The Randall Museum in San Francisco hosts a large HO-scale model model railroad. Created by the Golden Gate Model Railroad Club starting in 1961, the layout was donated to the Museum in 2015. Since then I have started automatizing trains running on the layout. I am also the model railroad maintainer. This blog describes various updates on the Randall project and I maintain a separate blog for all my electronics not directly related to Randall.
2023-11-20 - The Polar Express on Automation
Category RandallI have reinstalled #5278 and the Polar Express cars on the automated line:
Well, almost. It was pointed out to me later that I forgot the 3rd passenger car with the observation deck. Oops. NYC #5278, an Alco “Hudson” 4-6-4, is our lead engine in this operation. The train from last year also had a nice Hershey freight car before the traditional Lionel HO Polar Express cars. And let’s not dismiss the inkjet-printed labels that makes this a true Polar Express 🤣. We’ll update this one to match.
Since last year, I have entirely changed the automation program so I had to adapt the automation script to work with Conductor 2. The changes to the script were fairly easy to make, and I had to adjust the timing a bit, especially since the new Conductor 2 requires setting min/max “safety” times for each block. In hindsight, the timing changes may be due to the train having a different configuration, as its length influences the timing sequence.
Thanksgiving Update: The Hershey car has been added as well as the last observation car thanks to Jim and Orion, and indeed that was the root cause of the automation timing changes. I had to adjust it back -- Happy Thanksgiving 🦃 !
This train will be running at Randall on the shorter automated line all December, till the new year.
Here’s a run of the train captured back in 2019:
A NYC J-1 Hudson (4-6-4) pulls our Polar Express on the Automated Line on the HO Scale DCC Layout at Randall Museum, San Francisco.