Rokuhan Z Arrives

Model railroad manfacturer InterMountain Railway Co. is now the exclusive North American distributor for Z-Scale products from Japanese manufacturer Rokuhan.
Rokuhan has developed a line of Z-Scale track, much of which should now be available. More products will be available in the Fall. The distribution announcement dovetails with InterMountain’s entry into the Z-Scale rolling stock market in recent months.
For more information on the product line, visit the InterMountain website.

Well, it seems I've finally got my Unitrack inventory up to snuff. All the listings reflect my 20% standard discount and have the correct package info for packing and shipping. And if you order $100 or more, be sure to get your additional 10% discount by adding the BH10 coupon at checkout. The best prices on the best track for N scale railroading. Remember, if you want to have fun running trains, use Kato Unitrack. If the train doesn't run, fix the train or clean the track. The track works!

NMRA MetroNorth Regional Meeting 10/30

The NMRA division meeting is coming 10/30/10 in New Canaan

There will be two clinics as follows:

Bob Collett , and his Huntington & Hartford layout was one of the early layouts featured in MR and is a prime platform for demonstrating almost every aspect of DCC. Bob will address the first of a number of DCC clinics we will have over this coming year – the Capabilities of DCC. Quite frankly, Bob is one of the most knowledgeable people in the hobby and is renowned for sharing this knowledge with others. Bring a pen and paper and take notes. Bring your questions and receive answers. His layout is open for visitors after the meeting.

The second clinic on Water, Rivers, and Falls will be presented by an enthusiastic modeler in hot pursuit of his MMR, Robert Seckler. Almost all layouts have “water” somewhere, whether in a port setting, a river or stream or tumbling over rocks and boulders. If you ever asked, “how did you do that?” Robert will demo how it’s done. Here too, take notes and maybe a camera to take some pictures. And ask questions.

The Saturday, October 30 meeting starts at 9:30AM at the New Canaan Historical Society, 13 Oenoke Rd in NC. Look for MN sign. Tons of parking in back. After meeting activity includes a choice – an op session at Franklin Lang’s layout in Stamford, or an open house visit to Bob Collett’s Huntington & Harford RR in Huntington, CT.

All are welcome -

Building a DCC layout with Buzz Hollow

With the many confusing issues surrounding Digital Command Control (DCC), Buzz Hollow has established a great GET INTO DCC plan for starters. We offer introductory DCC systems starting as low as $65. These systems will replace your current power supply and run a standard DC (analog) engine just like any power supply. However, when you are ready, you can have Buzz Hollow install a decoder in one of your engines or buy one already to go, and now you're running two engines. Since one engine has a decoder you will be able to run both engines on the layout at the same time, with independent control over speed and direction.
If at any time you want to upgrade to a more expensive system, which may not support your DC engines, Buzz Hollow will give you a 70% credit on your first Buzz Hollow purchased system toward your choice of a more powerful system.
And with Buzz Hollow offering decoder equipped engines for less than other suppliers' engines without decoders, your empire is on its way.

Hank

Buzz Hollow Railroad website up - more products to come

Hi All - Well, if you're here by going through the website, you may notice that it has products, finally!!. You can now buy on Buzz Hollow and get a full invoice for your purchase including shipping. I will be adding more products as time permits, and will most certainly offer the full line of Kato N Scale Unitrack.
All the prices in inventory are full retail so I don't have to worry about Kato's minimum advertised price (MAP), but as a buyer, you can get a 25% discount on your order by entering the coupon code BH25. If your order is greater that $100 without shipping costs, enter BH30 and you will get 30%!!
Please let me know about problems and even pluses. I'll do my best to keep it up to date.
Thanks for your continued patronage over the last five years. Now that Buzz Hollow is starting it's sixth year, it can now offer online bargains in most of the items you want.

All the best -

Hank

DCC for beginners

Well, it's been a month since my last post so I was thinking about what would be of interest to my new model railroading friends when it hit me - Almost everyone who comes to my table during train shows to see how to get started in the world's greatest hobby asks "What is DCC". With all the hype and tech talk it can get pretty confusing. For the starting model railroader it should really be straight forward, so here goes.

Whether you're building a small tabletop layout or one that will fill a whole room, DCC (short for Digital Command Control) will make the experience more enjoyable. As I demonstrate in the shows I sell at, you can run three trains on an N scale layout in a small 2'x4' space with just two wires to the track. In fact, with the Command Station I use, you could run 10! But I'd be a nervous wreck trying to keep them all from running into one another on that 2'x4' N scale layout.

The many DCC books and manuals available today are designed to educate the hobbyist with the theory, technical details of how it works, and terminology of the science while we just want to set it up and use it. Not many of us know why a computer will do what we want, we just know how to make it do it. We don't care about the science since we don't plan on designing our own computer.

DCC is much easier than a computer. But, of course, it is a computer application and, in fact, you can hook most of the more sophisticated DCC systems up to a computer to do more fancy things.

Basically, DCC requires three things: A layout with decoder equipped engines; a command station to tell the engines what to do; and a power supply to drive it all. Fortunately, any layout that will run DC engines can run DCC engines as well. AND MUCH EASIER!!

With a DC layout and two engines on the track you must wire separate parts of the track for different speed controllers and switch the controllers to each isolated electrical block to the unit that you want to use for the engine in the block. It sounds complicated and the wire and operation ARE! The problem here is that the power supply can't differentiate between the two locos on the track, so the operator must switch the speed controls with toggle switches. Running trains this way has been the only way for many years with HO, and now N, scale trains. Without the blocks, fancy wiring and dual power supplies, both engines would run in the same direction at the same speed ALL THE TIME.

Just like your computer lets you use your inkjet printer for some printing and you then can select your laser printer for other printing, the command station can send commands to one engine and the others will ignore them. And that one engine will continue following its last command until you address that engine again and send a change.

When you installed those printers on your computer you assigned them a name. When you buy a new engine and place it on the track with DCC, you must assign it a numeric ID. As you might suspect, that ID must be different then the IDs you've assigned to your other engines and it must be compatible with your Command Station.

Once that engine has been assigned a unique ID it can run on the same track as all your other engines and be controlled completely and independently of all the others with just two wires powering the track from the Command Station.

Well, that's a start. How each command station controls the engines is a little different from one system to the next, but they all have a direction button, a speed control and the all important STOP.

Let's get a discussion started and I'll cover more ground in the next installment.

NMRA Regional Mtg Pleasantville * Turnouts in spotlight

February regional meet/Metro North Div - Turnouts in spotlight
Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010 10 a.m.
Mount Pleasant Public Library
350 Bedford Road
Pleasantville, N.Y.

PLEASANTVILLE, N.Y.—The Metro North Division of the NMRA will meet Feb. 6 at the Mount Pleasant Public Library. Two presentations will highlight the gathering, which marks the 14-year-old division’s third decade of meetings. Vin Gallogly will offer an overview of turnouts: should I purchase off the shelf or construct my own? Vin will look at some pluses and minuses of Atlas, Walthers and Peco DCC-“friendly” turnouts compared with handlaid turnouts using the Fast Tracks jigs.

Barry Abisch will take us to Adult Rail Camp on the Nevada Northern Railway, where learning railroading is a hands-on experience. Barry will discuss his experiences there and then offer a picture tour of the Nevada Northern. He will focus on the modeling opportunities offered by an operating railroad that retains the look, feel—and rolling stock—of an early 20th century standard-gauge short line. If you enjoy scratchbuilding or you’re looking for something different in an operating scenario, the Nevada Northern probably has something to offer.

General Interest
Members are invited to bring in and display models of “My favorite box car.” The membership will express itself with a popular vote. In addition, bring a model to share, paticularly if you acquired it at the Amherst Show, Jan. 30-31 in West Springfield, Mass.

Our swap table will also be open for those looking to cast off or acquire railroading gear.
After a break for lunch, members will have the afternoon to visit two nearby HO layouts.
In Armonk, John Stamatov is scheduled to welcome visitors to his Muscoot Valley RR while in Port Chester, Anthony Maida is expected to show members the latest additions to his ever-growing basement empire. Directions to both layouts will be available at the meeting.

To reach the library, just visit www.mountpleasantlibrary.org/ to obtain customized, door-to-door directions.