Are things becoming to complicated?

It's not just a matter of embracing or choosing not to embrace the technology, it's a matter of whether the technology itself works.  While DCS and TMCC/Legacy work for a lot of people, there are just as many that have become so frustrated with the hardware, software, and set up issues that they bail.  Sometimes on the hobby itself.  

 

This is supposed to be fun.  When its stops being fun or turns into something more like a job/chore then it is time to move on.  This stuff was always complicated and for many that was part of the "fun".  For those coming to the party late, you really need to know how to dance or your not going to have a good time.

Folks certainly can stretch out a thread when the only real conclusion is:  Do things your own way and don't worry for a single minute what the other guy does or thinks.  It's YOUR personal hobby, not his!

I think if someone started a thread commenting on the Earth being round rather than flat a three page verbal brawl would ensue.

Thank you Allan.

No it wouldn't!   And it isn't a *PERFECT* sphere either.   

I read all 3 pages with very little open space on the pages. Several expressed what I would want to say better than me. I never have counted but probably have over 100 conventual engines so guess what

Holy Moly . . . .

 

The sky is falling  .   .   .   The basic premise of this thread bearing the intimation we have technologied ourselves into a corner. If we have done anything in the last ten years that we should lament, it has been to dangle the apple from the Garden of Eatin' out in front of train fanatics like myself causing a disturbance in the force of my wallet.

 

It is the "Golden Age of Trains" for model railroaders and a cornucopia of delights has been made available to us. We can now follow the pathways we envisioned when the train bug hit us many years ago. We can have "new" postwar for affordable prices and new technology for affordable prices. We can now have trains that simulate what the real thing does (or did) and toys that represent what our memories relish. We can have it any way we want it. Why lament the complication of technology? Embrace it or reject it. We get to choose. If we are to lament anything, it is the difficulty of choice. I have only to remember my first trip to York when I discovered I could not buy every train ever made that forced me to confront my ultimate dilemma. 

 

I choose to buy trains and run systems that enable me to stand trackside and experience what the real trains do. I know that because I do stand trackside to witness and record what the real trains do. I even ran a huge steam locomotive once (OK, it was only 600 feet, but I ran it). I know what they sound like and I know what they do. Being able to recreate that trackside experience is everything to me. Why should I reject the challenge of that technology when there are so many ways to adopt it? I don't need to understand how and why it works as long as I can get the trains to do what I want them to. 

 

When I want to simplify my train experience I look at my childhood trains. I even run them when I care to. Reject my bell swinging, smoke spewing, chuff chuffing Vision Hudson for fear it might not ring, smoke or chuff? No way ! If there is a problem, I grumble it off to Uncle Mikey and he works his wizardry and flies it back to Carmel for more. End my quest because it is occasionally aggravating? We might as well end love and marriage for the same reasons. Want to uncomplicate your life? Just do it.

 

For Heaven's sake, why we would Luddite ourselves back to clockwork trains is the essence of the matter. The Luddites were probably happy Luddite(ing). Reject it, embrace it, it's all fun. Do both, do neither, we can pursue our train passion in a thousand ways. 

 

The creator of this thread is really raising the issue of how our hobby, designed to relax and enthrall, might occasionally give way to frustration and agitas (the newly minted Latin word for that which requires Nexium). Agitas is what life presents to us in the course of our lives. Everything reaches a balance eventually. Nothing will ever be problem free. We may wistfully hope to re-create that time in life everything ran perfectly, but then we realize nothing ever really did.

 

I hook one wire to the track (my layout is big and very complicated), one wire. With that one wire I run all of my Legacy/Vision line trains. All of them. They work 98% of the time which is much more than most things in my life. 

 

This weekend my son got married. It was harder to figure out how to use the GPS to get to the wedding than it was to run my trains. It was harder to figure out where to park than it was to use the GPS. It was harder to figure out how to get rid of the indigestion after the meal than it was to figure out where to park. It is harder to figure out why sons do what they do than it is to get rid of indigestion.

 

That only gives me more indigestion.

 

See, sooner or later life gives us indigestion.

 

That's when we come back to where we started. What kind of trains should we run to avoid indigestion.

 

Confucius stated, "The simple life is worth living. Now let's run those trains."

 

Scrappy

Eliot!

Well said Eliot.  Your words of wisdom are like a shining beacon to guide the lost through the mists of confusion.  

And as a Nexium dependent person too, I second the quest for reduced agitas in our lives.

One thing I really love about this hobby is how it offers so many different forms of enjoyment, so that people who want simplicity and nostalgia can run conventional and those who want the features can run Legacy and PS3 and those who love to play with  technology can get deep into those DCC systems and enjoy.  

 

Again, I run conventional because for me toy trains are an escape from eight hours a day of digital controls and electrical engineering at work.  But I appreciate the DCC and love visiting friends and watching theirs.  

 

Further, the great moment is soon at hand: I have begun planning the first train layout for my grandkids, talking with my son about it, etc.  I plan to use the new, simplified-remote control RTR Lionel Thomas train set I have heard about, maybe not Legacy but still DCC of sorts . . . nothing but the best for those kids.

Nothing in this hobby is as complicated as wading through the 300+ page manual that describes the various systems in the new car (Ford Escape) I got yesterday. 

Yes, but then toy train operators manuals aren't written by lawyers worried that someone will sue because they weren't warned that the cupholder is a hazard when holding hot coffee that might scald you and cause you to have an accident and that you should never play with the navigation system if it means taking your eyes of the road, etc.  

 

My youngest boy is a service manager at a Ford dealership.  The Escapes, even the ones with the hybrid drive-trains, are extremely bulletproof vehicles from the standpoint of near-zero defects and durability.

I'm old

I can run Legacy, I can make change without a cash register, I can add and subtract without a calculator. I can live out my years without looking at a little window in my hand. I have a newspaper clipping, been tape up where my kids could see it from way back in the dark ages.

For sale:

One set of encyclopedias

Never used

Teenage son knows everything.

It seems to fit this thread.

 Guys I just want to make a point.

What if I came on this forum and said, for example only, that Lionel or 3rd rail should not post new engines. Most of them I can't afford. They are teasing me so they can't post? Evryone has some sort of budget where they draw the line.

 My point is that people may not want the extra hastle of running a command control layout. Every time a post is written that says how easy it was, they are made to feel some sort of remorse? God bless anyone who gets any fun out of the simple things in life! I admire them and strive to be more like them.

 How about the rock concert commercials that make you feel like if you don't buy a ticket, you're missing the single biggest event of your life! That's some great promotion. They are good at what they do. So if seeing posts of larger more complex layouts leave's anyone feeling left out, step back and remember, get the enjoyment back to your level.

 

Yup, way too complicated. TMCC, DCC, DCS, Legacy, Railsounds 4.0, 5.0, Cruise, Odyssey, EOB, online train forums, email, computers, smartphones... What's next? Will our trains start reporting data back to the manufacturer and tell them how often we run them? Will our trains become so smart that they revolt and refuse to run because we don't give them enough respect and call them toys instead of scale models? I think I will move back to my shack in Montana. I have some letters to write

Off topic a bit, Lee, but I'm sure glad to hear that.   I'm very happy with mine thus far. It has performed better than my Legacy system over the same amount of time. 

Ah, but it doubles nicely as a wheel chock in case you need to change a tire.

 

(BTW, I've been very happy with my '06 Escape Hybrid...)

 

Rusty

Eliot, your right on the button, thanks. Allan, The Ford escape is a very nice vehicle. My next vehicle will be a Ford escape. Good luck with it.

 

Dave

AFter reading through most of the thread, its obvious we all have very strong opinions, and are are clearly all enjoying this thread.  One point that I think was overlooked was that of the item whihc we I at least think underlies this "complicated", that of two different Command Systems,DCS and Train Master.  Now befor anyone gets all in a huff, and we get lost in the DCC item in the other small scales, that we have two offer I think the most frustating point, and yet our biggest advantge on the O side.

 

I would love better interoperability with my DCS and TrainMaster trains.  That some features are not as possibleeasy to operate (I only have TrainMaster, not DCS) in my realm definitely leaves me frustrated at times.  I have a majority of MTH engines Proto 1 and 2 in my personal collection.  So I would love to be able to operate all theose features just as easily as TrainMaster equiped one. 

 

And running Conventional engines can be trying at times, since I have yet to figure out how to run them both if at all at the same time.

 

So while these thing can and do frustrate me, I find a way to deal with it, and enjoy the trains, whihc as has been pointed out is what we got into this for in the first place.

 

And now finally to my point, DCS and TrainMaster.  While having two competing and different standards in my chief frustration, I also see it as our biggest win.  Having two competing systems means over time, improvements and new features will happen as each system tries to out do the other to win our dollars.  And while I have no plans and these days no dollars to even consider adding DCS in the near future, who know one day that might change.

 

I certainly nver thought I'd buy an iphone or iphone, never concieved of the technolgy and how much it would change the way we do things, and I have no doubt these things will all converge in this hobby in the future too.  Frustrations of tech aside, I can't wait to see what comes next...

 

I hope everyone who has embraced command control enjoys the heck out of it. It's not for me. When I read this post about a 300 page manual for an entire car and compare that to a 200 page third party book to operate DCS it drives the "don't need the aggravation" point home with conviction.

 

Had a fellow who lived near me visit my layout, scoffing at my conventional control. He took it on himself a mission to convert me to DCS. I visited his layout and was blown away  - not by its appearance or magnitude or the sounds of the trains, but by the magnitude of the wiring. I crawled under the layout and it looked like an early computer room from my Bell Laboratories days in the 1970's. The work was magnificent. Neat, well-organized, well labelled and routed perfectly. He then proudly showed me massive three ring binders of meticulous documentation, every circuit and section painstakingly documented. He told me THIS is what I needed to do on my layout compared the wiring I had done.

 

He brought MTH Trains to my house and ran them on my layout lauding their features in comparison to my post war favorites and THIS is where I should be heading. Of course his underlying agenda was to sell me a bunch of his outdated MTH stuff at near original MSRP, but that's a story for another day.

 

When I kind of digested all this, I said to myself (wait for it, wait for it . . .)

 

"Self"

 

This is not what I am in this hobby for. This right here is work. A command system to make things easier that includes 200 page books and manuals, more wiring than I'll ever want to do and keeping notebooks of what blue wire connects to what green wire where?

 

Howzabout this instead. Connect some wires to some track and run some trains.

 

Given those two choices, I'm going with what's behind Door Number Two where Carol Merrill is standing. 

 

I like running my Dad's post war trains and I like building scenes to comprise the miniature world those trains rule. It's easy. It is enjoyable to me and if the model train community thinks I am "less than" because of it, oh well, I've lived through worse.

 

My long winded point being, this conventional operator is in it for the simplicity and fun of it. I could care less that I've been working on scenery for years. When it's done I'll probably be climbing the walls looking for new scenes to build. I enjoy that every bit as much as this guy I mentioned enjoyed wiring and making notebooks.

 

Enjoyed your post!  My role model in this hobby was Ward Kimball.

I like all layouts, conventional and command alike.  I run command and conventional.  The hobby is as complicated or easy as you make it.   Just enjoy the ride and don't pee on anyone else's toasted oats.

Bingo!

Hey Marty, love ya man! Simple and two the point.

 

The funny thing was that I was on about an hour ago and my office computer bogged down to the point where I was hit with "techno-Stress" (that's my new term) so I had to just walk away from it for a few. That's what we need to do with our toys when they act up, go run a post war for an hour or so.

As Chuck said above this hobby is suppose to be fun.

This thread made me take some time last night and think about this topic.  On balance, and not to start or re-start an argument, but . . .  I think the answer to the question that started it all is, in a way, yes.

 

About a year ago, I bought a Chevy Volt.  The most complicated thing I own, and yet maybe the easiest to use: A completely new type of drive train, an advertised 10 million lines of code, 32 computers and 5 separate networks on it, touch buttons for controls and two computer screens rather than a normal dashboard, and that dual (re-generative and normal) melded braking system that so worried French car reviewers.  

I refused to let the salesman give me the usual, almost mandatory, walk through on the operation ("If GM has done its homework it will drive just like any other car, right?") It did.  In fact, I deliberately did not read the owner's manual for the first week as a test of how good they were.  They were good.  Even the charging system was "stupid smart" - it had a half page comic book set of pictures attached to it : "plug in the square end to the wall.  Plug in the round end to the car.  wait for the green light and the beep of the horn.  NO PROBLEMS.  In fact, by any measure the car is easier to use and live with than any I had before it . . . 

 

The Kindle and a "Roku" (a streaming system that wirelessly hooks my big TV to my computer so I can stream or catalog movies from Amazon and Netflicks to it) are the same way - complexity is buried inside and they are plug and play . . . 

 

Legacy, PS1-2-3, and similar systems do not seem to be that same level of plug and play.  They don't appear to be difficult to learn, but the user has to want to  . . .   Whether the manual is 20 pages or 200 pages, you do need it.  I think they are aimed at people who want to work or play with the technology a bit.  A good (and apparently big) market segment.  

 

Still, conventional probably satisfies many of the people who come into an LHS, particularly around Christmastime, and just want a toy train that will "plug and play."  Maybe there is no worthwhile market segment between the two . . . or maybe there is.  Someone will have to try it to find out.

 

This is a good thread - I read everything here and like it a lot

Capital idea! 

 

There have been some here that proclaim this as boring.  Sadly, I fear these folks lack imagination.  

 

When I run my conventional stuff, the imagination takes over.  Everything's better there, scenery, sounds, environment.

 

It's far from boring...

 

Rusty

Lee, very nice post.  Your analysis and analogies are spot on.   How people react/interact with technology is fascinating in its on right.  This isn't just an issue of acceptance or rejection of technology and it certainly isn't supposed to be a Hatfield/McCoy feud over who is right/wrong about how they chose to do things.  Bottom lines are:

 

a) you're supposed to be having fun.

b) Don't let anyone tell you that your way is wrong, especially if you've got a) nailed down.

c) You show the same respect to those around you.

d) If you're not having fun, try doing something different.

By far the most important of the points you presented, and by far the most neglected when it comes to Internet discourse!

Sounds like Lee is happy with his Chevy Volt.
Glad to read this.

My older son is a GM mechanic, and is attending classes on servicing them.

 

And congradulations to Scrapiron Scher on the new addition to his family

 

 

After reading all of these comments, I came away with this tread, er thread, being the sub-context of a larger issue. We are surrounded by complex technology in the 21st Century, which has had laudable and blameworthy results. Its the way it is. The end result theoretically is to make tasks easier or to hence them and yet if something goes amiss, you cannot take out a Phillips screwdriver and fix them. There are also more steps to navigate in order to get results. At the same time, more operational features undreamed of, are now here. I think whether this is great news or awful news is beside the point. We cannot go back to a simpler time unless technologically we choose to do so as a trade off. This is about which trade off is better or worse, which is in the eye of the  beholder and ultimately compromising a perfect situation, which does not exist, as far as I know.

I run both conventional plus TMCC and Legacy. I find both of the Lionel systems to be user-friendly. I do not run multiple-engine trains, so I do keep it simple, and that may explain why I have NO problems.

 

Running my VL Hudson on Legacy is a true delight in every aspect! 

Imagination creates Technology,

but Technology never creates Imagination.