As a wee lad...

I received my first train set for Christmas from my grandmother when I was about 6 years old.  It was a humble Lionel Rio Grande set which included a plastic "Scout" 2-4-0 locomotive and tender with a 2-position reversing unit, gondola, flatcar, and hopper.  It also came with a basic oval of regular Lionel 0-27 track, telephone poles, yard and street signs, and a 20V transformer.  Although the set was fairly bare-bones, I accumulated more cars, engines, track, and accessories through the years to make the set even more enjoyable.  The original engine is now long gone, having been replaced by a postwar 2026 steam engine, but I still have the original freight cars.  My grandmother also had an old "Texas Special" Alco set up in her attic that was for one of my uncles that I would bring down and run on the carpet once in a while.  Growing up in a small town where the Southern Pacific mainline went through probably added to the interest!

My father and I eventually built a basic 4 x 8 table-top dual mainline layout together.  By then we became more interested in prototypical, scale-sized trains, and so we used a combination of 0-72, 0-64, 0-42, and 0-27 curves so we could utilize the limited space to our best abilities so that we could run the larger and longer sized cars and engines we had since purchased from Lionel and Weaver.  In retrospect, we probably should have used GarGraves flextrack for more flexibility and realism, but at the time we didn't want to waste our existing tubular track.  We used a combination of K-Line and Lionel 0-27 profile track and switches, since we preferred the lower profile of the rails.  We custom made our own ties using thin wood strips cut to match the existing metal ties, and ballasted the track with Woodland Scenics ballast.  We never did finish finish the scenery of the layout however, as we never did make up our minds on what to fill in the central area of the layout.  So the trains would run along the ballasted and scenicked edges with a bare-plywood center!  But we still would bounce ideas back and forth, and occasionally consulting issues of O Gauge Railroading Magazine or Model Railroader for hopes of inspiration.  Overall, it was a great learning experience on wiring, woodworking, and modeling.  The layout has since been scrapped, it's remains stored at my parent's house with an unknown future... 

Time went by, and frustration with what I perceived as stagnant, limited offerings combined with other interests took hold of my then-teenaged  mind.  School, jobs, a car, dating, college, marriage, moves, and military service all put the trains in the attic of my parent's house.  Then one day not too long after getting out of the Navy, I happened across an older issue of O Gauge Railroading Magazine, and the interest rekindled.  When we moved into a new house, I asked my parents if they would bring the boxed-up trains with them when they drove down to help us move in.  When I opened up the boxes, it was like childhood revisited.  Although space was limited (and still is, even after two more moves since then), I would set up an oval of track and run the trains off and on during the year and during the Christmas Holidays.  This is a tradition that is alive to this day.  Nowadays, I run my trains at the marvelous San Diego 3-Railers layout located in the San Diego Model Railroad Museum at Balboa Park, of which I am a club member and volunteer.

New developments in my absence...

I also noticed that new products were being released from companies both new and old that were starting to compete more aggressively with Lionel during my tour in the Navy.  Mike's Train House (now known simply as MTH) started over 20 years ago selling Williams tinplate reproductions and working with Lionel reintroducing limited-run tinplate trains as well as other projects before going out on it's own and making a large variety of scale and traditional-sized engines, rolling stock, track, and accessories at good prices that were either never available before or only produced in limited quantities in brass.   K-Line's humble beginnings started many years ago by making affordable rolling stock derived from Marx tooling and tinplate tubular track and switches, but has made significant advances in variety and quality by offering scale engines and rolling stock in addition to expanding and improving their traditional line.  Williams began life building and selling Lionel tinplate reproductions before selling the tooling to MTH's Mike Wolf,  then went on to build basic O gauge engines and rolling stock.  For a time they also imported well-detailed brass steam locomotives for 2 and 3-rail.  Their focus has since changed back to building no-frills but well-made O gauge trains at appealing prices.  Right-Of-Way Industries entered into the fray with highly detailed 2 and 3-rail brass engines and rolling stock, but are no longer in business.  Weaver has also expanded and improved upon their product line, offering more modern as well as steam-era engines, rolling stock, and passenger cars.  Atlas O has had a long history in HO, O, and N scales, and have recently re-entered the O gauge/scale market with a vengeance.  Their products are geared toward prototypical accuracy and detailing that bucks the trend, and they continue to be increasingly popular with both 3 and 2-rail modelers with their engines, rolling stock, and their very realistic and comprehensive track systems.

There have also been developments within the past 6 years in regards to command control of locomotives in 3-rail.  The traditional way to run O Gauge trains is by regulating the track voltage with the use of the throttle handles on the transformers.  More voltage makes the train go faster; less slows it down.  For the past 20 years, the smaller 2-rail scale community have enjoyed the option of remote control of their trains using what is known as Digital Command Control, (DCC) which in it's most basic form uses fixed voltage on the tracks while engine speed and directional control is handled with a remote that sends it's signals to an interface between it and the track, which in turn sends the communications down the rails via digital command signals to receivers built onto circuit boards in the locomotives that in turn interpret your commands and makes the locomotive respond, such as control of the motor speed, direction, sound, and lighting; all separate from the transformer/track power.  The principle of controlling a train with a remote as opposed to the adjusting of  the transformer control or track voltage is known in 3-rail as "command mode."

In 1996 Lionel released it's own version of command control for 3-rail known as TMCC.  It shares the same basic principle as DCC: You control your engines remotely with a handheld that communicates with an interface that in turns sends the commands down the rails via radio waves.  Control circuit boards reside inside a locomotive which governs the speed, direction, sound, and lighting of the engines separately from the transformer power receives those commands and acts on them.  The chief difference is that TMCC sends its commands through the rails using the radio frequency rather than digital signals superimposed on the track current..  An "antenna" on the locomotive receives the radio signals which in turn pass to a control board that converts it into digital signals to tell the locomotive to do whatever you instructed it to do with the handheld.  This is known as "command mode."  TMCC, along with Lionel's equally outstanding RailSounds sound system, has revolutionized the 3-rail hobby and added a new dimension to train control and enjoyablilty.  To add more to the flexibility and enjoyment of TMCC, Lionel has licensed it along with RailSounds to make them open for competitors to use in their own products.  TMCC can also control non-command and TMCC-equipped engines in regular, conventional mode as well where the track voltage determines the engine speed.  You can even use TMCC to control trackside accessories.  TMCC and DCC are also hardware-based systems, meaning that the programming is either hardwired into the system or uses flash ROM for reprogramming and saving of certain customized configurations.  TMCC cannot control MTH's Protosound 2.0 engines in full command mode, but can support it in conventional mode with the use of the excellent TPC 300 or TPC 400 variable bricks.  The system is very easy to use and install, and is quite reliable, although signal problems can arise on multiple-level layouts or on layouts with "wire mesh" tunnels where the wire mesh and tracks that overlap or cross over each other can cause a halo effect that disrupts the radio signal on the rails.  Wiring upper level tracks and wire mesh to earth ground (not common ground) usually solves this problem.

MTH has recently released their answer to TMCC and RailSounds with their newly designed Protosound 2.0 sound system and the Digital Command System (DCS).  DCS works along the same principle as DCC where digital signals are superimposed on the rails (the middle rail, in the case of 3-rail track) to communicate to the engine.   The signals are received through the pickup rollers underneath the engine to the control board.  The main difference between DCS and TMCC/DCC is that it is software-based; the engines, the handheld, and the interface unit that acts as a liaison between the handheld and the track, can be reprogrammed or "upgradeable" with downloadable or stored software files into the chips, rather than having to replace a hard-wired chip that cannot be reprogrammed which is generally the case with TMCC/DCC.  In addition to running ProtoSound 2.0 engines in command mode, DCS is also able to control TMCC engines in command mode also, which requires the TMCC command base.  Both Protosound and Lionel's Railsounds use digital recordings of actual steam, diesel, and electric locomotives for authentic sounds in equipped O gauge engines.  This system has proven to be very enjoyable, easy to learn and use and is certainly filled with plenty of features, although it can be somewhat finicky to sloppy wiring or wiring done in a "bus" pattern rather than the recommended "star" or "home run" pattern, particularly on larger layouts, although there have been reported success of using the system even when the layouts are not wired in the method that MTH recommends.

I began to keep up with the issues released from O-Gauge Railroading Magazine (OGR), Classic Toy Trains (CTT), 48/ft O Scale News (OSN), and the more recent arrival: O Scale Trains (OST).  I would read up on all the product reviews, layout articles, and tips and tricks that interested me.  They have all proved to be valuable resources to keep on top of what is happening in O scale/gauge.  I began to purchase more scale rolling stock from MTH, Weaver, K-Line, and Atlas O, and am always on the lookout for those cars in the configurations and roadnames that are of interest to me.  My most recent locomotive purchases have been MTH Premier Union Pacific diesel locomotives with ProtoSound 2.0 sound/control systems, and they have been proven to be very smooth, powerful  runners as well as finely detailed.  My favorite railroad is the Southern Pacific, but the choices have been fairly sparse in regards to more contemporary motive power, but I also recently purchased three MTH Premier Dash 9 engines in the Southern Pacific "bloody nose" paint scheme.  I hope to get additional units, particularly the Atlas O Cotton Belt Dash 8-40B's.  These were already released, so I will have to hunt around to see if any hobby store has them at reasonable prices.  Atlas O has also announced GP35s in Southern Pacific livery and I am tempted to buy these also, although they are borderline for me in regards to the timeline a prefer to model.  Another engine that I was eagerly anticipating was the SD40T-2 from Lionel, but upon seeing the production model, I decided to pass on them due to incorrectly placed trucks on the frame and fuel tank size discrepancies between the SP and Rio Grande versions.  They also have done an SD70M that I thought about purchasing but I decided not to due to no snowplow being included with the model and I wasn't too fond of the shallow fuel tanks.  Since MTH also has an SD70M in their Premier line that is better detailed, I will wait to see if they decide to do an Espee version.  Now I am hoping that someone will release a very well-detailed SD40 model and am awaiting to see Atlas O re-release the GP9 that used to be part of the Intermountain line.

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