Aluminum foil IR reflector installed on the coupler of an Intermountain F7A
When I installed my automatic detection circuit for crossing signals using infrared (IR) sensors from the WeHonest company, I installed them between the ties. They were initially a bit too sensitive, but after a while of running and changing out lighting to LEDs, the sensors weren’t quite sensitive enough. They would often miss a passing train which is annoying and not up to my standard for how I want things to run on the layout. After reading up online about how this type of sensor works, I tried a super simple and cheap solution that now has them detecting every time!
The WeHonest IR sensor uses an IR transmitter (blue dome) and an IR detector (black dome)Here’s a WeHonest IR sensor in place between the rails
The WeHonest IR sensors are a single unit. unlike paired sensors that detect a break in the IR beam, the single units use a paired IR LED (bluish dome) and IR detector (black dome) and rely on reflected IR energy to close the circuit. Since the bottoms of most of my locomotives and freight cars are flat black, I wondered if they weren’t reflecting enough energy to trip the sensor. To improve the reflection, I stuck a piece of double-sided Scotch tape to a piece of aluminum foil and cut small reflector squares to attach to the bottom of locos and cabooses. I attached them under the coupler, behind the coupler, and even on the bottom of the truck–wherever I could get some good adhesion along the centerline (where my sensors are mounted). It doesn’t have to be perfectly flat because the IR transmitter and detector seem to have reasonably wide beams, so they’ll work with IR reflected at an angle. With just this tiny and simple modification which is invisible from trackside, the IR sensors now work every time without fail!
Reflector installed at an angle behind the coupler on an Athearn RS3
IR reflector installed on the bottom of an Intermountain F7A truck
Aluminum foil IR reflector installed on a caboose
One concern I have is a piece of conductive material coming loose on the tracks. To mitigate the chance of a short, I cut the rectangles small enough that they can’t bridge the rails in case they accidentally detach in a spot of hidden trackage. They could cause a short if they come loose on a switch, but all my switches are easily reached, so the reflectors would be easy to spot and clear. Thought I’d pass this trick along in case anyone else is struggling with the same issue.
***UPDATE***
This technique worked so well I added tiny rectangles of aluminum to the underside of every car on the layout. It’s easy to find a spot on a coupler pocket or on the center sill that can’t be seen while it’s running. Now there’s almost zero drop out for the signals while a train is crossing.
Here are several of the finished coal loads waiting to head back to the L&N
After years of hauling around black foam core inserts pretending to be coal loads, I finally got around to finishing some of them… 58 to be precise! I won’t go over the whole process here (article coming soon on Appalachian Railroad Modeling), but I’ll give you the basics here. Most people are used to seeing gently sloping coal loads that can barely be seen over the top of the car–this is a load that’s been on the road for a while and settled into the car. I model coal at the source, and this looks very different. In the ’60s and ’70s, much of the coal was loaded by feeding a car under a chute a few feet at a time using gravity or a winch to pull the car along in stages. This resulted in a series of high, distinct, and often uneven coal lumps, perhaps a dozen or more.
This hopper shows off the distinctive lumps of freshly loaded coal from a tipple that moves the car a little at a time. Triangle Dock, Elkhorn City, Bob Helm photo
I haven’t seen too many modelers attempt this look, so years ago (like 25 years ago), I came up with a way to model this look using foam core and real coal. 25 years later, the biggest improvement has been the introduction of black foam core which does a MUCH better job of hiding any imperfections. I use 1/2″ black foam core, though some of the older forms were made from two 1/4″ pieces laminated with white glue. I basically cut them about 1/16″ smaller than the dimensions of the hopper, press them into the car to know where to cut notches for any bracing, and carve the load. I start by cutting a rough 45-degree angle around all sides, then I cut notches where I want the lumps to be. I try not to be too precise, and all the lumps are slightly different sizes. I then start rounding the lumps and eventually cut the top poster board layer off the foam core. The final shaping is done by compressing some of the foam with my fingers to smooth it out. If it needs it, I’ll add little pieces on the ends underneath and cut them to fit the car so the load sits a little higher.
The loads start with 1/2″ black foam core cut slightly smaller than the hopper and carved with an X-Acto bladeSeveral load forms ready for coal–each one is unique
Before I lose track, I label each load for the type of car it fits (easy with a silver Sharpie), and I add a couple of stick-on weights under each load (pinewood derby weights). I want my coal cars to “feel” heavier to a locomotive when they’re loaded, and I also want them to be a little top heavy like the prototype so crews will handle them a little differently.
Once it’s cut to shape, I label each load and I add some stick on weights. This picture also shows the notches carved in for the braces
I grind my coal the old fashioned way: with the butt of a butter knife in an old Cool Whip container. Then I sift it with a kitchen strainer to get a container of small coal. I paint the top of the foam core with straight white glue, then sprinkle the coal over the top and shake off any excess. I do this over the coal container so I can recycle any coal that falls off.
The coal is real coal, ground up with the butt of a butter knife and sifted with a sieve before being added on top of a coat of straight white glue
I set the loads on parchment paper to dry overnight. The next day, I spray the tops of the loads with “wet glue” (about 8:1 water:glue + a couple drops of dishwashing soap) until they’re saturated. This really sets the loads and keeps the coal from leaving dust on hands and models. Once the glue has completely dried, I go along each load with my fingers, knocking off any protruding pieces of coal, then I clean up any coal on the edges with an X-Acto blade.
After letting the coal loads dry overnight, I hit them with “wet glue” to further set them and to keep the coal dust from rubbing offOnce the wet glue is dry, I clean them up a little with a finger to knock off any pieces sticking up too high and an X-Acto blade to clean up any coal pieces on the sides
The white glue tends to dull the coal’s sheen, so my last step is to hit the loads with a coat of clear satin-finish lacquer spray–this looks about right to my eye to bring the coal back to its original luster. All told, when you do them in bulk, it only takes a few minutes and a few cents worth of materials per load, and I love the way they look! I also like that each load is absolutely unique–something tougher to achieve with commercial loads.
The white glue dulls the coal a bit, so the last step is to restore a bit of the sheen with some clear satin finish lacquer sprayThese removable coal loads capture the distinctive lumps of freshly loaded coal piled high
Here’s the St Charles wye with ballast. Note the area of cinders where a track used to be
While I finished the basic scenery forms on the lower deck a few weeks ago, I decided it would be better to ballast the tracks before adding the upper deck benchwork while I still had good access to them. I’m so glad I did because ballasting gives the scenes a much more “finished” look even though there’s still a ton of scenery work to be done. I’ll be honest, I was dreading ballasting the track–I had little experience with ballast, but from that experience I saw it as a frustrating, tedious, and time-consuming job. I have now changed my tune! While it’s still time-consuming, I was able to learn and mature my techniques quickly to avoid the frustration and tedium, so I’ll pass along my method here.
First, I had to determine what kind of ballast I needed. This wasn’t as straightforward as I’d hoped. As best I can tell, most of the tracks in my area were at one time ballasted in cinders harvested from steam locomotives. The steam locos went away in the 1950s, and with them the ability to get cheap and ready cinders for ballast. Photos from the ’80s and ’90s clearly indicate most everything got covered in rock ballast–would the cinders still be around in the 1960s and ’70s? After some digging online, I found that cinders in many places lasted for decades after steam, and in the coal fields, it’s tough to tell cinders from spilled coal anyway, so an added incentive for cinders, at least on sidings and secondary tracks. For the main tracks, photos show the Southern’s ballast in this area was a medium gray. I toyed around with trying to find some actual rock to use as ballast, but in the end I decided on good old Woodland Scenics products made from crushed walnut shells because I can find it readily, it doesn’t cost an arm and leg to ship, and it’s pretty easy to work with. I used fine cinders and medium sized gray ballast in the big shaker containers for this project, and I was able to do the entire lower deck (12′ x 16′) with just under two shakers of each color (4 shakers total).
Second, I did a bunch of research on how to apply ballast, and I am so glad I did! In the end, I went mostly with the method Cody Grivno of Model Railroader lays out in the article here. The only other materials I needed were white glue (I bought a gallon), isopropyl alcohol (I used about XX oz), and dish soap. For tools, I used a spoon, a large flat brush, a white glue dispenser (like the ones kids use in school), two small jars with eyedroppers, a work glove, and my fingers. In the glue bottle, I mixed up some “just a bit wet glue” which is about 2 parts white glue, 1 part water, and a drop or two of dish soap–when you squirt it out, it should dissipate from its bead but not run. In one of the jars with an eyedropper, I made a mix of “very wet glue” of about 1 part glue, 6 parts water, and a drop or two of dish soap–it should look about the consistency of milk and absorb into the wet ballast (I’ll explain that in a minute) after a few seconds. You’ll need a LOT of the very wet glue, so you can either make a big batch or mix it on-demand when you run out (what I did… it was a lot of trips). The remaining jar and eyedropper are for the isopropyl alcohol.
Step 1. Lay down a pile of ballast in the gauge between the railsStep 2. use a finger to spread the ballast between the ties, moving excess to the next section
I worked on the track in about 2 foot sections, usually one track at a time. If you’re doing two ballast colors, determine which ballast should be “lower” and work on that one first–for me, the cinders were replaced by ballast rock, so where they overlap, I did the cinders first. With about half-a-spoonful of ballast, I first apply it to the “gauge” (inside the rails) of the track. It takes a few tries to get a feel for how thick to lay it, but it becomes routine pretty quick. You want just enough that when you spread it the ballast fills the space in between the ties and rails with little on top of the ties and nothing on the rails. I found my finger to be an effective spreading tool, and I just rub it back and forth down the tracks, rubbing any excess ballast to open areas. Cody glues his ballast at this point, but I found it easier to lay the edge ballast first. I applied ballast to the edges by first running a bead of glue from the bottle down the side of the subroadbed and on top of the scenery–this helps the “slope” to hold better. Next I used the spoon to apply ballast inward toward the rail from about the edge of the ties until I couldn’t see the edge of the subroadbed any more. I used my finger again, first to poke the ballast under the rail a bit, then to wipe off the tops of the tie edges, and then to pat down the sloped edges until they looked smooth. I used a brush to clear off any unwanted ballast to outside the range of the glue (I vacuum it up later) and to remove any stubborn ballast from areas my finger couldn’t get to.
Step 3. Add ballast to the edges of the track, use a finger to work it into the ties, then use a finger to clean it off the ties and shape the slope
Once I’m happy with the ballast shape, I glue it down. The critical part of this process is to USE THE ALCOHOL AS A WETTING AGENT FIRST! If you just add the glue, the ballast will float (and float away) which makes a frustrating mess. You can avoid this by first saturating the ballast with an eyedropper of isopropyl alcohol–just drop until everything looks wet. I follow the alcohol wetting with the very wet glue, making sure I apply drops to every section of ballast until things were saturated and it took a couple seconds for the glue to soak in. If you drop a big glob of white glue that somehow didn’t get diluted, no worries–just dilute it with some alcohol, and it will likely settle in just fine. I wet and glued each section by starting with the gauge between the rails, then moving to the edges. I found for the edges it’s better to start the alcohol low and work up to keep things in place, and its better to start the glue high and let it work down.
Step 4. Using a dropper, soak the ballast with isopropyl alcoholStep 5. Saturate the wet areas with wet glue
Turnouts require a bit more care, and I probably didn’t take all the care I should have… it worked out ok, but I spent a couple hours massaging my turnouts to get them working smoothly again. I spread the ballast a little less thickly between the ties to make sure the points wouldn’t catch, and I took care to avoid putting ballast in the area of the throw. No matter how careful I was, there was always some piece determined to get stuck in the throw, so I used the brush (and the occasional X-Acto blade) to fish out any offenders. I used the very wet glue sparingly in these areas, but there was still some glue that stuck to the top of the ties causing the points to stick a bit. I believe Cody’s method is to drop the glue in first, then add the ballast under the points, and I think I’ll try this next time.
Step 6. Clean off any excess ballast–I use a work glove for thisStep 7. Clean any remaining ballast from the web of the rail–I use a combination of a matchstick and fingernails
After letting the glue dry overnight, I clean up any excess ballast. First, I use a work glove and rub it over the top of the ties and edges to knock off any obtrusive pieces. Next, I clean out the area in the web (sides) of the rail using a matchstick rubbed back-and-forth followed by a fingernail. I used a flathead screwdriver to clean out flangeways if necessary. I cleaned up any excess with a vacuum. You’ll inevitably find spots you missed with the glue, but it’s easy to just add more ballast, drop some alcohol, then drop some glue to repair.
Ballast is scenery, so I also wanted it to tell a story. Because track repairs would have been made with gravel instead of cinders in my era, I picked a few spots along the cinder-ballasted yard tracks to fill with gravel (in this case, Woodland Scenics fine gray ballast) to simulate a replaced tie. I like the look! I also picked a few spots in prominent areas to lay some cinders on the scenery to go underneath the ballast rocks to show that some tracks were once cinders but had now been ballasted with rock. I also laid a thin layer of cinders in areas where I know tracks used to be, even though I don’t model them in my era. Finally, I added extra cinders to areas under tipple chutes and where locomotives sit to represent spilled coal and grime. I’m pretty happy with how these “extras” turned out, but they won’t fully tell the story until more scenery is complete.
The St Charles yard where the main is clearly visible. The gray areas on top of cinders represent tie repairs after the age of cinders
Ok, the ballasting was the last step before adding the upper deck, but you’ve heard that before… We shall see.
Here’s the finished ballast at the Mayflower tipple–the road is made from fine ballast as well
Step 1. Lay down a pile of ballast in the gauge between the rails
Step 2. use a finger to spread the ballast between the ties, moving excess to the next section
Step 3. Add ballast to the edges of the track, use a finger to work it into the ties, then use a finger to clean it off the ties and shape the slope
Step 4. Using a dropper, soak the ballast with isopropyl alcohol
Step 5. Saturate the wet areas with wet glue
Step 6. Clean off any excess ballast–I use a work glove for this
Step 7. Clean any remaining ballast from the web of the rail–I use a combination of a matchstick and fingernails
For yards, I did multiple tracks at a time, starting with the gauge, then filling in the areas between tracks
Even when working on multiple tracks at a time, I still wet and glued the gauge portion of all the tracks first
Here’s the finished ballast at the Mayflower tipple–the road is made from fine ballast as well
Transitioning from rock to cinders is done abruptly, but I sprinkle rocks to make a better transition
The St Charles yard where the main is clearly visible. The gray areas on top of cinders represent tie repairs after the age of cinders
Here’s the St Charles wye with ballast. Note the area of cinders where a track used to be
I piled more cinders on top of the rails where the engines sit to simulate grime build up
Here’s the finished base scenery layer in St Charles as the L&N CV Local waits for Southern train 61 to clear the wye
Nearly a year ago I posted the beginnings of building my scenery using Howard Zane’s “paper shell” method. The unfinished red rosin paper shell about halfway through his process served as my basic scenery base for a while–it’s far better than plywood! As I’m nearing the time to move on to the upper deck, I finally got around to finishing the scenery base.
This shot shows several steps in the scenery process including cardboard web, red rosin paper, and the finished base scenery with paint and dirt for texture
In the first post, I covered how to build the basic scenery form using cardboard strips, hot glue, and red rosin paper. Since that first attempt, I have changed my technique a little. I no longer glue a long strip to the backdrop (tedious) but instead just fold the cardboard strip to form a tab and glue the tab to the backdrop. Once the initial cardboard web and red-rosin-paper shell are in place, the next step is a layer of white glue. First, I put masking tape over the tracks and other features I needed to protect from the glue. I use straight Elmer’s white glue from a giant bottle I bought at a local office supply store. It helps to pour a little bit in a portable paint cup for easy access. I used a paint brush (approx. 1.5″ wide designed for house painting) to apply a thick layer of white glue over all the red rosin paper. If your paper layers aren’t tight, expect a little dripping, so be sure to clear out anything valuable from underneath first. When the glue is drying, it saturates the paper causing some unexpected wrinkles–I was worried at first, but most of these disappeared when the glue dried, and those that remained looked like pretty natural variations in the landscape. In places where the paper edges were warping up and away from the layer underneath, I brushed an extra layer of glue underneath and smoothed things back down with a finger.
After applying a layer of glue and letting it dry, I apply lightweight spackling compound to the paper seams to smooth out the edges
Once the glue dried completely, I added a step that Howard Zane does not: spackling the seams. I wasn’t happy with the edges of the paper as there were distinct lines that wouldn’t look natural with just paint. Additionally, there were a few areas that I needed to be completely flat, but they still had some undulations from the glue step. To fix this, I turned to one of my favorite materials: lightweight spackling compound that I picked up from the local hardware store. This is the same compound I use to cover screw holes and hide joints in masonite fascia and backdrops. It’s about the consistency of icing, and you just spread it on in batches using a plastic putty knife to smooth things out as best you can. Once it dried overnight, I used a wet washcloth to rub down the edges of the spackling compound and to taper it into the surrounding paper. This rewets the compound and allows you to get a smooth surface without sanding. Most of the seams were hidden after the first application, but a few areas required a second or third application to get the shape right.
Once the spackling compound dries, I use a wet washcloth to gently smooth the spackling compound to remove rough edges and blend it into the paper
Now things were finally ready for some paint! A friend of mine graciously donated a fine bucket of dark Kentucky dirt to me a while ago (a kingly gift!). I went to the hardware store and found a paint color that matched the dirt color pretty closely and had a gallon made in flat/matte finish. Back on the layout, I applied some of this color thickly with a small brush to about a one square foot area. Using a spoon, I sprinkled some of the sifted dirt onto the paint to give the scenery a little base texture. I left about an inch of the paint uncovered to avoid getting dirt on the paintbrush. Quickly moving to the next section, I painted some more and added more dirt, starting with the seam between the areas as it was the closest to drying. Eventually, the whole surface was covered. Once the paint had dried a little, I gently sprayed a layer of wet glue (about 10 parts water, 1 part glue, with a little dish soap) on top of the dirt. In the few areas where it washed away the dirt, I simply added more to the soaked surface and sprayed again.
I spread thick paint on about one square foot of paper at a time, then I sprinkle with dirt while it’s still wet
Once everything dried. I removed the masking tape and touched up any areas as needed. While there’s still a lot more work to go before the scenery is complete, I’m really happy with this technique to get to a good scenery base that looks a whole lot better than either plywood or raw red rosin paper! I won’t finish the scenery until the upper deck is complete to avoid ruining anything with sawdust and scenery materials raining down, but this current layer is resilient enough (and able to be vacuumed) to withstand the construction of the upper deck.
Another view of the base scenery in St Charles looking toward the gap where the tracks descend to Appalachia staging
This shot shows several steps in the scenery process including cardboard web, red rosin paper, and the finished base scenery with paint and dirt for texture
Here’s the finished layer of red rosin paper on the new scenery section
After applying a layer of glue and letting it dry, I apply lightweight spackling compound to the paper seams to smooth out the edges
Once the spackling compound dries, I use a wet washcloth to gently smooth the spackling compound to remove rough edges and blend it into the paper
Here’s the finished layer of paper with a layer of glue and a layer of spackling compound smoothed with a wet washcloth and ready for paint
While I would have preferred western Virginia dirt, a friend was gracious enough to bring me a bucket of Kentucky dirt to use on the layout which is far closer than our local Colorado dirt
I spread thick paint on about one square foot of paper at a time, then I sprinkle with dirt while it’s still wet
After the paint dries, I spray a wet glue mixture over the dirt to help secure it–I patch up any bald areas with more dirt
Applying glue to red rosin paper results in some warping of the paper that I find adds extra texture and interest to the scenery without any extra work
Paper shell scenery can be made into complex contours using many smaller pieces and a bit of patience
Here’s the finished base scenery layer in St Charles as the L&N CV Local waits for Southern train 61 to clear the wye
Another view of the base scenery in St Charles looking toward the gap where the tracks descend to Appalachia staging
Handbrakes in action holding empties securely above the Mayflower tipple
The ability to set handbrakes to keep cuts of cars in place on a grade is a crucial part of railroading, and a model railroad is no different, especially one set in the Appalachians. I’ve covered my technique for building manually deployable handbrakes via a retractable wire between the rails (article here), but the controllable brakes are complicated to make and install, so I reserve them for areas where I’ll be holding long cuts of cars on a steep grade or for where I need to hold a car for a while and then let it loose for some “gravity assisted switching.” But there are several dozen spots on the layout where I’ll need to spot small cuts of cars on slight grades, so for these areas, I wanted something simpler. I also like free-rolling cars, so tricks like putting a tiny spring on the end of one of the axles was also off the table–it needed to be something in the track. Enter the cheap plastic paintbrush! Each paintbrush handbrake costs just cents to make, and I can easily make and install a dozen in under an hour.
I picked up a box of 100 inexpensive plastic paintbrushes a couple years ago when the local Christian bookstore was having a big sale. I didn’t know how I would use them, so I put them away for a rainy day. That day came when I was playing around with different ideas for holding cars in place. It needed to be something I could roll cars and locomotives across easily without derailing or causing too much friction that would also be sturdy enough to hold a car when spotted over the brake. I first tried two methods that I’ve seen work for others. The first is a little dot of CA on top of the rail, but many of my spotting points were just too steep for this. Next I tried little lengths of fishing line mounted between the rails–these are good because they’re tough to see and work pretty well, but they make a noticeable “plink” every time they clear an axle or a hopper bay… in sections of the yard where I had several in a row, it sounded like a tiny music box playing a discordant tune!
The starting point for handbrakes are inexpensive plastic paintbrushes from an art or hobby store
Then I remembered the brushes. The plastic bristles are pliable enough to give when trains are moved across them but stiff enough to hold a car when no other force is exerted. They could also be trimmed both in height and in density using a pair of scissors. They are certainly more noticeable than the fishing line or CA dots, but my hope is they’ll blend right into dirty coal-covered tracks, and those that don’t blend in can be painted to look like weeds. Even with nothing to disguise them, I find they don’t draw the eye much anyway.
Step 1 is to locate where you need the brakes and drill a hole–the hole is offset to avoid wear-and-tear on air hoses
The first step is to locate where you want to install the “brake.” Figure out where you want the car or cut of cars to sit, then mark the spot where the most downgrade axle will sit–this is where you want the brake. In some cases, like the end of a track, you can mark the spot of the downgrade axle of the upper truck–I use this at the end of stub tracks where I need all the room I can get. For tipple tracks, I find it useful to have up to four handbrakes per track. One at the uphill end of the empty track to hold a full cut of empties, one just above the tipple to hold a shorter string of empties, one just below the tipple to hold a shorter string of loads, and one just before the fouling point of the downhill switch to hold a longer string of loads (or any “gotaways”).
Starting and ending points with the brushes, just a little off the top and thinned down with scissorsThe finished “brake” ready to install between the rails
The second step is to drill a hole between the ties for each hand brake location. I found a 5/32″ bit drilled about 1/4″ deep worked for my paintbrushes, and I offset my holes closer to one rail to avoid constantly hitting delicate air hoses on cars. To prep the paintbrush, I first cut off about 3/16″ of the bristles with scissors–the idea is to have them tall enough to catch axles but not the sills of the cars or cut levers. Then I thin out the bristles by repeatedly cutting into the brush with just the tip of the scissors while rotating the brush around. How much you thin it out depends on the grade and how many cars you want to hold, but for my light grades, I trim down to about the last 20 or so bristles. It’s easy enough to thin them a bit more once they’re installed, and if you get it too thin, it’s easy to just make another. Then I use scissors and cut off the brush end of the paintbrush leaving about 3/16″ of the plastic handle to keep the bristles secure. Installing them is usually a press fit, but if they’re loose, a little carpenter’s glue will help hold them in place. I press them down until the handle is below the ties where its bright color will be covered up by ballast.
Paint brush handbrakes installed between the rails
The final step is to test the brake by running strings of cars across them to make sure they don’t derail and don’t cause any noticeable jerking movements in the cars (if you look closely, you’ll see some movement, you just want to avoid it being distracting). When you let go, the cars should roll and then come to a gentle stop once they hit the brake. Also test a locomotive across each brake to make sure it doesn’t interfere with the trucks (this is the most stressing pressure on the brake). On steeper grades, you may find having a few brakes in series is needed to stop a string of rolling cars, or you may have to spot the cars exactly on the brake to prevent them from rolling in the first place. It’s easy enough to add and remove these brakes while you’re trying to figure things out. In the end, I’ve found this is a great way to hold cars in place without the worry of damaging cars or scenery, and it’s tough to beat the price and ease of installation!
Finished “handbrakes” to hold the loaded cars in front of the Mayflower tipple mock-up
The starting point for handbrakes are inexpensive plastic paintbrushes from an art or hobby store
Step 1 is to locate where you need the brakes and drill a hole–the hole is offset to avoid wear-and-tear on air hoses
Starting and ending points with the brushes, just a little off the top and thinned down with scissors
The finished “brake” ready to install between the rails
Paint brush handbrakes installed between the rails
Finished “handbrakes” to hold the loaded cars in front of the Mayflower tipple mock-up
Handbrakes in action holding empties securely above the Mayflower tipple
The CV Local led by L&N RS3 100 crosses Bonny Blue Road with its newly installed crossing flashers
Many of the grade crossings on the St Charles Branch didn’t have flashing signals and were protected by flagmen or fusees (see how I simulate fusees here), but a few of the more prominent crossings were protected by automatic flashing signals and bells. One of those crossings is Bonny Blue Road which crossed two legs of the wye in St Charles. I was looking for a way to make these signals work automatically with nothing required of the crews (beyond sounding the horn for the crossing) and no hardware needed on any rolling stock. I quickly settled on using IR sensors mounted near the tracks to trigger the circuits required for the crossing. While many of the major manufacturers of railroad electronics offer circuits for flashers and for triggering based on sensors, there seemed to be a lack of good, simple options for the sensors. So I did what many of us do when we’re looking for something–I turned to eBay.
I found a lot of products for flashing crossing signals, but one it particular caught my eye. A company called “WeHonest” was offering what looked to be decent looking LED signals that came with a flashing circuit for a very reasonable price. Being a little suspect of a foreign company calling itself “WeHonest,” I needed four signals, so I ordered a couple sets and hoped for the best. I ordered the signals with two heads instead of four (front and back) because my signals would only been seen from one direction, and the ones with four heads looked too thick front-to-back (I plan to add dummy heads on the back later). When they arrived a couple weeks later, I was impressed with the quality for the price. The lettering is easily readable, the construction is mostly metal, and the size and shape are good for HO scale. I had to clean up some areas of the metal crossbucks, and some of the silver paint flaked off, but these were easy fixes. I initially hooked up the flashing circuit to a pushbutton on the fascia, and the flashing circuit worked flawlessly and controlled all four signals in a synchronized manner.
The signal piece was solved, so now I needed a way to automatically control them. My confidence in “WeHonest” was bolstered, so I explored their options. They offer a “model train detector automatic signal controller crossing system trigger etc” (also called a “master board”) which shows a diagram of how it can be configured to trigger a grade crossing flashing circuit using simple, single-unit IR sensors that don’t require a broken path. I also needed a circuit that could support four sensors due to the tracks that would trigger this grade crossing, and while the board only supports two sensors, their diagrams show that you can connect more sensors via separately available splitter cables. They also offer a sound effect circuit with multiple grade crossing signal bells (and a rooster). I ordered a master board, sound effect board, two splitters, and some additional IR sensors.
Wiring diagram showing the connections needed between the three circuit boards, signals, and sensors
The documentation you see on eBay is all you get, so it took some studying and tinkering to set things up, but it wasn’t difficult. The basic idea is the master board is connected to 12V DC and the IR sensors. The sound effect board and flasher circuit are daisy chained off the 12V DC “output” side of the master board which is only live when the IR sensors are triggered. The only surprise on wiring was there are no normal contact screws for the 12V DC input, only a plug for an adapter and a specific connector type (both of which are sold separately). I found a plug off an old RC helicopter I disassembled years ago that did the trick. I mounted all three circuits and the speaker on a piece of masonite to keep the wiring tight and organized. Rather than use the supplied speaker, I attached a pair of baffled cube speakers I had pulled out of a locomotive when I replaced it with a Scale Sound System speaker.
I mounted all three circuits and the speaker on a single piece of masonite to declutter and protect the wires
I installed the IR sensors between the rails and ties as the company indicates in the pictures. When anything passes over it within a couple inches, the IR sensor is triggered. There is no documentation on how the sensor works, but it has two elements, a blue dome and a black dome. I can only speculate that it transmits IR from one dome and receives reflected IR in the other dome. When I hooked everything up, it worked great… with two IR sensors plugged into the two separate sensor inputs on the master board. When I tried to use all four IR sensors, it would trigger the circuit no matter what I did even if nothing was present. I noticed some sensors were more sensitive than others, so I experimented with different placements and combos and even the positioning of the elements within the sensor. Unfortunately, I destroyed one of my sensors in the process, but thankfully they’re inexpensive, and I found the WeHonest customer service to be very responsive and helpful!
Here’s an IR sensor with a portion of the black dome covered in electrical tape to decrease its sensitivity
When my replacement sensors arrived, they did the exact same thing as before. Two sensors worked fine, four sensors triggered the circuit even with nothing present. I really liked the overall operation of these circuits, so I kept experimenting to see what might work. I speculated that the circuit detects based on a threshold of received IR energy–with one sensor, the ambient IR was low enough to stay below the threshold, but with two sensors, the ambient IR increased above the threshold to make it appear a train was present. I found that if I covered a portion of the black domed element on some of the IR sensors, it would keep the circuit from triggering but would still trigger if a train passed. After playing around, I found covering about 60% of the black element of all IR sensors with a small piece of electrical tape made everything work as intended.
Now that I’ve worked out the kinks, I’m very happy with the crossing! I’m able to control the sensor sensitivity via the electrical tape, I can control the flash rate of the LEDs via a dial on the flasher circuit, I can select the bell sound from one of several good options on the sound effect circuit, and all of this works automatically with no actions needed from the crew. I have two more flashing grade crossings to go on the upper level, and I’m satisfied enough that I’ve already ordered the parts to replicate this installation on those crossings.
Wiring diagram showing the connections needed between the three circuit boards, signals, and sensors
I mounted all three circuits and the speaker on a single piece of masonite to declutter and protect the wires
I mounted one IR sensor between routes on a turnout because either route requires the crossing signals to activate
Here’s an IR sensor with a portion of the black dome covered in electrical tape to decrease its sensitivity
The circuits installed under the layout
The CV Local led by L&N RS3 100 crosses Bonny Blue Road with its newly installed crossing flashers
The hopper class of April 23 consists of 11 hoppers, mainly L&N and heritage cars
It’s time to introduce another “class” of hoppers graduating from the workbench to the layout. Looking back I see the last class of hoppers graduated in April of ’22, so I guess I’m averaging about a dozen hoppers a year… got a ways to go! This class was fun because most of the cars are for the L&N trains on the layout. Previous to this, most of my L&N cars were of mid-’70s paint and markings, so I focused on some cars to represent the mid-’60s to early ’70s including four PS3 70T cars, a PS3 50T car, and three ex-Monon two-bays (ok, I don’t need 3 Monon hoppers, but they came as a set, and I got them for cheap so…). The three remaining cars represent Southern prototypes including two ex-Central of Georgia 70T cars and an old 50T offset in red with Roman lettering.
This Tangent PS3 2750 hopper received a new number, corner tow loops and roller bearing trucks to represent a later series of cars
The easiest cars of the bunch were the 70T PS3s which are all factory-painted Tangent cars with excellent detail. The four cars all came lettered in the 73000 series, and after looking through pictures, I decided they’d also be good to represent the 150000 and 153000 class cars that were also delivered in the “DIXIE LINE” paint scheme. For hopper 152067, it was as simple as changing the number and build dates. I scraped off the old lettering using an X-Acto chisel blade–it leaves a little shiny spot, but this is easy to disguise with weathering. Hopper 153708 was a little more involved because this class came with the later style tow loops at the lower corners of the car and roller bearing trucks. I snipped off the modeled loops, cut new corner tow loops from .015″ styrene, glued them on and painted them. A set of Bowser roller bearing trucks and metal wheels fit well and kept the car at the proper height.
This L&N PS3 is a factory painted Walthers Trainline kit that’s received new ladders and other details
The 50T PS3 is a factory-painted Walthers Trainline kit which is an updated version of a VERY old model kit that’s been around since probably the 60s and has pretty clunky detail. I remedied the worst of the detail issues by cutting off the ladders and replacing them with DA ladders and added new scratchbuilt heap shields. A new Kadee brake wheel and some new wire details like brake gear piping, grabs, cut bars and train line hose finished the detailing.
These three hoppers came in a single box from Atlas–they’ve had their details enhanced and have been extensively weathered but are otherwise stock
The Monon 50T hoppers are pretty much stock, factory painted Atlas hoppers. I used my favorite “grab narrowing” trick where I carefully cut away the back of the ladder grab irons with a sharp No 11 X-Acto blade. This makes the detail look much finer from any distance and is easier and quicker, in my opinion, than completely replacing the grabs with wire. I did add some wire grabs on the lower ends along with some cut levers and train line hoses.
Southern 50T hopper in Roman scheme weathered as if it’s seen a few miles
The Southern 50T offset hopper is a factory-painted Athearn model from a set of six (more of these to do). The roman lettering was common in the early ’60s and was almost entirely phased out by 1970. I wanted to model it in its last year or so of old paint. Detail-wise, it got the narrowed grab treatment, a new Kadee brake wheel, and a few wire details.
These two ex-Central of Georgia hoppers started as Roundhouse kits but are full of added and modified parts
The most work-intensive of the bunch were the two ex-CofGa 70T hoppers. These began as factory-painted Roundhouse kits (one used, one “new” but very old stock). Up to this point, I’ve been content to use the Atlas Trainman version of this car which is a pretty good stand-in. I also use the Atlas cars for my “primary” Southern 70T hopper fleet, and in reality, the Central of Georgia cars are 14″ shorter in length (40’6″) than the Southern’s big 70300-73749 class of cars (41’8″)… crazy me, I thought “wouldn’t it be cool to have the ex-CofGa hopper be noticeably shorter in a lineup?” Let’s just say these cars need a LOT of work to bring them up to modern standards and to correct the most egregiously noticeable detail faults and missing details. Lots of styrene, cuts, and extra details later, these cars emerged. Perhaps I’ll do a whole write-up on them [see the full write-up here], but they do, indeed, look cool and distinct in a lineup of Southern 70T cars… was it worth it? Only to a hopper freak like me.
I spent more time than normal weathering the interiors of these hoppers using a combination of airbrush, washes, and dry brushing
Most of these models represent cars that were already 10-25 years old when I’m modeling them, so they got some pretty heavy weathering. I did some dry brushing of rust spots on the exterior. The Monon cars got some car-colored dry brushing to fade portions of the big “MONON” using pictures as a guide. On several of the cars, I masked off portions of the data (LT WT and LD LMT) and shop markings with rectangles of tape–when peeled off after the airbrushing, it looks like re-stenciled data which is appropriate for cars this age. I airbrushed them all with a light spray of flat tan to fade them a little and add some dirt, especially around the trucks and bays. I also airbrushed some flat black into the interiors–the older the car being represented, the more black it got. Next I used a wash of black with a little tan on the outside to darken the seams and corners and dull things down. On the inside, I used a wash of Vallejo “orange rust” and water and dabbed it on heavily with a big brush, letting it dry in splotches and in the corners (some got a couple coats). For the oldest cars, I drybrushed the interior with orange rust, particularly along edges and panel lines. Finally, I put dabs of Vallejo “dark rust” into the centers of the orange spots to make it look like an old but growing rust spot with fresh orange rust along the outsides and dark rust in the middle.
Overall, I’m pretty happy with the additions, and it’s fun to have a few “rust buckets” running around in the trains. Can’t wait to load ’em at the next ops session!
The St Charles Switcher crew sets the handbrakes to leave a string of loaded hoppers on the grade while working the yard
Gravity is a major factor in prototype railroading, but it can be quite troublesome for a model railroad. Very little real track is actually completely flat, so train crews routinely use the handbrakes on individual cars to hold them in place in yards or sidings. Not only do handbrakes hold cars in place, but in the Appalachians where I model, gravity and handbrakes were often used to move cars from empty tracks to tipple loading points, to move loads into the right track below the tipple, or even to run-around a caboose at the end of the line. Modeling working handbrakes on individual cars isn’t very practical, so what is a model railroader to do? Some install springs on the ends of a car’s axles to use friction to hold the car, but this can’t be “turned off” to allow the car to roll freely. Others use little picks they stick into the ballast to hold cars in place, but this can be destructive to scenery, and it leaves an un-prototypical giant stick next to a cut of cars. I’ve adopted a method of fascia-controlled “handbrakes” on the tracks which works well for my needs.
The first step of the handbrake is to locate where you want the brake, drill a hole, and insert a brass rod sleeve for the brake wire
This method is overkill if you just want to hold cars in place on a siding. For this I recommend a drop of CA, a piece of monofilament line sticking up through the tracks, or the end of a soft brush if more strength is needed–I use all of the above for holding cars in place when set out. I use the method here where I need brakes sometimes and free rolling other times, so the first thing you need to do is figure out where you need brakes. I once heard a story about a design presented to a university for a new campus that didn’t show any sidewalks. When the dean of the university asked the designer why there were no sidewalks, the designer replied “wait a year after the campus is open, then you’ll know exactly where the sidewalks need to go based on the trails through the grass.” So, where do I install brakes? Wherever I find I need them when operating trains–a question I also pose to my operators after every session: “is there anywhere you wished you had handbrakes but didn’t.” Generally speaking, they’re needed anywhere a crew will need to leave cars on a grade for a period of time to conduct other work. Since I’ve got lots of grades on the layout, I’ve currently got five handbrakes installed on the lower level alone.
The concept of these fascia-controlled handbrakes is simple: install a movable piece of strong wire between the rails tall enough to hold an axle with a mechanism to retract it when not in use. Once you know about where you need brakes, mark that spot between the rails, and make sure the area underneath is clear enough to install a brake mechanism. Remember, the brake can really be anywhere along a string of cars, so if your ideal spot is not to ideal under the layout or on the fascia, just move it a few inches. I use 1/16″ brass tube as a protective sleeve for the .025″ steel music wire I use as the brake, so once I find a spot, I drill a vertical hole between the ties for the brass rod. I like to offset the rod about 1/4-1/3 between the rails to avoid interfering with truck bolsters (coupler trip pins will also be an issue for those who use them… in fact, a similar mechanism might work for uncoupling too, hmmm…).
Here’s the finished control in the “off” position (in line with track)
If you’ve followed me for a while, you know I’m a big fan of manual controls using slide switches–I use them for turnout controls, semaphore controls, and now handbrakes. You also know I’m a stickler for creating a fascia where the controls make sense and aid an operator instead of confusing them. In the case of the handbrake, I wanted it to be easy for operators to see when the brake is “set” and when it is retracted, so I settled on a control lever that lies in-line with the track when retracted and sits at a sharp angle when “set.” Just for good measure, I also use a bi-color LED to illuminate amber on the fascia representation of the affected track when the brake is set to help mitigate inadvertently running into a brake with the delicate footboards of a super-detailed locomotive (been there, done that).
Here’s the completed brake assembly with three pieces of wood, DPDT slide switch, brake wire (vertical), and control rod (horizontal)
For the brake mechanism, I use a vertically mounted slide switch (DPDT in this case) with a 3/16″ throw–this is just enough to catch the axle of a 36″ wheel in HO scale when extended and still retract to almost rail height when recessed. The brake rod itself is a piece of .025″ music wire bent into a squared-off “J” shape running through a hole in the slide switch–initially, make this piece long enough that it will stick up about 1/2″ or more above the rails when in place. The control mechanism is a piece of thick steel rod (.062″ music wire) with a bell crank bent at one end. Th rod should be cut about 3″ longer than the distance between the brake’s track location and the location of the control on the fascia. The bell crank is offset about 1/4″ from the rod. As you can see in photos, I drill a hole in a piece of 1×3″ board centered on the slide switch and offset about 1/4″ laterally for the control rod to pass through (lined with 3/32″ brass tube for smooth operation). I also bend the bell crank at 45-degree angles instead of 90 as this allows me to make adjustments to the crank offset in either direction, shorter or longer. The structure for the mechanism is typically three boards: 1) the slide switch board with a large hole drilled out for the switch (mounted with screws), 2) the control rod board mounted 90 degrees to the switch where the bell crank is secured, and 3) the attachment board on top to make it easy to mount to the plywood sub-roadbed. I use 1×3″ pine for most of my pieces, but I may use different thicknesses of attachment plates to get the control rod at the right height for the fascia control–the brake wire can be really tall and still work, so better to have the mechanism hanging lower than to have to curve the control rod to the right height. Once I’ve got the three boards assembled with 1 1/4″ drywall screws, I disassemble it, insert the bell crank end of the control rod, insert the bell crank into a hole drilled in the slide switch, adjust the bell crank as needed for smooth operation of the switch, and reattach the boards with the screws.
The left is the front side of the assembly that will face the fascia–note the brass rod sleeve in the wood where the rod goes through
For the fascia, I drill a hole for the 3/32″ brass rod sleeve as close to horizontal as I can get it and pointed directly at the brake location on the track. I pick the spot on the fascia that allows me to do this while keeping the control rod as perpendicular as possible to the fascia (you don’t want the control rod coming out of the fascia at a strange angle if you can help it). The LEDs are nice but not necessary, but this is the step where I drill the holes, about 1″ behind the brake control. I like to drill the hole through the fascia the exact size of the LED bulb and then use a second larger bit from the back side of the fascia to create a space for the rest of the LED–this keeps the LED from popping out the front of the fascia. I use bi-color red/green LEDs which glow a nice reddish amber when hooked up to AC (e.g., DCC track bus), and I attach one lead to one side of the track bus (with a 470K resistor), the other lead to the “up” position of the slide switch, and a third wire from the center position of the slide switch to the other side of the track bus. Super simple.
Here’s the handbrake mechanism installed under the layout–the control assembly should orient to the fascia and not the track
Mounting the switch mechanism is a bit of a pain and requires some planning and patience. From under the layout, I run the control rod through the fascia. Then I find the brass rod going up through the tracks and insert the brake rod (it helps if the brass rod is long enough to protrude beyond the plywood of the sub-roadbed). With the mounting screws on the attachment plate ready to go (screwed in so they’re almost through the board), I gently move the mechanism around until the brake wire is more-or-less vertical, the switch operates freely, and the control rod is as straight as possible between the fascia and mechanism. The mechanism is oriented to put the rod and switch perpendicular to the FASCIA rather than the track (angle relative to track doesn’t matter here). Once I’m happy with the placement, I run the mounting screws into the sub-roadbed.
With the brake in the RECESSED position, bend the control rod parallel to the ground
On the fascia side, I now have about 2″ of control rod sticking out. With the slide switch in the DOWN position, I then grasp the control rod with a pair of needle nose pliers flush with the fascia so the bend will be about 3/16″ from the fascia and use my hand to bend the control rod to align with my track diagram (horizontal) in the direction of the bell crank so that “up” on the control = “up” on the brake. My convention is to face the controls and bell cranks to the left, but either works. At this point, I have the leverage to test the mechanism and fix any issues. If all is good, I use a Dremel cut-off wheel to cut the end of the control rod so about 3/4″ beyond the bend. For the control lever, I use a wooden 1 3/8″ “axle peg” which can be found at any large craft store–it’s admittedly an odd shape, but it’s distinct, easy to find, and easy to use. I insert the pegs into a vice and drill a hole the exact size of the control rod about 1″ deep into the center of the peg, then drill another hole in the side about 1/8″ from the flat end into the first hole and use an X-Acto blade to create a notch between the two for the 90-degree bend in the control rod. The peg is usually a press fit onto the control rod.
The brake wire should initially be longer than required in the recessed position
The final step is to trim the brake wire. I’ve found if I use a pair of wire cutters at rail-top level when the brake is in the DOWN (recessed) position, it is low enough for all my locomotives to clear and extends high enough to catch all my axles when needed. Because the wire’s location can be tough to see (especially when cars are over it), I use a little dab of yellow paint on the outside of the rail to indicate where the brake wire lives for easy spotting by crews.
The brake wire can be tough to see with cars on top of it, so I use a little dab of yellow paint on the rail to help operators know the brake location
I’ll also share some “lessons learned” for using this type of handbrake:
The brake will find your lowest-clearance locomotive and keep it from moving until you trim the brake wire–remember this locomotive and use it to test all brake installs
If you try to pull a string of cars when the brake is engaged, you WILL bowstring every car between the locomotive and the brake off the rails (sometimes violently)
If you leave the brake “up” and roll cars into it, they will bounce back quite jarringly upon hitting the brake
If you don’t pay attention and activate the brake under a truck bolster or low-hanging part of the car, you WILL raise the car off the rails and derail it (or topple it)
Other than these “gotchas,” I’m very happy with the operational possibilities these handbrakes add to the model railroad!
The St Charles Switcher crew sets the handbrakes to leave a string of loaded hoppers on the grade while working the yard
The first step of the handbrake is to locate where you want the brake, drill a hole, and insert a brass rod sleeve for the brake wire
Here’s the completed brake assembly with three pieces of wood, DPDT slide switch, brake wire (vertical), and control rod (horizontal)
The left is the front side of the assembly that will face the fascia–note the brass rod sleeve in the wood where the rod goes through
Top view of the handbrake assembly–the top board helps to mount the assembly securely under the subroadbed
Here’s the handbrake mechanism installed under the layout–the control assembly should orient to the fascia and not the track
The control rod should protrude through the fascia at least 2″
With the brake in the RECESSED position, bend the control rod parallel to the ground
I use a wooden axle for the control rod and drill out a hole the size of the control rod along with a notch on one side
Here’s the finished control in the “off” position (in line with track)
Here’s the handbrake control in the “on” position–the LED helps alert operators that the track is not clear
The brake wire should initially be longer than required in the recessed position
With the brake wire in the recessed position, trim it to just above rail height with wire cutters
The brake wire can be tough to see with cars on top of it, so I use a little dab of yellow paint on the rail to help operators know the brake location
Here’s another handbrake on the main at a location where crews have to leave their train to work cuts of cars through a short run-around just ahead
Here’s another handbrake on a 3 percent grade above St Charles Yard–I use this one to set cars above the yard and use gravity to route them down the right track, just like the prototype would often do
As I’ve stated in previous posts, sound decoders have drastically changed my approach to DCC consisting. In an ideal world, I want all movement controls (forward, reverse, braking, dynamics) within a consist to be controlled by a single throttle, and I want only the lights, horns and bell of the lead unit to respond when an operator selects these functions. Digitrax’s “universal consisting,” unfortunately, doesn’t allow function-controlled movements like braking to go to the entire consist. Also, if you reverse the direction of the consist, you have to rebuild the consist to control both movement, lights and sound with the new lead unit. This is not a big deal for trains that only run in one direction, but every single one of my trains is an “out and back” where the lead unit of a consist switches, sometimes several times in a session. Asking operators to rebuild the consist every time they switch the train’s direction is not ideal.
Moving to “advanced consisting” (decoder-aided consisting) solved many of these problems but not all. Using the “consist” tab in JMRI, I was able to use the directional lighting features built into my Soundtraxx Tsunami 2 decoders to set the lights on the end units in a consist to “respond to consist address” but only in forward or reverse, thus solving the challenge of only getting the end lights in a consist to illuminate. The horns and bell, however, cannot be set to only operate directionally using the consist controls, so I was stuck with picking one loco in the consist to respond to all the horn and bell commands… this works, especially if all units use the same horn type, but it bothered me a bit to hear a Nathan M5 from the trailing GP35 instead of the Nathan P3 from the leading GP38. When I posed this question to a group of Digitrax experts, one of them pointed me to this video from Soundtraxx where someone had figured out how to use “alternate sound levels” function in the Tsunami 2 decoders to get directional horns, so I had to give it a try. The video left a few steps out, perhaps because they were using “simple consisting” (same address), so I had to experiment a bit to figure out how to make it work with advanced consisting, but in the end, I was able to get the consist to perform [almost] exactly as I had hoped using the following method.
The Gist
Soundtraxx Tsunami 2 decoders have an “alternate sound mixer” designed to make it easy to select a new set of alternate sound levels with the press of a function button. Additionally, the “function mapping” in Tsunami 2 decoders allows you to set any function to operate automatically when the command station commands the decoder in “forward driving,” “reverse driving,” “forward driving,” or “forward standing” conditions. The trick is to set all the alternate sound levels to match the primary sound levels EXCEPT the horn and bell which are set to volume “0,” then use the function map to configure the alternate mixer to operate any time the decoder is moving in the trailing direction (forward or reverse based on how it’s sitting in the consist), and finally to set up the decoder to “respond to consist address” for horn and bell functions. When you set up the locomotives on the ends of the consist in this manner, it has the effect of silencing the horns and bell when the locomotive is trailing and not leading. Here are the steps in JMRI.
Step 1. Set the sound levels in the primary sound mixer
Step 2. Set the horn and bell to “0” in the alternate sound mixer
Step 3. Copy all other sound volume values from the primary to the alternate sound mixer
Step 4. Set up the “alternate mixer” to operate with forward or reverse direction (the direction in which it’s trailing in the consist)
Steps 5-8. Set up the advanced consisting so directional lights and functions for horn and bells “respond to consist address” and enable the automatic functions
Some of the settings will depend on where the locomotive is in the consist and whether or not its on the end. For a locomotive in the middle of the consist, you can either set the decoder’s light, horn and bell functions to “locomotive address only” in the consist tab, or you could place check marks in all four columns in the function map (forward driving, reverse driving, forward standing, reverse standing) so only the alternate mixer with zero volume for bells and horn are used. If you change the orientation of the locomotive, you may need to change the FL settings in the “consist” tab and swap from “forward” to “reverse” check marks in the function map. Also, if you’re using a locomotive on the end that doesn’t support an alternate mixer (like the Soundtraxx Econamis I have in some locomotives), then you’ll need to pick just one of the locomotives to “respond to consist address” to provide the horn and bell for the whole consist and disable the directional checks in the function map.
That’s it! Now when you run a throttle using the advanced consisting address, the lights on the ends will be directional, AND only the horn and bell of the leading unit will respond to the throttle’s horn and bell functions no matter which direction you’re running. Click on the video at the top of the page to see this in action, and if you’ve got some even better tips and tricks for this, please leave them in a comment below!
The St Charles Switcher crew throws down a couple fusees to protect the Pot Branch Road grade crossing near Mayflower
I enjoy trying to copy every element of prototype railroading I can… as long as there’s at least an element of fun in it. When I saw this short video showing a Western Maryland crew dropping fusees (pronounced “fyoozees”) to protect a grade crossing, I started thinking about how I might model this. Fusees are used by railroads for many purposes including dropping them on tracks to warning following trains of their presence–because of this purpose, fusees are designed to burn for a set time, commonly 10 minutes. Fusees can also used to protect grade crossings that don’t have flashing lights like the one in the WM video, especially when it’s dark or posting a flagman wouldn’t be practical or safe. Since I want to model nighttime ops, and I haven’t made any HO scale flagmen to post yet, I decided I wanted some simulated fusees to protect the handful of crossings I have on the layout.
My first attempt was pretty simple and economical, just two fiber optic cables embedded into the “road” (it’s just paper and cardboard at this point) on either side of the grade crossing routed to a bi-color LED that I connected to the DCC track bus (creates a reddish orange glow) and a simple SPST push-button switch. To keep the fiber optic cable from falling through the road, I melted the end into a mushroom shape by holding it near a hot soldering iron. The other ends were taped together and inserted into a piece of shrink tubing around the LED. It was functional enough to protect the crossing, but I really wanted a way to 1) put the fusees on a timer, and 2) make them look a little more realistic.
The basic parts to make a simulated fusee including fiber optics, the Bakatronics flares / fusee circuit, and the timer circuit
The timer issue was solved by searching Amazon and looking at a lot of different timing circuits. I finally settled on this one, though it’s probably overkill. I like it because you can choose one of several timing modes (fun to play with for other projects), you can set the timer for however long you want to keep the relay “on,” and you can easily see the timing settings on the display. To make them more realistic, I started with an internet search for “model railroad fusee,” and after chasing through some links in model railroad boards, I discover the Bakatronics BK-111 “Simulated Flares / Fusees Kit.” It looked promising, especially since it’s designed to power two fusees that “light” and extinguish several seconds apart (like one person is walking a short distance between lighting them, just like a grade crossing). I ordered two just to make sure it would work, and I was not disappointed! When activated, they “light” at different times, flicker independently for a while, then the first one goes out, then the second with a nice slowly diminishing burn out… really cool looking!
The fusees are controlled with a simple momentary SPST switch on the fascia
The Bakatronics fusee circuit is designed to work with either a momentary switch (stays on for about 30 seconds) or an on/off switch (stays on as long as the switch is closed). Instead, I wired the fusee circuit to the timer circuit so I could set the time the fusees stay lit exactly, and all the operator has to do is push a button once. I use a 4:1 fast clock, so a 10-minute burn should last about 2.5 minutes / 150 sec. The Bakatronics circuit add some time on its own, so I found a setting of 135 sec on the timer keeps the fusees lite for about 10 scale minutes, and like the prototype, the crew only needs to worry about whether or not to put down another set of fusees (push the button again) if the first set “burn out.” Both the timer circuit and fusee circuit run off a ~12V DC bus I have running around the fascia, previously to power semaphore lights. Here’s a video of the fusee in action…
We used these on my last operating session, and I thought they added a neat bit of prototype thinking for the crews–we had to think about protecting the crossings while moving the trains, and the flickering fusees gave a visual representation of the action taken. I can’t wait to try them at night when I’ve got the final lighting installed!
The basic parts to make a simulated fusee including fiber optics, the Bakatronics flares / fusee circuit, and the timer circuit
Here’s the end of the fusee pulled out of the “road” for better viewing… just the end of a fiber optic cable melted into a mushroom shape
Here’s the powered timing circuit showing mode “P2” (reset time if pushed again) and “135” second of “on” time once activated
The fusees are controlled with a simple momentary SPST switch on the fascia
A look at the glowing fiber optic cable under the layout that lights the fusee
The St Charles Switcher crew throws down a couple fusees to protect the Pot Branch Road grade crossing near Mayflower
The layout’s not set up for night operations yet, but once it is the fusees will look spectacular!
“Protect Your Back Watch for Slack” safety slogan in the yard at St. Charles
Real railroaders are inundated every day by safety slogans. This focus on safety appears to have ramped up in earnest in the 1970s with slogans appearing on all sorts of company publications, in shops, and on rolling stock like cabooses. I thought it would be fun to bring some of these prototypical safety reminders to the layout.
Safety slogan “Think Safety Then Proceed” occupying a corner at Mayflower
The first step was to determine what kind of safety slogans the Southern used. I found the best place to find them was just above the steps of a caboose, so I pored over hundreds of photos of Southern cabs, zooming in over the steps to see what slogans I could make out. I was able to capture more than a dozen slogans including the following:
“SOUTHERNERS THINK SAFETY”
“WATCH FOR SLACK”
“GET A GOOD GRIP FOR SAFETY”
“GET ON AND OFF AT SAFE SPEED”
“ON OR OFF CHECK FOOTING”
“THINK SAFETY THEN PROCEED”
“LIFE GOES YOUR WAY WITH SAFETY”
“SAFETY – GO FOR IT”
“DISMOUNT AT SAFE SPEED”
“PROTECT YOUR BACK WATCH FOR SLACK”
“THINK THROUGH EVERY MOVE”
“GET A GOOD HOLD ON SAFETY”
This safety slogan is the most unique to the Southern, so I placed it next to the Southern logo on the fascia
Armed with these slogans, I headed off to Hobby Lobby to pick up the closest lettering stencil I could find in the 3/4″ size range, a yellow paint marker, and a black paint marker – less than a $10 investment. I selected a few blank spots of fascia around the layout and used masking tape to provide a level reference line for the lettering. I just hand-held the stencil against the fascia, applied some yellow paint marker in the correct letter, and wiped the wet paint off the template. I carefully held a paper towel up to the freshly painted letter and dabbed it dry without smearing–this not only allowed me to move on to the next letter quickly, but it helped to created a worn and mottled look to the letters that I liked. Once the upper line was done, I measured and picked the middle point of the line, reset the masking tape for the lower line, and started with the middle letter for the lower line to keep things centered.
I decided to add the quotation marks as well. They appear on some of the slogans (not all), but I think it helps make it clear that these are pulled from somewhere instead of just being a random sign on the fascia. The template didn’t have the quote marks, so I used an X-Acto blade to make my own stencil in a blank spot on the plastic template. After things dried, I used a combination of the black paint marker and a sharpie to clean up around the edges. Finally, I used the Sharpie to draw in some extra stencil lines across the letters using pictures of actual Southern stenciling as a guide (for example, a line under the top part of the “T” and lines across the top and bottom of the “C” and “S”).
Ok, there’s one more project down that’s been rattling around in my brain and one less excuse to procrastinate on getting back to scenery…
This was a simple project that only required a list of slogans, a cheap lettering template, a paint pen and a Sharpie
This safety slogan is the most unique to the Southern, so I placed it next to the Southern logo on the fascia
Safety slogan “Think Safety Then Proceed” occupying a corner at Mayflower
This safety slogan seemed particularly appropriate for a switching-based layout
I put the “Protect Your Back Watch for Slack” slogan in the yard at St. Charles
The St Charles local slows to pick up orders from the operator at the St Charles depot
This update is proof positive that I will do anything to procrastinate on building scenery… Of course, in my mind I’ve justified this delay as important because I need to be able to visualize the scene in St Charles before putting in the basic landforms. Sure, let’s go with that very logical explanation!
Several months ago I shared my plan to build mock-ups of the major structures on the lower level, the first of which was the Mayflower tipple which has appeared in many updates since it was built. I don’t want to build the permanent structures until construction on the upper deck is complete, but I’d like to have some of the key buildings represented both to visualize scenes and to give operators something better than just a block of wood to represent the buildings they’re working. Creating these mock-ups also requires me to build scale drawings (in MS PowerPoint) which, in theory, will make it MUCH easier to build the actual structures down the road. Of course, PowerPoint makes it easy to add colors and textures, so why not?
One of the few pictures I’ve found of the St Charles depot–it was darker, but I lightened it to see more of the details (photographer unknown, please tell me if you know so I can give proper credit)
The St Charles depot burned down in the late ’70s, so there are very few photos of it. I worked with a couple of grainy shots and one grainy overhead image to get the basic size and layout. I used scanned plans from other Southern stations to get basic dimensions and features and to serve as a template for building the drawings in PowerPoint. I don’t have the space to model the station full-size, so I aimed for about 90% to scale on the length and about 70% on the width. The toughest part of the drawing was getting the cut angles for the roof right in a flat rendition so I could get the 3D shape correct. It required some trigonometry that made my brain hurt, but in the end I got a double-pitched roof with 22- and 35-degree slopes, pretty close to the drawings of other Southern stations. I omitted the curved roof windows for the mock-up as they would have been a pain and aren’t important to visualizing the scene. The detail like windows and siding is just lines and shapes drawn in PowerPoint, and the roof shingles are a texture I found online. Don’t ask me why the door on the track side of the station is suspended on the wall with no ramp or dock, but as you can see on the prototype photo, it is!
I used 1/4″ foam core to give stiffness to the basic structure
I learned from the Mayflower tipple that using ordinary paper results in the glue bleeding through and staining the color, so I printed this one on heavy paper, almost card-stock and about as thick as my printer would handle. I cut the basic walls out of 1/4″ foam core using the drawings as a template to give it rigidity, but the roof is just the card stock. I built a base and the loading dock on two sides using layers of foam core and covered parts with print outs of boards and vertical siding cut to shape. A couple of tiny “ST CHARLES” signs made from folded paper completed the mock-up. Everything is assembled with basic white glue. After it dried, I set it on a piece of plywood I attached to the sub-roadbed using spacers to level it on all sides–I figure this will make it easier to install the final structure level.
Now that it’s in place, I see that I need to raise the roof probably another 3/16″ which will be easy enough to fix in the final version [update, I raised the roof another 3/16″ as seen in the first photo, and it looks better]. For now, though, it’s great to have something anchoring the scene in St Charles, and I’m sure it will perform many years of dutiful service as I’m very slow. Oh, and if you know what colors the St Charles station was painted (there are clearly two), please leave a comment!
Here is the set of scale drawings flattened and printed on heavy paper
The toughest part of the drawing was getting the angles of the roof right… trigonometry in 3D… my brain hurts, but it worked!
I used 1/4″ foam core to give stiffness to the basic structure
The base and loading dock are made from layers of foam core with paper boards cut and glued to the edges
The original mock-up with the roof too low… didn’t look quite right
Bird’s eye view of the station scene–the track in the back will be hidden by a hillside behind the station
After letting the mock-up sit for a day, I decided to “raise the roof” to get it closer to prototype. I carefully removed the roof with an X-Acto blade and cut a piece of 1/4″ (really 3/16″) foam core to raise things a bit
The St Charles local slows to pick up orders from the operator at the St Charles depot
These two were my first consist of Tsunami 2s and taught me a lot of lessons on speed matching
First, beware someone with 6 months of experience offering you advice… ok, if you’re still reading, I like your sense of adventure! I steered clear of sound decoders for years because I knew as soon as I started, I would need to upgrade the whole fleet to be happy, and it was going to be a huge investment in money and time. Other than a one-time fling with a Digitrax Soundbug many years ago, I really dipped my toe in the water when I picked up a couple of locomotives sound equipped from the factory a few years back, an Athearn GP38-2 with Soundtraxx Tsunami and an Atlas C420 with ESU LokSound v4. I tried installing one cheap drop-in sound decoder in an Athearn/MDC RS3, and that was not a positive experience, so I stopped for a while. Finally in February, I decided it was time to figure this out, so I did a bit of research and dove in! Here are a few things I’ve learned in the first 6 months and 12 sound decoder installs.
It’s not as tough as it looks. Not gonna lie, I’m the adventurous kind of person who doesn’t mind taking a hacksaw to a $200 locomotive, but I was SUPER intimidated by installing sound! What I found is once you’ve got a few basics down, it’s only a little more difficult than installing a standard decoder (which isn’t that difficult). The toughest part is finding a good space inside the locomotive to mount the speaker(s) while still leaving room for the decoder and other vitals. I’ve only destroyed one sound decoder in the process (more on that later), and I have gone back and redone some of my first installs based on lessons learned over time–extra time but no biggie.
You get what you pay for. Big surprise, this maxim applies to sound decoders too! I tried to go cheap at first and found a “great deal” on a one-piece drop-in decoder for an Athearn RS3. It even came with a speaker on-board–what a deal! Installation was very easy, but to me it sounded like a screeching lemur with its tail caught in a coffee grinder… the horn was tolerable, but the rest of the sounds were painfully inadequate and unconvincing. I tried building a baffle around the thin piece of plastic acting as the speaker, but it only improved the bass performance slightly with no improvement to the actual sounds. In the end, it was a waste of money and time, and that decoder spent most of its short life with the sound switched to “off.” If you love the screeching lemur decoders, I’ve got two more I’ll sell you cheap!
Following that experience but still wanting to save a LITTLE money, I tried out the “Econami” decoders from Soundtraxx. These were about twice as much as the screeching lemur decoder but still only 2/3 the price of a full-fledged sound decoder, so it seemed like a good place to start. The Econami was lightyears ahead of the screeching lemur in terms of sound quality (same basic sound quality as the Tsunami 2 series), and it had all the features I thought I wanted. After I equipped a few locomotives with Econamis, I splurged on my first Tsunami 2, mainly because the Econami didn’t have the EMD 567 turbo sound I needed for a GP30. Once I played with the “extra features” I didn’t think I cared about, I found that those features were worth the extra cost, at least in my “lead” locomotives. So what’s the difference? First, I’m very happy with my Econamis and would still highly recommend them for “in the consist” locomotives that use the prime movers available on the decoder (Alco 244, EMD 567 non-turbo, EMD 645 turbo, EMD 710 turbo, GE FDL-16). The prime mover sounds are, indeed, the same as the sounds on the Tsunami 2s. However, the Tsunami 2s have more noticeable depth and variety to the secondary sounds like valves, compressors, radio chatter and even toilet flushes. The biggest difference I’ve found is how the sounds correspond to the throttle and loads if you take the time and effort to really configure them which I’ll talk about later.
The tight quarters inside an Athearn RS3–the decoder is under the cab to the right side
Sound decoders are tough, but you can destroy them. I’ve found sound decoders to be tougher than they look, but they’re far from indestructible. They’re designed with either wires or soldering points that make them easy to connect to your locomotive, and I haven’t destroyed one with a soldering iron yet. However, sound decoders pack a LOT onto a little board, so the individual components can be small and fragile. I found this out with an Econami decoder I installed (poorly) in an Athearn RS3. I got everything to almost fit, but I needed just another millimeter of clearance, so I pressed the decoder down. Well, because of my poor choice of installation location, it forced a metal protrusion of the frame into one of the board’s components, and that was that! No more blue light, no more sound, no more movement, lots of heat where there shouldn’t have been… toast. So, be gentle with them, and don’t do anything to make direct contact with the frame or to put pressure on any single component. Expensive mistake but valuable lesson!
Take your time arranging the components in the install. The one decoder I fried was a victim of poor component placement in the locomotive. Usually the decoder sits above the motor like any other decoder, but it doesn’t have to–I’ve placed the decoder in the cab of a couple of RS3s because there just wasn’t room above the motor. The tougher trick is finding a good spot for the speaker(s). Most locomotives currently in production will leave a good spot for this, but many of my locomotives were purchased well before sound was much of a thing. I’ve crammed speakers in the long hood, the short hood, in the cab, on top of the decoder, you name it! A couple of times on some old Proto units (they filled every last inch of those shells with weight), I’ve had to take a hacksaw to the weight and carve out a piece of real-estate in the nose. I find that mounting the speakers to the frame assembly is more convenient and practical than mounting them inside the shell, but you can do either. Just make sure the speaker is sitting on something reasonably solid like a piece of the frame, or in some cases, a thick plank of styrene cut to go across the top of a truck. For attaching the speakers, I like to use 3M double-sided foam tape because it holds well while still enabling a little movement from the speaker so it doesn’t rattle its mount. The 3M tape is tough to remove if you want to change things, though, so I know others have sworn by servo tape.
Sound installations require a LOT of wires, so I’m careful not to make the wires too long, and I use liberal amounts of shrink tubing and electrical tape to keep the wires from making a rat’s nest inside the shell. I’ve found my wiring has gotten a lot neater over the course of a dozen installations, so expect a little trial-and-error here.
Basic mapping of a 21-pin connector for DCC (use at your own risk)
You can, indeed, hardwire a 21-pin decoder without a harness (but it ain’t fun or recommended). One of the downsides of the Soundtraxx Econami is it’s only offered in two sizes, the larger “plug-n-play” (ECO-PNP) board and the much smaller 21-pin version (ECO-21PNEM). The PNP is a drop fit for many locomotives, especially locomotives from the previous generation of factory DCC or “DCC ready” units. But it is kind-of long. The 21-pin is about 1/2 the footprint, so it’s the perfect size for smaller HO-scale locomotives where the PNP won’t fit, but… surprise, it needs a 21-pin harness which is only found in newer locomotives. I tried to buy a 21-pin harness, but they’re expensive enough that it effectively makes the Econami install the same price as a similarly sized, full-featured Tsunami 2 TSU-2200 series decoder. Hmm… could I hard-wire the 21-pin decoder? Turns out the answer is “yes,” but it’s definitely “off label” use that will probably void your warranty, and I would only do it in dire circumstances. For me, “dire” happened to be the cramped quarters of an old Proto 2000 GP7 and an Athearn/MDC RS3 (once I removed the screeching lemur). There are two tricks to this process: 1) know which pins do what. This was surprisingly difficult to figure out, and I ended up translating a diagram from German (the translated diagram is included for you here). 2) use solid wire that fits firmly into the socket to connect the wires. I bent the pin wire in an “L” shape, soldered it to the locomotive wires, and covered the wire-attached half of the “L” with a piece of small shrink tubing to keep it insulated from other nearby wires. This has worked great in 3 installs and has held up to >3 months of use! But again, not ideal… do this at your own risk.
Poor picture, but this shows the homemade pins connecting an Athearn RS3 to a 21-pin sound decoder
When in doubt, try 2 sugar cube speakers (and call me in the morning… no wait, don’t call). There are some real sound artists out there who have a lot of intelligent things to say about speakers… I am not one of them. If I had to boil down everything I read about speakers into 2 things it would be: 1) use the biggest speaker you can fit, and 2) use a baffle (the housing that goes behind a speaker). First-generation locomotive speakers were variations of the traditional paper cone design, but more recently, smart phones have ushered in a revolution in small speaker technology, and we benefit from tiny but impressive speakers nicknamed “sugar cube” speakers. Two sugar cube speakers take up about the same room as a traditional oval cone speaker, but a pair seem to provide clearer sound and slightly more bass, so I’ve settled on a pair of sugar cubes as my basic, minimum speaker requirement in most locomotives. I use the LokSound sugar cubes because they come with a nifty little baffle kit that includes options for a shallow or deep baffle and options to mount one or two speakers to the base. If they’ll fit, I like to pair the sugar cubes with the deep baffles on a single base, but the shallow baffles sound almost as good if you don’t have the room for the deeper sides. I’ve seen some 3D printed baffles to go with sugar cubes as well, and I’ll definitely be giving these a try soon.
Impedance mismatching is a thing, but it isn’t the end of the world. Impedance, a form of resistance, is measured in ohms like a resistor. Those real sound artists of whom I am not one have written a lot of great articles on impedance and why it’s good to match the impedance of the decoder to the impedance of the speaker. I can’t explain it, so I’ll take them at their word! A typical sound decoder impedance is around 8 ohms (like the Soundtraxx units I use) as are many speakers, including the sugar cubes. But wait, I remember from somewhere that if you run two identical resistors in series or parallel you change their resistance by either double (series) or half (parallel). No worries! unless you’re running your decoder at max volume, this is not likely to be an issue. For example, LokSound recommends using speakers between 4 and 32 ohms, so there is a range. Just stay safe in the 1/2 to 2x range and don’t get too crazy. For reference, I wire my 2 sugar cubes in series.
Tsunami 2 PNP installs on an Athearn Genesis GP38-2 (left) and Atlas GP38 (right)
When it comes to volume, less is more. Speaking of volume, I’ve found that on a layout with multiple sound locomotives, less is more on the sound volume. I usually set my master volume around 10-20% of the max output. I like to hear it in my ear at the volume I would expect to hear it if I were standing at the same vantage point (about 150 scale feet away) as an HO-scale person. I also take the time to tweak the levels of individual sounds to avoid letting any one locomotive dominate the room and to focus on the main sounds like the prime mover, horn, and bell. I keep the horn and bell pretty muted, though, as not everyone in the train room needs to know every time a train comes to a crossing. I set them just loud enough to be heard clearly over the prime mover by the crew initiating the horn or bell (to everyone else it’s an annoying distraction from their train).
Also, listen to the engine for a while and see what secondary sounds you like and don’t like and adjust them. For me, the poppet valves of the Econami decoders sound very loud and sharp and express themselves a bit too often, so I set the decoder to make these sounds more quiet and less frequent. On the full-featured Tsunami 2s, there are a myriad of secondary sounds. Most add well to the symphony, but I didn’t appreciate all of them. For example, the sound of a socket wrench is not something I’m used to hearing when train watching, so I turned the volume on this “extra” to zero for most of my locomotives. Other sounds like the radio chatter, doors opening, and toilet flushes I turned down so they’re barely audible. Again, I want the prime mover to shine and the background sounds to be in the background.
Configure each locomotive a little differently. Speaking of the extra sounds, decoders will come from the factory with a default setting for volumes and frequencies of sound. If you don’t tweak these, you may end up with decoders with “random sounds” being synchronized with other locomotives… not very realistic. I make sure each locomotive has a slightly different rate for sounds that can be rate-configured to avoid this and make the sound of each locomotive slightly unique.
JMRI Decoder Pro makes programming sooooo much easier. Decoder programming is all about configuration variables (CVs), and sound decoders have a LOT of things to configure! Soundtraxx uses a ton of CVs (like 500 for their Tsunami 2). LokSound has fewer CVs, but each CV can be used to configure multiple options by adding together the numbers associated with the options you want and entering the sum into the CV (it’s math, but at least it’s pretty simple math). You can skip a ton of this math and programming CV by CV by using JMRI’s Decoder Pro–it’s seriously awesome, and I never appreciated it more than when programming sound decoders! It turns programming into a set of selections on conveniently grouped tabs and uses plain language descriptions of variables instead of CV numbers. This is particularly helpful with Soundtraxx programming because each CV only controls one or two options, so its easy to separate them. It’s a little more complicated with LokSound because the decoders are “blank” and the sounds loaded separately after manufacture, usually by a dealer. They’re loaded as a “sound project” into the decoders “slots.” While there are some conventions on what sounds go into what slots, it’s really up to the person who designs and loads the sounds, so instead of sounds being conveniently labeled as “prime mover volume” and “horn” in Decoder Pro, you have to work with labels like “slot 1” and “slot 2”–still easier than manually programming each CV. JMRI and Decoder Pro are free software, and all you need is some kind of computer/DCC interface which most DCC systems offer. While you can use it with a stand alone programming track, I’ve found “programming on the main” to be a much better option for sound because you can hear every change in real-time.
When using lots of momentum, it’s important to know where the brake is–a bright red sticker makes it easy
Put the most used functions in F0-F6. Most newer decoders, including the Soundtraxx and LokSound decoders, allow you to “remap” the functions from the normal DCC convention to wherever they’re needed. Sound wasn’t a common thing when DCC conventions were set, so it’s not surprising that the conventions may not allow for convenient access to sounds. Also, the number of buttons on a throttle is limited, so you want to make sure the ones easiest to access (single push) are the ones you need most often. DCC is amazing, and I’m so grateful for those who made it happen for the hobby–they were brilliant! However, there is one unconscionable omission in DCC that I do not understand: braking. All decoders allow the programming of acceleration and deceleration (momentum), but some have no braking function so there’s no way to slow the locomotive down except to “e-stop” (ouch) or wait for the momentum to bleed off. The combination of momentum and a sound decoder is AWESOME, so I knew I wanted this and a way to easily control braking via the throttle. The sound decoders I’ve played with all have braking options, but the braking is implemented differently in each decoder. With enough tweaking, I was able program braking that feels right into both the Soundraxx decoders (Econami and Tsunami 2… not so much on the Tsunami in the Athearn GP38-2) and LokSound decoder. While sounds like couplers are cool, I decided easy access to a “brake” button was more important, so I had to remap my functions. As I use Digitrax UT4 throttles, all the important functions needed to be programmed into F0-F6, the only “one push” functions on the UT4. Here’s how I mapped them:
F0 – Headlight on/off (standard)
F1 – Bell (standard)
F2 – Horn (standard)
F3 – Short horn (standard on Soundtraxx)
F4 – Dynamic brakes (sound only, no braking action)
F5 – Light effects (gyralight if equipped, dimming if not)
F6 – Brake (complete with a nice stop-sign sticker on my throttles)
You need to play around to really make them sing. To get the most realistic sound out of a decoder, you need to really play around with it and make lots of tweaks (there’s a reason there are so many CVs). On a real locomotive, the sound is not tied to speed as much as load and demand. For the economy decoders like the Econamis, you get what you get, and the prime mover pitch is tied to the throttle setting. You can use function buttons to increase and lower the RPM sound, but who wants to have to control their throttle AND RPMs separately? Some might, not me. What you REALLY want is for the decoder to sense the load and other factors and change the pitch according to the load. The key to this is the decoder’s use of Back EMF (BEMF) which essentially allows the decoder to sense the load on the motor. With the LokSound decoders, the use of BEMF to control the prime mover sound appears to be native in the decoder’s function. For the Tsunami 2s, it took a bit more work to configure this, but it is SOOOO worth it! Soundtraxx calls this “Dynamic Digital Exhaust” (DDE), and it requires the tweaking of a few CVs, two to tell the decoder your idea of “low speed” and “moderate speed,” one to control the prime mover based on the difference between your throttle setting and current speed (this is where building in some accel/decel really helps), and one to tell it how sensitive to be to the BEMF.
By 1) adding in a good bit of momentum, 2) turning up the “speed differential” CV to full blast and 3)upping the BEMF sensitivity to about 30% of max, I get a locomotive that sounds very realistic to my ear. When I move it from idle, I crank the throttle up immediately to where I want the speed to be. The prime mover howls to life with a roar because it senses a difference in its current speed (zero) and the desired speed. The locomotive, still belching sound, then begins to creep slowly up to speed, and the prime mover quiets a lower level as the actual speed closes on the desired speed. After that, the BEMF helps it know if it’s under load or not, so it’ll drop back to near idle going downhill, and it will notch up if moving uphill, especially if its moving a lot of cars uphill with it–perfect!
Another tweak I highly recommend is the dynamic brake setting which can be done even on some of the economy decoders. For most model applications, you don’t actually want the application of dynamics to slow the train. You’re going to control the train speed with the throttle, and the “dynamics” are just ear candy as they’re presumably helping you keep the speed in check going down a grade. Soundtraxx has a CV you can select that will drop the engine sound to idle if the dynamic brakes are applied. I like this because when I’m heading down a grade with a loaded train, a single function button push allows me to drop the prime mover sounds to idle and bring up the dynamic brake whine while still moving the train at a realistic speed. Cool!
Speed matching is really important for the cool features. I’ve always been a “close enough” guy for DCC locomotive speed matching. This has served me just fine until now. I was so excited when I figured out how to use DDE to make my locomotives sound amazing in response to throttle inputs and loads, and then I put two of these amazing locomotives together in a consist. When just the the two of them were creeping along together downhill and their prime movers were screaming at “notch 8,” I knew something was wrong. Turns out, if locomotives aren’t perfectly speed matched, one is always pushing or shoving on the other. The BEMF in the decoder translates this as “load” and adjusts the sound accordingly which means notch 8 sounds for notch 1 action. I spent hours painstakingly speed matching locomotives to a single locomotive I picked as the “pacer” using 28-step tables and trim for each locomotive. This was time well spent as multiple locomotives sound far more realistic now that they’re not fighting each other.
Advanced consisting is a big help. Before sound, I used Digitrax’ “universal” (command-station) consisting almost exclusively. Now that I have sound-equipped locomotives, I’ve switched to “advanced consisting” (decoder-aided consisting). Advanced consisting has a couple really useful features. First, you can configure the locomotives on the ends of the consist to only use their headlights when the consist is moving in a particular direction–this is crucial for my layout where switching is common and the consist changes directions all the time. Also, you can configure most functions in any locomotive to respond to either the consist address or only the locomotive address. This allows you to pick a single locomotive in the consist to respond to horn and bell functions–I wish this could be configured to respond based on direction as well (the lead locomotive’s horn and bell are used and switch based on direction), but alas, this doesn’t seem to be a feature yet. Most importantly for sound, this allows me to program functions like dynamics and braking to respond to the consist address in ALL locomotives so they work as a team in both sound and braking.
Once you pick a manufacturer, stick with them. I’m not here to tell you which manufacturer to pick, but I will say, its a lot easier if you pick a manufacturer and stick with them! I heard this advice from others, and I now wholeheartedly agree! It’s far easier to make your fleet act in concert, especially when M.U.’d, if things like momentum and braking are implemented the same in all the decoders. While it may sound appealing to have a smorgasbord because you like one manufacturer’s Alco sound and another’s first-gen EMD sounds, it will limit your ability to implement consistent features and “feel” across the fleet. Having said this, I still use (and love) the one LokSound-equipped C420 I have even though everything else is Soundtraxx. Thankfully, the L&N train it powers is usually run by a single locomotive, so I just had to tweak it to feel and act more like the Soundtraxx equipped locos, but it doesn’t need to be a perfect match because it’s never M.U.’d.
My only LokSound decoder is in an Atlas C420 that runs solo
Every manufacturer has their pluses and minuses, so pick the features that work for your operations (aka “why I picked Soundtraxx”). You really can’t go wrong with the leading manufacturers, and you’ll find zealots and haters for each. They all do things differently, though, so ultimately you have to figure out what your priorities are. I hear great things about TCS WowSound, but I have no personal experience to share. I wanted to jump in, so I evaluated the LokSound and Soundtraxx locomotives I had on hand to see which I wanted to use on the fleet. When just listening to the sound, especially as it changed based on how I was operating the locomotive, I prefered the LokSound. However, when I began playing around with things like braking and tweaking CVs, I found the Soundtraxx was far more intuitive to configure, and now that I know how to use DDE in the Soundtraxx decoders, I’m able to get a lot of the same sound dynamics out of my Tsunami 2s that seem to be pre-programmed in the LokSound. I can live with complicated programming, so what it really came down to for me was one simple thing: Soundtraxx has a reasonably featured “economy” line that works for many of my locomotives. Interestingly, as I’ve gained experience, I’m still happy with the Econamis, but I will probably invest in full-fledged models from here on out because their extra features enhance my enjoyment enough to justify the extra cost. The Econamis will still have a home in B-units, mid-consist units, and units that only see service occasionally.
If you’ve stuck with this article to this point, good for you for listening to a rookie! I hope some of my learning points will help you as you make decisions and jump into the world of sound decoders. While I won’t encourage a battle of which manufacturer is best, I would encourage those of you with experience in this area to add some of your own lessons in the comments. If you’ve learned nothing else from this, I’ve hoped you’ve at least learned that it’s not a good idea to use a sound decoder that sounds like a screeching lemur.
You may remember Southern GP7 2187, a Proto GP7 I finished last summer. Well in addition to fixing the railings and steps for my 1970 timeframe (black and white instead of yellow), I decided to install sound. Now sound is something pretty new and intimidating to me, but after running a couple factory-equipped sound locomotives, it was tough to go back to no sound. I finally decided to just jump in! There are many great sound decoders out there, and everyone has their preference. I won’t claim to be an expert, but after doing some research, I decided to start with some Soundtraxx Econami decoders. As you might guess from the name, these are “budget” decoders that run about 2/3 the cost of a full-featured sound decoder from any manufacturer. The Econami is pretty basic, but it does have the key features I need, and it uses the same basic sounds as the more expensive Tsunami 2s. Best of all, the Econami Diesel version allows the user to select from a handful of prime movers including everything I need for my first-generation fleet: the Alco 244 for RS3s and the non-turbo EMD 567 for Fs, GP7s and GP9s.
Basic mapping of a 21-pin connector for DCC (use at your own risk)
Soundtraxx makes two versions of the diesel Econami, the larger ECO-PNP and the smaller 21-pin ECO-21PNEM. I picked up a couple ECO-PNPs, one of which was intended for 2187, but once I got the decoder, it was obvious that it wouldn’t fit without major modification to the large metal weight–I needed something smaller. After installing the PNPs in an RS3 (just barely) and an F3A, I decided I was happy with the sound produced by the Econami and a pair of mini cube speakers, so I looked to see if I could install the smaller 21-pin decoder in the GP7. The 21-pin arrangement is newer, and I was surprised at how tough it was to find a cheap 21 pin harness I could wire into the locomotive. You can find cheaper ones in Britain, but it was going to cost me an extra $20 to get one in the states–what’s the point of using the Econami if a simple harness was going to eat up all the savings?
Taking 8mm off the height of the weight in the nose of the Proto GP7 to make room for speakers
So, could I get the 21-pin Econami to work without a harness? While it was a little tough to find info, I finally figured out the mapping of the 21 pins (thankfully German shares some commonality with English…). I knew it wouldn’t be practical to solder directly into the decoder (the pin holes are tiny and close together), but I thought I might be able to shape the wires to act as pins, so I ordered up an ECO-21PNEM. What I found was I could tin the wires on the locomotive, cut the end so about 2mm of metal was exposed, and then carefully insert the wire into the correct pin hole. While the connection is not bulletproof, it’s snug enough that the wires don’t come out easily, and if you can push the wire in until the insulation is flush with the board, there’s little chance of a short. For the extra wires (e.g., speaker wires), I used 30 AWG stranded wire tinned with solder–I had to use a little extra solder to get a snug fit, so a 28 AWG wire would probably work as well. Once I verified everything worked, I used a piece of electrical tape to hold the wires down and in-place.
Using a 21-pin Econami decoder without a 21-pin harness
Now for the speaker. Unfortunately, I decided to use the large clear plastic blocks for the number boards and lights, so the little room that was left in the top of the shell was taken up. I decided the best course of action was to take the weight off and remove about 8mm of metal height from the nose section with a hacksaw. After filing the cut clean, I was ready to install the speakers. I’m using the 11 x 15mm cube speakers made by Loksound. You can find a lot of sources for speakers this size, but I love that the Loksound versions come with different baffle arrangements including both short and tall and a base to install two speakers side-by-side (my preference). I built a double baffle with the short walls using CA and connected the speakers in series (16 ohms impedence). Yes, the decoder is 8 ohms and the speakers are 16 ohms. My research leads me to believe this is not ideal but is acceptable as long as I don’t run the amp at max, which I don’t–if you have a good technical reason why this is not a good idea and will damage things in the long-run, please feel free to post a comment!
So, in the end, I was able to fit a sound decoder and two small speakers into the Proto GP7 with just a small, one-cut modification to the body weight, and I’m really happy with the sound! I’ve got a Soundtraxx Tsunami 2 EMD diesel decoder now as well, so I’ll do a comparison at some point and let you know how I think the Econami compares. For now, I’ll enjoy the chugging sounds of the EMD 567 and hauling coal hoppers interrupted occasionally by the chimes of a Nathan M5! St Charles is now a much louder place.
There is now a pale blue sky in St Charles, VA! This past week has been “backdrop week” on the layout, and today I finished sanding and painting the blue color on the backdrop. It’s amazing what a difference the backdrop makes in giving shape to the scenes. This is also a big step because it’s one step further than I got with my last layout before I had to tear it down–it’s good to surpass the progress of the previous effort.
There’s a vertical seam between two Masonite panels in the middle of this pick and an upper screw–can you find them?
The backdrop, like the fascia, is 1/8″ Masonite (or “hardboard” at some stores). I know a lot of modelers like Masonite because of its smoothness and flexibility, but over the years I’ve heard one repeated complaint: “it’s nearly impossible to fill holes and cover seams because nothing will stick to it.” If you’re worried about this, worry no more! I find that lightweight spackling compound (I use DAP Patch-N-Paint) works perfectly on Masonite. A couple of tips. First, make sure you countersink the screw holes so the screw heads are at least 1/32″ below the face of the Masonite to give enough depth for the spackle to work–this is tough to do without going through the 1/8″ board, but don’t worry if you have to patch an extra hole. Next, I apply a layer of the spackle over the screws and across any joints with a plastic putty knife to avoid scratching the Masonite. I clean it up a little with the knife, but messy is ok. After it dries for about 1-2 hours, I use a damp washcloth to scrub off the excess spackle. This usually leaves a bit of a depression in the holes and seams, so I put on a second layer of spackle. After this completely dries, I sand it with 150-grit sandpaper until it’s even with the Masonite surface and wipe it once again with a damp washcloth. Once painted, I have to look very carefully to see the seams, and the screw holes all but disappear.
For the color, I wanted a very light sky blue, enough to look blue but that kind of whitish and hazy blue on the horizon. I stood in Home Depot for 20 minutes with pictures of Appalachian scenes on my phone comparing the color to all the options Behr had to offer. I finally decided on this color in a flat finish (Behr calls it “After Rain”), and I’m pretty happy with it. If anything it’s a little more blue than I’d hoped, but the hue looks pretty natural, and it’s not too dark. Two coats with a roller gave the backdrop a nice even look. The backdrops are all ready to support some scenery forms now.
I must say, I’m going to miss taking pictures of the Mayflower Tipple mock-up with a nice white plastic insulation blanket as the backdrop… ok, no I’m not.
Lower level backdrop ready for paint
Lightweight spackling compound is great for patching Masonite board
1/8″ Masonite is very flexible and can be bent into pretty tight corners
I decided on this color because it’s very light and makes a hazy looking sky blue
Painted backdrop wrapping around the helix
There’s a vertical seam between two Masonite panels in the middle of this pick and an upper screw–can you find them?
Goodbye insulation background for the Mayflower tipple mock-up
