mean playing a 33 r.p.m. LP while run- ning trains, maybe tapping a dinner plate under the benchwork with a spoon to make a locomotive bell sound, or, for traction modelers, having an old tire rim under the benchwork with a clanger (that must be a word) rigged up to it for a trolley foot gong. More. By the nineteen-sixties articles
HO BRASS IN STOCK Very Limited Production - Factory Painted
Sounding off ACTUAL PRODUCTION MODEL SAN DIEGO SD-100 LIGHT RAIL VEHICLE (LRV) W ACTUAL PRODUCTION MODEL
NEW YORK CENTRAL 4500-4599 SERIES M-U CARS VISIT OUR WEBSITE:
www.mtsimports.com
MTS
SEND #10 OR LARGER SSAE WITH 55 CENTS POSTAGE FOR LATEST NEWSLETTER
IMPORTS, INC. P.O. BOX 50 MIDDLETOWN, NY 10940 New Book
E-Z Model Railroads The E-Z Track®
Planning Guide & Layout Book
hile model railroad sound sys- tems have been around for a while, the Digital Age is what
made them both practical and good. One of the things that makes a mod-
el railroad different from a diorama is that it has choreographed movement, but for decades the sounds accompan- ing it consisted of whirring motors and gears, plus the hollow rolling-along sound of wheels on rails punctuated by an occasional clunk at a switch frog. O scale, of course, made a louder clunk. On the Lionel side they had the “woooo” of a mechanically-generated whistle (early-on), then whuff and chuff electronic white noise and talk- ing tinplate stations, all played against a Rolling Thunder continuo. Scale modelers had to hear the actu-
al train sounds in their heads, either drawing from their experiences at trackside or via films and recordings. They got pretty good at it, too, but wanted more. “More” could sometimes
began popping up by modelers experi- menting with sound. It was a field for those who tinkered or who knew how to tinker (the latter group, as a rule, be- ing more successful at it). As is often the case with technology, somewhere along the line a wall fell down and the world was never the same. In this case it was the sound barrier, broken when Herb Chaudiere, Gus Swanberg, Brian Ellerby, Dick Day and another Pacific Northwest modeler built the HO scale Puget Sound Short Line and exhibited it at the 1965 NMRA National Convention in Vancouver, B.C. It didn’t just cause a stir, it changed the hobby. The Puget Sound Short Line was a
small demonstration layout with excel- lent scenery, structures and equipment, but the show stopper was the sound. I don’t know all the details, but it had recorded whistle and bell sounds trig- gered by location sensors and (I think) static white noise broken by a cam on an axle and fed to a speaker in the tender. The “Wow Factor” in this hobby went up a few notches that weekend. Who wouldn’t want sound after hearing it? Other steps along the way to where
we are now include the famous PFM sound system that appeared a few years later when Bob Longnecker, an IBM employee, showed Bill Ryan at Pacific Fast Mail what he was doing with a sound throttle. Ryan promptly hired him! Selling for around $350.00 forty years ago, the unit combined a good throttle with a bank of steam lo- comotive sounds and a playable whis-
Shortline enginehouses are traditionally neat places tucked in out of the way spots and populated by interesting locomotives. Such is the case on the New York & Lake Erie R.R in Gowanda, a small town in western New York. Ex-Erie S-1 No. 308, the normal work en- gine, lives inside along with proper shortline interior details. The 308’s companions are also “interesting,” to say the least, this pair of MLW-built ex-CN, ex-VIA FPA-4’s!
Serious modelers are realizing the benefits of sectional track and this new book takes beginning & veteran modelers through construction of six layouts ranging from simple to advanced, room-sized and prototype inspired using Bachmann’s E-Z Track System. Includes chapters on weathering and scenery. 24 pages,all color.
Item # A12415 . . . . . . . . . . .$19.95 + shipping US $6.00 (NJ Residents add 7% tax),
124 pages, all color, Retail $19.95 plus $5 s/h.
CANADA $10.00 (Add 5% GST), Foreign $12.00. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery
See your dealer or order direct See your dealer or order direct :
.
Carstens Publications, Inc. PO Box 700, Newton, NJ, 07860 Secure on-line ordering available
www.carstens-publications.com
90 JULY 2012
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116