Model Train Journal

If it were RS-422 that they were using, there should be two data wires, not one. RS-422 uses a differential signal, and the the value of the data (one or zero) depends on the plus wire's voltage level with respect to the minus wire. You can't operate a RS-422 network with one data wire. You can, how...

It sounds to me like your switch machines may have worked previously more out of luck than anything else. If the method of communication on the data wire is truly RS-232, then the designers chose the wrong medium. RS-232 is the specification for a point-to-point communication system of up to 25 feet...

Some things I would try to help isolate the cause: 1. Replace the data wire driver with the new one that you programmed the new switches with. Is it the same model as the "production" driver? Maybe there is a difference that makes the new driver more compatible with the new switch machines...

How do the DZ-2500s get their TMCC signal? Do they have antennas or do they get it directly from the outside rail?

Are you using PC power supplies that have a separate AC power switch? If you use "newer" ones, the green wire, when tied to ground (black) will power on the supply. You can then power on all your supplies with just one SPST button or switch. For anyone else that wants to use PC supplies, o...

Great pictures guys, and great history lesson. Some day I'll have to post some pics I bought of the Orange Belt Railway, a 1890's narrow gauge railway that ran from Tampa bay (literally) to Sanford FL. The railway extended out on a pier about a half mile into Tampa Bay from St. Petersburg. Anyone fa...

No, but the bike is!

So what happens when you get stung by a scorpion? Is it like a black widow bite? or more like a bee sting?

...and Lynrd Skynrd, Marshall Tucker, Doors, and last but not least, if you were a real biker...John Kay and Steppenwolf.

We went to a local track here that had "boat races." Each car (or truck) was pulling a boat trailer with a boat on it. At the end of the race, you were disqualified if your trailer was not attached to your car, or the boat was not on the trailer. I don't believe the trailer had to have whe...

Musta been a short cigar, or else you are related to Jimmy Durante.

I think you have to be pretty lucky with that technique. If the bead doesn't properly seal, the tire won't inflate. I would use a comealong around the tread of the tire and use it to squeeze the sidewalls apart, to try to set the bead that way. Then if you can get air in faster than it leaks out, th...

Man, those steamers can flat-out PULL!! That thing is pulling that 5-bottom, when it is past the camera, when it's barely faster than 'idle', without even so much as a HINT of a stumble. 8) I guess I wouldn't have expected otherwise, when I watch a steam-tractor pull a maxed-out sled the entire len...

"Ahhh, my little Snow Bunting."

Sorry Wayne, it just ain't the same.