Yesterday, Bradley and I met up at the club in Temple to give our stuff some exercise.

Something about the club is therapy!

Anyhow..I'm sure Mr. Linda will be along shortly to share his version of the day! Too bad we're missing Wongsing in our shannigans!






While this unit didn't have a "bonfire" in the cab, the headlight gave off just enough light inside to give the appearance of cablights, which I couldn't resist!

Yup, here I am.


Milwaukee 4 leads time freight #261, the XL Special out of the yard, meeting a very lost Extra ATSF 5942 West.
Click to view attachment

Some wise guy thought it'd be fun to line me into the rock quarry. Fortunately I was proceeding at restricted speed.Click to view attachment

Now about 10 miles out of the yard, 261 is on its way to Ft. Worth (Didn't you know the Milwaukee served Texas?)
Click to view attachment


Now in the town of Bluebonnet, the engineer is fuming because the dispatcher wouldn't line him into the siding to switch the beer distributor.Click to view attachment

Damn...Sure looked like fun guys!

-Rich

I like the black and orange but you need more cascade green on that layout!

Austin, most definately not!

Kyle, which club is this? I didn't know that Temple had an HO club... I may have to make it down there sometime in the summer to run some stuff. I nabbed some nice Kato an P2K (a few have decoders too) units on the cheap and don't have anywhere to run them here yet... although I may try and change that this summer and run a layout along some of the walls in my room. When does the club run trains?

Good to see some familiar guys still running around... It's been so long since I've been around these parts.

Alan, it's in the parking lot of the muesem, the old Moody Depot. It has a big "Centra-Mod Model Railroad Club" sign on it. We're the guys who put on the train-show in Temple every year

Public run days are on the 1st and 3rd saturdays between 1-5 PM, but if you wanna come run, shoot me an email, I'm sure I can rustle Bradley up and head down there any day you want.

Well dang, I didn't know Centra-Mod was over there... I haven't been to the Temple show in probably a good 7-8 years!

I may try and shoot you guys an email sometime later on in May. I need for things to quiet down up my way and probably get some of my DCC-equipped locos ready to run. I don't have anything set up at my house to run or test equipment on yet so it may be a bit before I have anything ready to bring down and run. BTW, which DCC system does Centra-Mod use? I always heard nothing but good about Digitrax so I picked up a 5A Super Chief starter set on the fleabay for a little over $300... I figured it could last me for a long time to come.

Come on Kyle, the 1991 was just a start!

I've used both NCE and Digitrax systems and prefer NCE, though my Digitrax experience is rather limited. Each has their ups and downs. To me NCE is simpler and easier to use.

Alan, Bradley is the man to talk to on DCC stuff, as I'm lucky to even be able to consist power together!

Austin, not enough blue and yellow on that layout . We do have a few patched big nothing units running around, but thankfully that's the extent of the green!

Seriously though, we use digitrax for the DCC, however, most all of my power has NCE decoders (Bradley steered me that direction). The one locomotive I have that has Digitrax decoders is my Tower 55 ES44DC, it's DCC/Sound equipped.

Hey Kyle, after not running the trains on the layout for long periods of time, How do you clean your tracks? Because on my small layout if I don't get a chance to like run the trains everyday the dust collects on the rails and it becomes very hard to run trains over it. Thanks.

The layout see's alot of traffic, but we have track cleaning cars for polishing the rails. We also have Mr. Linda to do most of the MoW work!

I think all of my locos with DCC currently have Digitrax decoders although it would be easy enough to use NCE the rest of the way out as I convert stuff over from straight DC.




Other than a single BN GP35 and a lone CR SD60, all of my power is blue/yellow.

We use Digitrax. We use Digitrax Radio. Wish we used something else on the last one.

Track cleaning is accomplished by one track cleaning car, and typically someone on the elbow grease machine...a.k.a. bright boy.


I only use NCE decoders because I have an NCE system, and with NCE's WYSIWYG interface (i.e. Plain English) it's a heck of a lot easier to program. I've been playing around with TCS decoders too.

Austin- there is some Big Nothing that runs on the layout, I think I'm gonna buy my brothers P2K 60M off of him to run behind my 1991. The rest of my power is orange and black, scarlet and grey, black widow, and Whitman green/yellow.

I don't do most of the MOW work. I do what any good railroader does. I call the MTM!

Even when I run a train all day and switch out cars all day, My rails will get dirty. I do have a track cleaning car but it doesn't really do a good job.

Can I ask, what kind of track cleaning car is it? I've seen many kinds, such as electrified ones and ones that are pushed by engines. Thanks.

I usually use Digitrax DH123 decoders with all the new Athearn plug-n-play stuff. Not a big fan of the MRC sound boards and I'm glad they got Soundtraxx on board from now on. Can't wait for the modernized MILW F7s.

The old layout back home in Kansas was a recreation of MRL's Bozeman Pass so that's where I get the BN bug from. Thankfully the basement is all mine here in Lincoln so I get a chance to include some RMD territory.

All my Athearn stuff has NCE D13SRJ decoders. I never bought any Genesis stuff with sound as I haven't heard much good about the MRC sound.

My Tower 55 BNSF ES44DC came with the Digitrax decoder/sound. Bradley has worked on trying to get the ditchlights from flashing..but no luck..

As far as my "era", I try to stick with what I grew up with seeing, so Santa Fe it is. Kodachromes, warbonnets, and freightbonnets fits the bill. At some point, I'm going to strip and paint a UP 40T-2 I bought into my fictional "Texas Southern".



Here's the rough draft of the proposed scheme...