cooley_boy

I have been modelling Modern US railroads for many years now mainly focusing around where I grew up in Southern California. My Grandparents live just down the road from the massive Union Pacific Colton Yard, BNSF San Bernadino Yards and so have had this imprinted on me from very young. Over time though, I have moved my interest up to the state of Oregon when my moms side of the family is located. Up in Oregon the Railroads have to deal with heavy snow and some of the steepest grades in the country and go through some of the most spectacular wooded scenery in the USA. The state is mainly served by Union Pacific with some action from BNSF and other small railroads with lots of Lumber produced in the state and Intermodals running from LA to Portland, OR and Seattle, WA. The question is what to model..... There so many areas that would make great subjects to recreate in model form. 1- Cascade Summit (Brookland Sub Division) 2- Columbia River Gorge (Portland Sub Division) 3- Blue Mountain Pass 4- Willamette Valley (Brookland Sub Division) For the longest time though I have looked at all 4 locations which is no help what so ever. For the purpose of this I will start by looking at the rolling stock and the work being done there. I will also look at each of the locations individually with the positives and negatives.

So here we go. For a while now I have been wanting to build a layout and have so far built 3 layouts which have since either been sold or dismantled into other projects. In previous layouts I have been a bit free lance in my design moving into a layout based off a location but not true to prototype. So now I am looking at modelling a location as true to prototype as possible space willing. In doing so the search was on for a layout that can be used for both 1960 operations and current day which narrows the field down a bit but the challenge was to find a place that has not really changed much since the 60s so anything near a city was more-or-less out. I therefore moved into the country side and into the LMS region which is where I personally think the best trains were made (ducks for cover) and where some of the most gruelling and dramatic scenery is located. This is certainly true of the S & C but this have been modelled to death and wanting to look into an area where not much has been done in recent years I looked into the West Coast Mainline between Preston and Carlisle. Here we have 2 major Climbs being Grayrigg and Shap both of which are gruelling grades which in steam days required helpers which would be a very neat thing to replicate in operation which with DCC will be very easy to achieve. I have settled on Shap for no real reason other than for several reasons: 1- Shap is more open in its landscape and will be in my opinion be more dramatic to recreate. 2- I have spent time around the Shap incline and know it better. 3- Shap has less of a range of traffic than Grayrigg due to all the Stainmore traffic turning east at Tebay which means there will be less traffic to cover than Grayrigg which from a budget perspective is always a good thing. Having said that last point though there is still a huge amount of traffic on this line: 1960's Highlights: The Royal Scot The Mid-day Scot The Night Scot The Caledonian The Lakes Express All Freight Traffic Duchess's Princess's Britannia's Royal Scots Black Fives 8Fs 9Fs ETC Current Day Highlights: The Caledonian Sleeper Tesco Train Virgin Pendalino's Virgin Super Voyagers All Container Traffic All Engineering Traffic Colas Timber Traffic Flyash Traffic Coal from Ayrshire to Wales Class 66, 68, 88, 57, 92, 90, 86, 60 Colas DRS EWS/DB Frieghtliner Network Rail WCRC Excursion Trains All in all a lot to model and consider. I have already accumulated a fair bit of rolling stock in regards to both settings for this layout and as I don't have the space at this time to built the layout I am focusing on getting all the rolling stock ready and running this in at the local club. So what is to follow will be a series of works in regards to the rolling stock and locomotives. Regards Rand

So it has been a long time since I have been doing much with my projects as life in its usual way as gone off on a tangent. Lately though I have finally had a chance to get into my scratch building projects again. Now I have been getting back into this project to make 15 KFA log carriers converted from cargowaggens. I have had the ends 3D printed and have hand built most if the stays and am now at the point of assembling the everything together. In the shots below we can see that the pints came out pretty good although they needed a lot of cleaning which was easy enough by time consuming getting all the soft resin off. Then the just get a primer paint finish.

Here is the list for the scheduled Mainline runs http://www.uksteam.info/tours/trs17.htm Regards Rand

There is a list here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Railways#Fleet_details Regards Rand

I went through and just removed all the wiring and PCB. I fitted a Loksound V4 with a 20 x 40mm speaker. I then had the exciting job of deciphering the LED wiring trying to figure out what everything was and then wiring it into the functions on the decoder. The mess the start with. All tidied up and finished. All that excess wire removed.

Yes in 4mm scale. I will look at doing one for the N scale market as I think it is a bit chunky. But that is just by what I see. Do you have a specific Web Link? Yes. Sorry I could have made that clearer. I will be making a kit with the intent to use for my own models and to sell. Rand

If you want dead scale FREDs or EOTs (Flashing Rear-End Device / End Of Train device) these are very good and can be powered off the wheels of the wagons using pick-ups that come with the lamps. https://www.dccconcepts.com/product/end-of-train-lamp-with-all-electronics-3-pack/ Regards

Working on a 3d print of the separate units in high detail and a modifying kit to convert the Dapol FEA-b units into FEA-s units. Will be making it available when finished with the design work.

Merely a Jest. I have seen 132 locos running in unison in Colton California where I am from but could locate my footage. Big dead power move.

Sorry about that.

Try this one for size: http://www.railpictures.net/photo/598505/ , http://www.railpictures.net/photo/580818/

It sure is. My Moms side is from Eugene in the Willamette Valley.

Up and down the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon. RailPictures.Net Photo: UP 5537 Union Pacific GE AC45CCTE at Celilo, Oregon by Jeremiah Lietke RailPictures.Net Photo: UP 2547 Union Pacific GE ES44AC at Rufus, Oregon by Donald Nelson RailPictures.Net Photo: UP 8255 Union Pacific GE ES44AH at Celilo Park, Oregon by Joel Hawthorn RailPictures.Net Photo: UP 8441 Union Pacific EMD SD70ACe at Heppner Jct, Oregon by Matthew Griffin RailPictures.Net Photo: UP 5963 Union Pacific GE ES44AC at Union, Oregon by Sean Kelly

Hi Dave, I have pre-ordered 2 of your Class 92 locos in 00 and wondering whether there is any consideration to doing the 90's and 86's? Yes Bachmann are doing the 90's nut only in Freightliner and intercity livery but not the 10+ other liveries they run in like EWS, DB and DRS. Also how about doing 45' containers? Dapols variants are limited as are bachmanns. The most common ones seen are not modeled such as "Unit45", "Russel", "2x45" and others not to mention it would be nice to have Hi-cube Tesco containers with more numbers and similar. Regards Rand

So Does anybody notice what looks like and FWA (assuming it is something like that) wagon next to the Class 68s? Or did I miss the release on this wagon? Any info on this?

Hi John, I am glad you got to meet with him. The other guy would have been Peter. He is our Liaison with China. Yes we here were under the impression there would be announcements made at the show but it would seem the plan has changed and there is still an embargo on them until further notice. I hope you were excited some what as we are. From what I hear the show was quite dead which was a shame but this should mean he will remember the conversations he had at the show. You can always send a reminder email to him at advice@dccconcepts.com to jog his memory. He will be home tomorrow. Regards Rand Cooley DCCconcepts

Hi, If you didn't get a chance to get to the show there were about 10 new announcements which will be coming out in the Magazines and I am sure will be posted about on one forum or another. Regards Rand Cooley DCCconcepts

Hi John, I personally won't be for this show but from May on-wards I will be in the UK in our new Head office. Regards Rand

Hi, At this I can't say. We will know better at the end of this month. I would think it would be around June depending on production time. Regards Rand Cooley DCCconcepts

Hi, At this point there will not be an adapter like the others with just a cable as the ESU uses a CAN bus with a very complicated protocol network so we are looking at doing it another way. Regards Rand Cooley DCCconcepts

Hi Ian, Please note there has been a change in the product structure and there is no longer a Roco adapter because the cable are Identical to that of the NCE so you can use the DCD-ACL cables. Regards Rand Cooley DCCconcepts

Hi, Indeed it would be. It is on our list of things to do. We are going over all our old manuals and updating them to match our new IP motors in particular. Do you have any suggestions on what you would like to see draw up first in regards to Alpha? Regards Rand Cooley DCCconcepts

Hi Ian, Lets see... The prices in the Uk are currently and have been for some time not set by us but by our Distributors. We price everything to be competitive to similar products already on the market or otherwise it would be silly to make it at all. If you look at our site you will see the prices in $AU which are far cheaper than in the UK at present. With the risk of getting hit with import taxes a lot of people will still buy from within the UK. This is about to change. We generally use NCE as a basis as their DCC system is the most stable, reliable, and NMRA Compliant on the market. For this reason we choose to use them as a base mark. Trying to make a DCC product talk with another brand can be like getting a Glaswegian to talk with a Dutchman. This is where the Alpha Box comes into play as it will take any track power output from a given DCC system and simply amplify and pass the signal through as a Booster and doesn't need to communicate with the DCC system. Yes Currently That is the way you would have to go so it would not be viable for those with existing systems and so it is aim at those starting new or expanding their current layouts. This goes back to the whole communication issue as every cab bus has its own language. In lieu of this we are working on "Translators" if you like so that the Encoder can be used with other systems. These are in the process of being developed. I feel your frustration and will make note of these in our next product meeting. Please feel free to relay you feedback about the manuals to Richard as he writes them based on customer feedback of previous manuals. The people much have a voice =P. You can write to him on sales@dccconcepts.com or see him at the Ali Pal Show this weekend. Regards Rand Cooley DCCconcepts

Hi John, That is correct that the Switch A unit is in affect a stand alone unit. If that got muddled in my post I apologize. Only the switch can connect into the Alpha Encoder Unit. The Mini panel is designed to connect into the Cab bus of the NCE DCC system so that should work. NCE would be the ones to ask though. What email did you send it too? As Richard is in the UK as we speak he will not be answering emails quickly. He will be at the Ali Pal show this weekend though. Regards Rand Cooley DCCconcepts