Locos and rolling stock

Montanan's picture

North Coast Limited

The North Coast Limited. Growing up in Montana, we took countless trips from Montana to Chicago on the North Coast Limited. I loved the Lowey paint scheme and wondered how I could have those colors show up on my freelance railroad as I do connect to the Northern Pacific. Years ago I picked up an Athearn Genisis F-7 and some Walthers passenger cars in the Lowey paint scheme and used it as a tourist train from Logan, Mt down to West Yellowstone, MT to take tourist to Yellowstone National park.

What is the paint on a Branchline passenger car?

I have 3 Branchline passenger cars that are painted yellow and gray for Union Pacific. I want to remove the red car name and replace it with a different name. On other models I have successfully removed car numbers with 91% alcohol. I tried it on one of the car sides and the yellow paint around the car name came off beautifully sad and left the car number intact.

Mounting Walthers trucks on a TSP core kit

I have this ex-Southern RPO now retired Amtrak baggage car AMTK 1127 that I built with a Train Station Products core kit and Union Station Products car sides. The walthers trucks aren't a direct fit so I'm looking for ways to mount them. The bolsters on the TSP floor aren't tall enough to support the trucks which have a sort of countersunk mount. What sort of fixes have you guys found for this? Thanks in advance.

MTH - Adding DCC & Sound

I'm thinking of purchasing an MTH GP35 without DCC or sound.  I know the installation of the DCC board is easy.  My question is how hard would it be to install sound in these MTH locos specifically?  Mind you, this is the first time I will be installing sound in any loco.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

scribbelt's picture

Kato Ho Scale Worm Gear Tensioners

Hello, a while back, I had a DCC sound install done in a Ho scale Kato NW2 loco.

Just out of curiosity, I opened up the split frame loco to verify the gear assembly because it was quite noisy and sluggish.

What I noticed is that both worm gear tensioners were missing, I cannot get in touch with the person who installed the DCC.

I searched the web for these replacement parts and they are no where to be found, I even contacted Kato and they do not carry them anymore.

Are these parts essential or vital to the worm gear assembly?

Warflight's picture

Athearn ATH90616

Okay, so, I have an early Proto 2000 BL2 (1989?) that I have running great in DC now (replaced the gears on that one too!) and I am about to attempt to make it DCC. To make life easier on myself, I bought an Athearn ATH90616 PC board, so I can just plug in one of my spare 8 pin decoders, until I can afford to buy a nice sound decoder (probably a Digitrax, because I'm addicted to those things) thus a board, instead of just hard wiring a decoder in.

So the Athearn ATH90616 board came in the mail today, and... no directions!

Squeaking in brand new Athearn Genesis GP9 HO-Scale

I got a brand new Athearn Genesis GP9 Rio Grande Phase II 5913 (G62459), in DC.
I tested it in DC and it worked beautifully.
I converted it to DCC using a Tsunami 2, that was no problem, I've done that before many times.

A few days later as I was done weathering it and I put the shell back, I noticed the engine squeaking when I ran it on my test track. I isolated the squeaking issue to be in the motor/flywheel assembly, here's a video showing it clearly:

First attempt at weathering

This is my first attempt at freight car weathering. I mainly used Mike Confalone's methods with almost all Pan Pastels. The roof was done with oil paint. The car had a much more faded look but hitting it with Dullcote darkened the pastels a lot. In prototype photos these cars typically don't look so dirty but with the Dullcote problem I decided to break from the prototype. I still think it came out alright. And a few lessons learned for the future.

Before:

TomJohnson's picture

Gyra light won't flash on my IM GP10

Need some help.  I was programming my Intermountain GP10 and went through the process of dimming the lights because I felt they were too bright.  I couldn't find any clear instructuons in the LokSound manual (at least for me) in what CV's Dim the headlight, number boards, nose frog eye light, gyra light, and marker lights.  Ok, I managed to get the rear headlight and nose frog eye light dimmed.  I also got the number boards dimmed.  I couldn't figure out how to dim the marker lights and now the gyra light won't flash.

GregW66's picture

Rapido/ESU LokSound decoder in a Proto 1000 RDC

I've just completed an install of a Rapido/ESU decoder in a Proto 1000 RDC. Link to my full write up with pictures and video

https://gregstrainyard.com/2017/11/11/proto-1000-rdc-rapido-esu-loksound...

GregW66


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