Live loads


I've had similar consisting dropouts of a loco or two, on the club layout as well. Usually caused by a short somewhere that either cancels the consist address in it or them or changes the consist number to something unknown. The only seeming way to fix it is to kill the consist in all the others, take the offender which is locked into this other Phantom number and use it's I.D. (cab number) to access it's CV's and change CV19 = 0 which clears whatever it's in and then rebuild the first consist all over again
 
That big industrial vacuum would be good for cleaning up after the kids and dog as well. I just looked a the photo again and I see the exhausts, so not closed loop.

I've only had older Digitrax decoders loose their minds. I have a vacuum car I built for cleaning up spilled coal under the loadout. It is powered with an old DH121 and when cleaning up the most recent oops, it was making intermittent contact and then just stopped. I looked at it with JMRI and everything seemed normal but after I rewrote the pages I'd just read all was well. I didn't look specifically at CV19, I'll try that next time. I haven't had it happen with TCS, NCE or newer Digitrax. Still, it was an unfortunate accident and sounds rather costly. At today's prices, I would imagine there have been real train derailments with less financial loss.

I've seen another interesting feature of older Digitrax. It hasn't happened to me in a long time but I've had a derailment that shorted things out so shut off the track power with the throttle. I rerailed the offending wheels and when turned the power back on, every train I'd run that session took off at full speed. Several were parked in the yard which went from 6 tracks to one. I was able to put my arm across the yard throat and get power turned off but it was almost very exciting. I think, since they all took off the same direction it was something to do with Digitrax' ability to control regular DC locomotives. I've since turned that feature off on all DCC equipped locomotives so they only respond to DCC signals.
 
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kjd said:
since they all took off the same direction it was something to do with Digitrax' ability to control regular DC locomotives. I've since turned that feature off on all DCC equipped locomotives so they only respond to DCC signals.
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I haven't experienced Digitrax as a DCC control, but I know it does have a feature that makes it possible to run, I think it is, 1 DC engine on the layout using 00 as the address. As what you experienced affected more than 1, it was probably the fact that it is a risk when using DC/DCC dual optioned decoders (most are these days, have been for some time) that on powering up, they can interpret the DCC power (being at full voltage to the track at all times) as DC with the throttle set to full speed. Hence the runaway. I've only had 1 loco do it, a brand new BLI AC6000 Paragon, when placed on the club's fiddle yard track and the power to that track turned on. Fortunately was able to grab it. It was my first DCC/sound loco and a big investment at the time.
 
To prevent DCC runaways, simply turn off analog recognition in the decoder. For a long address, that would mean changing CV29 to 34 (NDOT forward) or 35 (NDOT reverse).
 
John Tews' Timber River Railway has an interesting way of handling loads in and empties out for his ore loading dock. He has removable ore loads that can manually be unloaded or he constructed an auto unloader.

Colored pins on the ore loads indicate the type of ore.

Check the web for this interesting layout.

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Greg
 
I talked to another ore hauler modeler once and he was trying to figure out how to unload ore cars. He'd cut a slit in the bottom of the trough in the car and put in a metal dowel to cover it up. It kept the ore from falling out and then to unload a rod came from underneath the layout and lifted the dowel allowing the ore to fall out. He said it wasn't perfect but worked.

I heard of another layout where when a carload of ore was spilled, the owner would glue it in place and put a little plaque memorializing the operator in the event. I don't think it happened very often ore else the layout would look like it had a mole problem.

I tried to find info on John Tews' website about ore operations but didn't see it. There is a big discussion on the MRH site about pins and markers on cars for switching. Personally, I'm glad they work for some people but I don't really like them so I don't think I'll use them.
 
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