Large Scale Central

Aluminum track questions

Track and Trestles
#101

Hi Matt - Would I rather have all self-contained battery locos - Yes. And I now have two. Can I afford to put on-board battery, r/c and sound in all my locos? No. That’s why I chose trail cars. I have one each for my 1:29 and 1:20.3 stock. Both have programmable Phoenix sound cards and a large speaker plus will power speakers in connected locos.

My layout doesn’t have any switching puzzles, I have several industries that I switch, but all can be managed with the trail car attached.

Trail cars are the quickest way to get started in battery r/c if you have a large roster of locos. If those locos are per-wired Aristo locos it’s even easier.

#102

The nice thing about using steam profile sparkies is that the tender easily becomes your battery trail car.

#103

Matt Kerr said:

Here is a question for trail car guys–when you playing operations and ur doing a switch puzzle–isn’t always in the way?

I’m set up a bit differently than others. I have thing self contained in the loco’s (one set of batteries + ESC, etc) with an external jack for charging. Then I also have two extra battery cars (one a LGB boxcar that has a permanent set of extra batteries, and room for a loose set if needed, and a F3 B unit that has just batteries). I normally run first with the trail car and once that runs out, use the loco batteries. I’ve never have a problem running out of run time as each set of batteries gets about 2-3 hours of run time each. This way if I need to turn a loco (or switch a tight industry) I can disconnect the trail car, use the loco batteries for a few minutes and than reconnect the trail car.

A way to find cheap RC equipment is to buy second hand. Not to be mean about old guys dieing off in the hobby, but I’ve acquired a RC stuff second hand from the estates of old guys. The other way to look is Ebay, etc. Right now I have more RC equipment than I have loco’s, but the price was right so I stocked up.

#104

Terry Burr said:

Rooster, you could use that bag for a purse…

Terry

I was concerned that it might make my butt look fat