GP9u

"Now come on we need his head to turn with the direction of travel..." You mean like this? Remote Conductor's or Brakeman's view riding cars on my O scale short line. To be fair there's no scale figure hanging on the side of the car, just a camera and servo. But on the other hand you can play his role from anywhere on the planet. Pete

LOL Jason! Not sure what that makes me then, as your Ow5 disciple for almost 25 years... I'd bet you have more than a few gears or axle/wheel sets in your treasure trove. But if not, I must have a set somewhere. So if you and Martin get totally stuck, LMK and I'll dig it out and pop it in the post. Might take a while though, knowing Canada Post at the moment. Yes, I hope we can get to another March Meet soon. Pete

OK makes sense! Yes, Jason D. If not, then hopefully someone on here in the UK has a spare. Otherwise I think P&D used the same type, Jason D will know. Hopefully they have some stock left. Pete

Good to hear it runs well. You probably don't need a complete truck. If the jerk is once per wheel rev then it's likely a split axle gear - a common problem with these drives. Jason might have some spares. If the jerk is regular but more frequent it's more likely a split chain sprocket. Also try Jason. Pete

That chart bears out my experience. I wire the motors in series which roughly halves the current draw. I make sure my locos always get to wheel slip before stalling. FWIW I've never seen more than 1A per loco on my RRAmpmeters in use when wired in series. But as noted prior, I have no grades and only need to pull max 15 x 1lb cars per loco. l prefer to take the risk with "HO-sized-and current-rated" decoders because I want to cram the largest possible Tang Band speakers in the shell. But that's just me. Fortunately I've never had an LS Select or 5DCC HO-sized decoder fail in use with my Atlas dual motor drives. I suspect there's no such thing as too much decoder current capacity, so it's horses for courses and each to his/her own! Onward! Pete

Although not what seems to have happened this time, driving into the side of moving trains at grade crossings is more common in these days of universal distraction. Hence the addition of vertical yellow reflective decal stripes spaced out along the sides of tanks cars and some other freight cars. Pete

I used to use those NCE D408SRs with Soundtraxx DSX piggybacked before I went to Loksound a few years back. That NCE plug had 2 x Blue +ve, the white F0F, yellow F0R and green Aux 1. I think purple for Aux 2, and then maybe brown and some stripey ones for the higher Aux output -ves. Anyhoo, you're on the right track now... Pete

Quick update: Looks like Zimo MX 699 series does support F0F and F0R but it's called HLf and HLr. So if you connect the white wire that powers the front headlights to HLf and the yellow that powers the rear to HLr , you should get directional headlights that can also be turned on and off together with F0. Caveats: The F and R might be the other way around if your loco was set up to run long hood forward. The directional effect depends on Zimo Function settings. Pete

That's good you found the Blue wire is the +ve for Function/Aux outputs. That's NMRA spec at least. Now I think you have 2 sets of variables: Physical: What each of the other wires on that plug are connected to in the loco Logical: How the Zimo Function/Aux output effects and Function Map are set up (not sure what Zimo calls them) For 1, you could solve by connecting the Blue wire to the +ve Function terminal. Than you could try each of the other wires on the plug one by one connected to the Zimo F1 terminal, see if any other lights come on in the loco when you turn on F1, and note that. Once you know what they all do, you can choose to have any or all of them work on various Function outputs from the decoder. For 2, the convention for NA Diesel sound files among most decoder manufacturers for headlight is: F0F = White wire = front headlight F0R = Yellow wire = rear headlight Then with F0 on, the F&R headlights would be directional by default, but that can be changed in the decoder Function map of course. Maybe your loco was set to run long hood forward, so white is the front? Usually F1 is assigned to bell (latching), and F2 to horn (momentary) by default. But it seems Zimo has F1 mapped to a Function/Aux output so maybe they don't follow that F0F and F0R convention. Would you be able to share the default (or current settings) for the Zimo Function/Aux output effects and Function map table? That should make it a bit easier get it set up how you want once you know what each of the plug wires are connected to. Pete

Great comments in this thread! A couple of thoughts based on my experiences with the Atlas dual-motor drive: I have ended up removing the Atlas board completely and starting over. I have had no issues running HO LS Select and now LS5 DCC decoders with the motors wired in series. But my layout has no grades and I only need to pull 15 x 1lb cars max per loco. You can use the Nix Trains Decoder Buddy as the Prof said with HO-sized 21-pin decoders in this case. With the motors wired in series series you will get lower power consumption, smoother running but slower overall speeds. But if one motor's truck loses traction it will spin up taking all the power and the loco will stop. if you have grades on your layout or need to pull longer trains then you would likely be better off leaving the motors wired in parallel. You will get more pulling power and a higher speed range, and if one motor's truck loses traction it won't stop the loco. But if you go this route I would got for a higher-current rating decoder such as the Loksound 5 DCC "L" to be safe. One issue you might have with the Atlas dual motor drive is starting off and very slow running. If there's a slight mismatch between the motors, the decoder may not be able to smooth them out perfectly at low speeds. Unfortunately the Atlas motors are low quality and have a lot of end float, plus there's quite a lot of backlash in the drivetrain gears. Here's a video of an Atlas dual-motor drive wired in series, speed matched and consisted with (but not coupled to) a single coreless motor drive for comparison. Both have LS5 DCC decoders. You'll see that the dual motor drive isn't as smooth first of all but cleans up after about speed step 3. Not too bad! Pete

And (not quite on topic but I can't help it) here's an ex-CP gon now apparently owned by a US media mogul's little-known short line that I found at Leaside, Toronto in 1999:

Here's a slightly customized version of that warning that caught my eye at ONR North Bay in 2001. Has a little more impact

Liam, you're going to have a lot of fun with this, no matter which scale you choose! I'm biased as you'll see, but I have to throw my hat in the ring for O scale 2-rail as a consideration. I've found there's a decent amount of modern-era equipment to be had new and used. I chose to model a freelance short line to allow more flexibility with my favourite Diesels. DCC and sound make for a decent experience of up-close switching action if that's of interest. Here's a quick clip to give you a sense of the up-close experience in O scale (turn up your sub-woofer)! https://youtu.be/PKpRUME7lJM Budget-wise, used O scale locos and cars can cost about as much as new HO equipment, and you won't need as much equipment. Check out my YouTube channel for more O scale action. Everything you see here goes around 36" radius curves and switches. https://www.youtube.com/user/GP9um/videos None of the large industries on my layout are over 10 real feet long, or 2 ft deep. With up to 8 designated spots per industry, each can take an hour to switch with a 2-man crew (local or remote). A couple of those industries and a 2 or 3-track yard or interchange and you'd easily have 2-hour operating sessions. Plus you'd only need 3-4 locos and maybe 30-40 cars to make each session a bit different switching-wise. O scale track and switches are available new and used, and again you won't need as much as you would in HO or N. Hopefully food for thought at least... Pete

I think this will be a lot of fun to operate! Might a diamond be an alternative to the switchback? I think you could keep it all to the right of the "B" section joint. Diamonds can impart a bit of a North American Railroad-y feel imho. Pete

The biggest difference I noticed about real-world weathering when I moved to Canada is the amount of paint fading of RR equipment. Second biggest is graffiti. And as you go south into the US, the fading and graffiti increase. We're about on the same Latitude as Nice and Florence here in Southern Ontario so you can really feel the sun on your face even at -35C in February. And paint reacts accordingly. CP Action Red that's still on the odd SD40-2 today gets called "Action Salmon" now by some because of the chalky faded look. As well Corporate Identity and branding don't seem to matter as much to railways here livery-wise. There's more rust on older equipment I think partly because the paint fades, wears and peels off more quickly. In the roller-bearing era, there's not as much oil and grease evident, but I'm sure there was a lot more prior to that, even worse in the steam era no doubt. Pete