Peco Catenary

This morning I spent until about Noon getting the photos and posts that I hadn't completed last night finished up. As I'm getting done, Eric Hansmann, MRH's new Editor-at-Large, came over and showed me a photo of some model catenary, saying, "Have have you seen this at the Peco booth?"

I had to admit I hadn't when I was there, but it set up the first stop of the afternoon for me. 

I have to admit, a caternary system the effectively consist of soldering three pieces together to make one segment (and two pieces for every segment past the first) is pretty impressive.

The poles and supporting structure are a single part:

 The catenary wire is pre-assembled in it's two-wire suspension structure and is simply soldered to the poles. 

Looks like they simply hooked one wire under the the support and one wire over, and soldered them both together. 

Monroe Models

I was asked to look for new structures, and Monroe Models has structures - and they had a new one, The Union Transfer Co., labeled as "A Backdrop Model Kit." 

Unfortunately he didn't have a built-up one at the show, so all I could shoot was the bag. But $25 for a decent sized laser kit strikes me as quite the bargain! 

Alexander & Stewart....

I think this is a Mark Twain situation - the reports of the death of Alexander Scale Models, and Stewart, have been greatly exaggerated. They had a variety of new products this year. All items are HO scale.

Coaling station:

Haunted House:

B&O interlocking tower:

Lufkin Oil Pump: 

Machine Shop tools:  

Euclid Earth Mover: 

Rslaserkits

This one is from a manufacturer that lives fairly near me - about 10 miles away or so. 

The RS in Rslaserkits is Richard Shepard, if you were interested. 

Scholharie Junction Station - at the junction of the D&H and Middleburgh and Schoharie RR's near what i today Central Bridge, NY: N scale.

Mudville Station (N scale only) (There is no joy in Mudville, mighty Casey has struck out...) 

16 foot rowing pram, N scale:

Okay, that's it for tonight. See you in the morning!

RSLaser Kits

Jeff, that should be Richard Shepard.

Nice!

Glad to see some 19th century stuff in the works!

How the heck...

I'm going to claim (accurately) being tired when I put in Richard's name. I have no idea where Sherman came from, unless it was a Disney moment... Thank you for catching that. 

Structures!!!

Thanks Jeff. I will be adding Monroe to my favorites list and give them a closer look.

Jack

LARC Products

LARC Products means backdrops - He's up to 7 volumes of photos that you can print (the software will split is up across 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper), along with both 2-D and 3-D backdrop building photos and, new for Volume 7, paper containers that you can cut out and fold around a block of wood (or, my suggestion, "stack" on a backdrop to create the container walls seen at some container terminals or container disposal yards). If built as a container, they fit in well cars and add quite a bit of weight to them. 

Only one problem .......

They wouldn’t let me bring a beer into the gym to while I watched the video!  Great time anyway!  Thanks guys!

Nick

Nights - er - Knights of the Round Table

Jeff;

The video was really fun. I could watch more of that if they were produced. What a great representation of the hobby. I also didn’t realize that you had a new editor at large so congrats to Eric but really, his addition to the staff is a boon for the rest of us - especially pre-WWI modelers. 

Great job on coverage as well. Next time you are in Hawai’i there will be steam running on the big island. 1:48 scale, of course. 

Neil -

Sweet! Eric is now an editor-at-large, but the plan is for him to move up into Joe's job as MRH editor so Joe can dedicate himself full-time to TrainMasters TV. 

I'm not sure how often you really want to get that many tired, punch-drunk model railroaders together... once a year seems really good. 

Woodland Scenics

Let's get back to the new product releases. This year, Woodland Scenics was pretty obvious with their new products, for which I thank them - I found about half of them myself! 

Let's start with the Old Windmill:

Which is followed by the new windmill:

And then we have the Rustic Cabin, in 3 scales:

O scale:

N scale:

and HO scale:

The Victorian Cottage, in HO scale:

Humble Home in HO scale:

On the patriotic side, Woodland Scenics got such a positive response to the flagpole that they had with a previous building they decided to create a line of them:

The flags on display - they are permanently folded, and are thin enough material they don't appear to have an out-of-scale thickness -

The flags come in three sizes, small, medium, and large. Which represent different sized flags in different scales of course. If you want a giant flag waving over your Harley Davidson dealership (we have one doing that in Salem, OR), you model N scale and get a large.... (sorry about the blurry small)

Part of Woodland Scenics "Just Plug" line, the Large Spotlight is one of three Landscape Lights that is being released. The light is in the scenery at the end of the arrow. 

The Small Spotlight is lighting up the sign:
 

Several of the Floodlights are in use here:
 The packaging for all of these is similar, so make sure you are getting the light you want:

Time to pack, and off to bed. See you on Tuesday!

Can you please...

Ask Peco if they plan to make an N Scale catenary? 

Show is over

The show ended at 4pm on Sunday. The Peco reps are probably already on a plane. I'd check their website and if they don't, ask them to - if enough ask it might happen. 

What's Neat this Week #82

If you'd like to see our first podcast of that night.... 

American Z Line

Okay, let's post a few more photos before my life descends into the madness known as my nephew's wedding this weekend... 

American Z Line had two notable items (that they pointed out to me), an announcement of an EMD SW-1500 switch engine (note: the body will be styrene):

The other model was a sample of the RS-3/RSD-5 model:

Dwarvin Enterprises

Dwarvin Enterprises is one of the clinics I went to, and I dropped by their booth at the NTS (Full Disclosure, I now own a Lamplighter 1 and 60 feet or so of fiber). 

The company was started by a guy who wanted nothing to do with grain of wheat bulbs, particularly the need to replace them when they burn out. As for LED's, he acknowledges that Woodland Scenics "Just Plug" system is about as good as it gets, but he thinks it consists of too many expensive parts. 

So his solution was to set up an LED automobile headlight in a box, put a lens in front of it to focus it, and stick 1mm and 1.5mm (there are other sizes that work as well) fibers in front of it:

 Caption: The higher power Lamplighter 2 handles more fibers than the original Lamplighter 1.

So instead of stringing wires up into all your buildings (or cars)(or trees), you string a fiber  instead. Melt the end of a fiber into a lens and it will disperse light over a pretty wide area (easily the inside of an HO scale building). 
Paint the end of the fiber with Tamiya translucent paint and you have a colored light. Anything you don't want to glow, paint it black. 

 Caption: As can be seen from the two dioramas, even in the full light of the expo center, the fiber optics show up quite well. 

For a look at their line of light sources and lamps:  https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/2019-nmra-convention-day-4-clinics-the-arrival-of-mrh-and-regrouping-on-wednesday-12213213

The Lamplighter 1 is smaller than the 2:
 

JL Innovative Design

When I walked up to JL Innovative Design and asked what was new, I was pointed at the HO scale  Rockfish Cafe:

 Caption: While the figures (and vehicles) are not included, the power poles are. 

 I was trying to get a good photo of the inside of the cafe....

 ...and they showed me that the cafe interior was available as a separate detail kit as well.

WifiTrax

There were two separate WiFi command and control vendors at the show. One that I'll have photos of later, LocoFi, is concentrating on Locomotive control. 

WifiTrax, out of Australia, has some layout control features as well - his goal appears to be the elimination of any wires that aren't just carrying current towards the track.   
With this adapter board, you can use WifiTrax directly with your DCC decoder, including sound. And it will take commands from both DCC and WifiTrax (the user is responsible for deconfliction, it's not automatic): 

WifiTrax 9-pin pluggable receiver/decoder: 

Board replacement WifiTrax receiver/decoder: 

Deadrail adapter board:

The Wi-Fi/DCC Interface Booster operates as a 4 Amp DCC booster that gets it's command station signals from the WifiTrax application on a phone, tablet, or computer. So you can still use your DCC equipped locomotives with WifiTrax. The Block Power Controller included detection circuitry and can talk to the light and signal controller (see below):  

The switch controller should work with both twin-coil/solenoid and stall current switch machines. I saw it working with the Atlas switch machines:  

When used in combination with the 4-block power controller (3 photos up), you have a basic block signal system, since the power controller also does block detection:  

Everything is currently controlled via Android or Win10 applications:

Windows 10 controlling accessories (turnouts):
 

Android WifiTrax throttle app (it does not use Engine Driver):

One interesting piece under development basically takes a feed  off your track buss and turns it into the Wifi signal. If this works out the way it is intended to, you would be able to control your WifiTrax equipped locomotives with your normal DCC throttles. 

In effect, your app running on a tablet or phone becomes your command station - you can set up consisting, with speed matching, through the app. Right now the consist would only exist on that device, but they are working on a way to be able to copy configurations like that between devices. 

I also took the gentleman who is the primary designer of all this over to the ESU/LokSound booth and introduced him to Matt and Jurgen, so he could see how he might be able to use the Cab Control II (which has a new version coming out, btw - faster quad core processor, more memory, Android 6), which has a knob, with his system. There is currently no IOS (iPhone) app, but the language he's using to write this all in was designed to be cross-platform. 

Very interesting stuff.  http://www.wifitrax.com/

USA Plastic

USA Plastic ( https://www.usa-plastic.com/) has a remarkable assortment of 3D printed accessories from N through O, including jerry cans (with spouts), bicycle racks, propane tanks (from 20lb to 500 gallon), floor jacks, brooms, pianos... Tesla superchargers... And they're curious about what else you might want. 

Modernize your bank with a free-standing ATM:

Dumpsters come in multiple sizes:

And shapes:

Do your HO scale LPP's need a bike rack (there are two styles)?

 
Or would they prefer to tickle the ivories ( I think my parents owned this piano):

How about a comfy overstuffed chair?

Well, I thought some of this looked  a little large, so I went off and bought a small thing of LPP's (Little Plastic People) and brought one back to compare:

I thought the toilet looked a little on the low side, but possibly it is because it does not have a seat and a lid. I got one to turn into a flowerpot.... 

That "Coleman" cooler would definitely be a two person lift: 

What HO scale backyard or campground would be complete without a firepit? 

LocoFi

The other Wifi locomotive control standard at the National Train Show was LocoFi ( https://www.wifimodelrailroad.com/)

They had their first and second generation receivers on display:

The LocoFi 2 is significantly smaller than the original LocoFi:

The Amrit is a battery system intended to perform the functions of both Stay-Alive and Deadrail systems: 

Jeff: Good Work!

Jeff:

You do good work for all those of us who can't go to every NMRA convention and Train Show.  Thanks.

Maybe...God willing...I'll get to St. Louis next year...only about 250 miles away.

LARC

LARC Products ( http://www.larcproducts.com/) had the new Volume 7 CD available for purchase. The most recent volumes include 2D and 3D backdrop building photos, and Volume 7 includes paper-containers, which actually fit in well cars when wrapped around a block of wood (which contributes significantly to the weight of the car). I noted that you could also paste the containers up along the backdrop as if they were stacked, forming a "container wall." 

With the included software you can print them all out on your own color printer using 8 1/2 x 11 paper. 

I should have bought them all...