NMRA Convention/National Train Show


JeffShultz

JeffShultz

Stay off the tracks!
Update to fix link - I haven't gotten enough sleep this week...

I'll be checking out of the Marriott at the Anaheim Convention Center later today and heading over to the NTS for a last visit (this has been a very expensive trip :D ).
If you'd like to see and read what Joe Fugate and I have been up to here this past week, head on over to http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com and check out the "Recent Blog Posts" box on the right sidebar. Mine start with "Jeff's..."

We'll have video up starting this week at http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/mrh_theater as well - we got some great interviews.

Finally, my disorganized, not much edited yet photo gallery from this week can be found at
http://www.shultzinfosystems.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=26082

I hope you enjoy them!
 
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I've been following it over at Atlas' forum. Everyone seems to be cleaning there pants off after they announced a GP40-2. Not trying to sound sarcastic, but what is the big hoopla over it?
 
NYSW F45 said:
I've been following it over at Atlas' forum. Everyone seems to be cleaning there pants off after they announced a GP40-2. Not trying to sound sarcastic, but what is the big hoopla over it?
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I don't get it either. Athearn already has a GP40-2.:confused:
 
Smoke said:
I don't get it either. Athearn already has a GP40-2.:confused:
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Smoke, go over to atlas's forum's. It is ridiculous how excited they all are. Granted maybe it will be far superior to athearns. but they are going nuts like it's the next best thing since sliced bread. If it were an SD70Ace/SD70M-2 beeing offered in HO other then MTH's, which people are saying might not be to good. I can see why people would be getting all excited since neither are available in HO where most people can afford one (dam you overland!)

Also does anyone know if there were any other good announcements besides the athearn UP turbine and beercan tankers? I keep waiting ot see if anyone has offered up the trash container spine cars again.
 
I'm going to want only two presents for christmas this year, an MTH ACe in MRL, and a DCS system to go with my Digitrax system.
 
BNSF dude said:
I'm going to want only two presents for christmas this year, an MTH ACe in MRL, and a DCS system to go with my Digitrax system.
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I'll take a MTH Ace as long as it looks good in HO. Apparently they posted a disclaimer saying that the photo's posted about the new Ace are pics of the 0scale and not the HO scale version. People were praying Kato would offer one up but they are i think someone said releasing only like 2 new HO items this year both in the Amtrak series they've been doing. They are concentrating on the N scale market.
 
NYSW F45 said:
Also does anyone know if there were any other good announcements besides the athearn UP turbine and beercan tankers? I keep waiting ot see if anyone has offered up the trash container spine cars again.
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Everyone is exited about the NS top gons that BLMA is doing.
 
Basically the GP40-2 was considered 80s Blue Box tooling. Atlas is new tooling on their very nice (and well proven) drive - with either sound installed or at least the idea of installing sound designed into it.

There have been some guys agitating for an awful long time for this...
 
Jeff, looks like a great place to be right now. That GPS system for model trains sounds both intriguing and kind of useless. :) I may not be getting what it's really good for. The Atlas GP40-2 is kind of underwhwelming but it looks good. I get the feeling that manufacturers aren't willing to make a big investment in tooling for modern locomotives until they know which way the economy is headed. I'm sure that they'd be looking at $350 for DCC and $450-500 for sound and that's a big chunk of change for a lot of people now. It's tough to be in a business that's totally dependent on disposable income for survival.
 
I dunno, I'm highly interested in the GPS now! Might be a nice way to track who's train is where on the layout during ops sessions.
 
Josh, the big problem is you need an ultrasonic transmitter in each loco and a receiver in the ceiling, maybe more than one if you have a big layout. If you're operating with other modelers, I kind of doubt they'll have a transmitter installed in their motive power. It would be a lot more interesting if they'd somehow integrate it into a DCC decoder.
 
ok besides the atlas gp40-2, athearns up turbine and blma's top gon, was there anything else that was a cool announcement?
 
UP2CSX said:
Josh, the big problem is you need an ultrasonic transmitter in each loco and a receiver in the ceiling, maybe more than one if you have a big layout. If you're operating with other modelers, I kind of doubt they'll have a transmitter installed in their motive power. It would be a lot more interesting if they'd somehow integrate it into a DCC decoder.
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But you only need ONE per train, where as a resistor set up, you need one ever few cars (I've been told 1 out of 8 cars works best). $400 for a starter set, and it can be run in JMRI, I love it.

Might be steep for a small layout, but when you get into plans my size you need something powerful to track all the trains...:eek:
 
Josh, OTOH, you can easily set up trucks with resistors that can be added to any consist. It's cheap and easy to do. If you're just running your own layout with no other guests, the ultrasonic tracking would work fine. I'm saying that other guys aren't going to bring along transmitter equipped engines, which means one of your engines would have to be in every consist. That's a lot more expensive than adding a boxcar or covered hopper to each 8 or 10 cars of a train.
 
You need many of the receivers up near the ceiling, as the way they determine the location of the train is by essentially having more than one (or perhaps just two) of them hear the engine - and applying a little trigonometry. There is actually a limitation on how short the triangle can be as a function of it's base in order for it to work.

I got blitzed with stuff I barely followed - what I really was interested in was Nancy Workman (Soundtraxx) saying that yes, they could make a version of SurroundTraxx that would work with it... provided the business case was there, of course.
 
Jim,

I expect you could also stick the ultrasonic transmitters into a boxcar - and just tag it onto a visiting set of locomotives as well.
 
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