Sitting here surfing the net with my newly installed sound decodered F7’s idiling away, with the head light and mars light on. looks and sounds good I might add. So ok whats next, what other little marvel of modern science will we be able to fit into our little works of art to make them more life like. May have missed the boat on this one but what about smoke unit for diesels. lol. lets here your thoughts on this one
Paul.
Some diesels do have smoke units in them-- but not sure about HO scale. If I recall correctly (and I might not 
MTH puts smoke units in some of their larger scale diesels. Probably other mfgrs do too.
I don’t like smoke units for several reasons-- (a) they’re messy, all that stuff has to go somewhere, and guess what’s closest? Hint: It starts with an ‘L’, ends with a ‘t’, has an ‘ayou’ in the middle and rhymes with ‘Layout’… (b) I don’t think the smoke units look anything remotely like “real” smoke. Not for steamers, not for diesels. Nothing worse, IMO, than a little “Puffing Billy” running around-- talk about ruining the illusion. (c) Oddly enough, I’d probably like the smoke better if it more closely resembled the smell of either coal or diesel fuel. Not that I’d want my whole house to stink up with either of those smells, but that’s one of the things I miss about trains in model form. It’d be enough just to get a little whiff of one or the other now and then.
John
I mentioned this in a similar post a while back. I think you’ll see integrated miniature cab mounted cameras with LCD equipped throttles so you can actually “drive” your train and get the view of the engineer. You’ll blow the horn when you see whistle signs and obey signals, provided you’ve included both on your layout.
Ricky
Mini decoder in every car for uncoupling? Great for a switching layout, if your eyes are good enough to read the car numbers.
I echo those comments. I had an Ho DC steamer with smoke…didn’t look real, couldn’t see it all the time and bothered my asthma. I don’t use it anymore {besides I switched to DCC and won’t convert this one}. I about choke when I go to indoor train shows with layouts set up with smoking trains.
+1 on this. That would be a great improvement, goodbye skewers (and kadee magnets if you use them).
I’m sure software will keep improving like JMRI.
How about a GPS system that reports what cars are on which tracks, industries, yards, etc.
Heh, real railroads are just starting to look at automatic couplers. It would be funny if models got them first
I don’t mind smoke units here or there, but I think I’d go nuts if it was a constant thing and for diesels, it would need to be black and timed to Alco Turbolag.
As for smells, you can keep the Coal/Oil/Diesel smell, I’d just like Essence of Creosote. That is the number one smell I associate with railroads…And water based commerce.
Paul, if your loco is idling and the mars light is going, there may be more detail for you to have it switched off when stopped[:-^]
Digitrax already has transponders.
They do, it just ain;t practical yet. Their about 110 a piece for the decoder, servo, etc.
Agreed.
Me? I like the essense of what the smoke represents. It’s like the sound for a lot of us. Some of us know that it’s not the rich full tones we expect, but we kinda miss having a horn to blow at the crossing. A steam engine SHOULD have something coming out the smokestack. And if your not a real detail person, then having a few puffs fills thre bill.
My problem with smoke, is that an MTH K4 was the first thing to set off my Asthma in 10 YEARS or more. None of the other smoke units I’ve been around have done it, just that one. But I;ve also not been around another MTH smoker. Otherwise, I am sorely tempted to shove smoke units in an old Lionel Daylight I’ve got, one for smoke, one for cylinder bleeds, it be nice to have one for the whistle but I don’t see it being possible.
Or you can go buy an MTH diesel locomotive that already does that, nothing wrong with coupling and uncoupling by hand what do you want to do put some poor 1:87 scale guy out of work, hows he supposed to take care of Mrs.Plastic and the heard of kids…lol
We overcame the uncoupling issue on the club layout with electromagnetic uncoupling magnets. just push the momentary button and you good to go.
Regarding smoke generators ah I relate smoke with fire and fire and model railroads aren’t a good combination. I have one of those Rapido Steam generator cars, know how many times I used that feature once when I first took it out of the box
What should be next, but probably won’t, to be able to order what you want when you want it.
Mr. Beaseley:
Hoo-HAH! You, too! [:P]
I had to mount mine on a flatcar, however, since I run nothing but steam and can’t figure out how to get the little devil mounted over my Elesco feedwater heaters, LOL!
But oh my, it certainly gives you a whole new perspective on your layout, doesn’t it? I’ve still got to figure out how to download mine, though.
Tom [:D]
Yes, train mounted cameras have been around for awhile. Now you need to put some sort of transmitter in with it that communicates back to the LCD screen equipped throttle I mentioned and you’ll have exactly what I’m suggesting. Just not sure on how much more can be crammed in there.
Ricky
My bet is that its not the smoke unit but rather the smoke fluid you put in it that’s the problem. And that what’s setting off your asthma is the particle size of the “smoke” produced.
John
Dude! That’s crazy-talk.
John
Camera on train
I like the idea of having the camera built-into the train. But I hate the “lashed-to-the-mast” point of view that always goes with it. I’d like to have one that was, at least, attached to a horizontal servo so it could pan left or right. Perhaps up/down wouldn’t matter as much. But I’d at least like to be able to look where I want without necessarily having to look straight down the track.
John
It may not be prototypical, but I have put stickers with larger numbers to read on the top of my locos like they do police cars and such, so I can read the number fast and easy on the eyes. SOmetimes practicality has to win over prototype.
Then again, Since there’s a prototype for everything, maybe I am not far off the mark somewhere!
There’s room in Mr Beasley’s setup (and probably most others) to include a transmitter. In fact, you could probably find an all-in-one unit that would be even smaller than the setup in the photos if you really wanted to, that would include the transmitter on-board. You might have to do some work though to get good reception. There’s probably a lot of potential interference on a layout, and I’m not even thinking of DCC.
John
