Hello Kevin,
Thank you for your extensive answer. The "Yardmaster" already answered the main question, and thereby implicitly the others, but you expand on them. I'm a big fan of your articles in Garden Railways, but it's a surprise to get a direct answer from you to my questions. Besides answers to the Climax 'issue' you have also answered, or at least pointed in a direction for solutions to, some questions I have for my other motive power.
I am contemplating using a QSI Titan for my K-27 and for my also recently acquired C-19. What are your experiences with them? How well can they be programmed.

One issue that's holding me back a bit with the Titans is the fact that they have a whole array of sounds on board and you have to choose / configure a specific combination to get the desired, though synthesized (if I understood it correctly) sound for a particular locomotive.
The approach for most other sound decoders is using sound samples from the "real" thing, which of course means that they need to supply an extensive library of sounds for all the available types if engines. The QSI approach is actually more "old fashioned ", but on the other hand more efficient. The downside could be that the sound for a particular engine is not really attainable. On the other hand the sound quality with 16 bits seems very promising and high quality / fidelity.
What are your experiences with the QSI? Would you recommend it for the K-27 and the C-19?

I'm aware that these questions no longer concern only the Climax engine, but are more general DCC related.

However I would welcome some advice on these issues, if you have the time.

Thanks again for your help and good luck with your Tuscarora Railroad. (Plus all the good stuff through GR)

Kind regards,

Kor Elzenga
Xanton & Western Rail Road
Wassenaar Division

Hello Yardmaster!

Thanks very much for the reply! I believe that answers my questions, at least for now. I'll just check how it works with the built in card then. Probably I'll go with that option.

Kind regards,

Kor Elzenga,
Xanton & Western Union Rail Road
Wassenaar Division

Hello Guys,

A couple of questions since the situation is not quite clear to me. I have some assumptions but I'd like to verify if they are correct.

1. The engine is advertised as DCC sound-equipped. The specifications also mention '... plug & play electronics interface to accommodate the control system of your choice, etc...' I interpret this as the engine being fitted with "only" the sound part or a DCC installation, but not the decoder part for running it on DCC. Is this the correct assumption?

2. Consequently the sound can be fully used with a DCC command center / controller, but you can't run the engine with it. In order to run the engine you have to use DC power, or have I misunderstood that? (the answer to statement / question #1 will mainly answer that).

3. I thought that in general more complicated sound effects can only be utilized completely with a proper DCC controller, and that with DC power sound effects are much more limited. Or is this DCC sound card capable of producing all the sound effects with DC power as well? Why would it then be specifically designated DCC sound-equipped?

4. If the sound effects are more limited with DC power why would this engine come without a DCC controller but with a complete DCC sound system? Moreover, you have to remove the sound card in order to install a DCC decoder on the "p&p electronics interface", judging by what I have been able to find on the internet, so why would you need a "DCC sound card" in the first place.

5. Does anybody know if the sound card can still successfully be used after installing a DCC decoder? How should the sound card be connected / installed in that case? The p&p interface is already used by the DCC decoder, so where does it need to go?

6. What type or brand DCC decoder would you suggest in either situation, with and without the factory supplied sound card? Pros and cons for both situations? (replacing the entire sound card with a sound-equipped DCC decoder or just a simpler DCC decoder and retaining the original sound card in whatever way)

Just curious since I recently acquired one of those "DCC sound-equipped" Climaxes. It's waiting for me in the USA and I was wondering what to expect and if I could already prepare something for it if necessary. I intend to use it with DCC ultimately anyway.

Thanks a lot in advance for your answers, tips, suggestions.

Kind regards,


Kor Elzenga
Xanton & Western Union Rail Road
Wassenaar Division

Hello all,

Is it me or is the Photo Gallery indeed a bit behind?
According to the above header
   News: Check out the photo gallery link above or >click here< to see photos of recently announced products!
you should be able to find photos of announced products, but the latest photo I can find in the Gallery is on page 14 and was created on 04/16/11. The one before that is from 12/06/10, so that's been quite a while.

Actually I was anticipating to find some pictures of the newly announced C19, but alas.
When the K27 and the whole line of F-Scale cars were announced there were plenty of pictures and of good to excellent quality. They were a good basis for my purchases. Not that I doubt the quality of the F-Scale items from Bachmann, having acquired already a fair quantity of them, but still some details would be nice.

So a kind request to the Bach-Man: Please provide us with some nice pictures of the C19, and especially some close ups of the details. I am particularly interested in the 'fully adjustable inside Stephenson valve gear'.
I was already very pleased with the adjustable valve gear on both my Connies and on my K27, but they are on the outside, so it makes sense to model them accurately. Inside valve gear is usually not modeled since it's supposedly not visible. I tend not to agree with that, especially n F-Scale, and would try and recreate that on my models too, so it's a nice surprise that the C19 will feature this!
You may have already sold at least one C19 to me, simply based on the choice of the model plus the quality I have experienced so far, but you might convince me even more if you post some pictures.

Kind regards,

Kor Elzenga
General Manager Xanton & Western Union Rail Road
Wassenaar, Netherlands

Hello Moore02,

I don't entirely agree with Altterrain: I have a Connie myself that runs quite smoothly on a starter powerpack from LGB that only provides 1 A current. Even outdoors on a 75' loop with a single electrical connection to the track and many ordinary rail joiners!.

My suggestion would be to check whether there is no mechanical issue causing the jerky behavior.
- Perhaps a coupling rod that's binding or bent or one of the rods of the valve gear.
- Check if the drivers are quartered correctly.
- I seem to remember that some of the Connies had an issue with the motor not being mounted properly. I don't remember it exactly but I think it had something to do with the screws with which the gearbox was mounted. (search through this forum) 
- Last but not least, check if the screws that secure the counter weights to the axles are tightened. On my Connie one of the screws had come loose at one time and she would exhibit a similar behavior as you are describing now. In compliance with Murphy's law it was the screw on the first driver, behind the piston rod, so it was a bit tricky to tighten it again, but after the fix she would run as well as before.

Basically Altterrain is right, that the power of your powerpack can cause problems with larger engines and especially on larger layouts. However, such an engine would probably not suddenly jump start, but instead just crawl or simply refuse to run at all. In those cases the thermal protection of the powerpack would probably be activated because of the power draw and cut the power alltogether.

My $0.02 worth of advice.

Kind regards,

Kor Elzenga
Wassenaar, Netherlands

Hello all,

I tried to attach the pdfs for the gage, one for letter size paper and one for A4 size paper, but or some obscure reason the files cannot be uploades and the message posted.
So again my offer: If anyone is interested, drop me a note and I can send it by email.

Regards,


Kor Elzenga
Wassenaar, Netherlands

korelzenga (at) hetnet.nl

Hello Guys,

Check out my answer on the original question (that by the did work). Some of it is similar to the answers in this thread. Anyone interested in my Fn3 gage, send me a note.

Bye,

Kor Elzenga, Wassenaar, Netherlands

Hello David,

I model Fn3 too and for tangent track I use a minimum distance of approx. 7.1" (180.2 mm to be exact) but I usually take the next round figure, which comes down to approx . 8" (200 mm for us continental Europeans). The minimum width of 180.2 mm corresponds to the width of the gage (as in NMRA-Gage, to check clearances and such) that I made for myself. I used the NMRA standards and RP's to calculate the values for F-scale. Send me a message (see address below) so I can send a pdf file of the gage to you. If you print out the gage, glue it on a piece of board or plastic and then cut it out along the lines, you can use it like the gages used by NMRA members in the smaller scales. I use mine to check whether plants, bridges, buildings etc. are not interfering with the running trains. Instructions on how to use the gage can be found in NMRA RP-2. The Standards and Recommended Practices can be found on the NMRA website.

Concerning the distance in curves, I had planned to make some kind of table for widening that distance but haven't yet gotten around to do that. You could try and calculate your own by using NMRA Standard S-8 and RP-11 as a basis, or find out by trial and error. That's what I always do after the theoretical part  , in order to check if I was right with my calculations. Besides, it's part of the railroad fun too.

Hope to have helped you in some way.

Regards,

Kor Elzenga, Wassenaar, Netherlands
korelzenga(at)hetnet.nl