JamesP

Remember 9V picks up from the inside of the track, not the top, unlike every other railway system out there... (well, almost, there is underslung 500vdc used on some subway systems...but that's full sized). James

Hi all, As one of the members who was involved in the lego operating session, the facts are mostly as has been laid out- we took over a church basement in Vancouver for 3 days, and did a prototype operating session. In general, things that I found were that experience in using some form of dcc was important, easy to use throttles were important, and that scenery didn't matter. I'd love to do another one, a con would seem in some ways ideal, but it comes down to cost per sq ft, and the requirement to have quite a lot of sq ft to run the layout through. Feel free to ask specific questions- but keep in mind, it is something over 10 years ago since we did it. James

Indeed, thanks for the ride. Rather a different prospective, filmed sideways, from end on. Rather less jolting going around the curves too ! James

You clearly need more fire stations, and police stations, to deal with the robberies and fires at the gas stations ! James

I am fairly sure that they came over from Europe for Playmo, rather than up. KW has a huge German population (it used to be called Berlin, pre 1915 or so...) and so I would expect that the playmobile that Hi-way market brought would have been from geobra. All mine is stamped as being geobra, so I would expect that all the Canadian playmo came direct from Germany. I remember the Playmobile displays @ the CNE, which were quite spectacular. (perhaps as early as 1982, but certainly by 1984). Lego had some amazing displays at the CNE, I think 1983 or 84 they had the Alberta pavilion near the firehall. Much later, 1988, Lego had one of the pods near cinesphere/the Forum for lego. There was all kinds of stuff in the kid build lego when we went in there on opening day. (firing cannons, and monorail...). Lego in Canada is an interesting topic, rather poorly covered. I don't think Gary has much time spent on it in his history books, because there are so few of us relatively up here. I do know that there were several large collections of AFOL's featured in Bricks & Pieces. I have my B&P's from the September 1984 issue onward until 1992 or so. Now, with regards to 12V, I knew it existed, but I can't think where I had learned about it. I have UK catalogs from 1983 or 84 on, so it might have been through them. When Simpsons-Sears had the Lego Space show in, there was a loop of it used for the space transporter. We knew about the problems of having UK electric stuff, as we'd moved from the UK in 1979. When I went over in 85 (xmas/new years), I wanted to get a copy of 7735, but didn't...I think I got rather in trouble over it. I knew that it would be hard to get more as my grandmum wouldn't be traveling to the UK as often as she had been. (she'd been providing respite care for “uncle harry”, who her mum had been housekeeper for in the 1930's/40's...)

I live in Victoria, BC. I'm a Marine Engineer Artificer in the Canadian Navy (now). I am not 100% sure, the other place that _might_ have had 12V is "The Toy Store" on Cumberland Ave in Toronto. (Yorkville). I got my 4535 there in 1998. (I passed up on a monorail in the Eaton center that trip). I'd already bought a pack of 4.5V points in 1992 or so from Simpsons (well, Sears) downtown, as the last relics of 4.5 were going out then. I think I have the largest Canadian 9V home layout. See my threads for video. James P (Member, PNLTC since 1998) I got my 4.5V crossover at the Radio Shack in Uxbridge in 1989 or so. (gray). Not sure how many were made, but you are right. Lego pre 1988 in Canada is a interesting subject,as Sampsonite did some strange things. James

I think that Hi-Way Market had 12V brought over... I know they had Playmobile brought over. Friends lived in KW. Not me.

Na Zephyr, that's where the boys stand to run the trains ! I have to leave a clear path through the lego room for getting to the laundry room, as that is the door that we use mostly to get in & out of the house ! Next thing from a lego standpoint is probably putting up a small table (3x2 plates) for the falcon to sit in. (grawwo, or something like that from Chewie ). That, and taking buildings out to display at a range of VICLUG events. James

Very nice. I haven't had track on the floor since...I think 6 years ago or so. All on tables here...which makes for a different experience. 512 straights=into the intermediate level of lego layout building :). I have a few more than that in my layout, but not that much more. James

So, almost 2 years later, I present: an unedited view of the layout. When edited down, to make it into one trip around all the way down, it takes about 4:30 to travel from the start to the end. Unfortunately, my computer is still too flakey to get it to work for editing. At some time I may try with my son's Ipad to make a better edit of it... James

Max from the motor site is 950mA, and I have burned out enough 1A decoders to believe that at 12V, I can draw more than 1A (RMS numbers) with the motors. I tend towards very heavy trains, so... Again, from where I am sitting, 600mA is about the most I would want to run them at, and those give some good values for voltage drop. I don't generally worry about measuring the current, I just do it based on # of cars that I am pulling. 600mA*9=5.4W, and that means about 2w each motor for tractive effort(based on the motor web site). 4w isn't that much when you have 3-5 kg trains. I use 4x motors on my Super Chief, in order to get enough power to climb hills-total of 8w mechanical available, and that would imply a rate of climb around: 746/8=.01hp, 33600*.01hp= 360 ft/lb/min /7.7 (lbs) =46 vertical feet/min. Trust me, the Super Chief doesn't climb 46 ft/minute ! It might make 5 vertical feet in a minute though...which is probably a reasonable assessment of what actually happens. A lot of the numbers I did are on LUGNET, around 1999. (why yes, I did the research a while ago...). James Powell

V over R/I Lego track has a resistance of about .02 ohm/section/way. (or .04 ohm/piece total). That was when new values- I'd suspect them to be higher than that due to the connectors oxidizing over time. That means each 25 pieces equals 1 ohm of resistance. 9V mmotors draw around 650 mA stalled, so a 2 engine loco can draw about 1.2 Amps So, 25 pieces of track away from the power plug in, 2 motors, 1.2*1= 1.2V loss in the track, or 7.8V maximum at the loco... Best solution, is to add feeders. If you add one every 50 pieces or so, the maximum resistance the train will see is 1 ohm, but only 1/2 of the current, so 1/2 the voltage drop (or about .6v loss, leaving 8.4V at the loco). A lot of this becomes vitally important when running DCC, because I have up to 60w on the track (12v/5A). And with 4 motors, the draw can be up to 2.4 A on any single area, or 1.2A/direction, and 25 pieces of track is about the practical limit for it. I use a lot of different methods for connecting track, some of it uses fixed wires, some uses wire/lego plate, and occasionally I use the offical lego connectors. I have straight, curved and turnouts with electric feeds- my home layout is quite a convoluted arrangement for just using the lego feeds, and with ~930 pieces of straight track, if I just used the lego feeders, I would need 40+ connectors. James

I'll post in detail, but the best reading is going to be the reports on 614T (USA, 1982) , the solid fuel road vehicle report of 1948 (UK), and the writing on Jawn Henry (USA, Turbine Electric). Please realize I have a professional opinion on this, as I operate a oil fired steam ship, and have been playing with steam since 1980 for fun. I own a 4" to the foot model road traction engine, 3 3.5" gauge live steam railway engines, and a few other steam things... James Powell

Video of the spiral, with a medium sized lad trapped inside it. (Don't worry, I freed him after he was done cleaning the track) James

A Video of a pair of longish trains (well, one's much longer than the other...) 26 car container train, and 7 cars of Metroliner goodness. James

Lee Valley Magnets That's what I'm using. Any of the real ones are super strong, I have some of the 1" dia ones and they are bear to remove from steel containers :) James

No experience with that particular brand, but the Lee Valley ones (in Canada) work quite well, sanwiched between the couplers or on the rear. The're small enough to still allow for rotation, and I haven't had seperation issues with them and quite large (6 car Super Chief) trains. (I think on the first 2 cars is all I found I needed, but I have a stack for whenever I need one) James

If you are running one train per loop, then the standard Lego controller is fine. What you need to do is add another wire to the furthest point on the loop (by track, not of necessity by distance) to the controller. So, for example, if you have the "normal" lego loop, you want to put the 2nd feed on the opposite side of the first one, then connect it using wires (as long as you need to reach, they can be chained off one another), to the same controller. Turn the controller ON when you are going to make the connection, and if the green LED goes dim, take the wire off (the LED should go back to bright), then turn the connector 90%. The LED should stay the same brightness once you have connected the extension wire. This way, the resistance on your layout will be cut by 3/4ths for the now most distant parts (because they are getting fed from both ends, and are 1/2 the distance from the power supply as before). Multi trains on a single loop starts to get more complicated. If the loop is long enough, then having 2-3 controllers set to run the same way and same speed will work. You will have to drive one train either faster or slower as required to ensure that the two trains don't couple together to make one train. (even if they do, there is no harm). Make sure the controllers are all set to go the same way on the knob, by turning the wires as required when you put the loop together. There are fancier ways of doing this as DC wiring, but at that point is when DCC starts to look more attractive... I hope this helps. James

OK- Lego and DCC. There a a couple of people out and about with large amounts of experience with Lego and DCC. I'm one of them. I've had DCC converted lego trains since 2001, when I started converting using Digitrax equipment (DN 121 decoders, and the DB 150 power supply). Maximum voltage: Max voltage on the track is set-able. I run at about 12V on the track, which allows for about 10V on the motor, if you so desire. (trust me, you don't...one of two things happens at 10V, the motor flys off the track, or it burns out...usually, it flys off the corner, into the place you conveniently forgot you cannot reach without doing your best yoga manover). Since the big thing here is heat, the motor is designed to run (turn) at a certain speed with 9V applied to it. Don't hold the motor stopped (it will slip something, anyway...wheels on rails, or gears in motor). With 9V at the motor, most lego train designs will not make it around lego curves. Hence=auto safe. The DCC uses Pulse Width Modulation to control the speed of the motor. So, the motor sees the 10V, for 0-100% of the time, depending on how fast you want it to go. The motors have no issue with PWM being used to control speed, because the amount of heat generated in the motor is dependant on the average voltage, not the peak voltage. (since peak voltage of 10V all the time sends the motor off the track, the motor is safe from destruction). Now, how does this work? The DB 150 takes the signal from a Throttle, and converts it to a data signal, which is fed as a square wave AC onto the rails. The square wave AC conveys the speed and direction to Decoders fitted into each loco (or each motor, depending on my state of mind when I wired them...I've been back and forth a couple of times). The decoder then takes the sqare wave AC and extracts the control signal from it, and allows the amount of the AC power to go through (converted to DC, and PWM'd) to the motor, powering the motor. The motor then, crashes into the train coming the other way on the same track, because you forgot about that one...and a good time was had by all except Timmy, who you had planted on the cowcatcher and is now discomboulated all over the place. (no problem, there are lots of timmy's) Issues: 1. The booster I am using is a 5 AMP booster. 5x12=54 watts. Think 60 w lightbulb, and how hot it can get. It's important to understand that. Don't leave the room with the track power on... 2. Wiring: About every 25 sections of track require a feeder. I use modified track for most of my feeders at home. I use the offical 9V connectors on portable layouts. (because the lego wiring system is incredibly easy to connect...). The reason why you need lots of connections is tied to #1. The booster has short circuit protection, but it needs a very low resistance to trip. (remember, 54 watts output...) Like, it needs to see less than 5/12=.41 ohm resistance. Lego track offers about .02 ohm/section. (turnouts are much higher). So, after 50 sections, the booster will NOT trip. Meaning, along the way, the track has to disperse 54 watts of heat...along with all your wiring, and whatever is short circuiting the track...think 60w lightbulb again...and what that would do to ABS... 3. Complex operating of throttles: the more fuctions on the throttle, the harder it looks to operate it. Easy ones (UT2's) have the ability to select the loco, and run it back & forth, and are fine for fairly well anyone. More complex throttles (DT-400) have a miriad of buttons on them, and button phobic people go into a state of total confusion on how to operate a train. (no, I don't have any switches on the lego that are motorized, yes, I do use up to the 12 functions on some locos, light, sound & features take lots of controlling) Now that I've given you a mouthful, think about what you want to do. If it is your intent to run a single lego loco on a loop, DCC is NOT the tool to use. If you want to be able to crash lego trains together on a loop, DCC is probably the simplest way to manage it ! (feel free to ask for assistance with DC track wiring too...but there, it's much simpler with 1 controller/loop & lego only bits...) James

I was much closer to my assistant's age when I was given a copy of "Brunel, Bristol and the GWR" (Ian Allen books). It has a decent amount of photos of Temple Meads, and I wanted to build a model. I know it should be in Tan, but it was built (originally) in 2000, in the days when Tan was a rare colour, and Bricklink was Brickbay. Yes, it has been around that long... James

I quite like it, and it isn't that wrong of a colour. Improved Engine Green isn't anyway...so why would you worry about it :) (the designer was a little colour blind !). It looks like a LBSC type colour though, quite like the 2 on Station Road Steam right now. James

A couple more photos: April 2012 CBT by Peach James, on Flickr (last one is at CBT, not in basement !) James

OK, so some more photos of the large bridge: To answer questions, it will self support up to at least 3.5 kg. However, the flex in the middle is quite shocking when doing so, and the amount of hill the train has to climb is rather excessive. So, by adding the post in the middle, the forces involved are reduced to 1/4th, and the bridge is far more stable. Since version 2 suffered a failure, I was a bit reluctant to test with the full Santa Fe. Instead, I started with a heavily containered train, until I had run rather more weight than the full (6 car/3 engine) Sante Fe was across the bridge without the support pillar. I then ran the Santa Fe across the bridge, without the support pillar, and came to the conclusion that I wasn't that comfortable with the bridge as I had designed it. I am aware that there are some issues with how I built the bridge- the top beam should be the thicker chord, not the bottom one. It is a pre-stressed design, that's what the cables within the bridge are used for. (they compress the bridge, to take some of the flex out of the structure) Version 1, suspension bridge Old Lego bridge by Peach James, on Flickr One of these days, I will rebuild the bridge again. But, since it is workable, there is no pressing need. The yellow end support structures are full of Pennies (perhaps that's why Harper is getting rid of them???) that I am using as ballast to keep them in position. James

Really? DSC00169 by Peach James, on Flickr I'd have never guessed... (26 sections/11 ft or so long, yes it will self support a 3.5 kg train crossing, but it tends to bend excessively in the centre when I have run it without its centre post) James

If you property the image, then cut the number & post it into bricklink (that hosts the image), you would have gotten to: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=32213 Znap, rather than Technic. James