Broadway Limited Chicago Great Western F3s

I ordered a set of Broadway Limited Paragon 4 F3s painted for the Chicago Great Western. I got a full A-B-A set made up of a powered A-dummy B combo and a single powered A. They are numbered 101-A-B-C. This creates a problem if you want to number and control the two cab units separately in DCC. I simply gave 101-A the DCC address 101 and 101-C the DCC address 102. The various lighting features can be controlled individually if you set CV 128=1 to enable Pro Mode Lighting as outlined on page 19 of the BLI Operator's Manual. The oscillating warning light isn't lit in the shot of 101-A below, but the cab light, headlight, and class lights are:

In the photo of 101-C, the oscillating warning light is on, but the cab light and class lights are off:

Unfortunately, the BLI units don't have a ground light feature.

The Chicago Great Western was best known for running F units in A-B-B-B-B-A sets of six. Here's a photo I found on the web with six units in full as-delivered paint:

The F3s were delivered in October 1947 in A-B-A sets. A photo of such a set is below:

The CGW didn't order more B units to fill out the consists until 1949, so that an A-B-A set is definitely correct for the first two years of operation, but A-B-A sets were still used in some situations after six unit consists became the norm. By that time, the extra B units arrived in the later F unit body style with horizontal side vents similar to the F7, so that a consist of six matched F3 units would be unusual.

Unfortunately, Broadway Limited doesn't offer either separate B units or powered B units, but a later-year consist can be filled out with Stewart or Bowser F units in the all-maroon scheme.

Ground Lights

One development in the past few years has been model locomotives equipped with step lights and especially ground lights. This has been a feature I've wanted to see ever since I first went railfanning. A post on the Model Railroader forum explains what they are:

The lights above the truck under the cab are actually called ground lights. They were controlled by the same switch that controlled the gage lights on the engineer's control stand. The switch was labelled "ground & gage lights" They were of little use for locomotive inspections. They were useful when starting a train in the dark. They enabled the engineer to see the ground to tell when the train started to move.

Before radios became common they allowed the trainmen who had to pass lantern signals to the engineer know that the engineer could see their signals. If the trainman could see the ground light he knew that the engineer could see his lantern.

ScaleTrains has addeds ground lights to its HO releases over the past several years. Here's a Tier 4 GEVO:

Here's a UP GP9B:

Here's a Rapido UP high nose U25B:

Ground and step lights always illuminate on ScaleTrains units when you press F8 for startup. They're controlled with a sepatrate function key on Rapido units.

T-TRAK Update

I've been playing with two relatively new Kato products, a "generic" LRV that they market as Mytram, and a 4-5/8" radius curve in their Compact Unitrack line. The Mytram is loosely based on cars in Hiroshima, Japan. The earliest reference I can find to Mytram models is 2021, but they've become popular much more recently. The 4-5/8" radius curves seem to be newer.

As far as I can tell without disassembling the model, the truck under each section is a power truck driven by a coreless motor. There are several obstacles to DCC conversion, starting with the lack of space for a decoder, but continuing with the need for two decoders, one over each power truck, and this leaves out the question of lighting. However, the model will run on address 00 using a Digitrax controller (an NCE will not run a DC model on any address). On DCC, the car emits a slight whine. It's very smooth running on either DCC or DC.

The Mytram will take the Compact Unitrack 4-5/8"curve, and as one photo below shows, it will negotiate an S-curve with no intermediate straight section. This will allow a trolley-style balloon turnback loop within the depth of a single standard T-TRAK module and the width of a double wide.

I've mocked up a trolley-style balloon return loop that conforms to T-TRACK double track standards, so far just on a set of books stacked up to module height at the end of a T-TRAK module. I've ordered a pair of single-wide modules to connect together permanently for one balloon return loop to test the idea further. As it stands, the ability to run a barbell-shaped traction layout via interchangeable modules in a straight row seems to give more flexibility than a small roundy on a single baseboard.

I Called This One Three Years Ago

Via the Trains.com website,

Last week, the model railway community was surprised to learn of the closure of Hattons Model Railways, a renowned United Kingdom-based model railways manufacturer and distributor. In the ensuing days, questions have arisen regarding the future of M.B. Klein, also known as Model Train Stuff. It was announced in September of 2023 that M.B. Klein had been acquired by Hattons. A representative from Hattons has issued the following statement to Model Railroader regarding the future of Model Train Stuff:

“At this present time, the company is undergoing reorganization and we will share further news as to the outcome of this in due course. Hattons does own M.B. Klein; However, the two companies are operated as separate entities.”

Since the announcement of Hattons closure, the status of Model Train Stuff’s website changed to reflect the current status of the company.

A lot of people were taken by surprise at the Hatton's announcement, as well as M B Klein's closure, but in February of 2021, I posted this: My Bet Is That Modeltrainstuff.com Is Heading The Way Of Caboose Hobbies. I talked about Caboose Hobbies and the increasing problems I had ordering from them before they closed their Denver store in 2016.

I concluded that I was seeing the same symptoms from M B Klein, and it looks like I was right. In the mid-2000s, M B Klein had been a brick-and-mortar train store in downtown Baltimore, but its owner, Ted Klein, saw the opportunity to expand into internet discount sales. M B Klein as Modeltrainstuff.com became a major online retailer, and I was a frequent customer, especially aftter Caboose Hobbies went under. However, Klein died in 2020, and service began to deteriorate soon after.

The staff blamed it on COVID, but I have a feeling the real problem was the loss of Ted Klein. But I'm also intrigued that whoever was the owner after Klein's death sold out to Hatton's just last fall, and only a few months later, Hatton's went under. Was there a problem with Klein's that took Hatton's with it? But as I said in 2021, hobby stores come and hobby stores go.