benshell

I agree, Kevin (with the free locos part especially!). Being at shows is important. It tells us that the manufacturer is still in business and still cares enough the hobby (or at least their bottom line) to try and increase sales. As it is, I've been much accepted the opposite: most manufacturers are only barely still in business, and have no ambitions beyond survival. At my local garden railway club clinics there has been a lot of interest when I show up with DCC equipment and QSI-equipped locomotives with great sound. Most garden railroaders don't seem to know about many of the choices out there. I know what QSI's profit margin is, but if they were there in person demo'ing and selling Titans (perhaps even customizing them for people), I'll bet they'd sell enough to pay for the trip. I know I'd buy a couple more. And that doesn't even consider the long term gains from increased brand awareness. But yeah, first they need to work on customer support, and keeping their product in stock.

Chuck, The NGRCs generally have public admission to the vendor hall on the weekend. Why haven't you attended? I've found some incredible deals at NGRCs! And it's fun to tour all the railroads too. At the 2016 convention in California there will be a special event at Accucraft, including a tour of their warehouse and a promise of some surprises.

Hi Chuck, The last two conventions I went to were 2010 in Washington, and 2011 in Kansas City. I know that USA Trains was missing from both. I remember they had a large booth at the 2003 convention in Sacramento, but somewhere in there they just stopped going to conventions. I think the ECLSTS and the Big Train Show are the only two they still attend. I agree this is very disappointing. QSI has not been to a NGRC, as far as I know. In 2010 there was another vendor promoting QSI (I can't remember who), but it wasn't QSIndustries or QSI Solutions. I don't remember seeing NCE, MLS, or LSC at a NGRC either. RLD wasn't there in 2010, but was in 2011, and I helped make it worth it for them! I'm surprised and disappointed they won't be there this year.

Hi Don, while I'm sure you have a nice product, if it doesn't have built-in sound it's not comparable to a QSI decoder. That's the real value of QSI (and Zimo, etc). Your product (as with Airwire and others) would have to be paired with Phoenix to get decent sound, correct? I've had my share of frustrations with QSI Solutions (I wish Josh would prioritize customer server over new product development!) but I remain a customer because in my opinion the sound quality is much better than anything else on the market. Phoenix is good too, but doesn't vary under actual load like integrated sound/motor decoders. And Zimo is full of features, but from what I've heard the US sound samples can't compare to QSI. The only product availability issue I'm aware of with QSI right now is the G-Wire receivers, for those who run Airwire/Gwire rather than traditional DCC. I also hope they get these back on the market soon.

It definitely sounds like not enough power and it's shutting down via it's internal circuit breaker. You'll be happy with the NCE 10amp booster. One word of caution though: it doesn't have a built-in circuit breaker, so it will produce more than 10amps if there's a short, so you should strongly consider adding a circuit breaker, and testing it regularly. You want to know that when there's a derailment or foreign object on the track that nothing gets fried!

Hi Rick, It sounds very likely to me that you're exceeding the capacity of your DCC booster. In theory you should easily be able to put two engines on the track with 5 amps, but the Digitrax boosters are known to be unpowered. I don't have personal experience with them, but from what I've heard you may only get 5 amps at low voltages, and I'm not sure if that's even continuous or not. Is there some sort of circuit breaker light or sound to indicate this? Another possibility: how long are your wires from the booster to the track? And how thick are your wires? Again, I would imagine they are short as you're just testing this, but I once had a problem with inductance interfering with the DCC signal when I had just finished my track and very long cable runs (over 100 ft, with 10 gauge wire). One engine would still run, but put on two and they'd both stop. The additional current draw increased the problem with the inductance, and further deteriorated the DCC signal. I still have some long runs, but I now twist the wires to provide some shielding.

I don't think a carrier is necessary. I have three carry boxes for traveling to shows (two homebuilt) though. And I have an enormous shelf cart I can use to bring like half my collection out to the yard all at once. However I built it too big so I use it maybe twice a year. A small cart holding about 10 cars would be the most useful. I think it's easy to be really careful carrying your prized locomotives out, but on the 10th car you carry out it's easy to start getting careless. That said, I've heard of people dropping nice engines, so if you would feel safer having a carrier then definitely get one. There's a local club member named Earl Martin who makes a nice carry tote which all the live steamers around here seem to love. I think he has a Garden Railways magazine ad for it, unless that's a similar competing product!

Looks like a great start! I use Noalox on my rail joiners, but honestly I have no idea if it does anything useful. The first track I put down in 2011 still works just fine without it. The only place I've ever had electrical problems is with switches. Just make sure to use similar metals (brass rail with brass joiners, stainless rail with stainless joiners).

I'd forgotten about this, but the Meanwell power supplies don't come with an AC wall plug. I was able to buy one locally from Fry's Electronics. One side is a typical 3-prong plug, and the other is three bare wires you hook up to the screw terminals on the power supply. You'll also need some wire to hook the power supply to the Train Engineer. The heavier the wire the better of course. For short distances on my workbench I use 18 ga. For running out to my layout I use 10 ga, 12 ga, and 14 ga depending on the length of the run (and what size wire I have available). I think you should get the Base Station Receiver, because then you can run all your engines right now on DC power through the tracks. You can add receivers into engines if you want to convert to battery power later. It will always be nice to have a way to power the tracks for running new engines though, since DC is still the standard for all new engines from every manufacturer.

By the way, I'm giving a presentation this coming Saturday on power and control systems, as part of the Sacramento Valley Garden Railway Society clinics: http://www.svgrs.org/public-event/march-2015-workshopsclinics This is one of our only public events so you are welcome to come if you can make it... any chance you live nearby?

Many people love the Train Engineer Revolution system. I didn't realize they now have a base station meant for powering your track, rather than putting a receiver in every engine. For powering your track I think this would be a fine choice, as would Bridgewerks who has a reputation for the best DC track power system out there. If you need a DC power supply for the Train Engineer, I really like Mean Well. I have a 750 watt 27 volt supply that powers all three of my 10 amp DCC boosters! For most people I'd recommend 24 volts or 27 volts at more like 250 watts. The voltage output is adjustable, so with the 27 volt I can go from about 22.5 volts to 31 volts. If you are considering battery power, I would personal advise going with an Airwire or Airwire compatible system because there are multiple vendors from which you can buy from, mostly CVP and QSI with Gwire, but also homebuilt (see Garden Railways Magazine from last year). If you go with the Train Engineer you are stuck with them. Their standard is not open, so if they are out of stock (it has happened many times before, for LONG periods of time), or they go out of business, you could be unable to expand your roster without switching to another system.

Bachmann engines have a dummy plug you'd remove to plug in a DCC decoder, if you go that way. Unfortunately there are different standards for DCC plugs, but my Bachmann Peter Witt streetcar (a great alternative to the Aristo-Craft PCC) I think it was a 21-pin plugin. There are a lot of good decoders, with and without sound, from QSI, Zimo, ESU, and others. They aren't cheap though. Figure around $200 per locomotive with sound. As for a DCC system, if you wanted to run a lot of trains at once, or have a lot of room to grow, I'd recommend NCE 10amp or Massoth 12amp. Or if you're good at soldering join MERG and get their 10amp DCC kit for small fraction of the cost (that's what I use). But to get started I'd just recommend hooking them up as-is to a DC power pack. Another good thing about Bachmann is they tend to use very efficient motors, so a power pack meant for HO scale would be fine. I still have an old MRC Tech II from the 90's I occasionally use! An HO scale decoder might even be possible in these engines (saves $$$), but make sure the voltage range is enough for your DCC system and any other DCC engines you might have. I use an HO scale QSI Titan-U in a Bachmann Thomas which is perfect for a tiny engine like that. And my streetcar has a HO scale Zimo unit. Otherwise I have mostly power-hungry engines with 6+ amp large scale decoders, and I run my DCC boosters at about 22 volts.

I have the Bachmann rollers. They work great! I use them for working on DCC locomotives, as well as a live steam engine.

I don't know, but I was thinking the other day about how the next big milestone date for my garden railway will be the 2016 NGRC. That's only 1-1/2 years away, and at the speed every large scale manufacturer seems to move if I want any new equipment in time for this it's going to have to be something already available or nearing release from an existing catalog or announcement. I keep hoping for MTH steam with PS3, and I'm sure they will be here eventually, but I'd better not make any plans around them!

Wow, I hope MTH is watching! It seems to me like the time is right for them to make some money.

Hi, My post http://www.gscaletrainforum.com/index.php?/topic/188-the-saga-of-my-usa-trains-big-boy/is probably one that you've read here. My situation is unique in that I bought the Big Boy "in person" (through a friend) from Charles Ro, and mailed it to myself. So it was up to me, not Charles Ro, to deal with shipping damage and the UPS claim. And my Big Boy came without electronics, so I'm not familiar with the original electronics. However it did come with the original power pickups. I have no yet needed to replace them, but I did have a problem with the tender shorting out. It turned out to be a real mystery, where the problem was hard to find with an ohmmeter and the tender upside down. I did bend some brake shoes to ensure they don't contact the wheels (and I broke one--this pot metal snaps easily so be careful!) and then I didn't have a problem again. I also ended up rewiring it with a different kind of connector between the engine and tender because it was always falling out. However later I realized the tender was leaning forward and derailing where the frame was making contact with the front truck and derailing the tender. I'd forgotten a washer when putting the tender truck back on, but that wasn't enough to balance it properly. Two more washers has helped a lot. Now in retrospect I wonder if this might have been the real reason for the shorts. I use DCC circuit breakers, and fortunately my QSI Titan decoders seem to be pretty resilient to track shorts as well. Apparently that isn't the case with the factory electronics. In any case, I'd still buy one again because it's a beautiful engine that's impressive both running and on display! It's not perfect, but it seems most G-scale engines could use improvements. As for Charles Ro... well, I've had a bit of a falling out with them. In the future I will probably buy USA Trains products only from dealers. And for a die-cast locomotive I will probably pay a premium to buy from my local hoppy shop after carefully inspecting the locomotive. However with a new locomotive purchased directly from them just threaten to call your credit card company if they give you any problems. I doubt it'll be an issue though. My problems, and those of others I've heard about, have been with dealing with parts and service. However is it impressive that they do sell just about every part you can imagine! As for Charles Ro fixing known issues in future releases, my perspective is that they are a company that makes very high quality products. However, they are also a company that seems to deny any problems do exist. It all comes down to the bottom line. If the issue isn't costing them money I wouldn't expect a fix. As for #4014, I'm less confident than Ray about a 3rd re-run, but it's definitely possible, and if UP pulls off their restoration then USA Trains would be crazy not to have their model available for sale. You might have to wait a few years though, as things seem to move very slowly in this hobby. At the very least, I'm sure USA Trains will want to sell out of all existing road numbers first. Hopefully this information helps with your decision, and doesn't discourage you from buying one. It's an incredible locomotive that's bigger than anything else you can buy in large scale, and probably more detailed and more powerful too.

Looks great, I'll take one too! There are also so many trains I regret not buying from the ~2003 to 2007 era; unfortunately those were also the years I was a starving college student. I can only hope MTH will re-release these (and other steam locomotives) someday soon. I know they will be more expensive, but can't be worse than what we're seeing on eBay, and they will have PS3 too which would be a huge advantage for me using DCC.

Wow, incredible work! I look forward to hearing more about your projects!

If I remember correctly they were once selling for under $300 (even $225 on a sale--I was helping someone find one back around 2009), which was a great deal even at the time! I have no idea what they are worth now. I heard a dealer complain about the gearing and having a hard time with slow speed, but I know several people who have them and are quite happy with them. I've seen them run pretty slow.

That's pricey! I want a passenger train though. I keep putting it off, and it keeps getting more expensive AND more difficult to find. I've thought about getting Aristo-Craft heavyweights, but the only factory paint scheme I'm interested in is UP, and they don't seem to making them anymore. If I could find cheap enough used cars I'd like to repaint in SP Olive Green, but with zero experience painting cars I'm definitely not going to touch brand new cars for over $300/each. One of the deals I regret not buying was around 2010 when I had a chance to buy about five heavyweights in bad condition for $150 total. They had broken, missing, or rusty trucks, faded paint, and some broken pieces, but would have been perfect for repainting.

I've become increasingly aware that with any operational steam locomotive you never know when it will operate for the last time. Locomotives break down, tourist railroads go broke, and FRA mandated 15-year rebuilds come due. And you just never know if/when the money and talent will be there to rebuild. So when a locomotive you want to see is running, go see it! You might not have another chance. On the flip side, it is encouraging to see the great work being done by talented people at a variety of tourist railroads and museums.

I'm guessing you've probably seen a Zephyr train running on the Sacramento Valley Garden Railway Society modular tables at Sacramento-area train shows. The owner, Jerry Davis, did an incredible job modifying USA Trains cars to be more prototypical, including a kitbashed observation vista dome car. Unfortunately he died, far too young, just about a year old! I know his family was going to take their time with selling his collection, but if it hasn't already been sold it will probably be up for sale at some point. Are you a member for the SVGRS? If we hear anything I'm sure an ad will be placed in the club newsletter.

Wow, I'm sad to hear about how this. I knew about the sale, but like you I'm more interested in mainline equipment. Bruce actually came early to my first garden railway open house in August 2012 with flyers for his sale, but then left before anyone else got there. I gathered that he was very much done with the hobby.

Oh ok Chuck, I missed that! Thanks for the comparison photo Joe! I agree, this will be close enough for me.

Hi Brent, Sorry I can't help with your inquiry, but I see you're from two locations including "Pig Turd Alley" in Amador City. Did you take over Bruce's "Little Amador Railway"? I thought it was all sold, but I haven't been out there in a few years. Ten years ago I used to go visit regularly!