I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. - Abraham Lincoln

We would like to thank all of you that stopped by our booth at the Titletown Train Show and our store last month. It was great to meet a lot of new friends, and see a lot of old friends, and get caught up with all of you, especially since everyone has been keeping a distance for so long.

Speaking about train shows, there is a great article in the May issue of NMRA Magazine by Debbie McKinney. Debbie is a fellow Wisconsinite and her insights are spot on. She caps off the article by stating - “There is only on objective: have fun.” Well said!

We received the Arrowhead Models CNW Gondolas yesterday and we are already down to two left! As we mentioned in the past, manufactures are only making a limited number of items. We have always resisted in telling you this fact as we do not want to look like “Fast Eddie” trying to use it as a sales ploy to get you to purchase something. However, that is truly the case. So, if you see something you really like, you should grab it while you can.

We have taken in a N Scale estate (freight cars, locomotives, structures, etc.) and will have it up for sale as soon as we get it checked out and cataloged.

Besides the Arrowhead cars, we received some new Atlas, Bar Mills, Micro-Trains and Walthers items. We also have restocks from Woodland Scenics, Soundtraxx and Digitrax.

As our last “Quick” Newsletter stated, we are now open without any appointment needed! However, we are still requiring masks.

Modeling Tip:

Despite that we have had clinics in the past on speed matching, we get a lot of inquiries about getting locos to run better with each other. There are a couple of ways to accomplish this. The simple way is to adjust CV5, which is the max speed to your slowest locomotive. Keep in mind you cannot make a locomotive run faster since you have a fixed voltage on your track and max speed is max speed. This is dictated by the motor RPM, gearing of each locomotive and the decoder, which is why you only can make it go slower by limiting the voltage to a locomotive at top speed or mid-range using CV5 (top speed) and CV6 (50% power). CV2 (start voltage) can be tweaked to get them to start out together along with CV3 (Acceleration) and CV4 Deceleration) if there are issues ramping up or slowing down.

However, when you adjust your locomotives to your slowest locomotive it is a moving target because the next locomotive you purchase might be slower than any of the ones you currently own (a warmed-up locomotive runs faster than a cold one). Therefore, we recommend that you set your locomotive speeds to something that is static, like the throttle percentage. For example, the numbers that are displayed on a Digitrax DT throttle indicates a percentage of power, 10 = ten percent of the available power, 20 = twenty percent of power, etc. Since the max, or available voltage is fixed you do not have to be concerned about the next locomotive you purchase. This means that once you adjust your locos to act the same way as your throttle settings you can consist any locomotive in your fleet and they should run well together. An inexpensive way is to set up a speed curve on each locomotive using Decoder Pro, which is freeware from JMRI software, which can be interfaced with your DCC system using a Digitrax PR4 or LocoBuffer hardware. We offer the Accutrack II Speedometer that sets over your track to measure your scale speed to make it easy to know how fast your locomotive is going by just running it under it.