Yes, a saga…so it is long. Please bear with me.
This begins several years ago when the esteemed Mike Reagan gave me a call to discuss several items. During this conversation he recommended that I change my power to something that delivered chopped sine wave (whatever that is). i had been relying on 9 channels of PW ZW powering 10 blocks routed through fast acting circuit breakers as described in a Jim Barrett Backshop article. His contention was that Legacy locomotives would operate better with chopped sine wave power and that this would be especially so for smoke units. Since i was moving towards a roster of only Legacy engines and since, thanks to JT Megasteam’s NADA, i was using smoke again, I decided to take his advice.
I calculated that i would need four 180 bricks and four TMCC lockons for track connection (cutting off the fastrack connectors). I quickly learned that four 180 bricks do not equal 9 ZW channels. i had never had a situation where the circuit breakers tripped because of an overload, but i was tripping the breakers in the TMCC lockons with alarming regularity. I quickly moved from four to five to six bricks (making Charlie Nassau a happy man) before things settled down. I still had to be careful where I parked the trains prior to shutting down the layout. Too many engines in one block would cause problems when powering the layout up.
At some level, I knew that my long (10-12 car) passenger trains (I usually have two or three on the layout at a time) were contributing to the problem, but I was unwilling to face the effort needed to change them to LED lighting. I was never good at that kind of work and what skills I may have once possessed had been decimated by time (read: age). I put the idea aside…perhaps forever (maybe a brick per block? Is Charlie smiling?).
About 18 mos ago i was reaching the end of my Milwaukee Fever (very similar to Reefer Madness). I had found a set of K-line streamliners (I run only 15 inch cars) to put with my Lionel F7 ABA’s (yes, I know they should be FP7’s, but…you know). At some point in a discussion about these and other Milwaukee passenger cars, ScaleRail mentioned the better looking RK full domes. Still feverish, i found two and got them. No matter that the Milwaukee did not run multiple full domes or that the colors were slightly different than the K-Line cars. As noted earlier in the paragraph…you know. These cars did have a better shaped some, as ScaleRail had said, but the lighting was absolutely garish. Four incandescent bulbs hung down well into the dome space and glared brightly. Yuch.
I can’t recall how i found Roy Aydelotte of Royz Trains, but i eventually wound up talking to him and sending him photos of the disassembled RK domes (in the process of disassembly, reminding myself of my inadequacy in this kind of task). They were different than what he had seen before. He sent me a couple of LED boards he thought might work, but the electronics were too visible inside the dome and the mountings for the current lighting would have to be modified. I decided to wait a while.
That brings me to about a year ago, when…Cancer happened.
Without going into too much detail, it was seven weeks of radiation and chemo ending on December 30 and another five weeks before I began to recover from the treatment. During this time I became intimately acquainted with every toilet in the house and a number of waste baskets, too. My days consisted mostly of watching (sort of) all four hours of the Today show (mostly Winter Olympics), Kelly and Michael, and reruns of Bones and NCIS. All stuff I never watched before. Needless to say, I was not doing much with the trains during this time.
Out of the blue last spring, I get a call from Roy. As a result of some other work he had done, he now thought he had boards that would work. I explained that time and health (while cancer free at the moment, I felt incapable with even the task of disassembling a car) would prevent me from doing this myself, I was interested and asked if he would do the work. He would. And it seemed reasonable to me.
Off they went and, before too long, back they came. The results were spectacular. I was so satisfied, I began thinking about converting my entire passenger fleet to LED’s. I have seven passenger trains. Not. Practical.
I did decide to send Roy three trains to convert: the rest of the Milwaukee (my Olympian Hiawatha), the UP City of Portland, and the California Zephyr. Still an endeavor.
Over the next several months, I became very familiar with UPS routing to and from Grawn, MI as i tracked these precious packages. A few had to make multiple trips with issues that turned out to be with original chassis wiring and not Roy’s stuff.
Now, finally, they are all here and my trains are complete and look fantastic. All the cars are notable, but the observations are particularly noteworthy.
Roy changed the warning light on the UP dome to red (it had been white) and illuminated the marker lights.
The Zephyr observation gained a slowly blinking red warning light to simulate the MARS light on the prototype. K-Line had provided a steady red light.
This looks much, MUCH, better.
Here is a shot of one of the domes.
And of the diner interior.
The infamous K-Line SkyTop observation proved no match for Roy.
The domes all look great and Roy added vestibule lights where appropriate.
The City of Portland consist is Lionel E9 AA’s, an MTH REA car (no lighting), Lionel baggage (with amber lighting), combination car, two coaches, two diners (one a station sounds diner), two domes and observation. There are two RK sleepers (these have corrugated sides which, I understand, is how Pullman actually built them.
The original California Zephyr ran with five domes (three coach, one buffet/lounge, and the observation). Mine has seven, all K-Line (four coach, two buffet lounges, and the observation). Why? Because I like them. There is a baggage (amber lighting) and the hard-to-find Silver Platter diner. In addition, there are two Lionel sleepers. The prototype usually had 3-4 sleepers, so I am a little light in that area. This consist is pulled by Lionel WP F3 ABB, which is very prototypical.
The Olympian Hiawatha (probably not resembling the real thing very much) is pulled by Lionel F7 ABA and has an MTH REA car and, from K-Line, a baggage (amber lighting), two coaches, a diner, full dome and the SkyTop observation. It also has the two RK full domes.
When Roy gets back from York I will be sending him a bunch of cabeese to convert and add marker lights to.
Yes, he will be at York and if you are going to be there and are contemplating LED lighting in any of your cars, you should look him up. His gear is great and so is his work!!
Here is a long video of the trains in action in the dark. Probably look better in full screen.
