Hi, I just picked up a set of 4 of the Proto 1000 R-17 NYC subway cars from Trainland/Trainworld for $72+tax. They run great and are quiet. Taking a 14" Radius curve with ease and have all wheel pickup on all 4 cars (dummies included).
I opened up the chassis and found a lighting board on each one on top of a grey box holding it up. Next thing I noticed are the headlights are weak with the 2-90 degree bends in the optics IMO. In fact I didn’t know it had headlights until I opened it up and saw the attempt to make it work. I’ll probably convert them to LEDs for more brightness and add red lights on the end cars while traveling ‘backward’. My bigger concern is the ceiling lights… Did anyone wire these for DCC using the boards installed? or did you bypass the circuit boards completely? THey look nice and are installed directly to the board so I’d like to keep them we they are if feasable.
My intent is to run 2 decoders in the 4 cars and make MU pairs. One powered and dummy and the other with 2 dummies but an end car with reversable head/tail lights and then run the 4 as a set. This saves me running wires between the 4 cars from the power car and enables me to control the lights better and have the cars coupled in any order/direction.
I also considered putting the power car in the middle and running one DCC module to the control wires for lighting out from both ends and making it a set of 4 cars but that seems troublesome with connectors and extra wires etc…
I also think I would make the gray box more of a table with legs and trimming it down considerably to reduce the viewable space it deters through the windows and doors. Anyone else do this?
So basically my question is… What did you do with them to improve it?
I bought a set of Redbirds (the dark red, silver-roofed ones, for twice what you paid!) about a year and a half ago. I put a basic Digitrax DH-123 decoder in the powered unit. The interior lights are connected directly to the track, so they don’t even go through the decoder. I did wire up the headlights, but they both burned out pretty quickly. The red tail lights are actually just small reflectors and don’t light up.
The real fun is at the other end of the train. I put in a video camera and a DCC power supply unit. I drilled out the old headlights and replaced them with 3mm LEDs, mostly to get enough light to run the camera. The DCC power supply board had to be modified by removing the capacitor to fit the board into the gray housing. It was a tight fit, but it works pretty well:
The front view shows the holes I drilled out for the LEDs. For the camera-end of the car, I removed the interior light (it’s an incandescent) and took out the first couple of side windows, both to help keep the camera cooler.
Check www.imagesreplicas.com for other subway-related items. I bought the end gates and installed them, along with some chain I found at a show:
This is the Moose Bay Transit Authority, by the way. I think the end gates add a lot to the models. I run them on 18-inch curves, but you may find that they interfere with each other if you run them on 14’s.
And last but not least, you might as well replace the couplers with Kadee #5’s right away. The original junkers won’t last very long.
I’m also tempted to pick up the $75 4-car R17 set from Trainland…
Thing is, they got several different sets-- The #31015 set is the one on sale for $75… The #30166 still costs $189. Then they got the #30186 set for $150.
The only obvious difference I can see are the paint jobs… Are the mechanisms and detailing level otherwise identical?
Yes, I think the mechanisms are identical. For some reason, they came out with the brighter red color and, for a while anyway, I think they stopped production of the dark red models. To me, the dark red looks the best. I’ve seen the brighter red ones in real-life, though, and they look just fine.
It’s great to see more folks taking an interest in subways. I put the subway level in first, and then built above it. This has, in some ways, given me a dual-level layout without all the dual-benchwork and helix difficulties. The subway trains easily climb the 5% grade up to the surface.
I grew up in Rockville Centre, on the south shore of Long Island. I never saw freight trains, just the electrified commuter lines of the LIRR, and the subways were always a treat. Ever since, I dreamed about subways every now and then. The dreams have stopped, but now I’ve got a real subway of my very own.
This is a shot of the Penny Lane station on the Moose Bay Transit Authority line. The R-17’s are on the rear track, while the PCC car pulls into the lower mezannine up front.
Yeah if I bought the $75 set I think I would repaint the roofs silver and re-decal it for the #7 Flushing IRT line.
Me, I rode the NYC Subway for 7 years, all the way from high school to college. Can’t say I miss it, but some of the routes I rode sure are memorable (in particular the Flushing IRT!) [:)]
Hmm… How about cramming the viewable spaces behind the windows and doors full of figures to hide the grey box? Brings back memories of the rush hour CRUSH during my daily commute on the IRT a few years ago… [:P]
When they built these, they basically made the powered and un-powered units exactly the same. The gray box just holds up the circuit board, which is identical for all units. You could just as easily remove the box and support the circuit boards on posts. The motor is contained in the gray box on the powered unit.
The trucks are held in place by the black plastic housing. You can see one of them in my first post, on the right side, the end without the camera. Once again, these housings are the same in the powered and un-powered cars. The powered car has gears inside the housings, and links back to the motor through a universal-type connector.
When I installed the camera, I had to cut off the housing at that end. I replaced it with a simple screw fitting, and that’s worked just fine for me.
I really like the idea of doing interior detailing on these cars. If anyone does it, make sure you post some pictures for us.
Hi, Peter Here, I picked up 3 sets of the R17 RED BIRD & I upgraded them to DCC control.
I left the lights in then because with DCC the voltage is higher & the carriages illuminate very well.
With the DCC Decoder fitment I used the PROTO 1000 BUDD RDC description on the internet ( www.bevteccom.co.uk/Rail/DCC/P1k_RDC.html) to install the decoder. Pretty well the same but the R17 Circuit Board is just smaller.
If you are DCC’ing a BUDD RDC, use Ultra Bright LEDS (GOLD DAYLIGHT ONES) for the headlights.
Hi, Peter Here, I picked up 3 sets of the R17 RED BIRD & I upgraded them to DCC control.
I left the lights in then because with DCC the voltage is higher & the carriages illuminate very well.
With the DCC Decoder fitment I used the PROTO 1000 BUDD RDC description on the internet ( www.bevteccom.co.uk/Rail/DCC/P1k_RDC.html) to install the decoder. Pretty well the same but the R17 Circuit Board is just smaller.
If you are DCC’ing a BUDD RDC, use Ultra Bright LEDS (GOLD DAYLIGHT ONES) for the headlights.
i am planning to put interior figures in my subway cars. one car will have a homeless person sleeping with the car all to himself with the cars next to it jammed with people who couldn’t stand the smell. yes there is a prototype for it.
I too have several sets of these cars from each of the runs produced. I don’t care for the bright red ones as the body shell and paint are too opaque allowing the interior lights to shine through…they look more like toys that any of the other sets.
I have added interior lights to the original oxide red cars and have installed a function decoder in the lead and tail car (powered car is in the middle) to power head lights & four red marker lights. To install the markers I had to core some holes, head light holes were fine after removing the “light guide”. Minatronics 1.2mm 1.5v 30mA bulbs were used tied to three LM317LZ voltage regulators then into a TCS FL-2 decoder. It was found necessary to be able to adjust the brightness of the markers as they should not be as bright as the headlights. Consideration was also made to illuminate the side destination signs, but that’s a bit too much work since “every” car would have to be done.
If you try to add these additional light on your cars be sure to use one of the “real” unpowered chassis as there will not be enough clearance. I mention “real” because, at least on some of the cars I have, Lifelike used some of the weighted power chassis on non-powered cars in the beginning.
Now a question…
How are you supposed to install the drawbar when there is only one bushing in the coupler package?
Has anyone seen the green ones, the new R-21’s and R-22’s in the Walthers catalog? Pretty nice from the illustrations. My layout is pretty meager in terms of space, but if they were on sale, I’d be the first one with my credit card out of my wallet.
So, the rest of you subway modellers, where are some pictures?
Oldie but goodie, from one of my other stations:
NOTE: “It’s dark in the tunnels” will not be a sufficient excuse. Gentlemen, start your cameras.
I’ve got a couple of those too and they are beautiful. Walther’s did a good job with the end gates, however being that they are rigid there may be a potential problem with close coupling which I have yet to try. Other than that my two complaints are that the LED bulbs shed too much light into the cab area and last but not least…they would REALLY look good if they were R27/30 BMT/IND cars.
Did the end gates come installed on the cars? When I got mine, they came without end gates, and I bought them from Images Replicas and did the upgrades myself.
If they are the same size as mine, and they look like they are, close coupling may be a problem unless you’re running large-radius curves. Mine are on 18-inch curves, and the gates almost, but don’t quite, touch with Kadees, not drawbars.
Hats off to Walthers for coming out with more subway models!
Yes, the end gates are mounted and painted. If you are into DCC, there is a 8 pin receptacle for plug n play (use low profile plug though). Walther’s switched to some surface mount components on the PCB in these cars as well.
I’m going to work a little more with the drawbars as the distance between the cars are reduced to prototypical spacing. This approach would not work with the new cars. Now if fully sprung end gates become available we are set!!!
