signal to some extent but without testing I can't say for certain.

-Kevin

You can remove "may" from that sentence. Brass most certainly will attenuate the signal. The $64,000 question is by how much. Of common metals, brass and copper are the two best for RF shielding. The size, shape, and thickness will play a role as these attributes determine the shielding resonance frequency. The closer the brass shell resonance frequency is to the LM RF signal frequency the more attenuation there will be. While the entire shell will have a specific resonant frequency, there will be points within the shell that have different resonance frequencies as well due to their cavity volume and shape i.e. the sand dome cavity will attenuate at a different frequency than the smoke box cavity. Try positioning the LM at different locations within the brass shell. You may find reception to be better at some locations and worse at others. 

[Dean]

I guess the Hobbytown of Boston metal shell would act the same way?

[Alan]

I guess the Hobbytown of Boston metal shell would act the same way?

If it is brass then I imagine it would.

Just guessing here, but considering the HC can communicate with a LM at a pretty substantial distance and given our relative closeness to the loco when operating I am going to go out on a limb and say there will likely be no issues. If the loco is 100' away at a big club layout or modular setup then maybe. Kevin will let us know how he fares.