Being new in this, I want to buy good quality stuff from here on in. I don't got much at the moment, and I'm still just running Atlas snap track 80 series on a table top just to play around a bit.
for my birthday last month my wife (who has actually been getting me back into the hobby more than I am! She keeps showing me stuff....) bought me some rolling stock (Model Power and some other company I can't remember) and Model Power Pacific steamer.
Now, I'm going to be changing over the couplers to those magnetic ones that I've researched and decided to be one of the better designs out there (thoughts on the magnetics would be nice too), but I really like this steamer and would like to convert it to use the new couplers.
I realize that the trucks are the contact points for the loco, and am curious how one would convert the couplers in this case? Or should I leave one peice of rolling stock with the chepo coupler on one end and replace the other end (which I assume would be a LOT easier to do!)
Also, I want to upgrade it to DCC, which according to my research this loco is capable of (mount the encoder in the tender, as it's semi-prewired for it) but which is the DCC system to go with? The Zephyr Digitrax looks promising?
I'm also going to be buying a second loco right away as my Model Power FP diesel runs VERY poorly....
I'm thinking of a Bachman Spectrum series Lt. Mountain unpainted 4-8-2. My next loco is going to be Mountain, so I would appreciate affordable suggestions as to what to look for. Or another FP series loco, but don't know where to look in that case.
I got a couple of layout plans I'll share in the near future to get recomendations on.
for my birthday last month my wife (who has actually been getting me back into the hobby more than I am! She keeps showing me stuff....) bought me some rolling stock (Model Power and some other company I can't remember) and Model Power Pacific steamer.
Now, I'm going to be changing over the couplers to those magnetic ones that I've researched and decided to be one of the better designs out there (thoughts on the magnetics would be nice too), but I really like this steamer and would like to convert it to use the new couplers.
I realize that the trucks are the contact points for the loco, and am curious how one would convert the couplers in this case? Or should I leave one peice of rolling stock with the chepo coupler on one end and replace the other end (which I assume would be a LOT easier to do!)
Also, I want to upgrade it to DCC, which according to my research this loco is capable of (mount the encoder in the tender, as it's semi-prewired for it) but which is the DCC system to go with? The Zephyr Digitrax looks promising?
I'm also going to be buying a second loco right away as my Model Power FP diesel runs VERY poorly....
I'm thinking of a Bachman Spectrum series Lt. Mountain unpainted 4-8-2. My next loco is going to be Mountain, so I would appreciate affordable suggestions as to what to look for. Or another FP series loco, but don't know where to look in that case.
I got a couple of layout plans I'll share in the near future to get recomendations on.