October Update - the AI Invasion

Proto People

An example of prototype people I can 3D print for my layout

I have spent much of October involved in developing a range of figures suitable for the Aquia Line. This is because there are very few civil war era figures available in the market that are in non-combat poses. So I decided to make my own.

One of my long term objectives was to learn 3D sculpting software to sculpt and then print those figures for my railroad.  I considered Zbrush and Blender as possible software tools for this. Both have pretty steep learning curves so I delayed learning them. Zbrush is also very expensive, while Blender is free, open source. However, I learned about a new sculpting service called Meshy that greatly simplifies the process. Meshy uses AI functions to convert 2D images into STL files that can be 3D printed.  It is similar to the photogramatry process used in 3D scanning, but it uses AI to extrapolate a 2D image to 3D.  They charge a subscription fee, but it is not too expensive. 

The work flow is  as follows

•     Find an image that I want to use as inspiration for a figure or set of figures. 
•     Clean up the image in Photoshop. 
•     Import the 2D image to Meshy and create an STL.
•     Clean up and or repair the STL file in Blender and  Meshmixer.  For example, add an arm that the AI may have omitted, or fix the insignia or hat style on a figure. I also embellish the facial and other details. 
•     Export a final STL that I can use in Chitubox to create the sliced file that can be used on a 3D printer.

 I am not going to bother going into detail on any of those steps as there are thousands of websites and Youtube videos that explain them. The bottom line is that this work flow saves me a lot of time in the sculpting phase of the process.

With this I have been able to produce 3D prints of actual people that I find in images taken on the actual Aquia Line. I have developed a range of these figures that I sell on my Alkem scale models web site https://alkemscalemodels.biz/proto-people

Story Telling 

Another one of my long term objectives is to use the USMRR Aquia Line as a setting and prop for telling stories in video or graphic novel format. I am not a big fan of  superhero graphic novels. But I do like more realistic and historical stories told in graphic format and they are fun to make. However, the possibility of making a video story has been enhanced with the use of some of the new AI video tools that are coming available. I have done a limited test of these and the results are promising, but not quite where they need to be yet to make a good video short. 

Here is a test video that I made using mostly Grok, but also some RunwayML. 

Unfortunately, RunwayML has been disappointing. Grok works better but has many limitations. So, for now, this objective will have to wait until the AI video generating software improves. 

NMRA MER Annual Convention

I attended the NMRA MER Annual convention in King of Prussia, PA, which is a suburb of Philadelphia, PA. The convention was fun, although a bit on the expensive side. The hotel was very nice and convenient to a lot of other attractions, such as the Audubon Center, where I went twice to bird watch.  I went to one op session, managed to attend one clinic and spent a good part of Saturday acting an an evaluator for the Model Contest.

The model contest was very well run. My team was very proficient and did a great job in evaluating the many models. I also entered a model in the contest, so I had to sit out that category.

I am happy to report that my model of the USMRR Machine shop won three awards,

•     First Place in On-Line Structure
•     The Charles Haldik Memorial Award for best model of a southern RR subject
•     Best in Show

I will be taking the machine shop to one more show, then I will be installing it on the USMRR Aquia Line. I should mention that I used figures from my new line to populate the model.

On my way home I stopped at 4 model railroad open houses. All were very nice. I met Bruce Friedman, who is an Alkem Scale Models customer and has an impressive modern prototype based railroad.  He was kind enough to demonstrate his contemporary US Army tank train on his layout. It is an amazing 70-car long train full of DODX cars hauling Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and a few other odds and ends.  

Bruce had this posted on the wall of his train room.

It was an interesting coincidence that his and my model railroads were featured in the same issue of Model Railroader. 

Merry Christmas

 Hope Santa treats you well!

Testing iPhone 13 Pro Ultra Wide Lens

 I bought a new iPhone 13 Pro today to replace my battered iPhone 10. I had read a lot of great  things about the new iPhone 13 cameras so I thought I would take some test shots using the new ultra-wide lens. 

 

This is a basic shot using 5 exposures with photo stacking and the ultra wide lens. The resulting image has great depth of field. But there is an obvious barrel distortion in the image. Note how the track seems curve up and down as it crosses the bridge. I could not find a lens correction plug-in for this lens in Photoshop 2022 or Lightroom 2022.  I hope Adobe will offer one soon. Note that this image includes the built-in lens distortion correction that comes with the iPhone 13 as a user selectable setting. I tried fiddling with the liquify plug-in and the perspective tools in Photoshop to get rid of distortion, but didn't have good results. 

Here is a brief video of the same scene. This looks pretty good. The barrel distortion is not as obvious in this image, possibly because I moved a little back from the scene. 

iPhone 13 Pro Macro mode

The camera has many settings and modes. The macro feature is intriguing. It works mostly through software processing. 

I found that if the auto-macro option is selected, it is difficult to take a series of shots to focus stack. That is because the  lens switches the focal length as it jumps into macro mode. So the image cannot be aligned. However,  I was able to take the shot below by disabling that feature and manually selecting my focus points. 

I had to replace the sky in this image as the painted sky on the coved corner did not look right with such a wide angle shot. Still, I think it is an interesting shot. There will be several new images I can shoot with  this wide angle lens so close to the modeled ground, i.e. to get the worm's eye view.

This was the first ultra-wide angle shot I took. The focus stacking worked pretty well, but the contrast in the image was too much. This is the result even after I adjust the contrast way down.

Telegraph Installation Begins

Amby helped me install the telegraph system today. I made a short video describing its operation.

We have all the cables run and one of the 5 stations,  Aquia Landing. installed. It works as designed, which is very rewarding.

We did test the other 4 stations and we found a glitch. They will light the LEDs in the dispatcher panel, but will not drive the sounder. Amby thinks the problem is in the diode stacks that control the LEDs and the length of the cable affecting the overall voltage drop in the signal. The system worked fine at his house with shorter cables, so he suspects that is the issue. 

I have a lot of work to do this week in building and installing the stations. I also need to finish building the display panel on the dispatcher desk.  Amby will be returning next week to continue the installation. 

First Frogs at Falmouth

Some of Scott's gear for the video shoot

 

Hope everybody had a happy Thanksgiving. On the day before the holiday, Scott Wahl visited the Aquia Line to shoot video. He is taking a class in film production. He needs to make a 5-10 minute film as the final project for the class. He asked if he could shoot a feature on my layout and I agreed.

The video and audio set up was quite impressive

Scott had done video production for a true crime podcast in the past, so he had a complete array of professional level video equipment. The video format was an interview with me that will be intercut with scenes from the model railroad.  It will be interesting to see how it turns out. 

Scott has a very professional tavel rig

On Thanksgiving morning before helping cook the meal, I started working on laying the rest of the track at Falmouth. The first step was to make the switch stands and bridles for the stub turnouts.  I needed three 2-way and one 3-way switch stands. These are photo etched kits made with stainless steel. They are a bit tricky to assemble. You must use silver solder and flux for stainless steel. Regular rosin core solder will not work. I set my soldier station to 400 degrees as that helps melt the silver solder. Once the kits were assembled, I scrubbed them with soap and scouring powder. Then waited overnight to let them dry. 

I primed them with self etching metal primer. After a few hours, they got the final coat of black paint. The targets will get red once they are installed. 

I have some of the main track in Falmouth and one and half turnouts done so far. I do like the Ess-curve that the track makes as it flows through Falmouth. I think it will look nice when it is finished.

Switch stands and bridles before priming and painting

Chair-Borne!

I injured my back somehow last week. That has curtailed my layout work, but I was able to catch up on some writing and design projects. CHAIR-BORNE!  (for you former paratroopers.) 

I wrote three articles that seem to have been accepted by the editors. So hopefully we will see them pop up in the magazines at some point. One of the articles was for a new magazine for me, a non-model railroad magazine.There is quite along lead time from article submission to publishing, so it could be a while.

I did shoot some new photos for the articles including this shot of Battery Schaefer. Prior to the layout expansion, this shot was obscured by trees. Now, the trees are no longer in the way and we can get a look at a train coming north past the battery.

Another project I could do from my chair-borne position was a track plan design. A model railroad club in Ogden, Utah obtained access to a store for a semi-permanent layout. Some of their members asked me if I could help with the layout design. They wanted something that featured scenes from the local area, had crowd pleasing features, but also allowed interesting operation. They had sketched out a basic foot print for the layout, so all I had to do was fill it in.

I have rail fanned this area several times so I was familiar with some of the signature scenes. On one trip we caught a UP steam train heading up Weber Canyon. I did a short youtube video on that along with some help from Brian and Jake.

I came up with a rough draft plan. We will see how it evolves and if they use any of my ideas.

Track laying started

 I did a short video update on the start of laying track on Phase II of the layout expansion. I posted it below. 

Benchwork Completed for Layout Expansion

 I completed the benchwork for the layout expansion this evening. I thought I would do a video update so as to better show the extent of the completed section.

After I filmed the video, I put some cars and structures on the benchwork to get a feel for how the scene will look.

Floating Coves and Backdrops

I finished constructing and painting the sky and clouds on the backdrops for the Falmouth extension. A few friends requested that I do a video of how I paint my backdrops. So I put one together and uploaded it to YouTube. 

 

In the video I explain the concept of the floating cove to improve the appearance of the corners. This technique has worked well for me. I have not had any cracks develop in my backdrops over the 13 years the layout has been up.

The video was getting a little long, so I edited out the discussion of why I did not cove the corner by the planned balloon camp.  There is a window adjacent to that corner. This window is a possible fire escape for the room. So I did not want to block it with a section of masonite I would use for a cove. Solutions that involved a partial cove just didn't look right. So I plan to rely on the Lowe's observation balloon to help hide the uncoved corner.

I have not yet painted the ground portion of the backdrop as that will depend on how I install the 3D terrain. 

Phase I Video

A short clip of trains running on the new Phase I section of the layout expansion.

I can see the forest through the trees

I finished up the forested area by Drye's Curve. The last batch of trees are smaller because they line the edge of the woods.  I also added more static grass and ground texture.


After a quick clean of the tracks, I ran a test train through the scene. This scene is difficult to photograph as the edge of the aisle is close to the tracks.

Guest Post - Dufour's Memories

In May 1863, Mr.  Jules Ignace Mantel Dufour, an executive from the B&M Railroad visited the Aquia Line. He was on a weeks long tour of railroads on the east coast to see how the war was affecting them. It is curious that an executive from the B&M would visit Herman Haupt's railroad, as Haupt was currently engaged in a legal and financial fight with the B&M over the Hoosac Tunnel (It was actually the B&A, but work with me on this.)  Nonetheless, the visit was cordial and Mr J.I.M. Dufour actually picked up the tab for the dining out.  Mr Dufour brought a photographer with him, who took several wet plate images of the USMRR railroad. Alas the images were presumed lost.

Last month,  Jim Dufour, a descendant of J.I.M. Dufour, found the wet plate negatives in a chest in the family's barn. It's no coincidence that Jim Dufour is a B&M Modeler and also did a tour of east coast model railroads in 2019, including the Aquia Line. So Jim sent me copies of the images he found, after he expertly colorized them.

These rare images show the section of the Aquia Line that is currently under re-construction. They are photographic artifacts of what is now "history."

Jim also sent a copy of a video clip that he made of his own layout. The cinematography section of the USMRR Construction Corps did a little image enhancement work on the video as a proof of principle. You can see the before and after video below.

Virtual Reality Film Clips depict Civil War Trench Warfare

This is an interesting use of VR tech. The Battlefield trust sponsored this project to create a virtual reality look at an ACW battlefield. You can use you mouse to change your point of view as the movie unfolds. The acting is a little hokey and scenes are small scale, but they capture some of the chaos and horror of the civil war battlefield. There are no railroad scenes, but you might find it interesting.

I'm in the mood for a work session before the NMRA National

John Drye and Mark Franke stopped by Alkem Scale Models World HQs today for a work session. I ran the airbrush and repainted two of John's cement hoppers and weathered a half dozen coal hoppers.

Meanwhile, Mark was painting US infantry for our next game.  I did not get any pictures of the weathered models. But I did get a shot of us having a great BBQ dinner at Myron Mixon's Pitmaster BBQ in Alexandria.












Before today's work session I completed the sand tower to accompany the coal dock for Brian Brendel's  N scale layout. I will hand carry these with me to Utah.









Back to the wargaming. We have been commemorating the Allied campaign in France 1944 with a scenario appropriate for each month. Last month, on June 6th,  I ran the Battle at Fiere. Later this month,   JD will organize a scenario set in the bocage country of Normandy.

To get ready for that scenario, I've been working on a M4A1 76mm Sherman with Cullin hedgcutters.  Those cutters were field expedient plow-like devices welded onto tanks to allow the tank to break through Norman bocage hedges. The tank I am modeling belonged to Sergeant Lafayette Pool.   He was a tank ace with 3rd Amored Division

According to Wikipedia, he was an American tank-crew and tank-platoon commander in World War II and is widely recognized as the US tank ace of aces, credited with 12 confirmed tank kills and 258 total armored vehicle and self-propelled gun kills, over 1,000 German soldiers killed, and 250 more taken as prisoners of war all of which took place in a combat career that covered only 81 days in action from 27 June to 15 September 1944 with three different Shermans. He received many medals, including the Distinguished Service Cross, the Legion of Merit, the Silver Star, the Purple Heart, the Belgian Fourragère, and the French Légion d'honneur.
Pool served with the 3rd Platoon of Company I, 32nd Armored Regiment, 3rd Armored Division in France between June and September 1944. He successively commanded three Sherman tanks; an M4A1, and two M4A1(76)Ws, all of which bore the nickname "IN THE MOOD."  He kept the same crew throughout the majority of the war. Corporal Wilbert "Red" Richards was the driver, Private First Class Bertrand "School Boy" Close was the assistant driver and bow gunner, Corporal Willis "Ground Hog" Oller was the gunner, and Technician Fifth Grade Delbert "Jailbird" Boggs was the loader.
Pool's first tank, an M4A1, lasted from June 23 until June 29, when Combat Command A attacked for the first time at Villiers-Fossard. It was hit by a Panzerfaust, causing Pool and his crew to bail out of the stricken tank. Pool's second tank, his first M4A1(76)W, lasted from around July 1, 1944 to August 17, when he was leading CCA in the process of clearing remaining German forces from the village of Fromental.  This tank was knocked out by friendly fire from a P-38.

Pool's third and last tank, another M4A1(76)W, was destroyed on the night of September 15, 1944 while CCA was attempting to penetrate the Siegfried Line at Munsterbusch, Germany, southwest of Aachen. The tank was hit by an ambushing Panther, and while Pool's driver was trying to back his damaged Sherman up, the Panther hit it a second time. Positioned precariously on the edge of a ditch, the force of the second round caught the tank and tipped it over. The round killed Pool's replacement gunner, Private First Class Paul King, (Corporal Oller had been temporarily transferred back to the United States) and threw Pool out of the commander's hatch, severely injuring one of his legs with shrapnel. The leg was so badly mangled that it later had to be amputated eight inches above the knee. As a result, Pool would not return to amateur boxing after the war.

Speaking of 3rd Armored Division, I highly recommend the book Spearhead by Adam Makos. It is one of the most exciting books  with unbelievable plot twists I have read on WWII, made all the more memorable because it is based on actual events. This is the book that movie Fury should have been.  You can learn more the about the book in this video.

 

The Tenth Anniversary of the Layout

It's hard to believe, but about ten years on this date I started building the USMRR Aquia Line. This is a good opportunity to look back on what my helpers and I have accomplished, and to look ahead. I will do that in the next week or so with some additional posts. In the meantime, please enjoy this short video celebrating the railroad. It includes some special effects and special guests.

60 Amps of Power

I finished the secret project I mentioned in my last post. It was an animated version of a bedtime story that I used to tell my kids. You can see it here if you wish. It was a lot of fun to make, but also a lot of work. I had help from my wife and niece as they provided voices.

The electrician was able to use existing speaker holes
in the ceiling  to avoid cutting holes over PoLA.

In the meantime, I had an electrician work on improving the electric service to my garage workshop. He took care of the electric stuff by running a 220V, 60 Amp line, while I did the sheet rock repairs where he had to cut holes in the ceiling and walls.

Luckily, the wiring work did not affect the areas by the layout, but my office had to be cleared out to allow the work to proceed.

In moving the book shelves around, I realized that I will have to rebuild them. The thought occurred to me that if I made new bookshelves,  I could build a nice small shelf layout into them. The mind boggles at the possibilities.  But, that is a project for later. For the present, we have enough power in the garage to run all my tools, as well as the capability to add a charger for an electric car, if and when we get one.

Brian eying over my stack of N Scale DRGW stuff

During the wiring upgrade process, we had a surprise visit from Brian and Jake Brendel. Brian was in town for a fire department memorial service. They had a chance to familiarize themselves with operations on the Aquia Line. Hopefully, they will be back for a full session.  I took pleasure in seeing that the Aquia Line ran well for them in what was essentially a no-notice inspection!

With the garage powered up, I continued to work on the desk for the telegraph dispatcher. The top, legs and frame are ready to go. I just need to decide if and how I can add a drawer to the desk.  This was the first time I used the Festool Domino system to make floating tenons. It really is a neat system. It's probably too expensive to recommend for model railroad benchwork, but it sure makes nice joints.  I may try some benchwork with this system in the future, maybe for a module frame.

Jake running a train into Falmouth

While I am working on the desk, Seth and Steve revised the software for the telegraph system. The revised chips and boards should arrive any time now, so we can renew work on the telegraph system electronics.

Gluing up the legs for the dispatcher desk

Cutting the desk top to size with my track saw

New World Headquarters for Alkem Scale Models

It will never be this neat again!

Amazon Inc isn't the only new HQ moving to Northern Virginia. Alkem Scale Models is building its new world headquarters in our garage. OK, perhaps our project isn't quite as grand as what the on-line retail giant is doing up the street, but it should make my modeling and woodworking projects a lot more efficient.

The first step was purging the garage of stuff. We were quite ruthless, anything that we haven't used in ten years was sold, given to charity, or taken to the dump. Probably the biggest item removed was my Porsche 911. I sold it and purchased a new VW Tiguan with all the latest safety and convenience features.

I had an old oNeTRAK module and a piece of my former N Scale Tennessee Pass layout stored in the loft of my garage. The module went to the dump and I found a person willing to take the layout section for use on their layout.

With the garage freed of the car, old layouts, skis, tennis rackets, scrap wood, and bikes, we went forward with designing the new work space.

Side elevation of the planned workbench

We ended up contracting with a local garage make-over service that specializes in Monkey Bars products. But before they could do their thing, I had to prep the walls for paint. The sheet rock in the garage was poorly installed and suffered from numerous screw holes, stains, and nail pops. I took care of those. Then the contractors arrived and removed the former epoxy floor covering, which was peeling in a few places. That involved diamond grinders and lots and lots of dust. With the floor prepped, they installed a two layer Polyurea with stone flecks finish. That came out very nice.

The next day, they installed cabinets and slat wall. The cabinets are bigger than the old Ikea shelves we had and they now have doors.  The slat wall will hold tools on hooks. Our hooks haven't arrived yet.

Still planned is my new work bench with storage for Festool Systainers, a new electrical outlet, and improved lighting. I may also add a separate HVAC system. Also, I will move the spin caster and the workbench from the basement. This will take that dusty process away from the layout, and open up the aisles near Aquia Landing. I hope to do more spin casting in the future.  I have several customer models for clients coming up, including a 8-ft HO scale warehouse. So the workbench improvements will be quite handy for that job.

The garage wasn't the only area receiving improvements. I also updated the infrastructure on my computer. Adobe offered a sale on a subscription to their complete Creative Cloud (CC) Suite of applications. So I got the whole caboodle for a year. I already had InDesign (Id), Photoshops (Ps) and Illustrator (Ai). However, when I updated my iMac to Mojave OS, the Adobe Creative Suite (CS, the predecessor to CC) aps stopped working reliably. I use AI and PS nearly every day, so I had to upgrade. The sale allowed to try some of their other aps. Those include After Effects (Ae), which is awesome. There is a steep learning curve, but if you know PS, then it comes a lot easier. PremierePro is also great, but seems a little clunky to me in work flow, but that is probably because I am not experienced with it yet.

Test of an animated character in Ch. I drew it
with Ai

The CC also came with other aps including a Character Animator (Ch) that is really neat. I tried it a bit and was able to do some "cute" animations fairly easily. I had no idea this was included, so it was a pleasant surprise.

One of my objectives in retirement was to improve my video making skills. Now I have professional grade tools to achieve the goal. It will be exciting to learn how to make more interesting and compelling videos.

Video with Tips on How to Operate the Aquia Line

I posted a brief video explaining some tips on how to operate the link and pin couplers, waybills, working brakes and battery powered locos on my youtube channel.

This may help you if you come to operate the Aquia Line.


I’m heading to the Naperville RPM tomorrow to show the flag for the Aquia Line and MARPM. I will be doing two talks on the Aquia Line.  If you are there, please stop by to say hello.

A Pittsburgh Potty, Yinzers an 'at

The finished table

We just got back from a trip to Pittsburgh, PA to help my daughter with some household projects. She and her husband just moved there. They purchased a house in an older neighborhood that is undergoing urban renewal. Her house has been thoroughly renovated and  is quite charming. The rebuilders added a modern bathroom to the first level, as the house previously only had a  small  full bath in an other wise unfinished basement. Turns out this is a quirk of many Pittsburgh homes, called a Pittsburgh Potty.

Top after cutting molding away. Some of the
 old molding strips are on the floor.

There are two theories about why this was a popular design. One was sewer problems were common  in the older cities, so a bath in the basement limited damage from a sewer back up to just the lower floor. And, my daughter and son-in-law did have a sewer problem as soon as they moved in that required demolition of part of the basement floor. The second theory is that mill workers could change their dirty clothes and wash up in the basement before coming up stairs into the rest of the house.  Alas, there are almost no mill workers left in Pittsburgh. Either way it is an odd quirk and part of the charm of Pittsburgh homes.

The basement is clean and dry, though relatively unfinished, just painted walls and joists. A nice layout could be built in it. However, they are not interested in a layout. Instead we built a kitchen table. The table was originally a thrift store coffee table that she and I customized with a new top and trim when she lived in Denver. The top has a layer of pennies secured in place with casting resin. She wanted to repurpose the top into a kitchen table.

Just like building a module

Disassembling the legs of the coffee table was fairly easy, but the trim on the top was not coming off. We had used a piece of PVC molding for the trim and it was securely attached to the resin. After some cogitation, we decided the only solution was to use a circular saw to cut through the table top, the pennies and resin. That worked pretty well as the saw cut right through. But to our surprise, the resin pulled away from the table surface in a few places and chipped in two others.  In addition, some pennies popped loose. We had used CAA to glue them.  I never would have expected that.

Now that we had a nice clean edge on the table top it was a relatively simple matter to add a mitered wood frame around the top. We used 1x4 oak, so the table became 7 inches wider and longer, which pleased the owners.  Building the legs and shelf underneath was very similar to building model railroad bench work, so the job went well.  The finished table is above.





While in Pittsburgh, we had a chance to visit Neal Schorr's O scale layout. He uses 3-rail track and equipment, but designed the layout is an otherwise scale manner.

Barn built board by board

 It's a hybrid approach 3-rail trains in a prototypical design. For example, his Duncannon Bridge scene is closely based on the prototype.

He has many detailed realistic structures, and an impressive backdrop. The layout is essentially a large folded loop built like a shelf layout. There are a few deep scenes to add realism too.


Neal cites the reliability of 3-rail equipment as the rational for the layout. He once had an extensive HO layout, so he has a good basis for comparison. But lets face it, big O scale trains are cool.

Bridge over Sherman Creek near Duncannon based on
prototype measurements

Engine terminal at East Altoona

The massive appearance, impressive sound, and even smoke that looks almost realistic, all add to the charm. 
 Check out video at the bottom for an example.

Nice detailing on a narrow shelf portion

Tsunami2 Steam Decoder

I installed a new Soundtrax Tsunami TSU-2200 Steam Decoder with current keeper in Engine Haupt this evening. If you are keeping score, this is the third decoder I have installed in this loco. The previous Soundtrax Tsunami decoder and current keeper started having trouble that seemed to get progressively worse.

I am happy to report that the new TSU-2200 seems to be working very well, see video below. The install was pretty easy, as I just had to cut out the old and solder in the new decoder to the existing wires. Installing the Current Keeper was really easy as it has a plug that fits the decoder. All I had to do was trim the plastic insulation on the decoder a tiny bit to allow the plug to slip in.

As usual, I couldn't get my Easy DCC to program the decoder address. So I had to get out the SPROGII. Of course it was set up for HO locos, so I had to convert the SPROGII  from HO to  O scale locos. I actually set it up so I can now do either scale without further set up. Thankfully, the SPROGII worked. While I had it on the SPROGII programming track  I did some basic programming.  Then I used Ops Mode programming to tweak some of the CVs while the engine ran on the track . The only CV I can't find is the simmer and hiss sound when the engine is idling. All my other steamers make noise when they idle. This one doesn't. Anyone know what CV controls that? I need to repair the wood pile as some of the logs fell off during the decoder swap and it will be ready to roll.

While I was playing around with locos and my iPhone, I hooked up a DC power pack to PoLA and test ran the new Key Imports HO scale PRR B6 0-6-0.  It runs well and has surprising tractive effort for such as small loco. This engine is for a project for my next book. I plan to install a sound decoder and current keeper in it too.