Don't put them on separate frequencies from the computers! In fact, put them on the wifi. Give every loco an address, and control them that way. (If you think about it, that's more or less what a DCC system does today, except that it's called a CV instead of an IP address. We put them all on a single network - the track - and signals are broadcast, with only the recipient acting upon the relevant ones.)

Someone - Tam Valley Depot? - is already working on a way to use a radio controlled, battery powered adapter for DCC systems. So you can use your DCC systems as its - the control goes via radio and not via track. The technology is not quite there yet - the problem is not enough power, from what I understand. But they'll get there pretty soon. I'm not sure it will fit in N scale at first, but I would assume it'll work its way down to N and even Z eventually.

The key is to run the pair (0-6-0 + supporting car) as a DCC consist. If I were doing this, I'd actually go so far as to set the consist's address to the road number of the locomotive, with the locomotive itself being something else. In fact, I think I may just do this for one of my older brass models, which is generally dedicated to a couple of trains, all of which are plausible with the same baggage car on the front...

I had an idea on this... since your loco already has DCC, just leave it alone. Put the sound decoder in the gondola under the load, with the speaker. And don't bother wiring it up to the loco. Then consist the gondola and the loco together, and run the two of them as a single unit.  Back EMF wouldn't work, but the standalone decoder would be responding to the throttle just as if it were in a loco, except that it has no motor to actually drive.  Admittedly I don't know for sure that a sound decoder is able to work without a motor, but I'm pretty sure that it can be faked out even if it does require an electrical load.

I'm just curious as to why the selection of a gondola for the location of the decoder.  Other than perhaps a flat car or a log car(!), a gondola seems to be one of the least hospitable types of rolling stock to hide a decoder and speaker... wouldn't some kind of a box car or even hopper car make a better platform?

Alas, Bachmann rolling stock from the 70s is pretty awful stuff. Completely and utterly different from what they produce today. I have a few from that era and I use them as practice items for trying out techniques before attempting them on more worthwhile models. The detail is mediocre at best, the couplers need to be replaced, the weights are usually nowhere close to right, and the trucks nearly always need to be replaced to run reliably.

It's probably important to know which model it is. Some of the brass challengers can't really make it around 26" curves. An old Bowser can demonstrably make it around 24". I'd guess that someone has likely made a Challenger that could get around 18" - the old Rivarossi Big Boy did that, and its rear engine isn't even articulated. (Yes, I did it. It was a 1974 edition model and at the time the largest curves that I or my friends had on a layout were 18".)

Definitely, unless you're doing one of the shake-the-box type of layout that has a full parts list etc.

For one thing, there are many fewer joints, each of which is a potential trouble spot for either mechanical operation or electrical continuity. You do have to learn a little about how to cut it, and there is a little more work in getting it laid out, but it's easily worth it. And that's even if you're doing a very small layout.  If you're past a 4x8 I think it's pretty much a nobrainer.  A lot cheaper, too.

Hmm... that idea works for earlier than 1958, too, although to a lesser extent. And, I guess, also to later eras. Now that you mention it I have lots of pics of dead lines from Huntington, Roanoke and Binghamton. Numbers painted out or lined out, bells removed, stacks capped, etc. In 1986 I went by the ex-VGN yard in Roanoke and they had at least 60 GP-7/9, T-6, SD-24, C630/628 and maybe GP-18 in three long lines.

As far as the OP's 0-6-0, I have to agree that it's beyond repair unless you can find a donor loco.

I tried several of the free ones (all that I could find) and found them all pretty unusable.

I've ended up with 3rdPlanit. It is kind of hard to get started, but the tutorial is pretty reasonable and it can certainly do EVERYTHING. There's a pretty active user forum.

You can see a pretty good example of 3rdPlanit in the early issues of Model Railroad Hobbiest (mrh-mag.com I think, look at the back issues. I think the series started with the 2nd or 3rd issue.)

3rdplanit and cadrail are the only ones that I've heard fairly consistently do a good job.

Note: I think both of these are Windows only.  If you have a Mac, you'll need to run parallels or vmware or something to get a Windows in a window.  (I'm successfully running 3rdplanit in a virtualbox on my Macs.)

Perhaps the tiny sensor is "helping" to make it visible, in effect by having great depth of field. 

Quote from: richg on February 26, 2012, 12:30:49 PM
This discussion will help me buy a new Nikon. My two year old Nikon S6000 somehow ened up with a tiny scratch of the lens. I think once or twice the lens cover did not shut all the way and sometning in the bag put a scratch on the lens. I doubt any camera shops take care of this anymore, at least for inexpensive digital cameras.

If it is indeed a tiny scratch, it almost certainly won't have any real impact on the output.  Scratches have to be pretty enormous to have material change on the resulting negative or file.

Quote from: J3a-614 on February 26, 2012, 10:09:59 AM
Jon, how far down will your lens go?  F-8 is still considered a somewhat wide opening; I have lenses on my old 35mm cameras that go down to F-22.  

The sensor has an impact on this too.  Smaller sensors effectively create more depth of field.  (Not literally, but effectively.)  Most point-and-shoots use tiny sensors that ensure that one doesn't need to stop down nearly as far to attain deep DOF; moreover diffraction softens the image if you do stop down, so the builders typically don't even allow much stopping down.

Wow, I am impressed at the volume of UK stuff that we never see here in the US. Today's Bachmann never stops impressing me. (And especially since I remember the Bachmann stuff from 35 years ago.)

I completely understand that there's a limit and that things can come and go. Speaking as a consumer I would like to know what's in the plan - I tend to treat Bachmann like old blue box Athearn, readily available all the time. I think it's fair to say that it should NOT be treated in the same way as, say, the brass limited run, order-in-advance way of doing business. In that segment, it's made clear up front: one time run, get your order in now or forever hold your peace. But it can be hard to tell where on the, uhm, spectrum (sorry) a particular Bachmann model sits. I got the hint on the 4-6-0's when they started disappearing from stock mid-last-year, but that was deduction and guesswork that I'd really prefer not to do.

Now I completely understand that Bachmann does not want its competitors to be able to react, but I hope that there's some median ground between the brass model and the "oops they're not in this year's catalog and OMG they're all gone" retroactive "notification." 

Quote from: ryeguyisme on February 18, 2012, 12:36:30 PM
yes but I believe, the D&RGW and the Norfolk and Western RR had the most articulateds

C&O was right up there - they had about 250 2-6-6-2, 40 2-8-8-2's and 60 2-6-6-6's for a total of 350.  N&W had something like 225 2-8-8-2's and, if I counted right, 175 2-6-6-2's, along with their 43 2-6-6-4's, for a total of 442 or so. D&RGW by comparison had only about 75 articulateds.  UP rostered about 70 2-8-8-0's, 35 2-8-8-2's (30 purchased from C&O and 5 from N&W during the war), about 170 4-6-6-4's and of course 25 4-8-8-4's for a total of about 300.  SP was another big user with 194 4-8-8-2's and nearly 100 2-6-6-2's. N&W and C&O were both relatively small roads compared to the others on this list, but they used the 2-6-6-2's for mine shifter work and you could barely go anywhere on either road without tripping over a whole wad of them...

Nice work!