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 Posted - June 26 2007 : 9:13:09 PM
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Making the rounds on a goodwill tour... with a badly-kept secret (heh) lurking in the tail-end....
It's nigh impossible luck to find a clip with sound that matches a vid, but it's hacked to be close enough for what I had in a timely fashion.
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 Posted - June 26 2007 : 11:46:25 PM
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Oooooooooo...look at the pretty light[:P]. End of train device. Very cool. Does it pick up power from the tracks or is the bulb wired to a battery under the car?
-cheez
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Posted - June 26 2007 : 11:53:42 PM
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well, well, well..
Nicely done. I give it 9 1/2 stars.
Being that I'm "Pro-Caboose," I deducted 1/2 point for the lack, there-of!
Y'know, There are sounds for the locomotives... but, when will there ever be sounds for freight cars, without putting a tape player beneath the entire set of tracks?
THAT'S IT! (a litebulb moment)
Y'know those sensors that are put beneath the tracks on a model railroad?
They start the flashers and gates for railroad crossings.
Why not get those hooked up to strategically and create sound machines that correspond to freightcars that go over them? Digital... it's gotta be possible!
Or, just do what you did... hmmm...
And, what you did is/was quite impressive.
...and the tail end... hmmm.
John
I don't have a one track mind. It depends on the turn-out.
"I love your catenary!"
Is that a power-trip or just another pick-up line?
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Posted - June 27 2007 : 12:20:49 AM
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Cheez,
The EOT ( I always liked the term "FRED" better) is an led powered by a AA battery and circuit inside the car. I bought one made for that purpose about 12 years ago, but today you can find the same things in those blinking point-of-sale displays at stores. Whenever I find a display box that's almost empty, I ask to have it, it will just get thrown out. Look at the checkout lanes at Walmart, etc. The LED may be too big but the CIRCUIT and battery holder is the money-saving score... you can get LEDs from elsewhere. Use a common boxcar, and you can swap shells anytime you like. All I need to do is build a more realistic housing for the LED.
Shaygetz,
I've had the very same thoughts! I imagine such a system isn't too far off.
Another more vexing problem is traffic. Walthers has those beautiful operating traffic signals... which only make it more obvious that your HO vehicles aren't moving!
I would love to visit the layout in Germany that has programmed real, authentic, operating traffic with motorized HO cars and trucks. Accidents and such happen and emergency vehicles actually respond!
Edited by - GoingInCirclez on June 27 2007 12:22:04 AM
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 Posted - June 27 2007 : 12:47:53 AM
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"Shaygetz,
I've had the very same thoughts!"
Shaygetz?
...do you seem something I don't see?
I don't have a one track mind. It depends on the turn-out.
"I love your catenary!"
Is that a power-trip or just another pick-up line?
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 Posted - June 27 2007 : 01:18:11 AM
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Whoa... erm, dang. [B)] And I can't even blame this one on the pink elephants... although I wish I could cuz that would almost make sense...  [Oops!]
Just up too late and obviously not thinking straight, hadn;t seen you in a while! No offense intended I assure you!
And with that I should disappear for a while... [xx(]
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Posted - June 27 2007 : 07:01:42 AM
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Great Video! That WC SD45 is sharp! The sound added is very cool...and I agree we need sound now for freight cars!
Tony Cook
HO-Scale Trains Resource
http://ho-scaletrains.net
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Posted - June 27 2007 : 10:27:36 PM
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quote:Whoa... Just up too late and obviously not thinking straight, hadn;t seen you in a while! No offense intended I assure you!
Originally posted by GoingInCirclez - June 27 2007 : 06:18:11 AM
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No problem, GIC...
I've been indisposed of lately. No offense taken! I lost some rails in a recent journey of life... I'll get rerailed soon.
So, sounds for freightcars... back a while, TYCO had the "Hi-cube chug chug" car. Eventually, LGB had the farm animal sounds in a stock car... Now, perhaps the freightcar sounds can go forward and be replicated.
I used to go to some layouts where a guy had a tape player, beneath his bridges, that had a repeating recording of trains.
Automated block signals work on the same principle as this new idea I have. Instead of only lights that change color or semaphores that change position, and, do you remember all those accessories that required you to push a button to work?
Well, with this age of "decoders" for locomotives, both steam and diesel actions and sounds, why not create a small and simple program that initiates sounds for freight and passenger trains? All trains in general, actually. TYCO had a start in this... crude and innovative at the same time... but it worked! My P1K RS-18 has squealing brakes as the locomotive is coming to a halt.
Now, instead of only flashing lights for crossing, activate speakers... Now, I coulda sworn that some of these scaled crossings had the ding ding of a bell. Why, it could also engage the loco's bell so that you don't have to press an extra button on your controller to make your locomotive ding away. The bell sound would be tripped about 20 or 30 feet from the crossing gates, depending on the train's speed. This would work AND it could save prescious seconds (in scale) allowing you to keep your fingers on the throttle. I said 'bell' because there are some communities that do not allow the whistle be blown on un-gated intersections.
Actually, if there was this exact idea in prototype... bells and whistles for any "would be lawbreakers" with cameras like at traffic intersections for 'red' runners.
Back to model trains...
If a locomotive's movement can be detected to trip block signals, then so should speakers. I mean, the size of cameras can put you into the cab of your locomotives, if sounds can be activated from those tripped sensors, then so should the tracks!
This video can generally prove that it's possible.
Again, Great job, GIC...
by the way, why not put a flashing red light on a caboose?
John
I don't have a one track mind. It depends on the turn-out.
"I love your catenary!"
Is that a power-trip or just another pick-up line?
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Posted - June 27 2007 : 10:50:34 PM
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There's two schools of thought I have on this idea.
One is to take a speaker fixed to a location (say for instance that grade crossing on my layout for example - or any other "location" where a viewer is likely to linger). Using some sort of "trigger" contained in each car, a sound file is played to mimic the racket of a train.
There are some important considerations to this. Number one, you'd need to have a fairly diverse sampling of sounds - from various types of cars, randomly clanking bearings and thumping wheels, etc. Otherwise it is too robotic and repetitive.
Pertaining to that point, when I was splicing the sounds, I discovered that within one single "soundtrack", you can cut-hack-and-rearrange the sound of a train and virtually not know the difference, if it is sufficiently noisy. Like white noise.
Perhaps different resistor values as placed in each car, could trigger a random appropriate "hook" effect (thump, squeal, heavy-vs-light, short-vs-long, autorack, last car in the train, etc), to be played over the standard "railroad white noise".
Unfortunately, speed is an issue. A slow train cannot be masked this way. How you could make such a system realistically speed-sensitive is the most challenging part.
The second school of thought is to make each car with a self-contained speaker and sound file. The cost would be exhorbitant, let alone retrofitting concerns... but you would hear it anywhere on the layout and speed would not be a problem.
Either solution sounds simple enough in basic theory but presents some major technical challenges in reality!
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Posted - June 28 2007 : 04:01:49 AM
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okay... now to my next thought...
How do speed recorders work? How does one work for your digital miles/speed/distance duration on your bicycle? A magnet. How does it work? Take a nail and wrap with copper wire (don't be stealing that copper wire!)
It's all fields of electricity, stuff.
Put on your first freightcar and last car a magnet on the axel, like a counter balance.
Each revolution creates a field change in each rotation. Perhaps like the early Robot cars or Brake Control cars before the evolutionary "mid-train slaves" and "rear-end helpers. For that fact, as long as the first and last car has the signal on the axel, 10 seconds before the train arrives at the intersection and 5 seconds after leaving it, since there would be the sensor 100 or more scale feet from the lowering gates, dinging bells, and flashing lights.
As long as the sensors can activate the lights, gates, and bells, those same sensors will also activate the clickity-clack of wheels over the joints.
And all the sensors will have timers determining the length of noise.
I would make it myself but my budget doesn't allow it.
It's gotta work!
Think like the TYCO chugger, the faster the train is going, the faster and louder is the sound.
Quoting GIC: "...but you would hear it anywhere on the layout and speed would not be a problem..."
My thought on that is this: Are you making this for A. you B. club C. home layout or are you making this for the D. public?
A. you control the volume
B. you control the volume
C. make sure the visitor can hear the bells/whistles on locomotive as well as bells of the intersection...
D. who do you wanna impress? Yeah, you'll see their eyes roll. But, you won't get them lookin' at you funny. They'll be amazed.
Remember what I said about my RS-18. The horn isn't so loud when 10-15 feet away. But blow whistles as it passes by you, tongue in cheek you will be!
And, if memory serves me correctly, Lionel had a crossing flasher. Each time a wheel rolled over a piece of plastic on the rail, the bulbs blinked.
C'mon... someone has to put it together. I know it's possible.
...well, my tracks are laid...
John
I don't have a one track mind. It depends on the turn-out.
"I love your catenary!"
Is that a power-trip or just another pick-up line?
Edited by - zebrails on June 28 2007 04:30:11 AM
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