Well I have ordered what may be my last Bandai shorty passenger train. They have not produced a new train in about 2-3 years, and their mechanisms have not been available for a long while, plus the running trucks underframes for the cars have also been out of stock for several years. I have another sleek gold speedster coming and have managed to dig up two power chassis from my parts box and four underframes for the running trucks under the cars. So last night I was changing out the sideframes on the power chassis and installing Kato trucks under the underframes for the cars. On the Kato trucks I replaced the Rapido couplers with Kato two piece couplers which work well with MTs. They are Kato 11-702 and 11-707 and are drop in replacements for the Rapido. Now getting ready to cut some thin lead for weights. I get the rolls of lead on Amazon. The soft thin lead cuts with either a single edge razor blade or scissors. 100_0054-1 by John Moore posted Jan 26, 2023 at 4:18 PM
LEAD run far far away LEAD dont ya know that stuff is bad for you good idea about coil car loads with that lead you get a load and weight at the same time
Coffee is bad for you. Eggs are bad for you. Bacon is bad for you. White bread toast is bad for you. Real milk is bad for you. There goes my breakfast !!!!
Well with the running chassis for the cars now weighted with LEAD it was time for the test track and an hour or two running in either direction. And since the power chassis was and all wheel drive Bandai I decided I could get by with just one powered car for the 6 car train. 100_0056-1 by John Moore posted Jan 27, 2023 at 2:58 PM And I could save another mechanism for another project since these are not available anymore. 100_0059-3 by John Moore posted Jan 27, 2023 at 2:58 PM I found another running chassis and fitted a set of Kato trucks to it and some LEAD weight. Added it to the consist with the lone power unit. It climb the 2% and 3% percent grade out of the port facility like it was not there. Once on the main I opened the throttle and it was doing a scale 100 mph around the track. All this prep is getting ready for the arrival of the Golden Turtle, Turtle Creek Central's newest passenger power. 100_0058-2 by John Moore posted Jan 27, 2023 at 2:58 PM Comes in a set of three cars, a cab car and two coaches and I have two sets ordered that will give me four coaches and a cab car at each end.
Right now, it is several hundred locomotives to be entered into the CabControl system. It sure would go a lot faster if there was a computer software inteface that I could dump all the locomotives out of JRMI Decoder Pro instead of hand entering everything via a throttle.
The first question is whether there is an data import capability for CabControl... Then whether there is a reporting utility for JMRI to create formatted data files for import into such systems. Sure sounds like a problem in serious need of a reasonable solution. And manually transcribing the data isn't a "reasonable solution." But on the other hand, I wish I had a big enough locomotive collection for that to be an issue!
Thanks Allen for the 2 GP7's 1 GP9 that'll become power for one of my locals once I get a new layout up And after they hit the dip tank in my roads colors And the switcher followed me home I swear And the box they were taken on is my n scale river boat it will be renamed but it's Lindberg 1/163 scale
Unsure if you have explored the JMRI_UserFiles directory... Inside their is a roster.xml file, if you right click (in windows) and select edit, the file can be opened with any text editor on the pc. The problem is that besides the specific text (labels) address in the roster, there would some parsing to clean enough to import assuming the CabControl provides PC app and a method to import. I'm moving layout to total DCC EX so plan on having JMRI rosters up on 1 screen and paste text, labels and info into the roster file and then the Arduino IDE to upload to the hardware. Not elegant but beats a total rekey. Fortunately, only have a 1/2 doz locos. This is my roster.xml opened in Word and pasted (w/o tabs) into this page-Too big for snippet. 2021-06-21T07:03:50.163+0000 2502 dcc_long Light Bell Horn Coupler Clank Diesel Fans Dynamic Brake Optional Ditch Lights Switching Mode Audio Mute - StartUp-ShutDown Manual Notching Up Manual Notching Down AUX3 Function Output Dim Headlight AUX4 Func Output Talking Defect Detector Cab Radio Comm Rail-Joint Clank Brake Set/Release Sanding Valve Short Air Let-Off Air Compressor Pop Valve Random sounds Automatic brake sound Gear shift sound LastOperated 2021-06-24T12:41:27.425+0000 OperatingDuration 8822 2021-06-25T22:58:03.669+0000 5916 dcc_long Light 2021-06-19T04:28:41.004+0000 1523 dcc_long Light Dim LastOperated 2021-06-21T09:01:59.438+0000 OperatingDuration 18868 2021-06-20T16:46:51.148+0000 56 dcc_short Headlight Bell Horn Coupler Compressor RPM Up RPM Dn Ditch-MARS Light Mute/Master Volume Shutdown and Startup Cooling Fan Air Release Brake Set/Release/Squeal Horn Grade Crossing Station Sounds Yard Sounds Maintenance Sounds Radio Chatter City Sounds Farm Sounds Industrial Sounds Lumber Sounds Horn2 Track Sounds Aux Light Control Long Horn Play Macro Record Macro Brake Squeal LastOperated 2021-06-24T12:41:03.088+0000 OperatingDuration 20667 Nested inside the same directory- MRI_UserFiles is a directory called roster, each loco in the system has a respective .xml file For the 2018 Atlas SD35 Gold loco, Below is the first page of 98 total. Interestingly, only the first page has any meaningful data, the remaining 97 pages are all returns. Lastly, and a little more promising, is when the roster.xml file is opened in Excel. Since now a database can be created if desired. And, the SD35 xml roster file; Unsure if any of this is helpful but it is how I would explore a solution...
Finally got around to working in the Scenic Valley today. I glued up the facia and while they dry I have them strapped into my ratchet straps. I fixed a piece of trackwork that got messed up when I rebuilt the frame as well. Tomorrow I will try and run a train on it, if I get time to do the wiring. Ratchet straps and tape holding it all together. Jars if paint being used as weight… don’t judge, it’s all I had that would fit!