Model Railroading > Frankenstein switch

When I was a kid my grandfather had a dogbone shaped layout in his small basement in Oxford, MD.  
He basically had a three track yard and single track dogbone around the walls layout, and once a year
in the 60's our family would visit (from Dallas) .  After picking out a train we wanted to run, he would line
up the switches and had a big knife switch on the control board that, when activated, would power up the
layout and move the train.  As a kid it was always a thrill to throw the knife switch.  My grandfather was a Scot
so it was also a hoot to hear him speak.

Fast forward to now, and I'm the grandfather with a layout so for my grandson I found this "Frankenstein Switch"
that mounts over a standard toggle type light switch.  Three year old Jimmy now gets a kick out of throwing
the power on.  Lucky for me in Tyler, Tex. he is only 3 hours away in Dallas and can visit lots more than once a year.

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Great stuff Shane. Love your walk around controller also. My grandson in CA is coming down to Australia to visit in a few weeks,havent seen him since sept 2019. 
Regards,DK

Knife switch is cool. How's your Proto Throttle experience been so far?

Yep, I wanta hear all about that diesel throttle.

It's alive!

tehachapifan Wrote:
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> It's alive!

Beat me to it!

> My grandfather was a Scot
> so it was also a hoot to hear him speak.

Aye it is!  My wife is from just below the border of Scotland and she sounds a bit like the Scots.  Imigrated her from Newcastle UK 11 years ago.

Cheers,
Jim

ChrisCampi Wrote:
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> Knife switch is cool. How's your Proto Throttle
> experience been so far?


it's not my everyday throttle, but it's a nice diversion from normal.
My normal throttles are the  new TCS mini-WiFi throttles which I really like.

The Proto Throttle is really fun to use though.  I have a few locomotives that have
the settings different than the rest, specifically for use with the Proto.  The accelleration
 on these is set a bit higher and the deceleration is set way higher, so when using the
Proto, the momentum when stopping would be almost impossible to control except
the Proto has a great braking feature so one can gradually brake to stop where one
needs to by braking, just like a brake on the control stand reducing the air as required.

One thing I don't like about it is lack of battery access.  One has to remove four screws and
remove the back to yank the batteries which sounds like no big deal but it just kind of irritates
me that when I want to use it, I have to pull the screws and then put it back together once batteries
are inserted.  In my old EasyDCC throttles I had a couple that were ruined by leaving the batteries in
all the time and they corroded the internal guts in those.  Those were $160 apiece and the Proto is
$500 so I am not taking any chances.

On mine I also had a glitch that I could not solve.  The Proto folks sent me a new chip/card and that didn't help.
Then they wanted me to download software onto the SIM card but I'm not a techie and couldn't figure it out so they offered
to have me send it to them to load the software, but I asked a fellow modeler and IT guy to help and he did it
in 5 minutes and that solved my problem.  That problem was frustrating but they did see it through and I am good with that.

An added bonus is that one of the proprietors is a Trainorders.com member.  

On a scale of 5, I would give it 4.5 stars.  I only deduct 1/2 star for the battery access issue.

No one asked but I give the TCS mini WiFi throttle a full 5 stars.
 

Thanks Shane. I've heard about the battery access issues before. Hopefully they'll deal with that in the near future. 

The TCS mini's sounds like a new thread. Hint, hint.:-)

ChrisCampi Wrote:
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>
> The TCS mini's sounds like a new thread. Hint,
> hint.:-)

Yes please.  My RR isn't operational yet, but I did buy both TCS UWT-50 and UWT-100 (combo deal) and look forward to using them. 

Cheers,
Jim