toddalin
Foreman
Posts:406
Send Message
 | | 04/01/2008 10:39 AM |
| Started with, and stayed with, track power (23 blocks and the ability to control any block from three different wireless remotes). I later converted an AristoCraft FA over to run track power or battery power using an internal TE (to pull my track cleaning cars). The frickin' NiCads keep going flat and when this engine is used, it is typically on track power. Really soured me on battery power too.  | | | |
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GarryNCGRR
Brakeman
Posts:34
Send Message
| | 04/04/2008 4:44 PM |
| I ran track power on my HO and N layouts for about 40 years. When I decided to start my large scale layout in the back yard, I decided I'd go battery RC right from the start. Going with battery got me away from having to run power to a transformer stand and then wires from that to all over the layout...big plus. Also no fancy wiring for reverse loops and wyes, no worry about track getting dirty, in fact the dirtier it gets, the better the traction ! Besides...I needed a change from what I had done before, and it has worked out really well.
Garry NCGRR | | | |
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Mik
Indiana, Pa
Foreman
Posts:344
Send Message
| | 05/14/2008 2:15 PM |
| I started with a Fisher-Price pull toy...does that count? I had Marx, Tyco HO, B'mann N and eventually the first gen Bug Mauler (so in garden scale you can say I went from battery to track power, lol.
Meanwhile, there has been live steam since I was 10, except it was traction engines not trains. (Okay, I've also had 2 Mamod locos and 4 Ruby variants, the big stuff is more fun) | |
Mik
Unsupervised children will be given espresso and a free puppy | |
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MikeK
1st Class Member
Torrance, CA
Brakeman
Posts:30
Send Message
| | 05/14/2008 10:33 PM |
| | I started with a track-powered passenger car set from LGB under the Christmas tree in 1989. In 2008, I'm still track-powered, although on stainless steel, rather than brass, track. | |
Mike Klein
Allibeth Pacific Railroad and its subsidiary, San Cristobal Mining Company | |
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bobgrosh
1st Class Member
Tallahassee Florida
Foreman
Posts:232
Send Message
| | 05/14/2008 10:58 PM |
| Early on, used battery/RC, 5 locos on battery/RC plus one battery/RC car for three other locos.
Went to DCC with wirless throttles, will never go back to battery/RC.
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You'l find me out back, in the ALLY. | |
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Alan in Adirondacks
1st Class Member
Glens Falls, NY
Foreman
Posts:110
Send Message
| | 05/15/2008 4:53 AM |
| Switched to large scale with track power Big Hauler in early '90s indoor, changed to 1:20.3; then a new track power layout with move to current home in 2000.
No battery power (someday for outdoors at Adirondack Live Steamers for grandkids)
Live steam for five years (1:20.3 with mixed rolling stock, adding 1:32 in 2007)
Best regards,
Alan | |
Alan Redeker
SA #17 | |
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Dougald
Moderator
Foreman
Posts:427
Send Message
| | 05/15/2008 6:09 AM |
| I have had track power (cab control) followed by command control and finally DCC in my small scale modelling over the past 50 years.
When I started in large scale about 2000 it was in Fn3. I immediately went with battery/RC and then a year or so later with live steam. Traditional track power was never considered as it is essentially unsuited to running an operating railroad - it is really only useful for continuous running. I had seen the hassles and maintenance of DCC and I continue to see it in my own modelling in HO plus in the operating sessions of other small scale railroads that I crew on. Lastly, I am an OVGRS member and the IPP&W (the host railroad for OVGRS weekly ops sessions) has no track power available. Through maintenance work on the IPP&W I have seen a great deal of what works and what doesn't over the years.
When I began to build my own Northland RR there was never a second thought given. Aluminum rail, scaled in size to F scale, and battery RC or live steam all the way. There is no electricity at all anywhere near the garden and I do not expect to ever run the 300 feet of wire to bring electricity over..
Regards ... Doug | |
Doug Matheson
Manotick Ontario
SA #122 | |
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Great Western
The English Riviera, Torbay, Devon
Foreman
Posts:250
Send Message
| | 05/15/2008 6:55 AM |
| The answer to all three questions is no, not me.
I initially saw a UK SM32 railway in operation. UK ng has never appealed to me and European models were too expensive. Luckily Bachmann 1:22.5 and Aristo-Craft 1:29 came to my notice. As they say - I have never looked back. | |
regards,
Alan Lott (G1AEU)
http://picasaweb.google.com/FSigs52
http://www.paignton-steamrailway.co.uk
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first.
David H. Comins
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stevedenver
Brakeman
Posts:58
Send Message
| | 05/15/2008 10:10 AM |
| on my birthday
back in 1987 my wife gave me my first red and creme euro coach and a piece of straight track
and permission to add lgb in addition to n scale
im still analog | | | |
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ohioriverrailway
1st Class Member
Pittsburgh, PA
Foreman
Posts:147
Send Message
| | 05/16/2008 7:11 AM |
| Started with track power.
Have 1 loco converted to run either from track, battery car or take power from the trolley wire. Another conversion in the works. Battery power mostly for running the track cleaner/sweeper car. | |
Rick Hannegan
Gen'l Supt.
Ohio River Electric Rwy. | |
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vsmith
1st Class Member
SoCal
Conductor
Posts:996
Send Message
| | 05/16/2008 9:06 AM |
| | Pure DC... and I dont mean the comic book. | |
 Kitbashing, welcome to the Dark Side | |
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Josef Rieder
1st Class Member
Daly City/Palos Verdes
Brakeman
Posts:89
Send Message
| | 05/17/2008 2:12 AM |
| | I started out with my Dad's Marklin HO stuff. They are all European protoypes and the AC made setting up loops easy. After a while, we started looking at large scale. I must have been 5 or 6 when I got the marklin MAXI tinplate set, which I still have. That was a lot fun. We eventually bought enough LGB track to make an oval in the Family room. That was great for a while as well. Another Christmas my sister and I were supposed to get a basketball hoop installed in the driveway, but when they came to install it, they found that the gas main ran to close to where the hole had to be dug. Needless to say, we were pretty dissapointed. Later that day, we went down to All Aboard in Torrance and checked out what was being offered. LGB had just come out with digital sound for their Moguls and after watching one run back and forth for a while, we were impressed, but soon found the price tag, a little too much. I finally decided that a started set was what I wanted, so we picked up the ubiquitous "Lake George and Boulder" set and proceded home to set it up. It was nice to have the full oval of LGB track we had bought earlier to run it on instead of a little circle. Needless to say from then on, it kept getting bigger and bigger, more cars, more locomotives. I remember getting the Bachmann shay for christmas which was REALLY cool since the shay was and still is one of my favorite types of locomotive. Finally, my mom and sister got tired of us playing with the trains in den, it was difficult to watch TV when you had to LGB moguls with sound doubleheading through the room spewinng smoke everywhere! So we moved outside. The layout is a simple dog bone with a passing siding. Later, we added a reversing unit and a back and forth section. Attending countless SOCALGRS open houses gave us plenty of inspiration. Train shows were also fun. I remember the first BTS I went to and seeing the Del Oro layout. Every show we went to, we would always spend most of our time watching the Del Oro layout, so finally we became members and have been for a while and that where I am today. Whew...is that enough? | | | |
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lownote
1st Class Member
Arlington VA
Conductor
Posts:555
Send Message
| | 05/19/2008 6:39 AM |
| Not me
Not me
Not me--I'd love to get a live steamer though
I started with bunch of LGB starter sets given to my son and which he outgrew. Now run a small mostly decorative "train in a garden" using track power and remote control with aristo onboard TE
I can't for the life of me see the attraction of battery power--I keep trying to "get it" and it makes no sense to me. Seems complicated and expensive and annoying. It's like some kind of cult, with secret knowledge only for the initiates and a constant need to tell everyone else how great it is. I posted a thread recently asking for help convertng a car to batteries, and while a bunch of people were very helpful --thanks Del, thanks Cale, thanks Pete--I quickly was put down for my ignorance by experts. It soured me on the whole idea and I thought why fix what's not broken?
Cleaning track is a ten minute job with a track cleaning car. I can run train lights and building lights from the track for as long as I like, and with RC onboard I can run multiple trains independently. Maybe if had a bigger layout it would make more sense to run batteries. | |
Evading the Midas touch of expertise
http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/magic/westover/ | |
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Stan Cedarleaf
1st Class Member
Dewey, AZ
Foreman
Posts:478
Send Message
| | 05/24/2008 10:01 PM |
| Started the first layout in Oct 2000 with batteries, R/C in a Bachmann #177 10 Wheeler and been there ever since. That ten wheeler, the original R/C system, batteries and sound system are long gone.
All R/C stuff has been updated, many batteries updated to Li-ion but we're still using the old reliable 6 and 12 volt gel cells.
R/C systems running today are.... RRemote (3), Aristo-Craft HO 75 mhz (2), Aristo-Craft 75 mhz on-board (4), Airwire 18 volt (2), 28 volt (1), Aristo-Craft 10 amp 27 mhz trackside (6) and one older 27 mhz metal cased. All system running wonderfully...    
Disclaimer   I did put 2 track powered "to and Fro" reversing units plus a powered loop in the middle of the village on the new layout, though. | |
 
Dewey, AZ
Cedarleaf Custom Railroad Decals | |
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Spule 4
2nd Class Member
Foreman
Posts:482
Send Message
| | 05/25/2008 6:42 AM |
| | Live steam back in the 1980s. | |
Garrett
"She'd been in Belgium, she told me...Studying the pyramids. It took her years to find out that there were no pyramids in Belgium." | |
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Del Tapparo
1st Class Member
Fort Collins, Colorado
Foreman
Posts:208
Send Message
| | 05/25/2008 10:19 AM |
| Posted By Stan Cedarleaf on 05/24/2008 10:01 PM
I did put 2 track powered "to and Fro" reversing units plus a powered loop in the middle of the village on the new layout, though.
Stan - You need to replace that "to and fro" with a battery powered Critter Control. | |
G-Scale Graphics
Custom Vinyl Lettering & Simple Low Cost Battery Power
www.GScaleGraphics.net | |
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blackburn49
1st Class Member
Copper Center, Alaska
Engineer
Posts:1855
Send Message
| | 06/04/2008 12:08 PM |
| I started my model railroad four years before I was able to run it. I had no room in those days for an indoor track run. In fact, I was looking for a business to purchase where I could run my proposed historic model train layout overhead. That was back in'94. I was not on-line in those days and had never heard of Garden Railways Magazine. Thus, I had no access to outside advice. The only power of which I was aware was via the track. I can recall spending hours just looking over the various transformer options. I really like the large LGB on, but it was out of my price range.
I bought the bar in Copper Center in 1996 and began laying track in 1998. By late that year I had an Aristocraft transformer and was finally operating my first overhead train. By 2000 I was able to connect with someone who knew of some garden railway layouts in the Portland, Oregon area where I frequently visited my folks. It was there that I discovered remote battery operation. I began planning a new outdoor layout that year. It was at that point that it was obvious that remote battery control was the way to go. In 2001 I switched to battery and began disconnecting my rather complex wiring scheme overhead in the bar.
As expensive as the initial setup is, for the nature of the layout I operate, track power is not an option, nor is live steam. | |
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Jerry McColgan
1st Class Member
Austin, Arkansas
Foreman
Posts:449
Send Message
| | 06/05/2008 7:43 AM |
| I started with track power
Bought a few cheap battery powered trains - decided I prefer track power
Bought some DCS equipped locos so tried DCS but decided I prefer track power
Bought a live steamer - decided I prefer track power
Bought some decoder equipped trains so bought MTS 1, 2, & 3 but still prefer track power
All power systems offer some benefits so I have kept the ability to run all of them.
Now run MTS/DCC 5% of the time
Now run live steam 1% of the time (only 1 live steamer)
Now run DCS 1% of the time (only 3 DCS locos)
Now run battery power 0.5% if the time (no "serious" battery powered locos)
That leaves me running analog track power 92.5% of the time
The batteries in the battery powered locos (and their remotes) are dead
It would take me all morning to find the water, steam oil, butane etc. to fire up the live steamer (and the remote batteries are dead)
The DCS locos are on the shelf as are the DCS controls
I'd have to remember which locos have decoders and what their loco ID's are before I could run them
but...
In 30 seconds or less I can be running just about any loco on my layout under analog track power.
I like all power systems but there is just one for a lazy guy like me who just wants to flip a switch and run trains - analog track power.
Last week I was going to buy some decoders but yesterday I bought two LGB locos and a LGB caboose with the money instead. One loco has a factory installed decoder so next week MTS/DCC operations will probably jump up 1%.
Jerry
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albert_putnam
Passenger
Posts:3
Send Message
| | 07/20/2008 1:01 PM |
| Started with Track Power.
Have stayed with it, but have not started an outdoor layout yet.
Thinking about steel rail for outdoors.
My first gear was LGB (Toytrain from retailer liquidation).
My theme is Fn3 logging.
Albert | | | |
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Marauderer
1st Class Member
Powder Springs, GA
Foreman
Posts:128
Send Message
| | 07/24/2008 12:50 PM |
| Not Me
Not Me
Not Me
Started with track power. Wanted to have remote operated turnouts and remote control but not have to mess with batteries (I got enough of them with airplanes and cars). So I went with DCC and am loving it. | |
Barry
BBKB RailRoad
VGR, GGRS | |
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