The Carolina Sandhills Lines in HO Scale

[Carolina Northern]

Dave,

That's a spectacular model. I'm guessing you painted it, the only model I've seen of that unit is an O scale Lionel.
 
A definite Well Done.

Don

[davefoxx]

Don,

So good to hear from you!  I wish I could paint and decal that well.  Actually, it’s an HO scale ACWR F9 from BLI.  I missed the announcement and just preordered one about four to six weeks ago.  It just showed up, so I didn’t miss out.  This is the first BLI product that I’ve bought in about ten years or so.

DFF

[CSXfan]

Hey Dave, are you pleased with the BLI F7? I am modeling the ACWR and considering one, I bought the IM GP16 from you. Also, do you know if BLI will be running passenger cars for the ACWR?

Jeff

[davefoxx]

Hey Dave, are you pleased with the BLI F7? I am modeling the ACWR and considering one, I bought the IM GP16 from you. Also, do you know if BLI will be running passenger cars for the ACWR?

Jeff

Hi, Jeff,

I’m very pleased with the F9 from BLI.  I bought a stealth version and added a 21-pin LokSound V5.0 decoder.  I remapped everything to my fleet standards, and it runs very well.  I have a Scale Sound Systems speaker on order, but, surprisingly, the stealth model comes with a speaker installed!  I just had to add the DCC decoder.

The only issue that I have is problems with the ditch lights.  I own a LokProgrammer, but despite all best efforts, I cannot get the right ditch light to stop flashing, and I have yet to find the AUX output for the left ditch light.  I think that LED may be burned out.  So, I just leave the ditch lights off for now.  Eventually, I’ll just rewire and add my own ditch lights, so I’m not overly concerned with this issue.  Certainly not enough to make a warranty claim.  Overall, I’m very satisfied, so my suggestion would be to pick up the F9 while you can.

I haven’t heard anything about anyone planning to do ACWR passenger cars, but I’m in if they ever do.

I hope you’re enjoying the ACWR GP16.  I just put my ACWR GP38 back on the layout for freight ops, and I was tweaking on the sound settings of my SCL and SBD GP16s this morning before removing them from the layout.  Era change!  Oh, and I upgraded my GP16s to Scale Sound Systems speakers and would absolutely recommend you consider doing the same.  Big improvement.

Thanks,
Dave

[davefoxx]

A fair bit of remapping, and I’ve got ACWR F9 No. 271 and GP38 No. 3802 in push-pull mode with a couple of passenger cars.  While not their standard set-up, I’ve seen photographic evidence of a very similar train on the prototype, thankfully, as this length train just fits into the ACWR’s staging yard.  The locomotive on each end avoids 1:1 switching, since there’s no way to turn the train in staging.

Despite two passenger cars in the middle, this train tracks well.  I feared the cars would be pushed off the track or stringline, but so far, so good in both directions- even on the 18” radius curves and 4% grade of the ACWR line.  Having these locomotives speed-matched to fleet standards helps quite a bit, I’m sure.





DFF

[CSXfan]

That was my thought Dave, buy the stealth and add a esu v5 with the built in power pack. BTW, I did install a Scale Sounds speaker in the unit I bought from you, Awesome little loco and IM did a good job, It just took about 8 years or so lol.

Jeff

[davefoxx]

That was my thought Dave, buy the stealth and add a esu v5 with the built in power pack. BTW, I did install a Scale Sounds speaker in the unit I bought from you, Awesome little loco and IM did a good job, It just took about 8 years or so lol.

Jeff

Jeff,

Nice.  I loves me some GP16, too!

DFF

[davefoxx]

With @crrcoal’s help, I made some progress on the ACWR F9’s ditch lights.  In the LokProgrammer, I turned those pesky PowerPack AUX functions to “Disabled” (which I also did for all other unused lighting functions), and the left ditch light came to life!  That, in itself is a victory, because it means there’s no defect from BLI.  I also don’t have to rewire the ditch lights.  I got the ditch lights alternating (another victory), but I have yet to figure out how to get them to stop flashing.

We have a family obligation this afternoon, so further tinkering will have to wait.  But, in the meantime, knowing the locomotive only needs some settings tweaked and that there’s no manufacturer defect is very satisfying.

DFf

[CSXfan]

Here is my 2 GP 16s sitting at my engine terminal in Star NC.

[davefoxx]

Gotcha!  It turns out that I somehow had the Grade Crossing Logic active in the Function Mapping table under F2 (horn) and F5 (where I remap the ditch lights).  Once I removed the duplicate Grade Crossing Logic from F5, I suddenly had perfectly functioning ditch lights that flash alternately when the horn is blown.



DFF

[davefoxx]

Here is my 2 GP 16s sitting at my engine terminal in Star NC.

Sure is good to see that No. 1721 was sent to a good home. 

DFF

[davefoxx]

The night before last, I diddled around further with the settings and changed each locomotive in this push-pull consist to run in “coast” mode in reverse.  That requires F8 (prime mover) set with a Logical Function of Shift Mode 3 when in reverse.  Now, it sounds really nice with the prime mover of the pulling locomotive spooling up, but the prime mover of the pushing locomotive continuing to idle.

This is all so much easier with a LokProgrammer.  I wouldn’t have the patience to tweak CVs to do this.  I may do further changes of the lighting on GP38 No. 3802.  Stay tuned.

DFF

[davefoxx]

Here is my 2 GP 16s sitting at my engine terminal in Star NC.

@CSXfan (Jeff):

I came across this photo of No. 1721 rolling into Aberdeen.



DFF

[davefoxx]

Working on Scale Sound Systems speaker installations today.  I replaced the Atlas speaker in Aberdeen & Rockfish GP38 No. 400 last night.  You may recall that I uploaded The Cars’ song, “You Might Think,” into the F4 function, since this Geep has no dynamic brake. Sounds good!



DFF

[davefoxx]

And just like that, the entire A&R fleet has been upgraded to Scale Sound Systems speakers.



DFF