You know what grinds my gears?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Ranting…

The lack of real and/or operating warning lights on locomotives (red). If you see a loco parked on a siding it usually has it’s red lights on. Is it too much to ask that manufacturers provision these as a seperate function on DCC equipped engines? It is not too bad when the loco has then wired so that they come on when running in reverse, it’s those that are just painted body color and require some effort to get them installed.

Bruce

2

OH!!! I thought you were going to say “sand”…

Mark

3

My MTH Berkshire has working red lights [:)]

4

Athearn’s RTR switcher with Tsunami sound decoder has the red lights.

5

The main reason the don’t is the price. Couldn’t be that hard if you wanted to add it your self.

6

You cant get sand for HO scale locomotives? On man, no WONDER the hobby shop guys keep looking at me funny when I ask…

7

And here I am thinking your going to talk about shifting gears without using the clutch![(-D]

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I thought he was going to say the new teenage driver in his home that hasn’t quite gotten the knack of clutch/accelerator/gearshift shifting.

9

Hello A ups driver.

Sorry cound’t help it. Have a nice day Frank

10

Teenage driver, yep got one…

Sand in the drive gear, it has happened…

I know its about the cost, I just really want them in all my engines without having to install them myself.

11

I tell our truck drivers when I have to rebuild their trannys is just keep grinding till it fits.

I have a hard enough time doing ditch lights and head lights. I can live with the red jewels on my steamers.

Pete

12

LMFAO [(-D][bow] I thought they did that so you would know when they arrived.

13

And I thought all locomotives had automatic transmissions

14

I do that countless times a day, I’ve been doing it for 22 years. Shifting without the clucth is standard procedure in a tractor-trailer.

Doug

15

Hi Bruce…

Since we’re talking about ‘red marker lights’ I will guess you live in the Northeast? What era do you model?

Marker lights can have different meanings in different eras and some railroads(more modern era) do not use classification or marker lights at all.

On Steam locomotives, the markers meant that the engine was running ‘light’ or could be an indication that the train was running in two sections.

On more modern locomtives, the Red Marker lights may not always be lit except when the train is operating on the NEC or if the engine is operating in a reverse direction.

I’m not sure but I believe this has to do with the NORAC Operating Rules for trains operating on the

NEC. Here in the west, there are no operating locomotives that are even equipped with marker lamps.

Anyway, getting back to the models, there are not many(if any) that I can think of, that have these lights operational.

But, it shouldn’t be that difficult to do - I install lighting/DCC/sound for many modelers all over the nation and if it lights up, I’ll have a function set up for it, unless the customer doesn’t want it done.

Get back with us and let us know which lamps you are referring to specifically - the class lights or other lamps.

PrecisionCraft and MTH are the only two manufacturers I can think of in recent times, that offer operating marker lamps.

I have both the Turbine and a Berkshire 765 and both have operating marker lamps from the factory.

HeritageFleet1