Using The JMRI Roster

In about ten years since I went to DCC, I've converted the best part of a lifetime roster of locos with decoders. I've slowly begun to see that I need to keep better records. It's important to know what type of decoder I've installed in each loco -- for instance, if one dies, it's good to have a source where you can see if it takes an 8-pin, 9-pin, 24-pin, or whatever other style of decoder to replace it.

But also, it's good to have a record of what CVs are set in a particular decoder. For instance, to use Digitrax decoders with advanced consists, you need to set CV 57 to 102. To disable the prime mover acceleration delay with ESU LokSound decoders, you need to set CV 124=16. But also, other CVs need to be set. Other starting voltage and speed curve CVs are set for individual locos.

It would be great to be able to reload these values into a new decoder from a file, or if for whatever reason you had to reset the decoder to default values.The JMRI roster lets you maintain these records for each loco and reprogram them directly from the roster record if needed.

Up to now, while I've been using the JMRI rosters in Operations under PanelPro, I hadn't been maintaining my roster much in DecoderPro. I started using DecoderPro via an NCE 2021 USB interface to my Power Cab when that was what I was using instead of an SB5 booster. That worked until my layout's current draw exceeded the PowerCab. But around the same time, my desktop died, and its replacement didn't have enough extra USB ports for the JMRI connection, while given the need to replace the Power Cab, a USB port extender wasn't an urgent need.

None of that changed until a few months ago, when I got a new desktop with an additional USB port and I reconnected JMRI to the NCE 2021 and the SB5. Up to then, I had been maintaining a manual record of locos, decoders, and CVs in Word Pad, cross-referenced to the Operations loco roster in PanelPro and to photos on my desktop. None of these was complete or accurate. I've spent the past week putting all the records in one place on DecoderPro.

The JMRI PanelPro roster includes the ability to store a photo image. This has the advantage for someone like me with a lifetime roster of being able to call up the photo from a roster entry. This makes it a lot easier to recognize just what loco i'm talking about:

This isn't possible with the Operations loco roster in PanelPro. On the other hand, you can't dispatch locos in JMRI Operations from the DecoderPro roster, so you have to maintain both rosters.

Another feature is the ability to use the DCC Throttle feature that's associated with the DeocderPro roster. In addition to maintaining records of CVs, JMRI lets you label throttle function keys. This is important, because much beyond F0 for lights, F1 for bell, and F2 for horn, there's no real standard for other light or sound features in DCC, and decoders often differ. Having these features labeled in the display for individual sound products and decoders is a real help. You can click on the image for a larger, more detailed view.

If you call up the JMRI throttle on your computer screen and the roster record has a photo, this is what you see.

There is a wide set of optioms for using the JMRI throttle on a walkaround basis with a wireless phone. I'm still working on this.

Moving Forward With Just Plug Lights

In an earlier post, I said it was a priority to add Woodland Scenics light distributing window film and a stick-on LED to the interior of the First National Bank on Lake St in Zenith, and I've done so:

Actually, I haven't done much to spruce this part of my layout up for 25 years or so, so adding lights to a lot more buildings, and rearranging a few, will now be part of a more general upgrade.

I also added light distributing window film and stick on LEDs to the interiors of a Bachmann Lackawanna concrete signal tower and a Downtown Deco Downtown Overlook Hotel in West Zenith. Lights in the station to the right will be another upgrade. This had incandescent lights installed 25 years ago, but these have either burned out or the solder connections came loose, and I may as well just replace them with more state of the art items.

I didn't notice until I uploaded this photo that light is bleeding through the "concrete" above the second floor windows in the tower. This should be easy enough to touch up. Another example of why it's good to photograph your work!

Tobacco Drying Shed

Here are two photos of a Rail-Scale Models tobacco drying shed in its spot on the Appalachian section of my layout. I still have to shim it level, give it a final dirting in, and bring the trees and vegetation up to it.

I posted on the incomplete version of this more than a year ago. I'm a little relieved to know that I have in fact made a certain amount of progress on this general scene since then.

The slope be;lpw it should be fairly easy with clump foliage held in place with spray adhesive.

Truck Replacement On A Walthers Mainline SD50

I was running D&RGW 5510, a Walthers Mainline SD50, as lead loco in a consist. I ran it up to a switch that was set against it, stopped to throw the switch, got distracted, and left the train in place for some period of time. The problem was that the lead truck ran past the insulated joint that isolated the powered frog, which caused a short, but the short wasn't enough to trip the circuit breaker on the command station, so instead, the loco sat there long enough to heat up the wheels and melt the gears in the truck.

When I finally threw the switch and tried to run the train again, the locos behind 5510 in the consist could push it along, and in fact the rear truck on 5510 was providing power, but I realized something was wrong. At first I thought 5510 might have been dropped from the consist, but I could also see the front truck was derailing. Picking the loco up, I realized the front truck was seized and the wheels were out of line. At that point, I thought of what I'd heard now and then about shorts at switches that don't trip the circuit breaker melting gears.

It's a little hard to see, but the wheels are out of level and out of gauge. None of them turns, and the worm shaft could turn without turning the wheels. Probably not worth keeping any of this as a replacement part source.

So I'd identified the problem. The loco was out of warranty, and the problem was my fault anyhow. Walthers doesn't list replacement parts for locos on its website. I thoujght I might have to find a basket case Mainline SD50 or 60 on eBay and salvage a new truck or something, but that was likely to be expensive. Eventually I contacted Walthers Parts with my problem, and they told me that although they don't list parts on the web site, a single replacement truck was available for a price of around $30 shipping included.

I've swapped out many trucks on Athearn bluebox and even older Atlas locos, but times have changed, and this turned out to be a fairly involved process. One issue was that the truck they sent was wired as a rear truck, not the front truck I needed. (I didn't know the trucks came pre-wired, and the Walthers guy said nothing about it.) So I had to cut the red and black wires from the truck and splice them to the opposite red and black wires from the chassis, insulating the joints with heat shrink tubing.

The tubing in turn prevented the body from sitting properly on the chassis, so I had to fiddle around with making sure the joints with the tubing were out of the way so the body would fit. I finally got things back together and got the chassis running.

I sprayed the front truck frames with a rattle can of Tru Color Weathered Black. The loco is back 100%.

In comparison, here's a 20 year old Athearn RTR D&RGW SD50, a generally simpler model.

I hope I don't need to do too many more repair jobs like this. Unfortunately, this is a rare enough gotcha that it's hard to make a "lessons learned" recommendation, except to say pay a little closer attention when you're at a switch set against your loco, and be careful about leaving power on without activity on your layout.