Layout Update - June 2020: Athearn 90MAC-H Loksound Install, Autoracks, Coil Cars, Switch Stands...

Hey Everybody! Here's what we've been up to this past month on the layout:

- Athearn Genesis SD90/43MAC-H Loksound V5 decoder install with iPhone 4S speaker. Had to do a bit of milling on the chassis to get it to fit. Absolutely stunning detail from Athearn Genesis. LED lights all around and ground lighting on its own function. A far cry from the incandescent lighting that used to come standard just a few years ago. Full throttle installed with the EMD12-1010J soundfile from ESU:

SD90MAC-H Phase II
While not exactly the same, The EMD 12-1010J prime mover sounds very much like the EMD GM16V265H used in the SD90MAC-H Phase II locomotives. While the prime mover has been discontinued and mostly scrapped in the US there are a few operating examples in China and Australia. Hopefully someday a true recording can be acquired but for now this is quite close!

As no models have been created for the SD70ACe T4 at the time of this file release we have set up the function mapping and horn and bell sounds to work with the Athearn SD90MAC-H Phase II locomotives.

- New Rolling Stock: Atlas Masterline Gunderson Multimax Autoracks. Very nice models from Atlas but the sticker shock that comes with them is real. Around $112 CAD including my dealer discount, yikes! They are very smooth rolling and appear to come with Kadee #58 couplers which is fantastic. Good bye Accu-mate, don't let the door hit you on the way out! The underframe brake piping was the only dissapointment with these as it is injection molded plastic and is very warped and wobbly. Atlas, time to switch to brass wire if you are going to do long runs of piping like this that needs to be arrow straight to look right. Just my 0.02 :)

- New Rolling Stock: Scaletrains.com Thrall/Trinity 42' Coil Steel Cars. Very nicely detailed cars from Scaletrains. Again, major sticker shock with these landing at $72 CAD each including my dealer discount! Yowzaa! Some of my observations:
+ Roller Bearing caps, very nice. Some black, some Timkin blue.
+ Road number printed on trucks as per prototype
- Every car had at least 1 warped walkway that the glue had let go on, no big deal some CA and a few small weights and i had them all arrow straight again.
- Hood guides installed by the modeller, very finicky and have a tendancy to fall off when the hoods are installed/removed because the clearances are so tight.
+ Not enough stickers in the packaging to wrap all 5 coils. Scaletrains.com mailed me some replacements - thank you!
- The largest of the 5 coils didn't fit under the hoods in any position. Scaletrains recommends sanding the sprues inside of the hood to gain enough clearance to put the large hoods in at one end.
- Couplers are unreliable, no matter what I do I can't keep them coupled. The slightest misalignment and they uncouple, not sure if they need to be worked in a bit or what. Stay tuned.

- Rapido Trains Inc. 12 pack of switch stands. Fantastic product with many different options to customize. Not 100% correct for CP but very close.

- Underground Fibre Optic marking posts. Custom designed with Corel Draw from prototype pictures and printed on printer paper.

Thanks for watching!

Видео Layout Update - June 2020: Athearn 90MAC-H Loksound Install, Autoracks, Coil Cars, Switch Stands... канала BArailsystem