Reflection on a TAMR Column

In the Special Interest section of October, page 63, I saw an article by [Steven Goehring] on something that almost passed by me. I was born in a farmhouse three miles out of Addison. I stood by those tracks, about where they ended. It was on upper Farmham St. or South St.

I am a 67-year-old-man who had five heart surgeries and three cancer operations on my brain in 1999. I lived in Addison for about 55 years. Its population is about 2,000. Anybody with enough guts to make a model railroad is interesting enough.

Wayne Tompkins
North Fort Meyers, FL

Thanks, Wayne! — Ed.

On UP’s Fantasy SP Paint Scheme

In the November edition of Trains is an article regarding UP’s Heritage series locomotives (#6). So this is the UP’s representation of the SP, and is supposed to look like a combination of the “Daylight” and “Black Widow” color scheme?

Other than the leader of the design team wasn’t even born during the heyday of these color schemes, their rendition looks more like someone’s bad dream, in color!

I’ll bet the former SP employees at Roseville were overjoyed (NOT!) when they saw it. This is just one more slap on SP’s face by UP’s PR people. Just why they are so determined to obliterate everything SP from the public eye is beyond sensible comprehension.

C.F. “Chuck” Colville
Moses Lake, WA

Hi Chuck. It will be interesting to see which — if any — of these paint jobs will prove to be marketable to model railroaders when they appear on scale models. — Ed.

Big Boys Not the Only Big Locos

Once again, there is a new review of another new HO-scale model of the UP “Big Boy.” How many different concerns now market an HO-scale model of this locomotive? Athearn, PCM, Trix, etc, etc. They’re offered in plastic, in brass, in die-cast, you name it.

And yet, no one offers an (affordable!) HO-scale model of a B&O EM1 2-8-8-4. Why is that? The EM1s were just as favored on their road as the Big Boys were on UP. Some have said that it’s because of the limited number of EM1 units. B&O had 30 EM1s, UP only had 25 Big Boys!

If some manufacturer would produce an HO-scale B&O EM1 of similar quality to the Proto Y3, BLI A, and PCM Y6 and Big Boys, I’d bet that they couldn’t keep them on the shelves in the hobby shops.

Blair C. Marston
Tunnelton, WV

Ahhh, Blair, a man after my heart! I love all things articulated, and I can think of a short list of Articulated Steamers I’d like to see run out in affordable materials. There are about four Yellowstones I’d like to see, including B&O, DM&IR, NP, and SP’s AC9s. There are some other dandies in waiting. How about for small layouts they put out the Denver & Salt Lake 2-6-6-0? Just because Erie only had one 0-8-8-0 Camelback doesn’t mean they couldn’t sell thousands of ‘em as models. I really would like to see the legendary Virginian 2-10-10-2, and both Erie and Virginian had Triplexes that just might sell well. I’ve got nothing at all against Big Boys, but there are so many locomotives and so little time! — Ed.

Model 40 Issues

In your review of the Roundhouse EMC Model 40 loco you stated that the first release in 2004 saw the diodes in the power board mounted backwards. Is this true of all of the models in that release? I think I have that release, Roundhouse item # 00112. How can I tell if my model has that problem? If I do, can I send it back to Roundhouse at this late date? If not, how can this be fixed?

Les Zimmerman
Rockford, IL

Hi Les. When I was researching the Model 40, I stumbled across this on the TCS decoder page. Here’s the URL for that page:

http://www.tcsdcc.com/decoderpics/backwards_critter_diodes_bulleti.htm

As you can see, they show a photograph that illustrates the correct direction for the diodes to run (which the new Athearn release does). Roundhouse no longer exists as a corporate entity, and all questions regarding service and replacement parts would be directed to Athearn in Carson City, California. — Ed.

After Years of Whining…

After years of whining from those yokels on the Atlas forum, we now have Model Railroad News tossing in its two cents about the Union Pacific and licensing. You can’t be serious. Do you really think a company that spends eight BILLION dollars a year on diesel fuel believed that licensing was going to be some “cash cow?” That the world was dying for some UP T-shirts? If they were looking to make money, they wouldn’t have pegged the fee at 3 percent! That’s not licensing, that’s a joke. To put this in perspective, if you want to license a product through Major League Baseball you have to pony up eleven percent, and then give the players association eleven more, for a total of 22 percent. Now that’s licensing! This issue is about one thing, protecting the copyright. The UP owns the proudest and most recognizable logo in railroading. They don’t want it used without their permission, nor do they want it messed with.

As far as the three percent is concerned, they did the hobby a favor. They set the bar low. Coca-Cola would laugh if you offered them three percent for a license. So would Ford, while the legal department at Mattel would go into convulsions if you tried to get a Ferrari license at that rate. The few dollars that the license brings in would have never even paid for the attorneys to service the contract. Speaking of lawyers, the road probably has about a hundred of them on retainer. Three million, if it really is the amount, is a drop in the legal budget.

I am never tired of the arrogance of people in our hobby. The belief that we pressured them into giving the money to its historic program is laughable. Anyone who has ever stood at a crossing waiting for a chance to see three flawless E9s and a dozen perfect passenger cars go by knows the road’s dedication to its past. At any given UP board meeting, do you really think the subject of maintaining good relations with model railroaders comes up? Ever? Puh-leeeeze! They have other things on their mind, like running the biggest railroad in the world! And do you think any of the road’s customers are going to switch to BNSF because they haven’t licensed... yet? Get a grip.

The demand for equipment painted in Armour yellow and Harbor Mist gray is never ending. Kato knows this and was quick to make peace. As much as we would like to believe we do, our hobby has no influence over the railroads. Can we finally put this to an end? As interesting as Mr. Sipple’s flights of fancy are, I’d much rather hear about the next run of KATO diesels. The ones in UP livery, of course.

Steve Orlandella
Los Angeles, CA

Thanks for writing, Steve, and yes, I’m serious. A very small part of Union Pacific really wanted to get into licensing while the rest of the railroad was running trains. And yes, those few people really thought it would be a cash cow. I don’t know why they gave up trying to take a profit and instead gave it over to the excursion program, but it’s a fact that they did. If you read elsewhere in this issue, you will find the matter has finally been resolved — in favor of the model railroad industry.

With that in mind, I’d like to propose a few simple things. First, we didn’t just drop our two cents in; we’ve been on this story since the beginning in 2003, because that was what the majority of our readers said they wanted. Second, the issue is generally settled, and I’d like to leave it that way and focus on other issues. Third, the final thing we’ve learned about all this is that no giant entity can plunder the rights of others. UP’s large size is really a small issue, and while this problem was only a grain of sand in their overall scheme of things, it was the grain of sand that caused the most trouble. This isn’t the first time the model railroad industry has fought with railroads over this issue, but perhaps this time will be the last. — Ed.

DCC Questions

I really appreciate you and your magazine taking questions and comments about DCC. I am currently constructing my fourth layout but the first using DCC. I have read various articles about DCC and read Lionel Strang’s book, DCC Made Easy a couple of times. Although most authors attempt to cover all the “angles” of wiring for DCC, every layout is unique and has its own distinctive wiring requirements.

Enclosed you will find a layout design and a wiring diagram of my proposed HO layout. It is horseshoe shaped and approximately 16 x 10 feet. I purchased a Digitrax Zephyr. While planning the layout, I came up with some questions that cannot be answered from referencing the books on DCC.

Question 1:

Does the mainline track bus need to be a continuous loop?

Question 2:

Is it okay to use terminal strips for the yard tracks and then wire the terminal strip to the mainline track bus?

Question 3:

Would it be appropriate to create more isolated track sections similar to the old DC block wiring to help locate problems more easily?

Question 4:

Since all the turnouts are Atlas Mark 3 with isolated frogs, is there anything that I need to watch out for when wiring for DCC?

Question 5:

Do I really need to place feeder lines along every three feet of track, especially in the yard sections?

Question 6:

The Digitrax DCS50 has jump ports to add a “Smooth DC Power Pack.” Does this mean that I can add my MRC Tech 1/Locomotion 2500 to use as an additional throttle?

Jim Adoba
Zionsville, IN

Hi Jim, let’s see how much help this might be:

Question 1: I can’t answer that specifically for your layout, but if you’re soldering your rail joiners or using jumpers, I’m not sure you need a track bus with jumpers. In any event, it wouldn’t need to be a continuous loop, so long as you got power to where you needed it.

Question 2: If you aren’t dividing the tracks in the yards into separate switchable blocks, a terminal strip would work, but so would just twisting all the lefts together and soldering them. Then you’d do the same with all the right rails.

Question 3: I’ve often said that if a layout ran well under DC, you should be able to replace the DC with DCC and have that work well, too. Switchable blocks can have their advantages, not only in troubleshooting but also when parking DC locos on the tracks for occasional use. You’ll want to switch off power to where they’re parked when you’re not using them.

Question 4: The Atlas switches, like others on the market, use low-amperage traces under the frog to pass on current. These can get fried in derailments that lead to shorts. This is far more common under the higher voltage and amperage under DCC. If you have problems with switches, I’d suggest soldering jumpers across frogs and such.

Question 5: In truth, I’ve never used feeders, in part because I solder my rail joiners. If I didn’t solder them, I’d put in jumpers. Feeders may solve some problems, but I wouldn’t go that way until I had tried other methods. If you don’t want to solder your joiners or put in jumpers across rail joints, then I’d use feeders on every single section of track. Unsoldered or unjumpered joints simply are not reliable over time.

Question 6: The jump ports allow additional throttles of the older DC type to actually run trains. They won’t have function buttons and they do need to have fairly clean power. The track power “biases” the jump ports which then regulate speed orders for the loco assigned to that jump port. I’m not sure I’ve ever tried it with that particular power pack. If operation gets flaky, it might be due to the power pack having AC power deliberately leaked into the DC to enhance low speed DC operation. Good luck, — Ed.