First off in case it was misunderstood, I do NOT own one of these yet. I am very interested in having one or 2 roaming around in several spots on my layout. I am using amost exclusively Peco code 100 insulafrog turnouts (non-powered frogs). Yes I do want them to operate in slow switching operations.
I will be using DCC. I do NOT care to have sound in this little critter. BUT I do like this flashing light installation.
If anything, the dead section in an Insulfrog is too SHORT - tometimes wheels short the two pieces of rail right near the palstic point. Otherwise, the dead area is so small, anything will run over them.
As for the #8 - I just measured one. If you cut the gaps but DON’T power the frog, it’s a 6" long dead section! What’s that, almost 3 whole Trackmobiles? NOTHING would get over that without a keep alive.
But power the frog the way you are supposed to, since it’s all rail, and anything should go through, at totally creepy-crawly speed.
–Randy
Read the literature and see if they have a factory decoder with keep alive technology installed. It will be prominently advertised if it does, but probably conspicuously silent if it doesn’t.
If it’s dcc already but doesn’t have keep alive too, you have two options:
Do the extra work on your layout to make that little expensive guy work like its supposed to.
Take out the pointless non keep alive decoder that you paid for, trash it, and install the proper decoder for this little guy yourself, at your time and extra expense.
If it’s a DC loco and you’re going to install dcc yourself, you’ll have to decide whether to install a keep alive too or to power all of the frogs you intend to run this over.
Hi Brian,
The flashing lights will be easy to set up if you use a Lokpilot Micro.
http://www.esu.eu/en/products/lokpilot/lokpilot-micro-v40/
The Loksound ‘Power Pack’ keep alive is fairly small but you would have to take a Trackmobile apart to see if there is any space. I suspect that it would have to go into the cab which might not be as bad as you might think if it was painted to match. You can do things like cut the engineer in half vertically if necessary to maintain the appearance that there is someone driving the wee beast.
http://www.esu.eu/en/products/accessories/powerpacks/powerpack-mini/
One of the members at my old club has a Trackmobile. He has run it on the portable layout. The layout suffers from locomotives stalling regularly but he had no problems that I am aware of.
Dave
Don’t most KA utilize some sort of capacitors? And can’t the size and/or number of capacitors be adjusted to limit the time of KA??
I’ve seen several folks touting their KA’s that are just toooooo long to be practical. [%-)]
The buffer time of a keep alive “power pack” can usually be adjusted via CV setting to fit your needs.
I did see that ‘adjustment’ feature mentioned by Dave AFTER I had posted my reply…BTW, thanks Dave for that interesting posting.
I was looking into this subject BEFORE I made any decision to buy 1 of these creatures, because I thought it would be foolish to get a DCC one then have to trash that decoder in favor of one that would do specifically what one wanted.
And of course size is a big matter with installation in such a small loco. I wanted to see specically what had been tried already.
Brian, since you haven’t set your heart on buying one here is more info FWIW:
Trackmobiles typically are not really switching cars around a yard or multiple spurs. They not really switchers, per se.
They are usually just taking a cut of a few cars that a loco placed on a spur, maybe even one car, and spotting it at the industry’s dock or under a grain spout. The loco may not be allowed to do that because of weight restrictions placed on the spur (many times the businesses own the spur and don’t want a heavy rr loco on it, causing maintenance issues). So, in many, if not most applications, the trackmobile only traverses one track, back and forth, a few hundred feet.
If your plan is to use a trackmobile to switch over multiple tracks, buzz around the yard so to speak, most railroads or businesses would probably have an old switcher to do that. That’s where I would use an extremely reliable Atlas S2
So if you’re just going to run the TM over one frog, its probably easier to follow Ransy’s suggestion and power the frog you plan to run this over than maybe to install a decoder with KA that isn’t already in it from the factory.
Pretty tight quarters, IMO, but eyesights and tolerances for tedium and for modifying that which you just bought differ with individuals.
As Douglas has pointed out, I’ve watched one in operation at a foundry. The TM only moves empty coke hoppers out and positions full coke hoppers for unloading, all within the limits of the trackage owned by the foundry.
It cannot pass the switch to the siding where the CN drops off and stores full hoppers, as from that turnout on, it’s CN trackage.
On a daily basis, the CN local pulls what empty hoppers the TM as sets out, and pushes in full hoppers to the unloading area.
The TM only jockies empty and full hoppers with the foundry trackage.
I’ve watched it move 3 full coke hoppers at a time, with in the foundry track.
Mike.
Only for the 3-wire kind used by Lenz and ESU, maybe a few others. The Tusnami and TCS ones are all 2 wire, there is no CV at adjust that as there is no control pin (the third wire) so they run until the capacitor is discharged.
If you want to custome make each keep alive, then yes, you could adjust, somewhat, by carefully chosing the capacitor values. The thing is, they tend to go from your usual values and then jump up to the .5F and 1F, and larger cupercapacitor values with little in between. And remember most supercaps are fairl low voltage, so a keep alive will often have maybe 3x 5V 1F caps in series to make a .33F 15V capacitor.
For a loco with a low current draw, a single 470uF or so capacitor with a 15V or better rating may be no bigger than the keep alive, but give enough power to replicate the momentum of a flywheel to get the loco past a small dead spot without turning into a long duration windup toy.
As for powering the frog, Brian said he is using Peco Insulfrog. There’s nothign to power. There’s only a TINY sliver of insulated section at the very point of the frog, the rest is all powered, so it should be OK.
–Randy
So far that seems to be the general opinion,…that these little guys do NOT suffer that much on Peco insulafrogs.
Industries Served:
https://trackmobile.com/industries-served/
…looks like quite a variety,…and looks like they have considerable pulling/pushing power,…even the smaller ones.
I won’t mind using some ordinary larger switchers in some instances, but there are some locations on my track plan that are very condensed [%-)], and where the tail tracks are too short to do the switching operations I might like to try [;)]
The real ones have a little ‘trick’ they use to get more tractive force than they otherwise might with their light weight - they put some of the weight of the first car on the Trackmobile, sort of like the reverse of jacking up a trailer hooked to your truck without releasing the hitch first. The model is stuck with whatever weight it has in it, so if your cars are properly weighted, the model may not be bale to pull as many cars as the prototype. But really, they look best just shuffling one or two cars at a time around in an industry’s private trackage.
One palce I did some work, there were two large feed mills I had to pass. One had a Trackmobile to pull a string of cars in for dumping, the other used the old cable and winch, but from the road you couldn’t actually see that, but I’d go by in the mornign and there’d be a frech cut of cars dropped off my the railroad behind the building, at lunch there’s be a couple now in front, and int he evening they’d now all be in front - like magic. The other place, I’d see the Trackmobile parked around the track area, so it was obvious how the cars were moved there.
There’s another I have passed many times, which stands directly next to the main road, and you can clearly see the cable and the winch. A couple of rollers are to either side of the winch end of the dump building, and at that one, the winch itself is actually back alongside the building. Probably not a bad idea, the operator is then pretty well protected from a cable break, as it would head out the open end of the building away from the operator’s position.
Makes me wonder if there is a book on Trackmobile history and design. The modern ones aren’t super interesting to me, but they’ve been around a long time, and part of coverign them would also have to cover all the other various rubber tired railcar moviers like those really oddball things the PRR had, which had a big ship’s wheel for steering. Those so
Yes ago I was doing environmental work at Monsanto in Massachusetts and there was a little track mobile there to shuffle tank cars around.
I hope this video comes up, not exactly sure the address gets you to a video rather than slide show. (sure moves quite a number of cars)
I have in mind using one of these locos part time moving empty container cars, cars onto my carfloat, cars into my repair facility…
Video comes up, pretty much a commercial for Trackmobile, but shows it in action.
The little trick that Randy talks about, you can see this at the foundry where they use one of these to move empty and full coke hoppers.
The trackmobile is usually between empty and full cars.
Mike.
European One
This one was recently posted on another forum. I think there were even some videos associated with it, but I can’t find them at the moment,…nor the proper name of this one.
That looks - impractical at best. Maybe if it ran off overhead, or a third rail. There’s no room for a diesel and even a mechanical drive in there. Seems more like a foobie like a Beep or Eggliner.
I will certainly stand corrected if that’s an accurate model of a real prototype. Seems like there could be better ways to make something equally small without being so ungainly.
–Randy
Not at all!
It´s a Diesel powered “shunting tractor” built from 1913 until 1957 by Breuer Maschinen- und Armaturenfabrik/Germany. Over 1,000 were built. The later versions were remote controlled and had no cab.
Rivarossi makes a nice model of it.
Interesting. There doesn’t even seem to be room for an engine, and I see no drive shafts or anything going to the wheels - or is there a third set of wheels in the middle that are the driven ones? Or is the drive in that angled bit that comes out under the cab alongside the drawbar?
Edit: Hard to find any info, the most I found was on a page where a guy built a Lego model of one. I see that mechanism coming out is linked to the handwheel below the center window and it’s a screw jack to pick up the wagon and tranfer some of the weight to this little thing so it has enough tractive effort - pretty much the same thing a Trackmobile does. So somewhere under the floor in there are some chains for the drive.
–Randy
A few locomotive shops have “shunters” that have been cobbled together from spare parts:
http://conrailphotos.thecrhs.org/image/view/22808/_original
I’ve seen these at Collinwood, Altoona and Enola.
080916_1 by lmyers83, on Flickr
There are others using a larger “SD” type three-axle truck:
This outfit offers some other solutions:
https://rollingstockmover.com/rail-movers/
http://www.tractivepowercorp.com/our_technology/photo_gallery/
Yes, there are options. Kato made the powered, self contained truck for the GE Genesis locomotive. It used a tiny, coreless motor mostly contained within the truck frame. You could place any type of cab over it or use it as a “remote controlled walkie”.
Regards, Ed