When Trains are Cool (Great Video)

Electrique feat. Solex - Train Grande Vitesse
Uploaded by NextBuzz. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

Not sure how I came across this little video, but-despite the low quality-its a great little video of the French TGV accompanied by a cool little electronic ditty by a band named Electrique (whom I believe are defunct) name... "Train Grande Vitesse".  The song, by the way, explicitly features the distinctive audio notes played in SNCF stations for TGV announcements.  That's pretty cool.

Terrific editing on this video, and great staging for a model train layout on video.  Very inspirational!

Its stuff like this that makes trains cool and fun.  Not sure who was behind this, certainly a huge difference from the 'banjo-backed' music you find accompanying most train videos!

Quinntopia....1 Year Anniversary!

Thanks to all my new 'internet' N Scale Friends:

December 1st of last year was the first post on this blog.   As I look back over the past year on this little blog I started, I thought I would share some of my thoughts -and thanks!-for the journey that this first year has been.

When I started this blog, I thought that it would be primarily a Minitrix focused blog.  The main reason is that I really love the brand for both its marketing, their product quality, and for sentimental childhood reasons.  There is also very little content on the internet for English language readers (especially for their more modern, Continental output).  However an interesting thing happened in that time as I got to meet more people through this blog and other forums, and I started to see that my knowledge of other N Gauge areas grew along with my evolving and expanding interest in them.

So its been a fantastic journey, and I am truly thankful for the new friends I have found through this blog.  A couple of folks I really want to mention are Don who also goes by "Captain Oblivious" and runs a blog  (Akihabara Station) that was, and is, a huge inspiration to me.  Don also contributes a lot of time and energy to running what is one of the best N Gauge forums around over at the Japanese Rail Forum.   He's been a faithful visitor to this blog, and has always been swift to offer thoughtful and meaningful advice and information, and needed encouragement! Even though his interests are Japanese, he was open-minded enough to link to my blog even though its very clear I stray far from pure Japanese models!  Thanks Don!

I've also been - what's the right word?- honored to get all the positive feedback from those that have commented, and then returned to read other rants or comments I post, but whose names I don't know.  I hope that what I've been able to post has been entertaining, informative, and encouraging for all of you in this fascinating hobby.

I was very flattered by Ken B., who I shared emails with over the summer, who used my track plan as the basis for his own layout.  Thanks Ken! Looking for an update on your progress soon!

I also should thank all the forums and blogs that have kindly allowed me to list my blog on their sites.  From the Japanese Rail Forum, NScale.net, NScale.org, NScaleLimited forum, and, of course, the Yahoo! Groups Unitrack Forum.  

Also, this blog is a collaboration from folks which I always try to link or attribute credit to.  I've gained a lot of valuable information and learned exciting new things to do - ranging from wiring Kato Unitrack switches with LED's, modeling and painting buildings, and the always challenging DCC installation and programming questions, from such great gentlemen and teachers as GR Stilwell on the Yahoo Unitrack Groups (I'll be sharing the work using his BCD circuit in a future post), Martin, Bernard, Cteno, westfalen, nik-n-dad, serenityFan, and dozens of others for various inspiration for modeling, DCC, and Japanese manufacturers, from the aforementioned Japanese forum; Bob/Scaper, for his inspirational 'urban modeling' work on Flickr;  MooseID, Jimmi, MisterMahony, Gary60s, Frank, DigitalDremz, Perth45, Ghill and a host of others from the NScale.net, NScale.org and NScaleLimited forums.

Wow.  That's quite a list!  There's even more of course... there are folks on some of the non-English N Gauge forums who have also provided inspiration, however, I tend to be something of troll if I'm using Google translate to read the content. What I can say about these-and a lot of other folks-I've 'met' over the past year while working on this blog or learning more about N Scale, is that they are all pretty cool guys.  This is not something most people would say about 'model train' geeks, but in my view, 'most people' are wrong!  And I'm pretty honored to have learned or been inspired by all of them.  Thank you gentlemen!

A Year of Numbers:

So some 'fun facts' about this blog.  Its grown in ways that are pretty flattering.  Here's a chart from Google Analytics showing the number of visits since February 7th (I didn't get the tracking code from Google installed until then, so I missed the first month).

Pretty amazing! Hopefully this means I'm doing something valuable!  The blue line above shows visits per day, while the red line is a trendline 'averaging' out the visits to get a sense of trajectory.  Bottom line: visits have grown from about 10 per day back in February to over 30 in the past couple of months.  Wow.  Thank you!

How do people get here?  This was interesting to me, take a look:

Obviously, Google is a HUGE driver of visits to this page (and below are the top keywords that bring up this blog in the search results).  Somewhat flattering are the number of 'direct' traffic sources (e.g. bookmarked or typed in), which means people are returning.  The third one is interesting, and its from Google Images. More on that below in 'things I've learned'. Finally, lots of traffic from my friends at the Japanese forum! :-)   Surprisingly to me is the volume that Yahoo!'s search has driven.

Keywords tell a story of how people got here, and some sort of indication of what's most interesting to them I think:

What's not too surprising to me, is that there are a lot of folks (like myself) looking for help and/or information on the Trix Mobile Station.  This is an area where I wish I had a better grasp of it myself so that I could offer some better insight than I've been able to thus far.  Again, somewhat flattering, is the number of specific searches for this blog. At the bottom is the Kato Thalys.  This is really interesting as you'll see from the traffic on my most visited posts....

The above is a list of the total number of pageviews to various posts on my blog.  I've exluded the 'homepage', so these typically represent specific clicks on posts, which seems to indicate interest, no? Its no surprise that Unitrack oriented posts are huge given the number of users of this track system-and the number of questions! Hopefully I've been able to help those visitors to this blog who've come here for that reason.  The Kato Thalys' traffic is just amazing.  This is apparently a very popular train!  The next most visited post after the Unitrack, layout planning, and Thalys topics, is a Minitrix French diesel (BB 67300), which was a bit of a surprise to me! In truth, its a beautiful engine with outstanding lines and design, but not really as well known, perhaps, outside of France, so pretty cool.  The Dutch RAM Tee also gets a surprising amount of traffic, which I think indicates a higher level of interest in trainsets generally more so than just stand-alone locomotives for a lot of folks doing online research.  Of course, the Dutch are great N-Scalers too!

So, where are my visitors coming from? No surprise, that language is the biggest determinant of who comes to Quinntopia as indicated by 3 of the top 4 counties:

I'm very gratified to see high visits from Germany since I recieved virtually no visits from Germany for the first several months of this blog.  I'm not too surprised by Netherlands, France, and Japan (although I hope to see more visits from Japan, but I also understand that the translation issue is big given my own experiences trying to read translated Japanese sites!) since I've profiled locomotives or manufacturers and products from each of those countries more than once, but Italy and Spain do surprise me!  Welcome Italy and Spain!  One of the things that I have noticed about this N Gauge hobby is the level of interest by country.  A pleasant surprise to me was the popularity in Spain (I kind of knew about Italy given the history of Rivaross, and have only recently discovered several N Scale producers in  Spain).

What's really fun about checking these numbers is the 'internationality' of this hobby.   Besides those in the top 10, and other "Western" countries (Belgium, Sweden, etc...) which can be somewhat expected, there's also decent amount of traffic from Singapore, Brazil, Indonesia, Chile, and Turkey!  How cool is that?!


Final Thoughts:

One of the things I wanted to do with this blog, was not be an 'expert'.   There are a lot of experts who have a lot to contribute, but it can be intimidating and discouraging to realize that your knowledge (e.g. electricity/DCC), skill (building, modeling, soldering), and resources are not as good as others.  The folks I mentioned above have all been inspirations and encouragement and each have given of their time with humility and patience and good material on the web or forums.   It is their example they have set that I hope to share, and will try to continue to share, with this blog.  As I explain on my 'about me' blurb, I do this N Scale stuff becuase its fun, interesting, and inspiring....not just the trains...but the connections I can make with others on a forum, through email, or this blog.  If you're not sure if you should comment or post or ask a question on a forum or on this blog, do not be!  All are welcome, and ignore the grumpy 'bad apples' (who really should consider moving out of N Scale to O Gauge or something).

What I've Learned So Far:

• If you want to start a blog, or already have a blog, let me - and others - know!  You've got to self-promote, as 'self-serving' as that may sound, there really is no other way for people to know 'you are there' (of course, it helps if your focus is similar to the blog or forum or whatever site where you want to 'promote' yourself!) 
  
• List your blog wherever you can - particularly where its most relevant
• In light of the above, BE CAREFUL about self-promoting your blog in forum postings! It comes off as very self-serving and...tacky.  But I always feel its okay IF the information your are linking is relevant to the thread.  But DO add your url to your signature so that folks like myself can choose to find out more about you.
  
• Provide an accurate and exciting description of your blog!
• Be consistent with blogging.  I've had to discipline myself to think up and be creative about what to post (which is acutally fun for me), even during 'slow times'....I think if you don't maintain some activity on your blog, people will assume you've shut down.  The reality is, the past 6 months has been about creating a lot of buildings for my layout (and I'm sort of surprised that my site traffic has grown...perhaps there is more interest in this area than I think, but certainly not as much interest compared to locomotive reviews, layout pictures and plans, or Unitrack).  This sort of 'urban modeling' stuff only appeals to a very small segment of fellow hobbyists, which is okay, but posting about another building, etc.. can get sort of boring.  So what else can you share?  The post I wrote on "N Scale Cars" was just something I thought would be interesting and break up a series of 'building' oriented posts.   The inspiration came from a post on the Japanese forum, and it was an interesting topic for a lot of folks, and I could use my blog to share some photos and observations of my own "N Scale Cars".  
  
• Use pictures...and add meaningful titles to those pictures!  Why?  First, look at the number of visitors who have come to my website through a Google Image Search....you can help Google image search by changing the 'meaningless' default coding / naming that your camera creates for your photos, with a relevant description...which could be the name of the train, the manufacturers model numbers, etc...  this really helps for people who look for pictures of things they want to learn more about!
• Distribute your 'content'.   While not a big source of traffic for me, if you have videos, post them on YouTube, DailyMotion, and other video sites, and provide a link and description of your blog for folks who come across your video.
• Build your own 'brand'.  Yes, you can do it.  Its all about developing a style, an easy to remember name, and being consistent with it.  It really does help!
• Use tools like "Google Analytics" to help discover what works...in other words, what people like and want more of!  I think I made a mistake with a clever/stupid German name for my post talking about my Unitrack experience! What a dumb idea! Most people don't know what "Unitrack Obersten" means if they don't speak German! Yet, it still gets a decent amount of traffic.
• Remember...for most of us, this is a hobby, not politics. :-)  There really aren't 'right' and 'wrongs'.  There are 'more prototypical' and 'more detailed' etc... but that is not always the goal of everyone else into N Gauge!
• I also think its better to keep it uncluttered.  Previous or long time visitors may recall that I used to have several 'webring' ads or promotional gadgets in my sidebars.  They're all gone now.  First they really didn't bring in any users, and second, they make the website ugly, and most webrings aren't really well managed, so the next 'site' in a webring could be totally off topic.  Better to focus your energy on creating good content that search engines can 'pick up' for people really looking for it.  And yes, I don't, and won't, have ads.  Google is always pushing their 'AdSense' product on Blogger users. That's just my personal thing.
  

That's it! No more blogs about blogs (at least until next year!).   Finally, thanks to my wonderful wife and her encouragement, support, and patience with me through all of this!

Expensive German Trains... Get more Expensive!

If you live in the US, you've been hearing a lot lately about our 'declining dollar'. For those of us who like European trains...not great news! The below chart shows the exchange rate of the US dollar to the Euro over the past year! Ouch! To put this in simple terms...a locomotive that used to cost $125 USD last year....now costs $150.
Of course, if you're into Japanese trains, the story is not as bad, in fact, its prety good! Although its been eratic, over the past year Japanese trains should be about the same - if not a little cheaper (in fact, nows a pretty good time to buy Japanese trains...its like a 10% discount off of what you would pay a few months ago!):

What does this all mean? For me, its time to start exploring some of the cool trains coming from Kato, Tomix, and Microace, since my dollar goes a lot further against these than it does against comparable products from Minitrix or Fleischmann. In fact, a decently detailed Trix or Fleishcmann electric locomotive with all the modern standards for 'quality' (which would be something of recent engineering, not some 1970's rerun, These typicall feature as basic standards items such as directional lighting- increasingly LEDs; 5 pole motors with flywheels; NEM651 slot; traction on all or most wheels; etc..), like the DB Class 185, retails in USD between $130 for the Minitrix version to $200 for a Fleischmann version).

A similar type of locomotive from Kato or Tomix (another CC or 6 axle class Electric) like the EF 65, goes for around USD $65 to $70! (I'm havin gto assume that the Kato/Tomix Japanese products have similar specification - 5 pole motors, directional lighting, etc... - as both the German products listed above and the standards that Kato lists on its American products line (which are similar). Another point of reference is that I was able to get an 8 car Japanese EMU set for under $200...similar EMU's are well over $400 USD for most of the European versions.

Interestingly, Kato's European models, such as the Class 66 diesel (about $130 USD), are priced more similarly to their European competitors' products than the Japanese products are. This may be a result of the cost inefficiencies of Kato producing a much smaller production run for Europe versus its home Japanese market, but that is just speculation.

There are probably a lot of factors that I am unaware of...marketing costs, distribution costs, taxes and customs, in addition to the currency exchange issue, that go into the relative pricing of these locomotives. To be clear, the European manufacturers do offer a lot more 'advanced' capabilties with regards to making these models DCC compatible, and I'm really not technical enough to understand if their are other factors that can be explained in terms of materials or workmanship that may also explain the price differences.

Of course, there are some neat NS 1300 (Netherlands) CC Electrics coming out from a Spanish manufacturer called Star Train (which appear they will be distributed through Hobbytrain, which also does stuff with Kato and Lemke in Europe) that will promptly tempt me!

Failure! Sometimes I hate DCC! Or... Tomix Track Cleaning Car Conversion Mess!

What a mess. So, I'm on my third Tomix Cleaning Car. I've already burnt out the motor on one so far (DO NOT PUT THESE ON A DCC LAYOUT WITHOUT A DECODER NO MATTER WHAT ANYONE SAYS) and decided I would try to do the DCC conversion on this myself. Its one little car, how hard can it be? Plus, if I screw this one up, I have another one to destroy. This'll be fun.

My approach to DCC conversions is to chicken out as much as possible. Sorry, but those of you looking for expert electronics advice or bundles of encouragement with decoder installs - stop reading. Now.

I like DCC for its operating experience, but hate all the hassle with getting the stupid, expensive clumps of wire and electronics to act like they are supposed to act. All those books about "DCC is simple!" are a bunch of rubbish. Its not even electronics in my mind, more like alchemy. At this point you should realize you should never take my advice on this decoder/install stuff. Seriously. Even if you come back in a year, and I did this crazy cool decoder install that is just amazing and I'm all, like, bragging about it? I'm lying. Don't believe a word. I'm an amateur and following my example will lead to certain failure and a romantic passion for plain old DC control and all that fun you had with the 'direction' switch seeing if you could make your GP9 do a wheelie.

So, now that my utter lack of credentials in this field is firmly established, I will now demonstrate my utter cluelessness with this lame attempt at a decoder install in a stupid cleaning car.

My absolutely shameful and cowardly approach for this decoder install was to take advantage of this circuit board produced by a German company, DigitalZentrale, that uses one of the few (theoretically) simple solutions for decoder installations: the NEM651 plug. In theory, that means most decoder installs should be truly 'plug and play' (in reality, we all know that's not true). Unfortunately, the actual manufacturers who use this standard only really applies to a small set of German manufacturers. So I guess for the rest of the world its "learn how to solder train-boy!".
But I have to hand it to the Germans...the NEM651 is a great idea in a hobby that saw its last creative days when it came up with 3-rail tinplate track. Anyway, I got the circuit board (above), complete with all German instructions (although its possible to get a barely intelligible English translation from Google, but its not that helpful), and started dissembling the track cleaning car.

I did 'cheat' and peak at the garbled translation (I noticed enough "ACHTUNGS!" and "NEINS!" in the German instructions to get the fact that the photos alone may not be conveying some important information).

Taking apart the Tomix cleaner was pretty easy, once you realize that you have to remove the screws from the trucks to remove the cover where the motor is (the instructions showed both sets of trucks being removed, but I don't really see the point of removing the trucks from the side of the car opposite the switch and motor....all there is on that side is just some weights.). In fact, while the photo below shows the correct placement of one Philips head screwdriver to remove said trucks, this is actually a pointless part of the process. But enjoy the photo anyway:
So, with both sets of trucks removed, a firm grip (with -as is usual at this point- more force than you think its wise to apply to these thin plastic shells) and lots of pulling gets the little plastic covers off. You can then have all sorts of fun dumping all the parts out on a table.
So here's a more than useless tip: Once those screws are removed, all the parts really don't just fall out. You'll need to remove that 'fan' thing (round black thing on bottom of car) from the 'pole' ("axle"? "rod"?"stick"? etc...) or whatever that 'pointy' thing is that comes out of the motor at the bottom. I hope you can tell what I am talking about from the above picture, otherwise I just wrote a sentence more confusing than Google's over-rated capability at translating German N scale websites (actually, the Japanese translations are worse, but more entertaining). Anyway, the 'pole thing' on my motor inserts into the hole on the 'fan' thing, and mine was on really tight, and when it finally came off - it flew across the room (of course, I'm not worried if I lose it, cause I have extra parts from the cleaning car that I already fried a motor on! Hah!). So be careful.

Now that all the important pieces are removed and scattered across your desk and you realize you don't really remember how they go back together, its fairly easy to see how this new NEM 651 circuit board will replace the existing circuit board. Did I say I love the NEM 651 format? Yes? Okay, I'll stop repeating myself.

As you can see from the photo below, the new and the old circuit boards. The new board, which has a fancy little NEM 651, 6-pin, Lenz Mini-Gold D ($44.00) decoder inserted into it, sits next to the old one! Right now I'm thinking "Hey! This was easy!"

Yep. Just keep thinking that.
Then came the panic. See, there's this round black thing that goes into the round hole on the original circuit board. At the time, I don't really know what this round plastic thing does and I don't care, all I know is that the 'round black thing' (which also had little metal pieces on it to pick up electrical current! Oh no! Its important! Arg!) WILL NOT FIT IN THE OBLONG HOLE ON THE NEW CIRCUIT BOARD!!! I've been had! Of all the cruddy luck! To get this far, only to find out that I got a circuit board for some other model Tomix cleaning car, this really su.....wait....what's that? The round thing connects to the switch on the top of the Tomix car that turns it on, off, and to CL mode (CL mode, for those of you who don't visit the Japanese train forum and aren't versed in the world of Tomix, is a "Constant Lighting" mode that Tomix came up with so that the lights on Japanese trains always stay on under traditional DC power, or so I think. Its also rumored to be a problem for my Japanese modelling friends in their attempts to convert their Shinkansens and Thomas's to DCC, but that's another story....)?

So I start thinking....if I'm adding a decoder to turn this thing off and on, I probably don't need the "round black thing with the electrical contacts which won't fit in the oblong hole on the new circuit board". So I ignore it and move on. More fun awaits.

Unfortunately, just plugging the decoder into the NEM 651 socket isn't enough, according to the instructions and the design of the cleaning car, you need to bend the pins on the decoder so that they go at a right angle right about where the circuit board ends. With this bend in the decoder, it will neatly rest within a pocket between the weights that surround the motor and the plastic shell (or you could cut a hole in the shell and have it stick out, which will turn out, for me, to have been a better choice). So, bending six tiny little pins shouldn't be all that hard, right?

And its a really good thing I have this handy Google translation tool, because the instructions actually mention "Lenz" in this section (one word I can pick out of the sea of German), so I know I have a Lenz decoder, and I know this is important. So skipping past the original German and going to Google, here's what the translation tells me:

The legs of Lenz decoders can not bend to these break off, they see
bitte davon ab einen solchen Decoder zu verwenden. Please use them from such a decoder.

Whew! Good thing I read that! What was it? Something about 'leg's breaking off' of Lenz decoders? No problem! I get the pliers out and quickly proceed to....break the legs off the decoder! ARGGGGGGGGG! (Do you hear that sound? Have you heard that sound before? Its the sound of a decoder going to decoder heaven).

Plan B

Reminding myself that there's something redeeming about this hobby, that money isn't everything, and that this is still a better way to spend my time than watching TV, I figure out a Plan B. I decide to use one of the Digitrax DZ125 decoders I have hanging around! I am determined to get this job done and start cleaning some track with DCC control! Also, the price is great on these Digitrax decoders too ($20-$25?), so I'm not as worried about....okay, not going there...it will all be fine. Really.

Here's my plan of attack. You only need two wires, I guess. That's what I'm down to. Guessing. Two wires for the motor...that's all you need, how hard can it be? I religiously check the Digitrax instructions to confirm that the Orange and Grey wires are the only two wires I care about.

This is so easy! I should have done this first!

So I strip down the wires, tin them up a bit with my soldering iron (they need to be a little stiff to fit inside the socket) and jam in their respective holes. See photo below.
I think to myself...is there ANY REASON this cannot work? I tell myself "No, there's not! I mean, this is just a DCC decoder installation! Its not rocket science!"......

Moving along....

Put the cleaning car back together. I notice that the new circuit board doesn't sit quite as tightly between the contacts on the motor as the original curcuit board. Also, make sure you put the circuit board in 'shiny side down' (see, that's the kind of decoder installations I can understand! "Shiny side down", or "Plug thing #1 into hole #1"...THAT I can handle! Since when did model railroading become electrical engineering? Some day I should write a post about the electrical diagram I got that was supposed to help me add LED's to a control panel. There were so many weird shapes and squiggly lines...come on, just tell me the "red and black wires" go {And to make even THAT difficult, apparantly, the 'black wires' aren't shown because they are 'common', well PHOOEY! Show 'em anyway! Why are electricians so lazy about this stuff} ! I tell my son that he should go to college and major in electrical engineering if he wants to play with trains like his dad when he gets older). So, the new circuit board is not quite as tight, but it fits, and the whole thing gets reassembled.

With everything back together, I make my way to my old Windows XP PC with JMRI and Sprog II to check out my install and program this bad boy! I also discover that I'm under the illusion that, at least in this hobby, buying more junk will make problems go away. You see, and I've mentioned this before, I wasn't happy with how difficult it was to program decoders with the Trix Mobile Station...the Sprog II looked like a great solution, so i spent more money. In all fairness, its been a lot easier, the problem is you get NEW problems! So its almost like your back at square one!

With everything set to go, I hit the fateful "read decoder" button in the Decoder Pro program and .... I get this:

Error 306 — timeout talking to command station

Fantastic. I end up rebooting, reinstalling, tinkering with COM ports in preferences, updating drivers...you know, all that fun stuff I like to do that got me into this hobby in the first place.

Eventually, after a couple of reboots, I get

Error 308 — No acknowledge from locomotive

That's it. I'm done. Okay, not really. I actually take it apart, check connections, curse the looser circuit board connection, fiddle with stuff, etc... But, like that great Jerry Seinfeld joke " I don't know why I look under the hood of my car when its not working....if there's not a giant switch turned to 'off' under the hood, I'm useless" pretty much sums it up.

So, where am I now? Despair. Disgust. And one fried cleaning car, one broken decoder....and still lot's of dirty track.

Don't worry, the saga will go on. I expect there will be a "Plan C" once I can muster up the courage. I refuse to admit defeat (I'm not that smart). Apologies to all N Scalers, 3-Railers, Germans, Japanese, DCC'ers, Tomix, Digitrax, Trix, JMRI, Sprog, Lenz, electricians and electrical engineers who were offended by this post. I'll do better on my next one. I promise.

A little Europe

Here's a short movie of my layout from its "Version 1" days...back when I had just a single door layout. Some aspects are relatively unchanged, others are unrecognizable! I am currently working on "Version 2.1", which will increase the size of the downtown area, add a lot more lighting, and add a large, stub-end passenger station. These things are all waiting for the end of summer...and the start of 'train season'! :-)

Layout Design Software

Well, its been a few weeks since my last post. The nice weather will no doubt take some time away from trains over the next few months, but I've still got plenty of projects to keep my busy.

One of those projects has been getting a new 'digital' recreation of my layout built on my Mac - so I can play around with some ideas for the layout that have been in my head.

Since I really wanted a track layout design program that was Mac OS X native, that limited my choices. I looked at Xtrakcad (and found it difficult to use on my PC), I've used RRTrack in the past (which was okay), looked at WIntrack (no Tomix library) but none of these had either the ease of use or Mac compatibility that I was looking for.

I finally ended up going with RailModeller. Despite its biggest drawback (no elevations or grades!), it works great on my Mac, has an easy interface, and very nice looking schematics.

An initial result of my RaiModeller efforts is the image posted above, which is my current layout (and what I refer to as 'Version 2') To see a bigger image of the trackplan/layout, click it and it will open at a large size.

RailModeller was easy to use (but my advice is before you buy, check out their free demo). However, some of the product descriptions were still in German (the Fleischmann and Tomix libraries are two examples) and -not sure if its me or the program- but there are places where the actual track I have on the layout just won't fit (keep in mind, I did this backwards. As the layout is done, I had to check the track on my layout then entered it into the design program). This forced me to take some creative license in some areas and, for example, leave out a 64mm straight, add a 29mm straight, and so forth (for the most part, the issue was in the lengths of the straight track areas, all the curves worked out fine!). So the image is not exactly what's on my layout (it may, in fact, be better!), but close enough....

One easy to use and useful feature is the 'color' changing feature. Unfortunately, it will only let you select one color per piece, so if you have Kato double-track sections, they will be one color when you may want to have separate colors for each track (I am sure there is a way around this in the Rail Editor program that comes with it, but that's a whole other project I don't want to get into right now).


That is pretty much it...to compare my track plan to the real layout....see this post!

Who has the right of way?

Some fun and games on the layout today. While the 'downtown' on my layout is under revision, the tiny citizens of Quinntopia seem to have a dispute over which vehicle should have the right of way. Its hard to believe that some of these people probably just came from the church in the background and still act like this!

The tank is a Micro Machines vehicle. Typically those vehicles are too large for N Scale, but amazingly, their tanks seem to be just the right size (thanks to my son for loaning the armor!).

5 Months ago....

Wow. I was just looking at some photos from a few months ago, and I was amazed at how much work I've been able to get done in that time. The above photo is the layout last November (November 17 to be exact), the below photo is from early March. Comparing the two...I get exhausted! I am glad that part is behind me! The cool thing is its been a lot of fun and now I find myself 'inventing' new things to work on (like my 'urban development' program currently underway in Quinntopia). What a fun hobby!

"The Man Cave" (aka Train Room)

To complete my overview of my process to build a layout (see this post...WARNING: I'm an amateur and just trying to have fun...the clinic on L-girder construction can be found elsewhere! :-) ), here - at last - is where all the action happens: My garage! I'm fortunate enough at this point in life to have a home (and a wife who supports!) where I am able to carve out the 3rd stall in our 3 car garage for my 'train room'. My father-in-law helped me build a wall to separate the 'train room' from the cars and other stuff, which means its a relatively nice space for the trains. We don't live in the driest climate here in the Pacific Northwest, but winters are moderate and a couple of space heaters help to keep the garage warm and the local electric utility in the black through the winter. Like a lot of folks, I dream of a basement or other 'real' space, but I've actually come to enjoy the 'solitude' and peace that comes with having a place to do 'train stuff' away from the home (plus, I can leave my junk out on things I'm working on and not worry about any complaints about the mess!)

Benchwork Plan

Before there was any scenery....before there was any track...before there were any lights, there was....the BENCHWORK (or TABLE or FRAME, etc...)!!!! Clearly (to me), one of the least interesting (in my opinion) but necessary, critical, life-sustaining (I kid!) and ultimately, impactful aspects of the hobby is what you run your trains on! Hey, we're all grown ups now, and we deserve a place where we don't have to put our 'toys' away every time we're done playing!

The reality is that I expect most of us modelers are a long way from getting a 'dream room' where we can build exactly what we want to our hearts content. This was my challenge. So before the present layout got built, it was fairly obvious that this was going to be a 'garage layout'. These other human beings that live with me have selfishly procured the nicest parts of the home for their own needs. Ahhh well.....

In addition to being in the garage, I also wanted a layout that was fairly portable and would be relatively easy to transport if we were to move in the next couple of years. I have painful experiences with this, before I got into N Scale, I had an O scale layout that was a 'permanent' L-girder sort of construct in the garage. Of course, a potential move a couple of years ago required the demolition of several years of work. Never again! (and we never did end up moving! Arg!)

One of the first questions I had to resolve was how to make this (portable) layout level? Beyond the basic requirements of sturdiness, height, size, etc... a garage presents a particular challenge not found in the house in terms of making it level (well, most houses anyway, are somewhat level). Most garage floors have a slope to them so that water and dirt carried in from outside goes back out to the driveway. While the grade is not noticeable when humans (like us) are standing on it or walking on it; at N Scale those little ore cars will go racing down the layout like its the Indy 500. An 'off the shelf' workbench or shelving unit would require some rudimentary, and probably not very good, modifications, but would also limit what I could do in terms of dimensions and so forth.

Another factor influencing my plan, was my intention to use a hollow door as the table top. I knew that L-girder was out (too much work and not portable) and the inexpensive, lightweight attributes of the hallowed hollow door approach have some nice benefits (and some drawbacks, which I will save for another post).

With those challenges in mind, I set out on my 'plan' (less a plan than an evolution of various random and half-baked ideas).

For my original N scale layout, which was just a single 36" x 80" hollow-core door, a simple wooden saw horse picked up for $20 at the local hardware store sufficed for the support. The sawhorse was an adequate solution, though far from ideal as the layout was too low to the floor at about 26" (most modelers and magazines talk about layout height and that a layout is 'nicest' at 'eye level', which I think is generally true. Looking down from too high up makes you feel like you're flying over the layout. Which sounds cool, but isn't). A single door is also convenient as its VERY portable due to its low weight and rigidity.

However, after a few months I decided that I wanted more track, more scenery, more, more, MORE!!! (you get the idea!)... and the single door was just not going to cut it. I decided to move up to a 'double door' (end to end) arrangement with my 'v.2' layout.

This presented a portability challenge, and adding more saw horses would not provide the necessary stability and rigidity to hold two doors end to end at the right level.

So, I came up with a plan that was loosely based on some framing ideas for some cheap, do-it-yourself type of work benches I found online.

The plan is basically 3 identical frames built out of 2"x4" lumber. Both the vertical and horizontal lengths are 36". The two end frames are placed on opposite ends of the two doors, and the 3rd frame supports the 'connection' point where the two doors come to together (this center one has the 2x4 laid on its side to provide as much area as possible to support the weight of the board and secure the two doors to the frame).


A big influence in the design of the plan (I use the word 'design' here loosely!) was a solution I found to answer the challenge of my sloping garage floor, and the need to have both a stable and secure footing that would allow me to easily level each 'frame' to ensure the layout surface was level from one end to another. I found this article on using old hockey pucks as leveling devices, which had me move the bottom, horizontal, load bearing supports all the way to 'ground level'. These adjustable, 'hockey puck' feet have worked terrifically, and the ~2" slope in the garage from one end of the layout to the other is adequately compensated for with these adjustable, hockey puck feet. I also have to say they look great! The shiny bolt hardware and the big, black, rubber puck look kind of cool (and very 'industrial strength!).

The frame design also has two short 14" pieces which rest on the bottom board and are attached with 2 3/4" screws to the 'risers' or vertical supports. These provide a ledge for additional bracing or for shelving (you'll notice my pictures feature lots of miscellaneous garage storage 'things' stored under the layout on the far side). I added in another shelf about 10" below the layout where all my 'controllers' are able to rest (not shown in the Google Sketch Up plans, but visible in the photos. See all those messy wires? They lead to my 'control panel' shelf).

The biggest challenge was connecting the doors to the risers/supports. Hollow core doors are cheap for a reason...there's not a lot of material that can reliably be used for bolting or attaching to the supports. The strongest areas of the doors are the side edges where the hinges would normally go. This actually turned out to be a benefit. I simply attached 2x2 boards to the long lengths of the doors and used these to drill holes for the nut and bolts to attached to the vertical riser/2x4 supports. Why was this a 'benefit'? Well, I was able to add a full 3 inches to the width of my layout!


All in all, I've been very happy with the design. Its rigid, adjustable, portable, and very sturdy. The height is right (for both me, and those other people in the house that like to play with the cars on the layout and try to push the trains like they're Thomas the Tank...Noooo!!!) Given the strength and design of the frames, I also have an option of adding some width (which I plan on doing) to extend areas of the layout beyond the current 39" dimensions.

Oh yes, and I have the carpentry skills of a mollusk, so this was an easy and 'idiot-proof' project.

NEW DCC System! (or why would I spend big $ for ugly technology)

"Intellivision DCC" To Be Released Soon
Check out the new DCC system ..errr.... not. For those of us that remember, the product above is actually a Mattel Intellivision. From the early 1980's. What's my point? Simple, in the age of the iPhone, Wii, Xbox 360, etc... why is it that Digitrax, MRC, and NEC (to pick on the big 3 US makers anyway) make products that would have looked like telecom utility gear even 20 years ago? Are my fellow American industrialists just completely clueless when it comes to product design? Case in point, here are representative samples of their cornerstone products in the marketplace today:

Now I realize that this will offend some users that will point out that these systems are state of the art and a 'pretty box' is no substitute for easy operation, reliability, etc... Point taken, and I agree. My point is not that we should have 'pretty boxes' with crap functions, etc... but why is it crazy to expect both? By profession, I am a marketer. I'm not an industrial designer, but as a marketer I know that design communicates (sometimes dishonestly) attributes that the product would be expected to have. The 'message' I get from the product design of the above big 3 US manufacturers is that this DCC stuff is 80's technology and does not look fun at all.


Compare, if you will, the new Marklin Central Station 2. I can't speak for the technology or its capabilities (that's not my place and there are plenty of other places online to get that perspective. Its beautiful, is it not? For those of us that like technology and its sexy design, Marklin hit the ball out of the part (as we say in the states).
Marklin is not alone. Roco, while somewhat 'toy-like' in appearances, at least avoids looking like nuclear power plant testing equipment. Viessmann's Commander and ESU's Ecos also do a great job of making the appearance of their systems attempt to communicate something about the capabilities of their product in a way that is contemporary and stylish.



There certainly are some other companies whose products almost make it, I am thinking of the Hornby Elite and Lenz systems, which, only look about 10 years out of date versus the Digitrax, MRC, and NCE systems.


In sum, this post is really about my frustration with the offerings that are available. Despite their competency, I can't seriously consider any of the above products. Is that shallow? Maybe. I am considering the products that I mentioned have design elements that appeal to my sensibilities.

I hope this post resonates with others in this hobby. Again, its not a criticism of the systems themselves, but it is a call for our US (and other?) manufacturers to not be as lazy when it comes to the hobby. After all, the benefits of products and systems with more mass appeal are obvious to anyone in this hobby.

Revisiting my O Gauge past

Just for fun, here are some shots of the old O Gauge layout that was demolished last year (and whose parts where then sold on Ebay to fund my new N scale layout!). Note that all of this is set up in the 3rd stall of my 3 car garage (and to prove it really is O Gauge, that is a real boy [my son] peeping through what will become the 'city' area of the layout).



Shot of the second level 'trestle' as a mallet circles the city.

The same locomotive on an MTH bridge at the far end of the layout (the door could be opened to let in natural light...and bugs. But mostly just bugs).


This shot shows the 'main line' with a Lionel U33 on the upper level and the Lionel Army train on the lower level, both are round the 'large' mountain on one side of the U of the layout.

This shot is from the door coming from the garage into the 'train room'. Does it look a little cramped? It sure felt like it. One of the reasons to go to a smaller scale!


Another shot of my favorite part of the layout, the city. Unfortunately, the control panel for my home's electricity is about 6 inches to the right of where I am standing, which is not great for radio signals (e.g. MTH's DCS system had difficulty).

And of course, the 'track plan' showing the location of the door, main lines, etc... It was pretty much 80% complete and took about 3 years to complete.

Trix are for (older) kids

As my first official post to this 'blog', I hope to share with others my interest and thoughts on this very strange hobby called 'model railroading'. I really don't like the term given all the baggage that 'train nuts' tend to unfortunately give to the rest of the world for this particular hobby, and I suppose I must include myself amongst that strange group of people.

Be that as it may, its a fun hobby, and one involving a lot more creativity and novelty than many of the others that I have dabbled in over the years.

Anyway, what's so special about this blog in particular? Well, through an interesting chain of events, I seem to have become a European N Scale modeler (or is it 9mm?) who lives in the far upper left hand corner of the USA. Needless to say, European N scale is NOT the easiest sort of thing to find on the shelves of the Local Hobby Store (LHS as I've seen folks refer to them). Athearn, Lionel, MTH, Bachmann, Atlas, etc... we have our fill (as is right and correct). But Trix (or Minitrix as I prefer), Fleischmann, Roco, Brawa, or Mehano? You would never know they exist but for the internet and a few, interesting, special pockets on the North American continent where these things are pursued.

It would be much easier if I could actually read German, since that community seems to have a lot of web resources dedicated to the hobby, and even for my English speaking peers in the UK, there is some more recognition of the brands and their products from 'the continent', but for a yank like myself, its difficult to find current information and helfpul tips, and just plain old ideas about this hobby, and my strange niche of the hobby, which is the point and purpose of this little blog.

I hope that you find it interesting, and I hope that you'll have something to share as well.