When running trains with sound decoders, do you ever run with sound turned off or turned down to very low levels?

What about the bell, the horn or whistle and railroad crossings? Any specific rules?

Some layouts turn the sound so far down you need to be next to the engine to hear it.

Have you ever run on a layout with so many sound locos going that you need to speak louder or even yell to be heard during operations?

I had a discussion with Damon at The Credit Valley Railroad Company, our local Railroad shop in the suburbs in the Toronto, Canada area and the dwindling amount of shops here, about Matchbox cars. Damon, btw works at the 'LIttle Canada' exhibit..a saving grace in the amount of the fallen flags of the Bricks and Mortar shops in Toronto. 

Continuing on today with more wiring of the Shippensburg Yard entrance. This is also the interchange from off layout staging into the Shippensburg Classification Yard, it is also the yard lead entrance from Harrisburg.

Southern Pacific Commute

With no firm date yet for closing on the new house, as the current occupants still have not found a new place, I was fighting a bit of depression as I saw my 2 years of work on the JAM end up in a pile of junk. But then inspiration hit me. I could take 2 of the modules used on JAM and bolt them together and build a temporary switching layout that would keep me occupied and away from Farm Sim 2019.

I was ask to share so I will this is how I go about building a prototype building. But all the video will be just short 10 to 15 minutes. So this is a first look at the UP freight house in Denver. About a 10 minutes long this is not the only way just how I go about it.

Mike

Old AHM steam engine(2-8-8-4) stops going from 1 block to the next. Works great within a block. Other engines work fine crossing blocks.  Both MRC packs are postured correctly for continuous movement.

I picked up a couple of On30 steam engines at a train show.  They both have factory DCC and sound.  What system optimizes their operation best?