Response to ‘Name Change’ Letter

I would like to respond to the letter, “A Name Change Needed?” in the November issue. I also am a senior on very limited income. We have no other income than our Social Security, and it isn’t much. I was a “blue collar” worker who, because of physical difficulties, was forced into an early retirement for which I was not financially prepared.

My initial response is that I must say I enjoy the publication very much. In fact my wife just renewed my subscription for another year.

Secondly, it is true that one cannot get into the hobby very “cheaply” any more. But then if one wanted “cheap” there’s always the big box stores. One thing I have learned since my retirement and entrance into the hobby is that a lot of research before a purchase will do wonders. For instance, I have a 2 foot by 12 foot N-scale layout that includes almost two scale miles of track. My roster includes one steam engine, two diesel engines, none of which are DCC encoded, and a number of rolling stock. With the exception of a couple of the buildings that are in kit form, all the rest, more than two dozen, are inexpensive porcelain buildings that Department 56 put out as Christmas tree decorations. They are a perfect fit for N scale, and when repainted, in my opinion, they look even pricier than any of the kits. Plus they have the added attraction of being lighted.

Yep, you can spend tens, hundreds, or even thousands of dollars, but in the final analysis, like everything else in life, what you put into it is what you’ll get out of it.

Don Courliss
Jonesborough, TN

Thanks Don. Your point about research is very well taken. Part of the reason why we give such extensive profiles in the history of any given prototype is to help the purchaser with this research into suitability. At the end of the day, it isn’t how much you spend; it’s how much you enjoy. — Ed.

Trix Big Boy Problem

I have been searching the web and I even wrote to Marklin and got no response. Here is the problem. The rear wheels on the Trix Big Boy tender do not turn because they do not touch the rail. Did Trix do this for a reason or is this a problem with the tender? I can’t find anyone to answer me on this. Can you help? 

Douglas Ganske
St. Paul, MN

Hi Douglas, I have two Trix Big Boys here, and neither one exhibits this problem. Then I played around a bit. The front, two-axle truck is spring-loaded for flexibility and pressing down on the tender above the front truck causes the truck to depress. When that happens, the rear axle of the “centipede” then lifts up a little. However, when I turn loose, it presses back down. I tried both locomotives running light and in reverse and couldn’t get them to raise that rear axle. Under a load, it presses down really well. I would try applying a small amount of light oil into the bolster king pin of the front truck on the tender and work to make sure it is free and pressing down properly. — Ed.

Hello John, 

Just thought I would write you and tell you what I found with the [problem of the] rear wheel on the tender not touching the rail. I took the axle cover off the tender and saw that the spring that is under the axle was in-fact wrapped around the axle, the top part of it. I called Marklin and told them what I found, and they acted like that was impossible that could happen. Well I told them that’s what I found and it had to have happen during assembly. So they sent me out a new spring, as a matter of fact two new ones. Okay, done here, and thanks for the help.

Douglas Ganske

Good Doug, I love it when a plan comes together. — Ed.

Response to Dallas Gutacker’s Letter (a Turorial on LEDs...)

The letter in the October 2005 RPO Car from Dallas Gutacker contains what appears to me to be technical errors, misleading information, and personal opinions, as well as some things that appeared to me to be correct. I’ll discuss these and offer simple ways of confirming or disproving these statements.

It is not true that most LEDs have only 22 to 33 degrees of “light spread.” LEDs are readily available with virtually any desired “light spread” pattern. It may be true that some people may only be aware of lens-end LEDs, but that’s an opportunity for them to learn new things.

Have a look at the light coming out of a surface mount LED, where the focusing lens is intentionally omitted. Bright light comes out of every surface except the bottom, just as with a typical lamp. The beam pattern of any lamp or LED is determined by the package, not the basic source of photons. Compare an automobile headlight with the bulb in a table lamp. Both [may] use a hot tungsten filament to generate photons, [but] one puts out a highly directional beam, [while] the other puts out quite uniform intensity in all directions except through the base. Both of these light distribution patterns are controlled by the package, not the basic filament shape. The same comparison applies between a typical 3 mm lens-end LED and a typical surface mount LED, where the source of photons is an LED die. The package determines the light distribution pattern.

It is incorrect that LEDs are not very practical for car lighting. One look at a passenger car equipped with a Kato light kit can demonstrate this. As many customers have learned to their delight, Kato’s light kit with its single LED gives fairly uniform illumination through the entire length of the car... far better than light kits using a single lamp in the center of a car.

You would not have to use a reflector or more than one LED to achieve the same result achieved with a single lamp. Several companies achieve this regularly with single LEDs, and also with multiple LEDs. The light distribution from a surface mount LED is essentially the same as that from a lamp. A single surface mount white LED is not directional, and when placed in the center of a car, it gives the same (poor) light distribution as a single incandescent lamp. No reflector is needed. The LED is just as practical or impractical as a lamp for car lighting, and neither approach works as well as the Kato approach using a single LED, in my opinion.

However, for half the current or power that would be required for a single lamp in that car, several LEDs can be distributed along the car’s centerline, emulating the way a prototype car is lighted with multiple sources, and doing far better than a single lamp, in my opinion. There are commercially available passenger car and caboose lighting kits using this approach.

It is technically inaccurate to say that Golden White LEDs do not have proper color rendition. Color rendition is a very complex science, and I sincerely doubt that anyone has quantified it in the model railroad environment. For our purposes, it is probably just a subjective thing. The attendees of a recent Southern Pacific Historical Society Convention evaluated this specifically and expressed their collective opinion. In a survey of these very demanding modelers, 99 out of 100 preferred a Golden White LED’s light color to that from a 3 volt, 40 mA lamp. The other one out of 100 preferred the light from a bluish-white LED. LEDs do offer proper “color rendition,” according to the subjective opinions of many users.

LEDs are readily available with the color perceived to be appropriate for older locomotives and cars. Different LEDs with a slightly less golden tint are readily available for those desiring light with slightly less gold tint but still without the blue tint.

Actually, the “white” LED pioneered by Nachia was not a doped blue LED. It was built around a blue LED die coated with a phosphor mix. The phosphors absorbed the blue photons and re-emitted in many other colors to yield white light. There was an excellent article on this several years ago in Scientific American. I believe most “white” LEDs are still made the same way. By the way, the purpose of that orange tint in a Golden White LED is to remove the excess blue light that wasn’t completely absorbed by the phosphors.

There is no “white” center of the spectrum. The term “white” implies that the light is from the entire visible spectrum. It denotes that the light is a mix of many colors from all parts of the visible spectrum, resulting in something our eye perceives as “white.” The center of the visible spectrum is in the yellow and green region. When a light source is the sun or an object heated to several thousand degrees, the broad spectrum of light wavelengths mixed together is what we perceive as “white.”

In it not true that “white” LEDs do not emit red photons. Red photons in the mix is a prerequisite for being called “white” and for appearing “white.” A very popular application for white surface mount LEDs is to replace the lamp from a Tomar HO-scale marker light. These marker lights typically come with four colored lenses illuminated by a light source in the center. The lenses are typically red and yellow, or red and green. Since a white LED has all colors of the visible spectrum, including red (from the far, long wavelength end of the visible spectrum, not the center), and since bright light comes out of every side of the surface mount LED except the bottom (as with the lamp it replaces), all four colored lenses of the marker light are nicely illuminated. This demonstrates that red photons are present.

It is not true that you can’t reduce the light intensity from an LED by reducing its current. This can be [easily] proved by connecting an LED to a power source through a potentiometer and varying the resistance. DCC users prove this every day when they select resistors to put in series with their LEDs to tailor the LED brightness to their personal taste. One advantage of LEDs is that it is so easy to adjust the intensity by adjusting the current.

It is not true that to get reduced intensity in a car lighted with LEDs, you have to reduce the number of LEDs or utilize pulse width modulation. Reducing that light intensity is [easy] — just reduce the current.

It is not true that the forward voltage across an LED is primarily determined by the current. Actually, most of the voltage across a forward biased LED is that resulting from differences in the Fermi levels on opposite sides of the junction, and that is governed by the materials forming the junction. That’s why the voltage remains somewhat constant for any particular LED color (and other diodes), even when the current is varied widely. This can be confirmed by measuring the forward voltage across an LED as its current is varied through a broad range. It can be seen that one fairly constant component of the voltage is due to the LED’s diode junction, and that component’s amplitude is determined by the LED’s material composition (which also determines the LED’s color). A smaller component of an LED’s forward voltage is dependent on the current and is due to the LED’s internal resistance.

I don’t think anyone believes that lamps are “inadequate.” When they work and have good quality, they can produce very nice effects. They have some shortcomings that can be avoided by using LEDs, but that tends to be an issue of personal opinion. I believe every reasonable person will concede that a properly used LED will outlast a properly used lamp by a tremendous margin, but even that fact may not be perceived as an inadequacy by some users.

One factor that Mr. Gutacker chose not to address but is still a very important consideration is the relative quality of lamps generally available to model railroaders versus the LEDs generally available to model railroaders. As someone who purchased, tested, and used literally tens of thousands of lens-end lamps, I can testify that their overall level of quality was always very poor. This was made worse by the obvious indifference on the part of the bulb manufacturer to improving that quality. Serious problems included dirt and bubbles in the lenses, off-center filaments, and filaments not anywhere near the focal point of the lens. I’ve never seen a single LED with any of these problems. In my opinion, it was the continuing poor quality of lamps and lack of concern for improving their quality that opened the door in model railroading for replacing lamps with LEDs.

In my opinion, Mr. Gutacker is totally correct in his discussion about applying excessive voltage to an LED — it generally will lead to disaster. The same is true when applying excessive voltage to a lamp— there’s no real difference.

Mr. Gutacker is also correct, in my opinion, when he notes that people incorrectly attempt to drive an LED the way they would drive a lamp. As he says, they are opposite in that regard. Specifically, with a lamp, you need a power source that has adequate current capacity and then you control the voltage. With an LED you need a power source that has adequate voltage capacity and then you control the current.

Jim Hinds
Richmond, TX

Hi Jim, and thanks. Whether or not our readers wish to absorb all of this, those that do will be better prepared for dealing with lighting issues. — Ed.

To “Grade Crossing’s” Bill Cawthon:

In regards to your Sep. 05 review on the 1975 Toyota FJ40 Land Cruiser manufactured by Busch, a recent call to Walthers Customer Service advised that J4 Hardtop in ‘05 Catalog is a 1960 with cat. #189-43000, 01, 02. They do not show the ‘75 Toyota in their inventory.

Your review stated Busch began shipping in March ‘05. An e-mail to Busch generated a response that they have not issued a ‘75 FJ40! What gives?

Dan Mehalko
Via e-mail

Hi Dan. What gives is, one error and one not-quite-complete description.

The Walthers listing is in error because the model year they have listed is incorrect. Of course I am sure Walthers used the information they had at the time. The J40 was first offered in 1960 but, based on spotting features like the revised turn signals, ambulance-style rear doors, and the low-mounted windshield wipers, the Busch model is a 1975 Toyota Land Cruiser. Depending on the source of your information, it could also be a 1976, but by either 1976 or 1977, Toyota changed the mounting system for the spare tire to a tubular assembly that is not present on the Busch model.

Busch is technically correct when they describe the model as a J4. However, “J4” was the name of the entire series which covered fifteen different models including both long and short wheelbase versions as well as a pickup and chassis-cab.

The specific vehicle in that range that matches the Busch No. 43000 is the J40. There are two major variants of the J40: the FJ40 and the BJ40. The FJ40 for 1975 came with the 4.2-liter Toyota 2F gasoline engine introduced in 1974. The BJ40 also made its debut in 1974. It had the same body style as a FJ40 but had a 3-liter B-series diesel engine built by Hino. The BJ40 was never officially exported to the United States though they were sold in Canada starting in 1978. However, models after 1976 have been eliminated by the old-style spare tire mount. This means that for North American modelers, the Busch model could only represent the FJ40.

To me, the final deciding factor was Busch’s description of the model which includes a reference to Land Cruiser priced with a gasoline engine.

Whatever you call it, it’s one of my favorite Busch models. — Bill

Sorting Out the Camaros

While reading the July 2005 issue of Model Railroad News I was excited to find Bill Cawthon’s review of Model Power’s 1969 Chevy Camaro on page 36. I can tell you that for under $4 each, the models are fantastic, detailed replicas that really look great! It is a great model at a great price. Secondly, Mr. Cawthon states that a Camaro Z-28 was the Pace Car for the 53rd Indy 500 in 1969. This is not accurate. The Pace Car was a specially engineered SS/RS convertible with a 396 cid engine. Chevrolet built 3,675 copies of that car, available as regular production option (RPO) Z-11 not Z-28. Just thought I’d help keep the record straight.

Thanks for a great publication!

Chris Slade
W. Rutland, VT

Dear Chris: You’re absolutely right. I must have been asleep at the switch. The Z-28 didn’t serve as a pace car until 1982.

By the way, only a few percent of the ’69 Z11s and Z10s (a hardtop version of the Pace Car) had the big block 396 engine. The majority of the cars, including most of those at the Brickyard, had 350 CID engines and automatic transmissions.

Thanks for setting the record straight. — Bill

Regarding the UP Legal Issue 

Congratulations and thanks for having both the insight and courage in revealing the corrupt ways of our legal system in the Dec 2005 issue of MRN, with your response to Jim Norton re: Comments on Union Pacific, Dilapidated Freight Service. 

Unfortunately, our corrupt legal system is tearing our country apart with frivolous lawsuits and unbelievable decisions made by the high courts. Many of the problems are created by greed and too many legal mouths to feed. The rates they charge, just for making a phone call, is legal larceny! If the law schools were closed down for 25 years, then we might have the right amount of lawyers. 

Gary Chudzinski
Fremont, OH

Thanks for writing, Gary. We can only do what we do. I write and try to keep this from hiding in the shadows. Others are getting up a legal defense fund for Nils Huxtable. When that is in place and Nils is comfortable that the proceeds will come to him for his legal expenses, I will then publish a story about it and how to make a contribution. In the case of corporate politics, if enough of us vote with our wallets, UP will eventually lose this one. — Ed.