Mocalova Model Works have announced that they will cease operations effective February 29, 2009. All remaining stock will then be transferred to dealers.
Monthly Archives: February 2009
Further Corrections to the Sellers Turntable kit
Just thought you all might like to know that I think I’ve found a way to completely correct the issues with the Sellers Turntable on the yard modules. In our last installment of the saga, I had found that inserting some washers between the white-metal bushing and the bottom of the bridge helped with the rotational issues. Shortly before the February GSMTS show, I refined my method, and added some Teflon-coated tape to the stack, and added two washers and a retaining pin to the bottom. Operation at the show was quite reliable, but I feel it can still be even better!
To that end, I sought out and found some 1/4″ID/3/8″ OD bronze bushings (at Lowe’s, no less!). I’ll insert these into the 3/4″ plywood turntable base, and, provided I can get them installed properly, I should finally be able to get the turntable to work as good as it looks — and even be able to finally install a motorizing system of some sort.
So, two years into the project, and I may finally be happy!
JMRI Operations
Some of you may be familiar with the excellent DecoderPro DCC programmer that is a part of the JMRI project. But, quietly included in the latest stable release (version 2.4) is an applet for generating switching lists. I’ve been working for the past few weeks getting it all set up for operating sessions on Steve Fisher’s On30 Deep Run Railroad, as a replacement for the error-prone, manual, hand-written switching lists we had been using. Yesterday, we ran the first session using the new software. It was an undeniable success, and seemed to be one of the smoothest operating sessions we’ve ever had. And the best news: It’s Free!
Here’s an example of a switching list (called a train manifest in JMRI operations) generated by the program:
Deep Run Railroad Manifest for train (WB1) Westbound 1 Valid Fri Feb 20 21:33:19 EST 2009
[ ] Engine DRRR 55 (Forney) assigned to this train Pickup engine(s) at Chestertown, Loco Facility
Scheduled work in Chestertown, departure time 07:30 [ ] Pickup DRRR 42 Boxcar 25' ----- from Track 1 [ ] Pickup DRRR 6 Caboose 20' ----- from MOWCABPASS Train departs Chestertown Westbound with 2 cars, 83 feet, 91 tons
Scheduled work in Still Pond, estimated arrival time 07:34 [ ] Pickup DRRR 34 Gondola 25' ----- from Wharf [ ] Pickup DRRR 44 Boxcar 25' ----- from Bessicks Furniture Train departs Still Pond Westbound with 4 cars, 141 feet, 189 tons
Scheduled work in Kennedyville, estimated arrival time 07:44 [ ] Pickup DRRR 52 Boxcar 25' ----- from Sawmill [ ] Drop DRRR 34 Gondola 25' ----- to Sawmill Train departs Kennedyville Westbound with 4 cars, 141 feet, 189 tons
Scheduled work in Marydale, estimated arrival time 07:54 [ ] Pickup DRRR 132 Stock 25' ----- from Cattle Company [ ] Drop DRRR 42 Boxcar 25' ----- to Cattle Company [ ] Drop DRRR 52 Boxcar 25' ----- to Slaughter House Train departs Marydale Westbound with 3 cars, 112 feet, 140 tons
Scheduled work in Chestertown, estimated arrival time 08:07 [ ] Drop DRRR 132 Stock 25' ----- to Track 1 [ ] Drop DRRR 44 Boxcar 25' ----- to Track 2 [ ] Drop DRRR 6 Caboose 20' ----- to MOWCABPASS [ ] Drop engine(s) to Loco Facility Train terminates in Chestertown
In addition to the switching lists, reports can be generated for each town on the railroad, so that station masters and yard masters can easily determine their work for the session.
Car movement is pseudo-random, meaning that while the car requests are not based on “demand” and load/unload times, industries can be restricted to receiving only appropriate car types. Additionally, restrictions may be set such that an industry only gets served by trains traveling in a specified direction, thus eliminating facing point switching when a run-around track is not available nearby.
I did find what was seemingly a minor bug in the software, which is already being addressed by the developers (one of the huge advantages of open-source programs), and we found a few tweaks we need to make to the operations. Once those are done, I expect operations to be even better and more fun!
On30 Freight Car Trucks and Coupler Selection
I received an interesting question via the site today from Tom Rose:
I am learning about the differences in coupler height on the different Bachmann issue freight trucks. It seems like I can easily buy the center height shank coupler, but how about the shank even with the top of the coupler? Does Bachmann sell these too? What is the number of this coupler? Are the EZ-Mate HO Couplers really the same size as the On30 couplers? Thanks much!
The short answer to your first question is that Kadee, Bachmann and McHenry all make “drop-in” couplers with center-shank, over-shank (shank even with the top) and under-shank (shank even with the bottom).
For your second question, Bachmann uses the same couplers for On30 as they do for HO. So, the Kadee, Bachmann and McHenry HO couplers will work fine.
Now, it gets knotty. Bachmann has made On30 trucks and underframes in two heights — the original “high” riding cars, and the newer “low” riding cars. Bachmann supplies the appropriate couplers with the cars so that the height will be consistent across their product line. This coupler height coincides with the NMRA-standard HO standard gauge coupler height. This, traditionally, has been the height that most On30 modelers have used, even before the Bachmann products came on the market.
Some modelers feel that this coupler height is too low, especially if they’re trying to represent 3-foot prototypes using On30. Other modelers feel that they would prefer to use On3 couplers, as they are supposedly more appropriately sized, and mount them at the correct On3 coupler height.
So, Tom, I hope that I’ve answered your questions!
The New Arrival
John, the train pusher, dropped off my OF 4-4-0 at lunchtime today. What a thing of beauty! It shipped with the straight stack installed, and, while I had originally planned to put the balloon stack on, I think now that it will have a better “family” look to the Forneys with the straight stack. I’m also going to keep the more modern disc wheels on the pony truck and the “switcher” pilot. Again, more of a familial look to match my other locos.
Bachmann have made some definite improvements in other areas of this model. The tender truck pickups look as if they’ll actually work, there’s an actually floating foot-plate and the two cables between the tender and loco get neatly concealed in a snap-in firebox cover. The tender floor is pre-cut for a speaker and, according to the drawing, the grill can actually be removed to leave a big, gaping hole in the bottom, which will leave much more room for speaker excursion if a flat speaker is used.
Unfortunately, this model doesn’t have sound installed, so I’ll need to put another one of those wonderful Soundtraxx Tsunami sound decoder on my shopping list…