Thanks for the ideas Gentlemen, those websites seem to have exaclty what I am looking for.

Thanks again
NM

Hi All,

I have never really thought about adding sound to my locos before but my little ones saw the Loco's at the Local hobby shop, and heard them. and are pestering me to add sound.  I know there is no room in the little porters so I was thinking about adding it in one of the oar cars and activating it with a reed switch and mag on the axle, I asked the sound expert at the shop but he seemed more interested in selling me hundreds of dollars worth of stuff to convert everthing to dcc and could not understand I just want it to chug, chug, chug, is there no basic sound generator available? is it to retro an idea? should I just build one myself? or should I tell the little buggers to buy their own trains and leave me alone

I would be thankful for any ideas.

NM

heres a link to a photo that must have been thomas' Granpa, any body know how power was aplied to the wheels on these loco's? I see no pistons
http://www.mortonsbooks.co.uk/bzbsp/image1.jpg

NM

Quote from: Hamish K on September 13, 2009, 06:24:06 PM
I thought politicsal comments were banned on this board.

Hamish

I removed my original comment, but it was a remark about what a mess this thing looks like , so I'll make my comment more PC for the sensitive censor types,
When I look at this loco it immediately makes me think of my Junk-drawer.

Thanks for the Kudo's.  Had I brought it up sooner I would likely not had seen your talent with keyboard diagrams. wonderful demonstration!


NM

white lithium has caused gears to get brittle and crack, i do't no what reaction causes this but it seems to really affect white plastics

Mine also came the same way, I think what they mean by prototypical is that they dump as apposed to being fixed, the wood oar cars do however dump like the prototypes opening and closing the side doors. I will be interested to see others comments here about the V dumps

NM

I am not up on all the details of the large scale but on the spectrum I have the sound is in the tender, I would just tape over some or all of the holes in front of the speaker, if tape does not work try some thin self adhesive foam strips the type used to seal/insulate around your windows of your house. maybe crude, but easy to reverse.

I think fire breathers still in service these days seem to be a little "over restored" or kept looking as if they were just delivered. this is fine they are beautiful machines, but a bit unrealistic for a working railroad.  I think it is important that your loco's and rolling stock match your layout, for instance if I were to build a layout of Disneyland  the locos and rolling stock would all be shiny with barely a hint of dirt or grime, to the far extreme if I were doing a layout of a railroad in India I would weather and paint them so they looked as if they were about to fall apart at any moment.

JJ

I would suggest you goggle ho layout mining and logging images I would do a search for each, when I am running out of idea's I do this. don't stop at the first few result pages though, many ggod ideas are buried deep in searches.

JJ

Thanks for the repies,
I do find it easier to weather them after I have run them a while and the "new" has gone away, usually after a year or so. When I do weather a loco I also just give it a little dust and grime treatment. I have never seen pictures of any running loco's that looked like they were neglected completely.

JJ

Does any body else have trouble taking the leap to weather their new locos, I have no problem doing it to rolling stock or a bashed loco from used loco's but it hurts me to dirty up a beautiful new little loco.

JJ

I had a problem with a little ballast that would contact the flange and lift the wheel just enough to stop it.

I had a simlar problem on a G-scale loco which was caused by to much play. I found the thump was coming from the rod being able to contact the slide assembly on the back of the piston. it would get louder on curves.
NM

Peco Makes some neat on30 track and turnouts

NM