Model Railroading > How do you make a "fast clock"

I am interested in doing realistic timetable operations on my model RR. In order to do this I need to find a way to make some "fast clocks", i.e. a clock that can operate at faster than normal speed. Hopefully adjustable with a potentiometer.

Does anyone know of an easy way to do this? I'm sure there is a way but I haven't found one. I'm not an electronic wizard or computer nerd, so I need some sort of simple, inexpensive way of doing this.

Is there a vendor who markets some thing like this?

John Webb
Trinidad, CA

yes

If you have Digitrax or NCE, Logic Rail makes DCC versions for those systems.

Bruce

http://www.logicrailtech.com/index.htm

Be careful, you may want to try operating with one. I seems that mainline running is ok, but when you need to switch or setout and pickup on the peddler time gets more to normal time instead of fast time.

espee99 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Be careful, you may want to try operating with
> one. I seems that mainline running is ok, but
> when you need to switch or setout and pickup on
> the peddler time gets more to normal time instead
> of fast time.

Except that there's still no need for time to walk up to the head end (or back to the caboose), or to make the hoses and charge the air....

John,

Try www.thegmlenterprises.com as they make a few as well
as walk around throttles. Gene Lewis runs GML and has been in
business over 25 yrs.
cf7

If you want to give a fast clock a try without investing anything, check out this: http://www.wesleysteiner.com/mr/mrfc/mrfc.html It downloads onto your computer and runs directly off your machine so you don't need Internet for it to work. Also, it's fully adjustable for various time compression and starts/stops/resets easily. While it does take a computer monitor to display, it's a fast, free and easy way to try fast clocks with minimal hassle.

We've been using this on op sessions on the Rogue Valley Model Railroad Club's Pacific & Eastern layout for several months with positive results.

Larry

But you get some guys like me who like to be nit-pickers and will sit and wait. Last time I was at an ops session, I cut in a huge string of cars and stood there for 10 minutes... Dispatcher called me and asked me if I was ready to depart. I responded "No, sir... Still charging air and gotta do my class 1." That broke up the room with laughter and caused one guy to run a red signal as a result.

The only time I got a bigger laugh was when I pulled up a DTMF tone generator on my smart phone and "dialed up" the dispatcher. :D

-Eric

toledopatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> espee99 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Be careful, you may want to try operating with
> > one. I seems that mainline running is ok, but
> > when you need to switch or setout and pickup on
> > the peddler time gets more to normal time
> instead
> > of fast time.
>
> Except that there's still no need for time to walk
> up to the head end (or back to the caboose), or to
> make the hoses and charge the air....

I have a fast clock app on both my iPhone and iPad that can be set for different rates of "fastness." Don't remember what it cost but it wasn't much.

Rick

sou2601 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> But you get some guys like me who like to be
> nit-pickers and will sit and wait. Last time I
> was at an ops session, I cut in a huge string of
> cars and stood there for 10 minutes... Dispatcher
> called me and asked me if I was ready to depart.
> I responded "No, sir... Still charging air and
> gotta do my class 1." That broke up the room with
> laughter and caused one guy to run a red signal as
> a result.
>
> The only time I got a bigger laugh was when I
> pulled up a DTMF tone generator on my smart phone
> and "dialed up" the dispatcher. :D
>
> -Eric
>

I was approaching Summit siding on a TT&TO layout with orders to
head in to meet two other extras there. As I was about 400 scale feet from the switch one of the other engineers started panicking, and asked if I understood that I was to take siding, as he was standing on the main. I replied that I understood, but that my head end brakeman was an old guy and he couldn't run that far. Got a pretty good laugh with that one too, as I stopped just short of the switch and lined myself in.

Barry "I don't use no stinkin' fast clocks" Draper

For a "low investment" fast clock, it was once suggested to me that I could go to big box retailer and pick up an inexpensive wall clock. Remove the hour hand and run as if minute hand is the hour hand. I suppose it could be taken one step farther and the minute hand could be clipped to shorten it and the second hand could be "thickened" to look more like a minute hand. A twelve hour day would be done in real-time hour for a 12:1 fixed fast clock.

Most inexpensive wall clocks use the 60Hz wall current as a time base. It would be possible to dream up a circuit to generate faster "AC" current that would cause the clocks to run fast, by changing the frequency of the current you could run a clock faster or slower, possibly even run a number of them if they were all fed from the same current source.

I think my kids should get me a fast clock for my DCC system for father's day. :-)

--
Dan B.

Dan Boehlke
New Ulm, MN