Light Rail, Streetcar Projects Advancing Nationwide!
(Part 2 - Continued from the September 2015 issue.)
***

By Edward B. Havens

At Houston in south Texas, two new light rail routes, Green and Purple opened May 23 to points east and southeast of downtown including university and college campuses. Note the MetroRail lines map:

Forty-seven miles to the south, Galveston along the Gulf decided to reinstate its diesel powered heritage trolley network that has been out of service since Hurricane Ike in 2008. Shown are two of these unique cars. Galveston officials learned that they might have to repay state and federal grants if the rail service was not reinstated.

Until the 1930s, the coastal city had a Birney operated streetcar network the used overhead trolley wire .

At New Orleans, a 30-day suspension of Canal and Loyola streetcars took place this summer so crews could install track switches and special work on Canal Street for the Rampart-St. Claude streetcar branch, now under construction.

It will be operated as a through route with the Loyola Line.

In Miami Beach, Florida, Alstom made an unsolicited proposal to build a five-mile, $148 million light rail line that could eventually cross the MacArthur Causeway into Miami but city officials rejected the proposal because they wanted more time to examine competing bids. Alstom set Oct. 22 as its deadline for a decision.

Farther north at Fort Lauderdale, a Florida congressman told city officials he would oppose the city's plan for a modern streetcar line unless it were extended to the northwest part of the city to serve African American
neighborhoods.

The threat was from U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings. Construction has not yet begun but a short northern section is proposed. This would extends the WAVE streetcar in the northern section.

This short section would not satisfy the congressman's demand but since the Fort Lauderdale streetcar will be built in stages, there may be still time to satisfy his concerns.

In Atlanta, officials decided that the starter e 2.7-mile modern streetcar line that opened Dec. 30, 2014 operating Siemens S70 streetcars would remain free of fares throughout 2015. They hope to order to craft a ticketing system that could be used on city wide bus and rapid transit modes operated by Metropolitan Atlanta Regional Transit Authority (MARTA).

Charlotte, North Carolina's largest city opened it's 1.5-mile Uptown east-west streetcar line in July using three Gomaco Trolley of Iowa-built double truck Birneys that had been idled due to a budget crunch. in less than a week, one of the Birneys lost braking and became a runaway crashing into a motor vehicle. Charlotte Area Transit System (CAT, operating the city-owner streetcar line, concluded that the operator was at fault and that more training of operators was required. The entire incident was shown on some stations evening news from an on-board camera.

A different sort of problem befell Kansas City which piggybacked onto a Cincinnati order for streetcars from Spain-based C.A.F. through its U.S. subsidiary factory at Elmira Heights, N. Y. Slow delivery of components from suppliers caused assemblies of streetcars to lag behind, potentially delaying public debut of the car lines in both cities. Below are the artist's conception of the cars and one of the cars under construction at the plant.

On the Eastern Seaboard, the Atlantic Ocean resort city of Virginia Beach continued planning for an extension of Norfolk's "Tide" starter light rail line. The 7.4 mile route would cross city line and using the purchased former CSX right-of-way, extend eastward to Town Center but probably would not reach Oceanfront, at least not initially. The Commonwealth of Virginia has promised state funding for the Town Center line.

At the nation's capital at Washington, D.C., there still was no opening date announced for the H Street-Benning Road starter line. The District of Columbia Department of Transportation ran no-passenger streetcar tests on the line. Streetcar experts from the American Public Transportation Association also studied the line and found both infrastructure and management flaws that needed correcting. During last month, DDOT began painting red stripes to the pavement between the curb lane streetcar tracks and the parking lanes. Photos show cars 13-002 and 13-003 during testing:

Unfortunately, the biggest blow to Light Rail development in the Northeast occurred when Maryland Governor Larry Hogan rejected construction of Baltimore's 14-mile East-West Subway-Surface LRT route as too costly. See concept below:

Governor Hogan did approve construction of the 16-mile, suburb-to-suburb Purple Line Light Rail route to link Bethesda and New Carrollton just north of Washington, DC, but he insisted on a slimmed down budget and greater contributions from both Montgomery and Prince George's counties.

Boston under Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) will receive Federal support for construction of its first light rail addition in years, a new line westward from Lechmere Terminal to Somerville and Medford.

The project will require the purchase of 24 additional LRVs which will be acquired from C.A.F, a Spain-based company. This is the same firm that had a late delivery problem with LRVs ordered by the Houston Metro. The $118 million contract for the LRVs was awarded in May 2014 with delivery originally expected by the end of 2017.

In the Philadelphia area, Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority [SEPTA] closed its 2-1/2 mile trolley subway to Center City for one month to make upgrades and also bused suburban Routes 101-Media and 102-Sharon Hill for summertime track renewals.

Route 102 Kawasaki 1981 Double End vehicle at Sharon Hill station.

The Proliferation of Light Rail!
***

Trolleyville has recently noted the growing number of operating light rail lines, which are a combination of the streetcar and the interurban, both considered obsolete fifty years ago. Only a handful of original interurban lines such as the Philadelphia & West Chester and the Chicago, South Shore and South Bend still survive today, although with new names and equipment. As of the end of 2014, the following cities / metropolitan areas had light rail service and we would not be surprised if some of our readers were not aware of some of these locations:

LOCALITY	ANNUAL RIDERSHIP	SYSTEM TRACKAGE	YEAR SYSTEM STARTED	CAR BUILDERS USED
Boston*	69,000,000+	26 miles	1897/1980**	BOEING, KINKI SHARYO; BREDA
Los Angeles	63,000,000+	70 miles	1990	NIPPON SHARYO, SIEMENS, BREDA, KINKI SHARYO
San Francisco*	56,700,000+	36 miles	1912/1980**	BOEING, BREDA
San Diego	39,700,000+	53 miles	1981	SIEMENS SD-100, S70
Portland, OR	38,000,000+	52 miles	1986	SKODA, INEKON, UNITED STREETCAR
Philadelphia*	31,400,000+	68 miles	1906/1981**	KAWASAKI
Dallas	29,800,000+	85 miles	1996	KINKI SHARYO, BROOKVILLE "LIBERTY"
Denver	26,300,000+	47 miles	1994	SIEMENS SD-100
Salt Lake City	19,800,000+	45 miles	1999	SIEMENS SD-100, S70
Saint Louis	17,100,000+	46 miles	1993	SIEMENS SD400, SD460
Jersey City	16,600,000+	17 miles	2000	KINKI SHARYO
Minneapolis	16,000,000+	22 miles	2004	BOMBARDIER FLEXITY, SIEMENS S70
Phoenix	14,200,000+	20 miles	2008	KINKI SHARYO
Sacramento	13,400,000+	39 miles	1987	SIEMENS-DUEWAG U2, CAF 200
Houston	13,300,000+	23 miles	2004	SIEMENS S70
Seattle-Tacoma	11,900,000+	17 miles	2003	KINKI SHARYO-MITSUI, INEKON
San Jose	11,300,000+	42 miles	1987	KINKI SHARYO LOW FLOOR LRV
Pittsburgh*	8,100,000+	26 miles	1984**	SIEMENS SD-400, CAF 200
Baltimore	8,000,000+	33 miles	1992	ABB TRACTION
Charlotte	5,100,000+	10 miles	2007	SIEMENS S70
Norfolk	1,600,000+	7 miles	2011	SIEMENS S70
Tucson	No complete year figures available	4 miles	2014	UNITED STREETCAR
Atlanta	No complete year figures available	2.7 miles	2014 (December)	SIEMENS S70

* These systems upgraded older existing trolley systems. All others started from scratch!
** Year that the system upgraded to LRV type vehicles.

Consider the ridership shown in the above chart. There were over 510,300,000 boardings of light rail/streetcars in the United States in 2014. We will admit that majority of these boardings were probably commuters, especially in the larger cities. Suppose 75% of those boardings were commuters. That accounts for as many as 764,000 passengers. That leaves 128,300,300 other boardings which could comprise millions of individual riders depending on how many boardings each one consumed.

You may argue with some of the assumptions made here but one thing that you can not argue. There are a lot of people riding these vehicles now and from what we have heard, they seem to like the ride.

But doesn't that make you wonder why none of these vehicles have been available in model form during all these years? Why have none of the model railroad manufacturers even tried to model one of these cars? Even better....has any one ever talked to a model railroad supplier about this?

 

San Pedro Trolley Last Run? As we reported in our June 2015, the San Pedro Red Car line made its last runs late Sunday evening, September 27. There has been some uproar about this decision but the latest came from the LACMTA (Metro) Board themselves on Thursday, September 24th when they urged the City of Los Angeles to delay the closure of the 1.5 mile line along San Pedro's Waterfront. Currently the line is "scheduled" to be closed for 18 months to allow construction work at the waterfront. The line was built in 2003 at a cost of $10 million, however, estimates for relocating the tracks are currently much higher than the original cost of the line. The Port of Los Angeles, who operated the line from its inception, in defense of their position stated that the line cost $11.2 milllion to operate over 11 years, carried 800,000 riders but produced income of only $146,486 in revenue.

How about a model Light Rail Vehicle!
(Like the Siemens S70!)
***

A lot of us has been wondering for a long time why there have not been any commercial ready-to-run models of any of the Light Rail Vehicles currently in service. We started to believe some time ago that for the model railroading hobby to remain vibrant, someone will have to be making models of some of these Light Rail Vehicles being used throughout the United States in the not-too-distant future. Without new models and new modelers, there could be a much diminished model railroading hobby, maybe much more than is currently being experienced. Urban electric models can be set up in a much smaller space than main line trains and are considerably more colorful than container trains. Our feelings on this subject started when Custom Traxx saw and acquired a painted and lettered model of one of the SEPTA (Philadelphia) City Division Kawasaki Light Rail Transit vehicles (shown below right) in 1999 at an East Penn Traction Club Meet. The prototype vehicles had replaced PCC cars in 1981 on the five routes that operated into the city subway. Custom Traxx acquired the model which was equipped with a Bachmann drive, as the new Bowser 1999 drive was not really known by the supplier of the car. Because they were not really familiar with the cars, they did not recognize the crudeness of the model or the numerous mistakes until they got back home and started to study the photographs. The toy-like Bachmann drive had to go so Custom Traxx eventually partnered with Bowser Manufacturing to have a metal floor with Bowser mechanism (see below left), part 125148, shown below left, made that snapped into the shell. This model, despite its limitations, was a great start on LRV modeling.

Custom Traxx and the Southern California Traction Club (SCTC) used this and subsequent models as learning devices on how to install DCC decoders, headlights, taillights, rear headlights, emergency flashing beacons and turn signals into electric transit vehicles. It was even used to learn about aluminum floors. While strong, they were light. The SCTC had to add 2.5 ounces of weight, mostly under the floor between the trucks to allow reliable operation using the trolley pole for power. Knowledge gained here would be invaluable later when the Bowser Ready-To-Run streetcars would be produced and sold. Incidentally, the very first test Bowser 1999 power truck was installed in this very car shown above. It still operates with the original gearing almost sixteen years later.

Still believing strongly that a model LRV would eventually be made in a Ready-To-Run form, Custom Traxx partnered with Bowser to make a mechanism with floor for the AHM/IHC/Mehano LRV (shown below).

Since Bowser had CNC capability, this was relatively easy to do. Draw the floor and tell the machine to make it. This product required two different floors and some hardware for the transition section but Lee English designed all the necessary hardware and by the end of 2004, the 125147 mechanism with floor was ready. It was a two motored unit that imitated the power of the prototype and it also would be invaluable later.

The modelers that had Boeing LRV models on their shelves snapped these floors up. About 45 of them sold quickly and then sales stopped. It was then found out that the Boeing LRV models were no longer readily available. About five years later, Custom Traxx got a call about the Boeing LRV model situation from Mr. IHC himself. He wanted to know how many other operators used the Boeing LRV and was very disappointed to know that there were still only two, Boston and San Francisco. He was also very disappointed to know that both cities could not wait to get rid of the things.

IHC eventually released another run of the Boeing LRV models with the same power drive and N scale couplers but with RP-25 blackened wheels. So there was some sales activity again but by 2012, interest had waned as by this time just under 100 of the units had been sold. Also by this time, Bowser had come to the realization that it was just no longer feasible to do manufacturing processes like die casting in the United States and his CNC was now broken and obsolete. He just did not see any reason to repair or replace it. In 2009, Bowser released the F-line PCC cars made in China and they have not looked back since. The very last of the 125147 floors were made in cast pewter. The one picture above was one of them and sharp eyed readers will note that both motor-flywheel combinations are from HO scale Bowser RTR PCC cars. By the end of the run only 115 of the 125147 units had been sold. It also did not help that the San Francisco Boeing LRV models were not painted correctly and had to be stripped, repainted and relettered. Custom Traxx had a decal set for that but by this time, there were not a lot a modelers willing to do all that in addition to installing the 125147 floor into the old shells.

When you examine the chart in this issue's first article and note how long some of these systems have been in operation, one can only wonder why we have not seen any models of these cars long ago, especially considering the ridership shown. The only mass produced model (injection-molded plastic, powered and finished) were models of the Boeing United States Standard Light Rail Vehicle (SLRV) cars that ran only in Boston and San Francisco starting in the late 1970s / early 1980s. They were at best terrible cars and had many problems and frequent breakdowns. The model did not run much better. AHM brought them out in HO scale in the late 1970s and their successors such as IHC and Mehano also produced them for a while. MTS Imports made models of the San Diego Siemens SD100 and U2 in brass for a bit but those models were quite "pricey" to say the least. Several models have been made with resin shells by Miniatures by Eric (San Francisco Breda). Island Model Works and another supplier provided models of the SEPTA Kawasaki vehicles. But considering the hundreds of thousands of riders shown above, why did no one try and tap these people as potential model train lovers. (Again, possibly heads up the wrong place?????). We did find a catalog from an Austrian manufacturer that makes several European-prototype LRV and tram models, Leopold G. Halling. The Southern California Traction Club has acquired several of the Austrian Bombardier Flexity five-unit 100% low floor trams (see below) and they run well even thought they are powered on only two of the six axles. The Innsbruck unit shown in the next photo has many similarities to the new Toronto cars currently being acquired.

What LRV model to make? The prevailing thought at the time was that you needed around ten road names of anything to make the project successful. The San Francisco F-Line PCC with the 14 cars in 14 different paint schemes filled that requirement and in 2009, they were imported from China. Some of them, like the 1061 Pacific Electric car sold out before the cars got to the US. So it appeared that models of electric railway vehicles currently operating could be sold successfully.

If you read the first article in this issue, you saw the Siemens S70 listed many times. Custom Traxx had evaluated all of the United States LRVs made by Bombardier, Breda, CAF, Kawasaki, Kinki-Sharyo, Nippon-Sharyo, Siemens, Skoda and United Streetcar when it became apparent that the S70 was the ideal choice. The fact that 76 of them were operating in San Diego did not hurt. Then they met up with Volkmar Meier at the East Penn Traction Club Meet in May 2015 who had come to the same conclusion. He was on the way to completing his S70 LRV model using the 3D Printing method. Custom Traxx and Volkmar decided to join forces with the ultimate goal of eventually having a Ready-To-Run powered injection molded completely finished model made.

The first 3D printed model arrived at Custom Traxx in early July 2015. It was painted but not lettered but powered by two Halling drives and had an NMRA plug for DCC decoder installation and a switch for overhead operation. Custom Traxx lettered the vehicle with their CN-2052 set and started the testing process.

Due to previous experience and familiarity with the Bowser traction drives, Custom Traxx preferred to use the Bowser traction mechanism in the cars, so the next two cars coming from Volkmar were to have floors designed for the Bowser drive. The two cars were due from Shapeways at the end of August 2015. We also noted small errors in the shell which are supposed to be corrected in these next two models.

Custom Traxx will be demonstrating these models in operation at the NMRA Los Angeles Division South Coast Botanic Gardens Show on October 24-25, 2015, the Great Train Show in Costa Mesa, CA at the Orange County Fair Grounds on January 30-31, 2016 and at the Great Train Show and the Del Mar Fairgrounds, Del Mar, CA on February 13-14, 2016 and in other selected locations. If you have interest in this car or any HO scale model LRV, reserve yours .....or forever hold your peace.

A thought to ponder if you are a model railroad manufacturer. (We mean if you are Atlas, Athearn (Horizon), Bachmann, Broadway Limited, Con-cor, Rapido, Walthers etc.) Insanity is often defined as doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. Your advertising "geniuses" keep throwing your money away by casting hooks into lakes that have been long "fished out" while the hobby, the number of your dealers and the numbers of your customers keep shrinking. How long are you going to keep making steam engines and first generation diesels like F7s and GP9s? Why not consider one or more of these very same Light Rail Vehicles, considering the numbers of people riding them now. If dealing with a model pantograph disturbs you, how about a Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU) vehicle like the 12 used by the North Country Transit District (SDNX) in North San Diego County on a 22 mile run between Oceanside and Escondido, CA (See below left). Those vehicles, known as SPRINTER were built by Siemens AG. Add sound and DCC and you may have a winner. Another such line, the River Line, 34 miles long, runs from the Camden NJ Entertainment Center to Trenton NJ. These 20 vehicles were built by Stadler, a Swiss firm. (See below right) So why not try something different? Look for new venues for modelers. Find fresh places to advertise other than the current "obituaries". We know that the general public still loves trains. Look at some of the attendance figures at the World's Greatest Hobby on Tour Shows. (At least two of them had over 40,000 patrons.) And now we know that over 300 million boardings of light rail lines occurred last year. We did not even consider ridership on commuter trains! We also know that Custom Traxx and Bowser are already talking about LRV models. Maybe some of you should do the same thing!!

Adding Keep Alive™ to a Bowser Tsunami Sound Equipped PCC!
***

by Harvey Simon

When the DCC-ready Bowser PCC cars started to arrive at our dealers back in 2009/2010, the first decoder used was the Train Control Systems (TCS) M4T which gave us the automatic passenger stop and brake lights. But TCS was not ready for sound at that time, So Bowser went to Soundtraxx for the initial sound versions. Then TCS introduced their Keep Alive™ which allowed the car to run for a few seconds without power. This is so helpful to those who operate from powered overhead wires. Custom Traxx and the Southern California Traction Club (SCTC) tested these items before they were officially released and ran cars through up to eight inches of fishing line.

But how about combining this "Keep Alive" capability in a sound-equipped model. Since there were two separate suppliers involved, this was going to be tricky. Compounding this is the lack of space inside the Bowser PCC due to the rugged but space consuming drive.

I have been building a traction layout for the past three years. It’s been 16 years since my last layout—the Boston MTA, which was the topic of a six part series I wrote for Model Railroader in 1999. Coming back to the hobby after such a long break, I found the improvements in performance and features of the cars truly remarkable. Whereas my old layout utilized block control and rather primitive cars, I decided here to dive into DCC. And by deciding to model the F-Line in San Francisco, the Bowser Tsunami equipped PCCs were perfect for my layout’s locale and era. Like my first layout, I used Richard Orr girder rail, built the roads and sidewalks and erected overhead wire. As I went through construction, I tested each section, and finally got everything running.

I had two significant issues. The first was the trolley shoe which I found to be very inconsistent going through frogs and crossings. I had too many dewirements, not only from car to car that have the same chassis, but also on the same car. For example, the pole would correctly take the crossing on one loop, but would dewire at the same spot on the next loop. The fix was to desolder the shoe and attach a trolley wheel—Bowser part #12507. Getting the trolley wheel to align properly with the springs was the key, but once that was done, the dewirement problem disappeared.

The second issue, and the topic of this article, was the inconsistency of power collection at the point of contact between the trolley wheel and the wire. Nothing is more frustrating to see these wonderful cars moving along the layout and then suddenly stop or sputter. This is especially exacerbating when the sound and lighting effects, which are so terrific, are disrupted. Custom Traxx was very helpful in walking me through the various remedies, including running a Dremel wire brush to clean the post of the trolley pole and the inside of the trolley wheel, and also applying a tiny amount of ATC 6006 to the trolley wheel. Keeping a very clean wire and the various electrical contact points is essential to smooth operating. However, despite my best efforts, I was still experiencing some inconsistency, and wanted to take it one step further. After reading about the Keep Alive™ technology, I decided to apply it to the Bowser Tsunami cars. Anything that helped the cars overcome the electrical contact issue was worth experimenting with. I even soldered a wire, as shown in the next photo, from the Bowser trolley pole pivot directly to the spring clip on circuit board to eliminate any potential problems there.

This Keep Alive™ “extra capacitance” technology keeps applying power for a couple of seconds to the motor despite interruptions, however brief, in electrical contact. Although I am complete novice in DCC, I was able to install a TCS Keep Alive™ decoder (the KA1) to the Tsunami board, and the results are great. The cars run much better now, and when you apply all the various remedies to this specific issue, the problem of “DCC electrical sensitivity” is virtually eliminated.

Here’s how I installed the KA1. I began by removing the shell from the car. I then disconnected the three white fittings—one on each side and one on the end—from the underside of the Tsunami to provide a little more maneuverability for soldering the KA1. You can’t completely remove the board as there are other wires which connect the board to the floor. The KA1 has two wires—blue and black. These get soldered to a small orange- colored electrical component on the underside of the board. (Justin Revard of Soundtraxx provided this direction.) The blue wire is on the right, and the black wire on the left. You can’t reverse the placement of these wires. See figures 1 and 2 below.

Note: The instructions for the KA1 from TCS advise the user to set CV182 = 2 . This is meaningless for this installation as that only applies to installing the KA1 with a TCS decoder.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Note also how the wires are tucked behind the posts which support the board. I secured the wires to the motor using Kapton tape. You can also see how the two wires fit nicely into the small groove in the floor which mates with the clear plastic tab on the shell. By filing the tab for this groove, the shell will fit snugly without pressing hard on the wires. Before reattaching the shell, remember that I did one more thing to improve electrical contact. I soldered a wire between the small spring clip which holds the brass bushing in place to the bushing itself.

Figure 4

I find over time this spring can weaken, and so I wanted to guarantee a better electrical connection by hard-wiring this in place. Just one note of caution—you don’t want to melt the shell when you solder the wire to the bushing. Once I completed this last step, I then reattached the shell to the floor. To secure the KA1 to the floor, I used double stick tape. There are two small screws underneath which hold the motor in place. I put the double stick tape between these screws. You must use a thin piece of tape as the decoder does protrude below the floor, and accordingly there is narrow clearance between the bottom of the decoder and the track. Indeed, for this very reason, you need to tuck the wires between the decoder and the shell as opposed to taping the wires on the surface of the decoder. See figure 4 for the final location of the KA1. The gray pieces are lead weights which are squeezed in and around the decoder.

To complete the project I added extra weight where the motorman sits—figure 5.

Figure 5

You should note how the power stays on after the trolley pole is disengaged from the overhead—the sound and headlight still work. Although it’s only for a couple of seconds, it’s enough to allow the car to get through those trouble areas of dirty track or overhead. However, and this can’t be overstated, there’s no substitute for clean track and overhead. Without it, the KA1 won’t be effective. But if you do all the little things suggested here, keep your track and overhead clean, I think you’ll find operating much more enjoyable.

I was able to provide this information to you because Soundtraxx graciously provided it to me. Trains Control Systems states that "The KA1 will power an HO-scale locomotive with headlights on for approximately 2 to 5 seconds (depending on the locomotive and the efficiency of the motor)". The performance that I experienced was within that range.

You are cautioned that completion of this modification may void your Bowser warranty so please consider your skill level when attempting this modification. Neither Harvey Simon, Soundtraxx or the Trolleyville Times assume any responsibility for damage to cars that occurs during this process.

About the author: Harvey Simon is currently a Senior Executive for Springs Global, a home textile corporation located in Fort Sill, South Carolina. Married with two adult children and one granddaughter, Harvey has been a model railroader for the past 40 years. Just now getting back into the hobbby after a 16 year break, he has been slowly building a new layout depicting the San Francisco F-line. With his oldest son living in Oakland, CA, he got the inspiration for his layout during a visit to the Bay area, watching those great PCC cars moving throughout the city. Luckily for him, the Bowser PCC line-up came at just the right time to begin his new layout. Harvey and his wife, Lisa, currently reside in Charlotte, North Carolina.

(Editor's Note: Attempting to read decoder values from any of these Stay Alive type products can be frustrating depending on the Command Station used. It can also be challenging using JMRI/DecoderPro. Some times, a booster must be used and sometimes it is not necessary. This depends on the state of the Stay Alive device at the time of the attempted value reading.)

Not Your Grandpa's DCC Anymore!

by John McWhirter

The Southern California Traction Club has made a reputation for embracing technology as it applies to the model railroad hobby. The Club has been responsible for some of it, especially in the area of digital controls. We have converted our display layouts to DCC. We have provided technical support and prototype testing to manufacturers of digital decoders and digitally equipped ready-to-run traction models. Our efforts continue in this arena.

With that in mind, it is my intention to introduce the readers of the Trolleyville Times to three of the more sophisticated Digital Command Control systems now available. Included in this will be the Roco/Fleischmann Z21, the ESU Command Station (ECoS) II, and the Marklin Central Station 2 (CS2). This article will be presented in several parts. The first will offer a glimpse of each system. In succeeding articles, I will go into a more in-depth analysis of each of these systems.

To begin, the Z21 is literally just a black-box. It also comes in a white-box version, the z21, with less capability. The Z21 has no throttle included. What is included however is a WiFi router to be used with a free smart phone or tablet app that allows for all throttle and layout controls. Apple IOS and Android are supported.

Both the ECoS and the CS2 are similar in appearance with color touch screens and dual onboard throttles. Although the ECoS and the CS2 do not come with routers, they have LAN connectors and will function with available phone and tablet apps.

Here’s a breakdown on some of the basic specs:

Z21 Roco/Fleischmann Model 10820 - DCC and Marklin-Motorola protocols; - 4 Amp power supply - 24 loco functions - AC and DC locos - Includes WiFi router (right) and power supply - Requires a user supplied smart phone or tablet Current Cost $419

ECoS II - ESU model 50200 - DCC, Marklin-Motorola, Selectrix, and M4 protocols - 4 Amp booster with adjustable 15-21v output - Color touch screen for finger or stylus - 21 loco functions - AC and DC locos - Current Cost $870

Central Station 2 - Marklin model 60215 - DCC, Marklin-Motorola, and Mfx protocols - Up to 5 Amps (mine has a 60065 transformer rated at 50VA) - AC and DC locos - USB interface for keyboard or mouse - 2 built-in loco card readers - color touch screen for finger or stylus - 16 loco functions Current Cost $765 plus the cost of a transformer

 

All prices quoted are retail offerings from Reynauld’s in Elburn, Illinois. In spite of the sticker shock for these systems, you will see in the following months, they do some really "cool stuff and may be worth considering. Feel free to check these systems out on the many internet sites. In the coming months I’ll be taking a closer look at each system and reporting my results