Comtrain goes H0! H0! H0!: 06/27/14

2014/06/27

2014 June 27

2014 June 27 Still raining still cold. The mountains have snow on them

Plenty of trains running :D
Have a major problem with Tam Valley Servo point control, awaiting on answer from them.
And running trains in both directions, crosses etc. Its becoming much more like a railway, day by day!

But now I have the other end to fix. That is trains all eventually arrive back at "Bowser" and terminate, because I need to get the branch up and running again . Show my plans next time :)

Here is a question I posted on DCC Downunder. Would appreciate advice?

Has anybody got an Explorer?
I have a three car early version Southern Models Explorer to which I want to add sound.
As you might know the lead driving car is powered and the trailing one a dummy. When you reverse the headlights and tail lights swap ends as you would expect. But the sound only comes out of the motorised end car. When a long 3 car Explorer passes you it is obvious that the two trailing cars are shut down
How to fix? Well I got 4 cell phone speakers arranged in series and two pairs in parallel returning the load to 8 ohms as required, and hard wired the speakers into the three cars. Two in middle and one each in the ends.
It works!! But the volume is so low that I had to build a small amplifier to boost the signal. That really does not work, and I need a big amp and the space is not there. Plus it is becoming an expensive proposition.
In fact at $415 it is probably cheaper to buy a two car set and use the motor to double power the 3 car unit.
Having said that I will need to operate two speakers in series (?) create a 4 ohm load and as before supply a speaker in front and a second in middle motor and the same from other end.
I presume that I will need to permanently assign the two Loksound V4.0 decoders to an address and lock them after tweaking the CV's.

Now what about the lighting? I guess do not use the second Loksound lighting at all. Wire up the second motor the same as the original dummy, and hope that the car lights all respond as the original set using the dummy. . That is headlights changing ends and marker lights rear lights and saloon lights?
Am I missing anything?
Cheers
Rod

About my Railway

The Australian National Railways was established by the Whitlam Federal Government following a commitment made in the 1972 election to invite the states to hand over their railway systems to the federal government. In July 1975 Australian National Railways was formed taking over the operations of the federal government owned Commonwealth Railways.

The state governments of South Australia and Tasmania whose railway systems were deeply in debt, accepted. During the next two years discussions between these two states and the federal government resulted in a number of staffing and operating agreements being made that resulted in all South Australian Railways services (except for the Adelaide metropolitan passenger network) and all Tasmanian Government Railways services transferring to Australian National Railway in March 1978, the latter being re-branded AN Tasrail.

At first Victoria declined to hand over its Railways, however a change of Government after Bolte retired meant Victoria could be absorbed into AN as well.
Despite doing everything they could to tarnish ALP leader Clyde Holding, The ALP were able to defeat Hamer who was seen to be just another Bolte, doing more of the same into the future.

Clyde Holding handed over Victorian Railways to the Commonwealth where it prospered as a division of AN retaining its VR colours until later when AN decided to re-brand it as V/Line.

My Railway thus reflects what could have been ;)
And of course National Rail (Pacific National) has no place in my little scenario. Australian National was never privatised and has continually taken East Coast loads off the Highways. As well many branch lines were upgraded and Whitlam's policy of decentralisation actually moved employment to towns with a ready pool of workers, which of course took the pressure of Melbourne which was starting to expand as bush kids moved away from the Country in search of education and employment ( just as Gough Whitlam envisaged it would do)
Rod Young

Comtrain goes H0! H0! H0!

2014/06/27

2014 June 27

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