Model Railroading > Keep Alives in locomotives

Are there any HO locomotives now on the market that have Keep Alives pre-installed?

ScaleTrains SD40-2 (Rivet Counters).

I would gladly pay the extra money for every sound engine to come with them installed.

Walthers Plymouth industrial locomotives. Best thing they could have done and I agree, I’d gladly pay the extra cost for locomotives to come from the manufacturers with these installed.

Posted from iPhone

Ryan Barber
Stockton, CA

Scaletrains.com Tier4 Gevos also have them.

Posted from Android

just installed a TCS KA3 on a Loksound Select Direct. Works great and keeps it alive for a couple seconds

twl

I'll probably get crucified on here for posting this but I hope it might help get some thoughts rolling....

Why do you guys put so much into the Keep Alive Gimmick? These things cost $20-$50 (I don't buy them so I could be off on what they cost) and you have to wire one into every locomotive? Why does a locomotive with power pickup on 4 or 6 axles and long wheelbase need them? Have you guys tried running your larger locos without a Keep Alive to see if you really need it? I get that smaller wheelbase or locos with power pickup on less axles can greatly benefit buy why does a GEVO need a Keep Alive? Why try to fix something that might not really be broken, especially at the high cost of these devices?

My point here is that you can buy A LOT of extra feeder wire for the $20-$50 you spend on a Keep Alive. Wire up your track really well (between every switch) and you won't have any need for Keep Alives. I know wiring the layout is one of the most difficult things we modelers do, or it seems that way, so installing Keep Alives is easier? My argument is the better your layout is wired, the need for Keep Alives goes away. If you have a place where your big 6 axle locomotive stalls why install a Keep Alive when you can add another feeder in the location where it stalls? Two short feeder wires takes about as long or less time to install than a single Keep Alive, costs about $1 or less, and it solves the problem for ALL of your locomotives in one shot.

I know we want to get trains running as quickly as possible so we skimp on wiring in the beginning, but honestly if you take the extra time in the beginning to wire up your layout properly and well, it will pay off big time later.

I find that Keep Alives are a gimmick created by the decoder manufactures to unnecessarily milk modelers out of money. As such I do not use Keep Alives in any of my 300+ locomotives, my track is well wired, and I don't have a single issue. Keep your track clean, keep your loco wheels clean, and wire up your layout well and you'll be just fine!

Now if your layout meets the criteria noted above and you find that you still need Keep Alives in your larger locomotives I'd like to hear your reasoning as maybe I'm missing something. Again, if you're putting them in locomotives that could reasonably need them that's fine.

Lee Ryan - Rio Grande Fan
Denver, CO

I haven't gone to keep-alives, but I'm going to after this weekend. My problem is dirty spots on track. I've got a layout with a decent amount of mainline and 2-3% grades. I plan to run DPUs. If either set of engines stalls out it can cause a derailment due to string-lining or bunching. In some places that can result in a 6 foot drop to the floor. I'm fixing an SD70ace as a result this week. If things were relatively flat and always easily accessible it wouldn't be a problem.

- tum

Dear RioGrande - You can't tell me that your or any layout out there runs 100 percent perfectly. From time to time a locomotive will momentarily stall and what do we do? We use a finger to give the loco a nudge. Has nothing to do with proper layout wiring. It sort of ruins the illusion of the scale world we've invested in when a loco stalls for whatever reason. So why do you care if guys want to prevent stalls. Even the best cleaned, perfectly wired layout will have stalls from time to time and the current keeper will keep this from happening. I have them on several of my locos and believe they are fantastic.

Dirty track - causing flickering lights and sound glitches, is way more then enough of a reason for me. Sorry, not every little piece of track can stay clean every time, and spots will always show during a session. Not to mention yards, with a fleet of switchers, keep alives are mandatory for me, and all my customers that I do work for go for them as well. The extra 20$ is well worth the price.

Here is a $3.09 solution for dirty track...

...also works on locomotive wheels!

Lee Ryan - Rio Grande Fan
Denver, CO



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/18 15:04 by RioGrandeFan.

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RioGrandeFan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here is a $3.09 solution for dirty track...
>
> ...also works on locomotive wheels!
>
> Lee Ryan - Rio Grande Fan
> Denver, CO

How about turnouts which is where I've had the most trouble? Keep alives are just good insurance.

PHall Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> RioGrandeFan Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Here is a $3.09 solution for dirty track...
> >
> > ...also works on locomotive wheels!
> >
> > Lee Ryan - Rio Grande Fan
> > Denver, CO
>
> How about turnouts which is where I've had the
> most trouble? Keep alives are just good insurance.

Thats how I see it. Cheap insurance. Its not a crutch, keep your track clean, but I and many others, still like them.

And keep alive is especially nice with sound too, which can be sensitive to dirty track?

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

wabash2800 Wrote:
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> And keep alive is especially nice with sound too,
> which can be sensitive to dirty track?
>
> Victor A. Baird
> http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

Sound is VERY sensative to dirty track/dead spots.

RioGrandeFan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here is a $3.09 solution for dirty track...
>
> ...also works on locomotive wheels!
>
> Lee Ryan - Rio Grande Fan
> Denver, CO

Yeah, that's nice, if I could actually reach all the track.

- tum

$20-$50 extra per locomotive is not cheap in my opinion. I don't have thousands of dollars to equip my fleet with Keep Alives.

Oh and yes I regularly have and do operate on at least 5 local layouts both large and small that do not use Keep Alives and have no issues! It is possible! I have operated my own equipment as well on these layouts without Keep Alives and they operate just fine. These layouts are well built, well wired, clean track, I have clean wheels, everything inside has soldered connections, and I have no issues. I can go over switches at speed step 1 and have no stalls. I can't even remember the last time I had to nudge a locomotive because it stalled.

I wire around every switch. Every piece of track between switches or extending from a switch gets a feeder wire set. Several connected sticks of flex track get soldered together. Long wheelbase locos that have proper power pickup on both trucks will not stall on insulfrog type switches. If your locomotive is stalling on a switch, check the power pickup on the trucks. It may be possible that one truck has a broken pickup wire that can easily be re-soldered. Locomotive wheels are also notorious for being filthy even on brand new locos right out of the box. A thorough cleaning of the wheels greatly improves things.

Keep Alives are a bandaid for a problem that is usually simple to solve with an improvement to the track and/or the locomotive.

Oh and one last note...be careful about using non-ESU Keep Alives with ESU decoders. You will no longer be able to program them on the program track. The ESU Power Pack (their term) has a buffer built in to allow programming on the program track with the module installed. If you use a TCS or SoundTraxx Keep Alive you'll either need to do all of your program track programming before installing the Keep Alive or you'll need to wire in a switch to take the Keep Alive out of the circuit so you can program on the program track later if necessary.

Lee Ryan - Rio Grande Fan
Denver, CO



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/18 08:44 by RioGrandeFan.

I had no problems programming a Loksound Select Direct with a TCS KA3 conected. And just a note from me, I use a Lokprogrammer

twl

RioGrandeFan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Oh and yes I regularly have and do operate on at
> least 5 local layouts both large and small that do
> not use Keep Alives and have no issues! It is
> possible! I have operated my own equipment as well
> on these layouts without Keep Alives and they
> operate just fine. These layouts are well built,
> well wired, clean track, I have clean wheel
> Oh and one last note...be careful about using
> non-ESU Keep Alives with ESU decoders. You will no
> longer be able to program them on the program
> track. The ESU Power Pack (their term) has a
> buffer built in to allow programming on the
> program track with the module installed. If you
> use a TCS or SoundTraxx Keep Alive you'll either
> need to do all of your program track programming
> before installing the Keep Alive or you'll need to
> wire in a switch to take the Keep Alive out of the
> circuit so you can program on the program track
> later if necessary.
>
> Lee Ryan - Rio Grande Fan
> Denver, CO