Playing with trains!
Our good friends Eric and Stephanie went to Chicago to visit with their parents. Eric ended up bringing back his Dad's old N gauge train stuff minus the layout board. He brought it over to my house and left it with me for the weekend so I could check it out. There was a lot of stuff packed into the plastic storage boxes. Eric didn't think there was any track but I took everything out of the boxes and found lots of scrap Atlas track. Here are some pictures of all the items:
This was my first time working with N gauge track that isn't Kato. I was really curious how it goes together and wanted to figure out how to make an oval to test the locomotives and rolling stock. The first struggle was trying to find the small metal couplers used to attach the rail pieces together. The next trick was figuring out how to make an oval with a spattering of different pieces of curves and straights. I also needed to figure out how to connect power to the track. The Kato track has a piece with a molded in connector that connects to the Kato powerpack so it is super easy.
From what I have read and seen, HO and N gauge track needs to have the power wires soldered to the rails so I took a scrap piece of straight track and soldered some small gauge solid wire to each rail after hitting the rails with some 400 grit sandpaper to remove the years of oxidation.
Setting the track up on a small coffee table seemed like a good idea but this track likes to slide around and come apart fairly easily which is frustrating. I see now why it makes sense to fasten the track to a table and solder the joints between the rails for optimum power transfer.
The MRC powerpack is impressive. It has an inertia button that slowly ramps up and down the train speed. Also, there is a brake button, that appears to only work with "inertia" enabled, which will halt the train faster than letting inertia slow it down.
I tested the five engines that were included. Three of them worked and I couldn't get the other two to run but I didn't try too hard to debug why. I tried the GE 44 tonner, still in its stock form, and it ran really really well. Nothing like how it ran when I tested it on the Kato oval at work which was terrible. I was going to pull the DCC module out of that engine but now I'm not sure. I need to try it again on the Kato track with the Kato powerpack and see how it runs again now that I have seen it running well. I'm wondering if maybe the quality of the DC power from the powerpacks is the cause?
The conclusion from these activities is that I think the Kato track was a good idea, the GE 44 tonner has promise, I like the MRC powerpack and Eric and Stephanie are awesome for bring this stuff down from Chicago.
Our good friends Eric and Stephanie went to Chicago to visit with their parents. Eric ended up bringing back his Dad's old N gauge train stuff minus the layout board. He brought it over to my house and left it with me for the weekend so I could check it out. There was a lot of stuff packed into the plastic storage boxes. Eric didn't think there was any track but I took everything out of the boxes and found lots of scrap Atlas track. Here are some pictures of all the items:
From what I have read and seen, HO and N gauge track needs to have the power wires soldered to the rails so I took a scrap piece of straight track and soldered some small gauge solid wire to each rail after hitting the rails with some 400 grit sandpaper to remove the years of oxidation.
Setting the track up on a small coffee table seemed like a good idea but this track likes to slide around and come apart fairly easily which is frustrating. I see now why it makes sense to fasten the track to a table and solder the joints between the rails for optimum power transfer.
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| Here is the oval I managed to cobble together. |
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| Trying to take a pic of a fast moving engine. |
I tested the five engines that were included. Three of them worked and I couldn't get the other two to run but I didn't try too hard to debug why. I tried the GE 44 tonner, still in its stock form, and it ran really really well. Nothing like how it ran when I tested it on the Kato oval at work which was terrible. I was going to pull the DCC module out of that engine but now I'm not sure. I need to try it again on the Kato track with the Kato powerpack and see how it runs again now that I have seen it running well. I'm wondering if maybe the quality of the DC power from the powerpacks is the cause?
The conclusion from these activities is that I think the Kato track was a good idea, the GE 44 tonner has promise, I like the MRC powerpack and Eric and Stephanie are awesome for bring this stuff down from Chicago.
The little steam engine runs really well
and is chasing the GE 44 tonner
and is chasing the GE 44 tonner
The GE 44 tonner making a run.
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