Joined
·
1,643 Posts
Just came in.
7-1/2 hours straight ops.
Leaves. Pine needles. Pine cones. DIRT. Slugs (not just slug tracks).
Ballast splashed on rails.
RAIN.
Never once had any issues with connectivity.
At $20 for six feet of aluminum track, I cannot imagine brass or stainless.
I have one pair of clamps that are not for bridge removal, rather to hold a 4" chunck in alignment/
With 1500' of track, the cost of rail clamps would kill me off.
No wiring to the rails.
No conductive paste in joiners.
No power supplies nor controllers for same.
The only 110V needed tonight was for the air switches (2) and coffee pot.
And the air charge lasted 7 hours.
No programming tracks.
No cheat sheets to get soaked in the rain.
No computers (if for no other reason than to read the "digitalmentation").
No smoke got released from any components.
Never had any issues with headlights blinking.
NO optical chuff triggers.
Nobody telling me my smoke units wouldn't work because my decoders have a pin cut.
Heck, I yank them stupid things out anyway.
No sign-up sheets for the next Seminar or log-in infor for user groups.
And, search as we might, we just couldn't find any track cleaning cars in the terminal.
Bummer.
I mean, look at all we missed out on by only turning the locos on and running trains for 7-1/2 hours.
I think I should buy 1500' of stainless.
Buy 80+ stainless turnouts.
Enought rail clamps to connect it all.
Lay a thousand feet of cabling.
Buy at least four boosters.
Buy a control station suitable for 20 operators, and current enough that I don't have to "upgrade" for at least a year.
Buy 20 handpieces (for the 20 operators), replace all my throttles and sound systems with sound decoders that only handle an amp.
Buy decoders for all the turnouts, and provide all the necessary bit to make even the air switches function.
Buy a track cleaning car, schedule it into regular wayfreights to keep the tracks clean.
Assign one person per ops session to maintain pickups and wheel cleanliness.
Assign another to deal with turnout connectivity issues of the 80+ turnouts (at least).
Assign one person to assist with re-programming decoders, and adding rectifiers where needed.
Assign another with a laptop to access all the "digitalmentation".
Pretty soon I'll have everyone maintaining, and nobody will run trains.
Maybe we can all just buy TrainSim, sit in the shop with our laptops, and "pretend".
7-1/2 hours straight ops.
Leaves. Pine needles. Pine cones. DIRT. Slugs (not just slug tracks).
Ballast splashed on rails.
RAIN.
Never once had any issues with connectivity.
At $20 for six feet of aluminum track, I cannot imagine brass or stainless.
I have one pair of clamps that are not for bridge removal, rather to hold a 4" chunck in alignment/
With 1500' of track, the cost of rail clamps would kill me off.
No wiring to the rails.
No conductive paste in joiners.
No power supplies nor controllers for same.
The only 110V needed tonight was for the air switches (2) and coffee pot.
And the air charge lasted 7 hours.
No programming tracks.
No cheat sheets to get soaked in the rain.
No computers (if for no other reason than to read the "digitalmentation").
No smoke got released from any components.
Never had any issues with headlights blinking.
NO optical chuff triggers.
Nobody telling me my smoke units wouldn't work because my decoders have a pin cut.
Heck, I yank them stupid things out anyway.
No sign-up sheets for the next Seminar or log-in infor for user groups.
And, search as we might, we just couldn't find any track cleaning cars in the terminal.
Bummer.
I mean, look at all we missed out on by only turning the locos on and running trains for 7-1/2 hours.
I think I should buy 1500' of stainless.
Buy 80+ stainless turnouts.
Enought rail clamps to connect it all.
Lay a thousand feet of cabling.
Buy at least four boosters.
Buy a control station suitable for 20 operators, and current enough that I don't have to "upgrade" for at least a year.
Buy 20 handpieces (for the 20 operators), replace all my throttles and sound systems with sound decoders that only handle an amp.
Buy decoders for all the turnouts, and provide all the necessary bit to make even the air switches function.
Buy a track cleaning car, schedule it into regular wayfreights to keep the tracks clean.
Assign one person per ops session to maintain pickups and wheel cleanliness.
Assign another to deal with turnout connectivity issues of the 80+ turnouts (at least).
Assign one person to assist with re-programming decoders, and adding rectifiers where needed.
Assign another with a laptop to access all the "digitalmentation".
Pretty soon I'll have everyone maintaining, and nobody will run trains.
Maybe we can all just buy TrainSim, sit in the shop with our laptops, and "pretend".