BLMA

 We interviewed Craig Martyn, owner of BLMA, and got the rundown on his new railcar announcement - A Norfolk Southern TopGon in both N and HO scale. The model will come with quality knuckle couplers and the proper 100-ton trucks. Craig also showed us his other new items, including an N scale and HO scale truss bridge. Unfortunately, the N scale bridge is already sold out, but the HO scale bridge will be available soon. If you're an HO scale modeler and you want this beautiful bridge, don't delay or you may miss out!

One question, though, how does Craig get all those cute girls to work for him in his booth? (Click image above to enlarge.) Watch the video to learn the answer (video coming soon in MRH theater)!

Rapido

 Rapido's fantastic HO Turbo Train was their first model, and their line also includes many smoothside HO passenger cars. They announced more new cars at the convention, which includes a baggage express car and a new steam generator unit. The other big news is that Rapdio's entering the N scale market! They're doing a lightweight coach and a duplex sleeper. Rapido's cars have incredible underfame detail - and we learned the secret to how the owner is able to get such great detail. (Click image on left to enlarge.)

If you haven't seen it, Rapido is also doing "totally wired" telegraph poles - 12 poles, already wired with elastic wires - shipping soon!
 

Walthers

 Passenger cars seem to be the hobby trend lately, and we found Walthers to be no exception. Walthers plans to release many exciting new passenger cars in the coming months. Their plated stainless steel Amtrak cars look nothing short of stunning. Walthers is also releasing the two remaining cars in the Milwaukee Road Hiawatha series: the skytop lounge and the superdome - as well as a planned offering of the Hiawatha cars in UP yellow and gray.

Walthers has recently released H1044 - no sound or DCC in this release - the DCC H1044 units will be coming from Walthers by the end of the year.

Walthers showed us their big centerpiece announcement: their new Railshop theme series, which includes a very nice fully motorized transfer table. (Click image above to enlarge.)
 

Marklin

 Marklin showed us many of their new products at this show: a handsome 1910 Bauden Pacific with crisp detailing and a clear unobstructed view under the boiler just like the real thing - very nice! Markin will be releasing German Reingold Express passenger cars to go with this new loco. Marklin also has their new 01 Pacific Steam loco (from about 1920) on display in their booth - another new release for them.

They're also doing modern Swiss Express passenger cars, a new red Swiss electric RE44 Series 1, as well as a red Swiss electric switcher class E3/3.

They've brought back their steel mill slag cars in different painting and lettering. Marklin commented that many American modelers who are into modeling steel operations purchase these slag cars, cut off the bumpers, kitbash them a bit and make them look like American slag cars. (Click image at left to enlarge.)

Markin has many other new releases as well - watch for the forthcoming Train Show interview with Marklin in MRH Theater for all the details.
 

TCS (Train Control Systems)

 TCS has incorporated back EMF into their entire product line - which is something they've been endeavering to do over the last year. Back EMF provides excellent slow speed control. They demonstrated some N scale locos for us, and I have to say I'm very impressed by the slow speed performance of these TCS decoders. (Click image at left to enlarge.)

TCS said customer feedback on their new back EMF enhancement indicates TCS has hit one out of the park with the BEMF - it's the best performing BEMF many customers have ever seen in a DCC decoder. (I have to agree - I have several TCS decoders with BEMF and their slow-speed performance is quite nice.)

TCS recently began releasing new drop in circuit card replacements for N scale locos, making it easy to equip N scale locos with DCC. No need to mill the frame to make room for a decoder. Just replace the card in the loco - in older "classic N" locos, the decoder comes as two pieces, so the install requires some simple soldering and you do have to isolate the motor - TCS calls it their "semi-drop-in" decoder.

TCS plans to release some large scale loco decoders soon - and you heard it here first: TCS hopes to release their own DCC system by next summer!
 

CVP (makers of EasyDCC)

 CVP's big news this year: ZoneMaster boosters! CVP offers many new ZoneMaster booster configurations - a single zone 7 amp booster, a continuous 7 amps booster with auto reverse, and a dual zone 7 amp booster also with auto reverse built in. (Click image at the left to enlarge.)

The line needs no jumper setting or other complex configuration and it includes 30 amps of surge current to deal effectively with the current hungry sound loco problem. The line has adustable trip currents, an audio tone in the event of a short - and on the multi-zone models, the audio tone varies so you can tell which zone has shut down just by ear.

CVP has introduced another DCC layout power-side product: the Zone Share, allowing you to subdivide a given zone into 4 subzones. Each zone has its own audio tone when a short occurs, and the zone share also includes auto reverse management for reversing loops.

Watch for this interview to be posted on MRH Theater to get the full details.
 

Display layouts from Z to #1 Gauge

 We have at least an hour of video footage taken of the many layouts on display at the National Train Show. The layouts cover the gamut: Z from suitcase size to massive, N scale, HO scale, S scale, O scale both scale and tinplate, and some massive #1 gauge trains running on a modular display layout.

I found the #1 gauge trains (1:32 - 600% larger than N, 300% larger than HO, and 150% larger than O) to be especially fascinating - their sheer size gives you a sense of heft and mass you just don't get in any of the other scales! (Click image to the left to enlarge.)

Keep an eye on the MRH Theater section for this exlusive free video footage!
 

Thanks for reading this "live" at the NMRA Convention report!

I flew home Saturday night with over 4 hours of video footage from the Train Show alone to edit, not to mention having about 10 hours of other convention and clinic footage to edit.

Over the next 2-3 weeks, I expect to be be editing this footage down into perhaps 8 hours of video you can watch in MRH Theater. We appreciate your support and encouraging words with this effort as we try to bring you the best in model railroading information via the internet.