Recently bought some more stuff for the layout...


TYCO chrome Shell tank car. It may not be prototypical, but it sure looks cool! I've already swapped out the horn-hooks for knuckle couplers. I also like the separate details on it.


Again, not very prototypical but what can I say? It's Conrail! (I say this because Conrail used to own the tracks running through Brockton before the MBTA bought the line; freight services here are now done by CSX.)


Bachmann tri-level car transporter. I don't plan to run it on my layout because it is pretty long; I just think it looks cool and makes a great display piece. These were made from 1976 to at least 1997. It would be neat if Bachmann started making these again!


This I got for Christmas; a Woodland Scenics Tidy Track roto-wheel cleaner! Handy for cleaning my locomotive wheels!


Life-Like moped dealership!



A couple of my freight trains in action.


Overview as of today.

Yep, I remember when I got my Bachmann Plus Santa Fe Consolidation steam locomotive, the others said the smoke unit was a bad idea, so I eventually removed it. For a while it did look pretty neat!

Quote from: Len on December 29, 2014, 10:34:19 AM
They are designed to be direct replacements for the horn-hooks with the small mounting hole use in old Bachmann, Tyco, Life-Like, etc. cars with talgo mounted horn-hook couplers. For Tyco, and a couple of others, you need to clip 1/16" - 1/8" off the end of the whiskers to fit the coupler box correctly and not bind.

Len

Yep, I learned that was the case for TYCO and the Hong Kong-made Life-Like cars. For A.H.M., newer Life-Like and I.H.C. cars you don't need to do any trimming. Though I haven't really been able to install them on the old Bachmann cars yet; their horn-hook couplers have an odd-sized hole that's held in by a screw.

I remember another problem serious model railroaders have with TYCO's freight cars is how some came in fictional brand names and such. The only one I have for layout use is a Baby Ruth reefer, like this:


Though to be fair, during this time Bachmann also had similar cars showing off brands like that. But that was when TYCO was one of Bachmann's biggest rivals.

The original poster mentioned having "powerful" TYCO locomotives. What kind were they? Most TYCO diesels made until 1975 came with the Mantua MU-2 truck-mount drive, which was a pretty good motor. TYCO diesels and any newly-released steam engines (like their Chattanooga ones of the time) had their PowerTorque motor, which was a crummy pancake motor (sort of like the pancake motors seen on older Bachmann locomotives) that was famous for being rather unreliable. In other words, the PowerTorque drive apparently killed TYCO's model train business.
I do like TYCO's rolling stock. I've upgraded most of them with knuckle couplers, either using the Life-Like ones, or by using E-Z Mate couplers with Kadee talgo truck adapters. Whichever one is used, the whiskers do need a bit of trimming on the ends so they will fit nicely into those Hong Kong-made talgo coupler pockets. A few of them I've even upgraded to metal wheels, and it's made quite a difference.

Merry Christmas from Roundpost Junction! Here are my Pola/Walthers Trackside Maintenance buildings I got... (A.H.M. and TYCO also used to sell them)






And of course my Christmas train on its' last day of operation for the year.

Quote from: jbrock27 on December 24, 2014, 09:28:17 PM
How's that conductive goop been working on the rail joiners?

You mean the liquid solder substitute? I used it when hard-wiring two of my Walthers Dash 8-40BWs with TCS T1 decoders, and it worked pretty well, but maybe it's because those Trainline Dash 8s are a pretty easy hardwire install job. I've never tried it on rail joiners and don't plan to, as I already have a nice set of terminal joiners on my layout providing power. They're the new Life-Like ones, as they've got slightly thicker wires than the Atlas ones, and seem a little more efficient at supplying power. Now I just need to get the booster unit, or would that be unnecessary for a layout my size when I'm only running two or three locomotives at the same time?

Quote from: jbrock27 on December 24, 2014, 07:29:15 PM
JJ, Big Bad Wolf/wiley is running DCC now

JimJim probably just read one of my early posts in this thread, before I bought the E-Z Command unit set.
When I built the layout, I originally planned to have two blocks with the TYCO blocking control, but then I decided not to and set it up as single-train operation initially, since I knew I would eventually upgrade to DCC, and did not want to go through the hassle of removing all those wires and insulated joiners once I did so. Plus, going with the E-Z Command control that includes a decoder-equipped locomotive made it very easy for me to get started with DCC right away.
It also helped that I researched about it in advance, like in Robert Schleicher's "101 Projects For Your Model Railroad" and "The HO Model Railroading Handbook" (1998 edition). The more I read about DCC, the more I wanted to give it a shot! And I am glad I did.
Now I just need to buy a decoder for my Proto 2000 Santa Fe GP9 (at least it's DCC-ready!)

Well, it's Christmas Eve, and things are getting busy on my layout, especially at the church!


Yep, got the Walthers Scenemaster Christmas figures (made by Noch) to use for the holidays.


Santa Claus is spotted delivering presents! But since there's no snow, it means no sleigh. So how DID Santa get there? Or is it just an impostor?

Now it's looking more like Christmas on my layout!


My Christmas train! The consist: Bachmann DCC-equipped Santa Fe FTA locomotive, TYCO/Mantua "Season's Greetings" boxcar, TYCO 50th Anniversay boxcar, A.H.M. 1979 holiday boxcar, Bachmann animated reindeer stock car, Life-Like christmas tree gondola car, and Bachmann wide-vision caboose.


The church at Christmastime.


Another Santa can be found at the drug store!


I've also modified my IHC/Mehano Santa Fe Mikado steam engine and made it into a Consolidation, as the rear trailing wheels were rather troublesome.

If you want to go the train set route, I would recommend Bachmann's "Digital Commander" train set. It comes with two DCC-equipped locomotives so you can immediately take advantage of the technology. It comes with a 56x38" oval of nickel-silver E-Z track with a small stub-end siding, and it can be expanded with additional E-Z track to make a variety of layout plans.

Since I was upgrading an existing layout of mine to DCC, I went with one of those E-Z Command packs that includes the control system and a decoder-equipped locomotive (naturally I went with the BNSF version). I've been happily running DCC trains for almost eight months and I've been happy with it. (Bought some more decoder-equipped engines and upgraded a few existing analog ones.)

Quote from: jbrock27 on November 22, 2014, 03:22:34 PM
Why?  Thinking of switching to O scale?

No, but I noticed it wasn't on Lionel's website, and that made me curious because usually Lionel action cars and accessories stay out for a LONG time.
Turns out the O-gauge Lionel Rodeo Car was only made from 1962 to 1969. Fascinating... maybe that's why Bachmann decided to start making one?

Though I'm thinking some day when I get my own place, I may have both an HO layout and a Lionel "toy train" layout as well.

Quote from: jbrock27 on November 22, 2014, 07:03:27 AM
W, if you are asking about LIONEL HO, they've long since stopped selling/making HO freight cars.  There is a  Bachmann connection though-at the time, the same factory producing cars for Bachmann, also produced some for LIONEL.

Of course, if you hanker for "rare" "vintage" "hard to find" LIONEL HO cars, you can always find them for exorbitant prices on Flea Bay.

Yes, but I meant Lionel making the horse car in O scale.

Got a cool new piece of rolling stock today...


Bachmann's animated horse car! Not surprisingly, it was in "Silver Series" packaging. It's very reminiscent of Lionel's old horse car (do they even make it anymore?) Almost like something Bachmann would've made in the 1970s or 1980s, but with much better wheels and couplers! (Or maybe TYCO would've beaten them to it?)


Here it is on one of my trains.


Signs of Christmas are starting to show up on my layout too! The town tree was set up next to the church.


The downtown train station has been decorated for the holiday now, too!


My Christmas train so far.

Nice retro bridge and trestle there! Who made that one: AHM, Life-Like, Model Power, TYCO or Walthers?

I'm also working on an E-Z Track layout for the local hobby shop's museum.

It's also worth noting that back in the '60s and early '70s, TYCO's locomotives were pretty decent. They had good motors (the diesels typically had Mantua's MU-2 drive) and could be solid runners. Only when TYCO was sold to Consolidated Foods Company and they came out with that crummy PowerTorque motor was when they began to go downhill. (From the mid '70s onward, TYCO's locomotives were a lot like the older Bachmann ones from the '70s and '80s, if not worse.) But they still offered a bunch of cool accessories and building kits, and quite a bit of their rolling stock looked cool too. Had I been running a model railroad in the late '70s or early '80s, I probably would've started with a Bachmann or TYCO set like that, but eventually get a better-quality locomotive for it, very much like with my model railroading.