Went to Alexandria today to have castings made of my feet so they can make some shoes for me. $300 a pair! Glad I’m not paying it. That’s all Uncle Sam.
On the way back, I raided the LHS. Picked a new #6 turnout for the maintenance facility and also picked up a Proto 2000 E7. After I got home, I took care of a few things that needed attention, then started in on the E7. I got an old Bachmann out that has a bad motor, stripped the DCC decoder out of it and transplanted it into the E unit. All I wanted was motor control, so I left the lights hooked up to the light board. This means they’ll be on all the time, but I don’t care. Got the decoder wired in, put the locomotive on the track, fired up the DCC unit and put the power to it. It runs great! The slow speed performance and crawl is phenomenal. It can crawl at 2 - 3 scale mph with no problem at all. The top speed is a scale 60 mph. I’m gonna pull the decoders from my other Bachmann’s as they die off and convert my E6 and E8.
My Uncle Sam helps me a lot as well. The great State of New York helps my uncle help me out as well![angel]
I have only DC stuff and am happy to have it. My N scale is left for now. I always always always wanted an HO layout, and I’m building on 3x5 (that many say “say it isn’t so! It cant be done! thou must have at least 18’ radii!!” “It must be at least a 4x8!!!” I have been collecting cheap-priced HO stuff. Maybe after its built I can look for cheap DCC locos as this crawl speed thing they do sounds amazing![wow]
The smallest HO layout I’ve built was 4.5 by 3’ 8", and it did have 18" radius curves. It was copy, trackwise, of the layout that Wayne Wesoloyski built in the Kalmbach video “The Basics of Model Railroading”. It had an industrial spur and a passing siding.
I was going for 3x4, but found I could add another foot. (now if I could only find shoes that come in threes instead of twos, as now I have that ‘another foot’ to deal with). I use 15"R and have an “up and over” (loop over loop similar to a helix reconnected, NOT fig. 8). I have a small independent loop a level above that. I was bound and determined NOT to have the proverbial “plywood prarie”. I have 1 industry siding(as yet undetermined). The town of Grimey will have something or other, maybe cargo transfer station or feed distributor. Its station shall, of course, handle some passenger trains. I have a small steam service yard (3 tracks) at Sooty junction.
Someday when I figure out how to do so, I can post some pics. Not much to look at right now. But it keeps me happy![swg]