Toy trains in the back yard

Today it was finally good weather. We took a lot of the Lionel stuff outside and laid a small layout with tubular track on the brick pavement in the back yard. That was fun. Although some overcast clouds threathened to spoil our train party, it remained dry and occasionally saw a bit of sunshine.

It was good that we tested the trains, because the MTH Camelback steamer had a poor battery and will get it replaced soon. The Lionel 289E runs but not optimal; at full throttle it will run, but not as hard as it should, so I better start to figure out what is refraining the toy train engine from running fast. All in all it was a relaxing afternoon in the back yard.

Lionel versus MTH

Today was a fine day to run trains and to compare my MTH SW 1500 switcher with my Lionel SD 28 diesel engine. First of all, some pulling tests. The MTH won with pulling heavy loads by far, the SD 28 just spun its wheels when the consist became long and heavy.
Then I placed both on a separate circle with some nice cars and fed with exact the same amount of electricity. The SD-28 starts running a very low voltage, when the SW 1500 is still full idle and when the SW 1500 finally gets the hang of it, the SD 28 almost derails because of speeding. Clearly very different engines with very different voltage-speed responses.

By the way, if you look carefully you will see the new TCA-MG 40' flat cars riding by. Especially these need some extra force to pull them through bends. The switcher has no problem what so ever with them, the SD 28 almost stops on them.

Well it is clear the MTH switcher won.

Protosound 2

And there was sound.

A strong nearly deafening diesel roar can now be heared from the attic.

The first MTH engine has made a strong and impressive appearance here on the layout. It is a SW 1500 Reading switcher, # 30-2189-1 from 2000 with protosound 2. And it is really heavy!

If you want to add sound to your 0-layout here in Europe you can follow two routes: make a small factory to generate your own 110 Volt, 60 Hz current and run Lionel train sound engines, or take a simple and abundant Märklin transformer and run a MTH engine with Protosound. Now, I still need a Z-750 or Z-1000 controller in-line with the Märklin transformer to get all the sound options and remote couplers operating, but I am working on that. For some unclear reasons I can not convince Ebay sellers sofar to sell only the controller and not the power unit, but one day I will be lucky.

The driving characteristics of the MTH engine are quiet different from the Lionel engines I have run so far. The MTH switcher only starts to run near the end of the throttle (at full electrical power) and runs slowly and steady over the tracks. It will be a good switcher, because it behaves very good on the switches, so I am pleased with it.

For those of you who like to hear the squeeky brakes, diesel sound, crew talk and horn: here is a video to listen to.