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.
2025-07-27 - RDC Update
Category RandallSince only one of the two Santa Fe RDC engines currently runs satisfactorily, I’m currently running a little experiment with matching Santa Fe RDC 191 with the SP 10 RDC:
That combo works well. I checked and both engines are correctly speed matched. It’s certainly a non-prototypical setup though. I had previously run them together as an April’s Fools joke.
On the workbench, I got a new duplicate of the UP GE 9538:
UP 9538 has been diligently working the mainline since May and, although I initially had some reservations on the TCS decoder, I got it working quite satisfactorily. I decided to have an exact replica -- same engine number, same motor -- so that I can just trivially swap them every other month without having to reprogram the automation every time. That should help give the engine a much deserved break.
I also got a new UP SD40-2. This is an older Bachmann design with an Econami decoder. From experience, these work quite well. I’ve tested 3450 on the mainline, and it seems very adequate. I’ll program it in the automation soon, giving me one more engine to swap from time to time.
