When cleaning my layout area recently, I came across a few artifacts, the instruction sheet for a Riverossi 0-4-0 switcher, and a 1965 Walthers Catolog! I must’ve inherited them from my great-grandfather, the person who I got my first trains from and got me started. (unfortunetely I never met him before he died, I don’t even think I was born then.)
Some pretty neat stuff there.
You know I’ve beening thinking, the locomotives and rolling stock that we all are collecting in general, is it going to last for another ten years, or twenty? If we keep our rosters maintained sure they will last. But will our Highely detailed locomotive we own today be low quality in the next 10-20 years.
I have a copy of that 1965 Walthers catalog. It was the first one I ever had when I started model railroading seriously. I was 17 … gee, I guess that makes me a relic too! That’s okay, I have a 5-year old grandson who is railroad crazy and is starting his first layout, believe it or not … even scratchbuilt his first station (handdrawn on a shoe box).
jim
Who knows, maybe in 20 years the locomotives will be voice activated. The operator just tells what locomotive to go where, at whatever speed one wants…???[:D]
You should see if HO Seeker would be interested in a copy of that Riv brochure.
That’s strange, I don’t FEEL old. I went looking for my old copy of a Walthers catalog: 1961. I got it in high school. I’m still waiting to be a great-grandfather, though.
Nice find! Isn’t it fun to look through old catalogs and stuff?
Ed
Even nicer when you get hold of a loco you wanted when you where younger 1960 something, and its still in good order and usable I was that lucky
Its had its wheels changed to the modern version from the same manufacturer and the loco runs like a charm
Looks very dated due to the lack of detail you get on modern production loco’s but I like the chunky old brute it pulls more than a modern Loco
Shame there isn’t an OO scale US loco crew avalable any more they would suit this UK made Loco perfectly.
regards John Busby
Actually that’s doable now with DCC and a computer. Voice recognition on the computer and have the computer act as a DCC or even a DC controller. Computer control of a layout was done, as a concept, back in the mid 70’s with a DEC PDP11 computer hooked-up to a small HO oval with a couple of operating turnouts. The train would negotiate the layout, making setouts and piclkups, all on it’s own programmed route. They (DEC) had this small layout travelling to the hobbyist computer fairs to demonstrate process control. And that was plain DC.
Model Railroader’s staff and other DCC advocates tend to go slack jawed at the thought that there are still those who adhere to DC block control. I tend to agree with those who predict that the next real innovation in model trains will be powerful batteries (perhaps combined with something like a clockwork mechanism, flywheels, or governors for momentum effects) that make the locomotives actually independent and not dependent on electric current through the rails. We know the remote control technology is already there – and cheap at the toy stores.
In common with other posters above, I remember that locomotive and I remember that catalog and gee it sure is great to have things you remember as being reasonably new be called “interesting relics.” OK have your fun while it lasts. Just you guys wait until you are fifty and over – trust me, the medical profession has a delightful little surprise up its, um, sleeve for you.
Dave Nelson
Hmmm, note that we’re talking about significant advances in miniature electronics, computer vision & wireless communication/control here… and you’d think such advances could potentially extent past the field of model railroading to encompass …say…the medical field?
Such as perhaps making the colonoscope obsolete?
chutton01
Oboy, you’ve got my vote on THAT ONE!![soapbox]
Tom [B)]
Who? I’d be happy to scan it in, but I don’t exactly know who you mean… Is “HO Seeker” a member here?
Yes not the most pleasant thing,gives new meaning to parking the big boy in the roundhouse.[:O]
Great find though,it is always interesting to look at the old catalogues and mags.Digging throught the club basement once we found a stash of old MR’s form the 60’s. Always inetersting to note the quoted prices of the newest brass steam. Heavily priced then as they are now once you put the time and 1960’s dollar values into perspective.
Rob
[(-D]
And I’m going for an exam this monday![sigh]
Wayne
Lithium/ion batteries are already here with their massive capacity in a rather small package. We’re talking amp/hours capacity here. Couple these with some of the really low amperage motore we have available to us and we are talking independance from rail power. I know this has been done in large scale by one of the commercial manufacturers whoes name escapes me at the moment, but they use radio for throttle control. Doable in HO and N, but you’d have to have a permanently coupled consist of at least 1 or 2 cars behind the loco to carry the batteries and radio control circuitry.
You could possible work with DCC this way, but why would you want to? Once totally freed from using the rails for anything, you’d never have to worry about rail cleaning or such again. No worries about short locos on dead frogs. The only downside would be run time. But then again, one could always use the excuse that you have to stop for refueling to having the train stop.
I am among those who think onboard power is the next big thing. I think it is only a matter of time and the next logical step beyond DCC. Total locomotive independence. I think we will see this in the smaller scales in the coming decade but it might take another decade for it to catch on just as it took DCC a while to gain popularity. I’d love to never have to clean my track again.
I would think that we would want to be able to recharge the batteries on the track so we would not have to constantly handle the locos between session. Layouts would be designed with powered recharging sections of track. Our roundhouses and diesel houses would serve like the cart barn at a golf course where the electric carts get recharged between rounds.
I’m going to make a SWAG and say this will be a viable option by 2015.
Now here’s where our brethren that model British and European systems would make out okay. Imagine how easy it would be to make the buffers on a loco so that one is a positive pole and the other is negative and then have them ‘buffer up’ to bumper to recharge the batteries. One of the iRobot autonomous vacuum cleaners already has such a setup for recharging the batteries. American prototype would jiust take a little more work. Like maybe working mu connections on a diesel.
The technology is already here, it just takes someone with vision and money to do it.
Its also here in O scale. Just for giggles and grins, I took a battery pack from an R/C car, and sized it up in an old Atlas F-9. Plenty of room!
I even did a little size checking on a GP-35. It’s tight, but it’s doable!
Just make sure you use a “ground” frequency! Local R/C flyers (as well as the FCC) take a dim view of “shootdowns” because someone is on the air freq, running a train!
(I saw an absoultly beautiful 1/4 size not scale, size, F-4-U Corsair get “shot down” accidentally. Another flyer was on the same channel as the newly built, and maden flight Corsair, switched on hs radio, and down came the aircraft at full throttle! Not a good day to be an R/C builder! The builder had spent an entire winter and a couple thousand dollars on this plane! Gone on 15 seconds!)
The control electronics are plenty small too, thanks to the R/C airplane folks and the park flyers movement. A BEC circuit (battery elimination circuit) means no moving parts in the control side, and battery tech is getting good enough that I may just try building a R/C F unit!