I'm an N scaler and was sad to see you go. Nevertheless, I have enjoyed these building the new layout videos far more interesting and entertaining (not to mention educational) than I thought I would. Thanks for sharing and keep up the great work.
Fantastic as always. I like how you are working 8 or so feet at a time. Getting trains running on the mainline is a huge milestone and source of motivation! Lots of equipment to weather, as well, but at least I now know where all of Lombard's modern UP inventory is off to. Looking forward to following along.
I'm just starting my n scale layout, so while I'm sad to see you switch to HO, these progress vids are great and keep me motivated to work on my stuff as well. And, I managed to purchase some Metra equipment from your old Geneva sub, so a little part of your n scale layout will keep running on my layout!
Looking really really good 👍 making better progress than me. Also Scaletrains is doing another run of those covered hoppers so be sure to preorder those.
Looking good! Another tid bit I saw besides the lone 70M running as a dupe is on the third train those ethanol cars if "loaded" cannot go next to reefers, empty residual ones can. If you are going for realistic train make ups you'd need a "buffer" car between the "loaded" tanks and the reefers.
@@EvanstonSub no problem, I work for the railroad and deal with hazmats and reefers a ton if you google hazmat placement train chart it should pull up the chart we use on how to place placarded cars.
"And no issues or problems so far" is a great testament to your track laying and turn-out building skills Sir. Bravo! You mentioned speed matching...you might take a look at those first two locomotives 5454 and the other...there was an issue with a push/pull jostling there. You mentioned you really like the Tsunami 2 by Soundtraxx. I'm a huge fan of their soundcar chip. Might I recommend adding it to a few of your refer cars? You can add the sound that way and really bring your mid-train sounds to life with a cooling unit and wheel squeals too. HAVE FUN!!
Wow, that's a lot of progress! Whatever you are doing for motivation, sign me up! Regarding the covered hoppers; they are not only very common but they can be a lot of fun. The Walthers' car you showed is a National Steel Car type which has been fairly common on the UP (at least in the trains I gave watched in my area). The ScaleTrains car is a Gunderson prototype and the Athearn Trinity 5161 cu.ft. car is also appropriate for UP. UP mixes and matches these along with various Pullman-Standard 4750s and FMC 4700s. The BNSF is more "purist" in that they run their C6 cars in sets that are usually all Trinitys and Gundersons (with their few NSCs) while the PS 4750s and FMC tend to be in their own trains. UP still mixes everything up. One used to see older cars from merged railroads but these seem to be getting fewer and fewer as the older cars reach the end of their service lives. It still makes UP trains interesting to a freight car fan. The Wa;thers' cars sure seem to be fine runners and with about two evenings of work they can be upgraded to fit in better with the more detailed cars.
Progress looks fantastic, always gets me motivated to work on my own layout haha. -Random thing I noticed; In real life, the SD70M's are not DPU equipped. So they cannot be a DP alone or a consist leader if being used with a DP. They can of course be in the consist or a DP if hooked up to...literally anything else. Of course take it with a grain of salt since this is models and you can always do whatever you want. Glad to see someone else running trains with DP's though! On the SXT T4's, or any future models with Lok sound, you can disable to feature that makes them wait before moving so you can run them with other brands/decoder types! I can look up the exact word on the programmer if you are interested. Keep up the great work!
I did not know that about the SD70Ms. What about SD70ACe? Yes, I thought about turning that feature off. I think you can also turn the feature on for the TSU2. Not sure which way I'll go.
The paint job on the scale train really pops out at you whereas the walthers doesn't as much. That's what I could tell from here, though my eye is not as keen as a seasoned modeler.
Hope you've stocked up on that ME track and rail to complete your layout, because the company has gone up for sale. Don't expect to find any new re-supply anytime soon, if at all.
I heard about that. I have over 100 pieces of flex track, but that won't cover the entire layout. Just because they are up for sale does not mean production has stop.
As far as I can tell, there haven't been any new shipments of their products to LHS in a long while now - everyone is OOS. And if LHS do have something it's most likely NOS. And ME does not have an online shop for direct to customer sales either. The situation does not look promising, unfortunately.
I’ve used Walthers Shinohara code 83 on my layouts and am trying to build a new layout and their new Walthers brand track is not available at all. I was considering Micro engineering code 83 track and I’m glad I saw this. Thank you for the info. I’ll have to do some research.
A suggestion for the detailed/ less detailed models. Assign the detailed cars to be spotted at the various industries and keep the less detailed on the through trains.
This is getting exciting. You’re making great progress. You asked about non-mainline trains being DPU’d? I’m guessing what you mean is running DP trains on branch lines? There is no general rule that prevents DP on branch lines, however each branch line has its own specific restrictions. Generally those are restrictions based on tonnage. As you can surmise, DP trains are generally heavier tonnage and longer than conventional trains. For the most part, branch lines don’t have DP trains, but there are exceptions. Best regards, Kevin
@@EvanstonSub We do actually operate "foreign" road locomotives as DPU. But there is a caveat. DP capable locomotives seem to only be "AC" (Alternating Current) locomotives. When we first started DPU back in the 90's, it was installed on "DC" Direct Current locomotives. But I think that has since been eliminated. The "AC" locomotives have a much more robust computer control system that prevents traction motor failures. Thats kind of important for unmanned locomotives. We have interoperability with virtually all major railroads that have DPU locomotives. I believe we've had CSXT, NS, BNSF, KCS and Ferromex (FXE) DPU's mixed into UP trains.
O MY GOSH!!!! You have been a busy man! WOW! One little question. You may have said it in another video and I just missed it but I was wondering.... Are you gonna work outwards from both ends of the staging and do a golden spike so it speak? Or are you just gonna go in the one direction your going?
Once you weather the Walters cars they will look a lot better. The problem with HO scale is with out weathering they really look like TOYS because of there size.
Rapid progress. I know you want to be running trains after a year of not doing that, but, as I am learning, as a retired person, you do not need to rush everything.
Absolutely correct. I find I am being more meticulous and patient this time around compared to when I was working. Everyone feels like I've making great progress. But, when you think about it, I've been working on this staging yard for two months and it's still not done. I'm in o hurry. Whatever I don't get done today, I can work on tomorrow. 😊
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