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Building the Railroad and Where It Went Operating the Garden Railway & Santa Fe
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Back in the beginning days, I decided that I did not want to deal with wires and transformers in the outdoors. The only choices then were sails, pull cords, wind-up’s or looking into radio control/battery power. A local shop was experimenting with RC stuff for airplanes and adapting that system to railroads, so I sampled. Not bad, but not perfect. The narrow gauge engines would not handle the batteries on board the engine, so choices were tenders or freight cars with connections. I did both. Other companies came along and refined the RC/control for trains. I sampled from each company, RCS and LocoLinc and decided on RCS because it was simpler to use (in my opinion). All the steam, and then the diesels that replaced them were set up for RC and I still use the same system today. Many of the diesels have been set up to hold two battery packs, with a toggle between which increases running times. When not operating, the diesels are on charging pads in the garage. Battery charging not withstanding, I still prefer radio/battery operations. Of course there is no power on the rail, so the aluminum rail is cheaper, and no wiring. My supplier for RCS is NWRCS, Dave Goodsen in Oregon. I recommend him highly. The control system continues to evolve as new features and longer lasting batteries make their appearance.
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