I recently joined the Suncoast Model Railroaders Club. Wonderful group of guys with two impressive layouts. One HO and the other N. I’m grateful to my friend, CMarchand, who got me to finally join after I visited the club as his guest several times this past year.
After clicking on the link you will see the choices for N scale and HO scale.
Click on them and enjoy the photos and movies. IMHO the HO movie is exceptionally cool with the background music added in.
Great, friendly group of people. The club adopted DCC earlier this year and currently operates in both DCC and DC modes ( mode is set by flipping a switch). To accommodate both groups, certain hours are designated for each mode. Interesting thing is that a number of the members own DC and DCC units.
I noticed that sound equipped locomotives (of which there seemed little interest a year ago) are now popping in left and right. Courtesy is excercised by keeping the volumes low.
That is SUPER layout and a great site! Thanx a lot for posting it. You gave me some great ideas for stone and concrete retaining walls in around my yards.
Antonio,
Way COOL!!
Any club that can include Burlington, UP and NYC(lightning stripes forever) definitely has superb taste.
Good to see CSX move freight if only on a model railroad.
Your friend really had to ask you to join more than once?
Antonio,
Way COOL!!
Any club that can include Burlington, UP and NYC(lightning stripes forever) definitely has superb taste.
Good to see CSX move freight if only on a model railroad.
Your friend really had to ask you to join more than once?
Antonio,
Way COOL!!
Any club that can include Burlington, UP and NYC(lightning stripes forever) definitely has superb taste.
Good to see CSX move freight if only on a model railroad.
Your friend really had to ask you to join more than once?
Loathar, good to know that you got a workable idea from it.
Jon, what took me so long to join is that between my job, and home activities it was difficult. It’s about a 25 minute drive from my house to the club, but lately I’ve had a little more time for model railroading. So instead of hesitating I finally went for it. I’m glad I did!
One of our members recently ran a 91 car freight train on the HO layout!
4 locomotives on the front and 4 on the rear. Now that was a monster train!!
My friend and I are working on our passenger trains. Using Walthers and Branch LIne cars, we hope to have enough passenger equipment to realistically model and run 15 to 18 car versions of SCL trains like the Champion and Silver Star. Locomotives (P2K and Atlas cab units) will have the correct Gyra-light or Mars Light effects.
When we get to that stage, I definetly hope to have a video of that made![:D][8D][;)]
The HO layout now has a beautiful working signaling system. Members have really been working hard to make this a 1st class operation. Detection is based on resistence as locomotives pass through.
More members have joined.
To my surprise, even though the DC option is available, everybody now has DCC equipped units…including our well respected old timers who were hesistant originally. ( They seem to like turning the “special effects” features on and off at will)
When the club layout is in DCC mode, the dispatcher no longer has to sit at the main board flipping cab-route toggles as locomotives move in and out of areas. More than ever, instead of chewing the fat while running trains, we actually have to watch out for head-on and rear end collisions. Oh yeah…we’ve had a few cornfield–“CRUNCH”— meets! Alertness is now mandatory.
My favorite aspect is running the passenger trains. I’m not a rivet counter, but I try to run them realistically. My friend allows me to use his new P2K sound equipped E8 in to pull my SCL passenger train. I use all of the features to the hilt!
Horn: I blow the ---- ---- 0 ---- sequence for crossings and a ------ for station approaches. I also “toot” greetings to trains I pass. Mars Light: On, while running. Turn it off when stopped at stations. Bell: On when going through crossings, and arriving / departing stations. Running: I take off slowly and build up speed gradually to 70 scale mph. Stopping: Slow down gradually at the right points for smooth arrivals and stops.
In a nut shell, hours of enjoyment! [:D][8D][:)][;)][C):-)][{(-_-)}][C=:-)][tup]