Trackmobile & Speeders: Lionel Odyssey or MTH Speed Control

Well, Lionel doesn't have a small speed control board, at least not using TMCC or Legacy.  Perhaps the new LC+ 2.0 board with TMCC could fit in some of these.  I think the Trackmobile is a lost cause, they even had to tether the caps to fit it in.

This is the board that is sold through ERR as the Mini Commander 2 for small motorized units.

The smallest thing I've put cruise into is the RMT BEEP.  Getting cruise and Railsounds with custom lighting in that one was a challenge, never mind something the size of a speeder or Trackmobile!

MTH has the 44-Ton locomotive with cruise, etc.  I have one of the MTH models and a Williams that I converted to TMCC with cruise and sound.

ERR used to sell a dockside TMCC board that I put into a Copper Range dockside engine. Pretty small and needed some grinding on the inside roof of the boiler to fit. I ran the antenna wire out to the bell for camouflage.

Funny thing Chuck, I did the same Copper Range locomotive.  I used a Digital Dynamics setup, and I had to grind all the bumps from the inside of the boiler.  The bell cord is where my antenna is as well.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Funny thing Chuck, I did the same Copper Range locomotive.  I used a Digital Dynamics setup, and I had to grind all the bumps from the inside of the boiler.  The bell cord is where my antenna is as well.

Great minds. Lionel has a new LC+ 060 that I preordered to replace it maybe...there's more stuff crammed into it somehow

http://www.lionel.com/products...-0-6-0t-2295-2032050

I'm queued up for two of those, the Bethlehem Steel one and the PRR one.  For the price point, I'm dying of curiosity how they crammed all that stuff into it!

My previous upgrade I only did rear electrocouplers, it was a giant PITA, so I didn't bother with the front one.

Peter,

    I do not believe Trackmobiles are used to haul a train up and down hills for miles. To my knowledge Trackmobiles either push or pull one or two freight cars from a plant’s yard or siding up to the plant’s unloading site, probably not even a mile trip. I would think all the addition of cruise control would be is to raise the price. Now trolleys, rail cars, inspection cars etc are another story however most that I came across do not pull anything except themselves and I cannot think they would slow up that much going up to down a 2 to 3% grade. I would have to say No to this suggestion if your taking a poll. Good luck with your efforts.

JohnB

John, I will say that adding cruise to my TMCC upgraded Gallopin' Goose made a big difference in running, and it doesn't pull anything.  However, I have to agree on stuff like Trackmobiles and speeders.  First off, if you run those all that much, you'll find you're putting in new motors a lot, those little flat sided motors they use do not have a long MTBF!

My MTH DC-3 has cruise from the factory, and so do the two Doodlebugs I have.

JohnB posted:

Peter,

    I do not believe Trackmobiles are used to haul a train up and down hills for miles. To my knowledge Trackmobiles either push or pull one or two freight cars from a plant’s yard or siding up to the plant’s unloading site, probably not even a mile trip.

JohnB

JohnB,

Although it is probably not their intended purpose, I can assure you that it is quite possible for a Trackmobile to push/pull strings of 20+ rail cars (empty of course) both up and down small grades, not for miles though. I used to work as a Locomotive Operator/ Brakeman in a Rail Yard. We had a Trackmobile Titan that we used for switching, it didn't seem like it had a lot of power, but I remember pulling many strings of at least 18-20 cars with it. Depending on the weather, you had to lay a lot of sand down on the tracks for it to get going and to get it stopped (we didn't use air brakes) but sure enough it would do it.

Scott

Obviously, the real world exceeds the model, my trackmobile will pull one passenger car or around 3-4 modern freight cars with needle-point axles.

FWIW, my layout yards are ideal for trackmobile use, tight, level and short.

I have crammed a coal yard, Culvert loader/unloader, icing house siding, warehouse district and brewery, junkyard in a 4x6 area that can handle 3-5 cars max per industry, the terminal yard is 4 lines , with a refinery in the rear on the outside 2 tracks but only handle 5-7 cars per line.

I thank everyone for their input on this. Although this may sound somewhat childish, my main reason for wanting the Speed control was NOT to have the trackmobile pull a small train or even 3 or 4 cars around the entire layout. I though to use this type of small "engine" to push around my jet snow blower only. I have a few spots on the inside layout that I thought it would be cool to use the trackmobile instead of a larger Loco to do this simple job. Even something like a speeder, but that does not have the speed control either. I do have an incline/decline on this interior part of my layout so the speed control would just be a nice thing to have as it could run by itself. I don't know of a very small loco that I could use in place of the trackmobile that would be close to that size. 

I just wanted something very small with speed control to push a single car around to simulate the snow removal. For me something like the trackmobile really fits the bill.

Good choice, but I suspect that it would be challenged pushing the jet blower on the grades. 

For what it's worth, I installed a very small RC module from Monocacy Trains in a speeder and it worked just fine. (See photo).

I have this speeder, it started out life as the RMT yellow one.  The rear section got expanded a bit, the workers were replaced with more correctly sized figures, and it got TMCC and directional lighting as well as a strobe.  Obviously, it got a paint job as well!

Not sure what the speeders have to do with the original topic of cruise in a TrackMobile, but I'll play.

I to, want to put a proto 2 or 3 in my UP trackmobile. I love the features of the TMCC but I want to control it in smph. I HATE how you have no accurate speed control on a TMCC.

@Emily Shelton posted:

I to, want to put a proto 2 or 3 in my UP trackmobile. I love the features of the TMCC but I want to control it in smph. I HATE how you have no accurate speed control on a TMCC.

The only hope, and it's a very dim one, would be the HO PS/3 board, nothing else has even a glimmer of hope of fitting in that unit.  However, the trackmobile doesn't have a flywheel, so that's going to be a fly in the ointment as well.