Model Railroading > Some Green in the Cascades

Big BN Manifest Freight with mid-train helpers climbing the pass on the Caldwell Model Railroad Club & Historical Society layout.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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Nice consist and no genesets.

Great video and models.  Would that be a new ScaleTrains SD40-2B in the consist?

Rich

Outstanding BN train Ted, and excellent Cascades scenery…brought me right back to the 90’s in Stevens Pass. The Caldwell club sure has a beauty of a layout!

• Tom in the PNW

That's an outstanding video and model railroad. Good thing it's just a model railroad as I would suspect the snow on the upper snow shed roof that protects the upper lever track would land on the lower level track! <G>

Victor Baird

I wish some manufactuer could come up with a droning sound those SD-40's made under heavy load,.
Nice video Ted.

tomstp Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I wish some manufactuer could come up with a
> droning sound those SD-40's made under heavy
> load,.
> Nice video Ted.

Yes, I have yet to hear a decoder sound that produces the EMD "drumbeat", which is the bass sound that EMD's make when working hard, and a critical element of the sound that makes EMD's sound like EMD's.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

PasadenaSub Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Great video and models.  Would that be a new
> ScaleTrains SD40-2B in the consist?
>
> Rich

That is correct. First run for the that model. The only issue I had with it was the couplers were wayyy too low and I need to use overset kadee couplers to get them close to the right height.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

funnelfan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> tomstp Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I wish some manufactuer could come up with a
> > droning sound those SD-40's made under heavy
> > load,.
> > Nice video Ted.
>
> Yes, I have yet to hear a decoder sound that
> produces the EMD "drumbeat", which is the bass
> sound that EMD's make when working hard, and a
> critical element of the sound that makes EMD's
> sound like EMD's.

You would need a much, much larger speaker then you would be able to fit in any model to get that sound. A good sub-woofer with a lot of power behind it would be what you need.

Nice work, the backdrop and the snowshed are great settings, train looks great.

ScaleTrains couplers are not exact form-fit Kadee design, if you compare them very closely the ST coupler effective length is in-between the KD medium and long shanks, inside the knuckle is slightly different contour as well. A long Kadee will have a droop, especially the whisker design, ST recommends putting a fiber washer under the coupler to compensate for droop particularly if the ST leaf spring is not used. The ST coupler may be thicker as well, so as to prevent a droop.

There was a post a few months ago suggesting just drill a new hole and use a short Kadee.

There are all sorts of unique 'features' with the ScaleTrains locomotives, some one suggested the motor and current issue shows up at around 20 hours of run time, suggest keeping a casual note of run time and current / performance to help sort out any issues. The ST Help desk is very helpful and very knowledgeable.

Amazing amount of design work, they run fantastic out of the box, look fantastic as well.

+ added some whisker coupler droop emphasis.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/24 21:58 by TCnR.